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Partisanship Reigns at CBS
Townhall.com ^ | June 13, 2012 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 06/13/2012 6:10:43 AM PDT by Kaslin

Les Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS, took his wife, the former CBS news anchor Julie Chen, on a date on June 6 -- to a star-studded Beverly Hills Democratic Party fundraiser starring President Obama. He told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times of his respect for Obama, who he said "has shown great leadership" -- by bringing his support for gay marriage out of the closet.

Did I mention he runs CBS News?

Moonves tried to say, "I run a news division. I've given no money to any candidate." No, of course not. He merely donated between $2,500 and $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee's LGBT Leadership Council, which will helpfully pass it along to the candidates of their choosing. Then he acknowledged what many have worked decades to emphasize and which the likes of Moonves have steadfastly denied all along: "Ultimately, journalism has changed ... partisanship is very much a part of journalism now."

Byron York of the Washington Examiner asked CBS spokesman Dana McClintock whether Moonves was referring to CBS News. McClintock sent back a four-word response: "No he was not." Of course not.

Moonves is living that leftist bias by his very appearance at a glitzy Hollywood DNC buck-raking event. It had all the political finesse of former CBS anchor Dan Rather showing up at a Travis County Democratic Party fundraiser in Austin, Texas, to please his eco-activist daughter Robin in 2001.

Democrat Dan had some curious things to say when exposed. Rather said he "wouldn't be surprised" if critics use the incident to call him a closet Democrat. "I'm going to get that criticism whether I deserve it or not." Rather claimed he hadn't realized beforehand that the event was a fundraiser.

Rather had the denial act down. As Bernie Goldberg said Monday on Fox, "If you hooked Dan Rather up to a lie detector machine and said, 'Was there a liberal bias when you were the anchorman of the "CBS Evening News,"' he would say no, and the needle wouldn't budge. I mean, he's not lying; he's delusional."

That was then. Today the denial of partisanship is ancient history at CBS.

Douglas Brinkley's new biography, "Cronkite," of CBS News legend Walter Cronkite exposes the degree to which this partisan approach to politics has been part of the CBS DNA -- forever.

In a shocking piece in Newsweek, Howard Kurtz announced that Cronkite pulled scams that could get an anchorman fired today.

Brinkley's book unveiled the so-called "most trusted man in America" had secretly bugged a committee room at the 1952 Republican convention in Chicago. This from the man who found the Watergate bugging to be horrific on the level of a constitutional crisis? Kurtz bluntly called it "a stunt of questionable legality that should have disqualified him from ever holding his subsequent powerful position of public trust."

Few Barry Goldwater backers forget 1964, when Cronkite repeatedly smeared the GOP nominee. When Goldwater accepted an invitation to visit a U.S. Army facility in Germany, CBS hack Daniel Schorr said he was launching his campaign in "the center of Germany's right wing." Kurtz recalled that on the day of JFK's assassination the year before, Cronkite nodded his head in thinly veiled contempt when handed a note on air that Goldwater said "no comment." Never mind that Goldwater was attending his mother-in-law's funeral that day.

In 1968, Cronkite met privately with Robert Kennedy in his Senate office. "You must announce your intention to run against Johnson, to show people there will be a way out of this terrible war," said The Most Trusted Man in America. Soon afterward, Cronkite was awarded an exclusive interview in which Kennedy left the door open for a possible run --the very candidacy "Uncle Walter" urged him to undertake.

Kurtz concluded: "I am shaking my head at the spectacle of a network anchor secretly urging a politician to mount a White House campaign -- and then interviewing him about that very question. This was duplicitous, a major breach of trust."

As Brinkley said to Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday, "Everybody had made a decision in America. They liked Walter Cronkite. They didn't want to hear anything negative about him. And the journalists, the press world thought of him as like the king daddy of the fourth estate, Uncle Walter -- almost a patriarchal figure to young reporters, so he had immunity."

That immunity is dead. Cronkite's image is in need of correction, as ultimately Rather's was. So, too, must the idea of objectivity at CBS "News" be vaporized once and for all, given Moonves' public and unmistakably partisan words and activities.

And still, CBS denies it has a bias.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: srmbias

1 posted on 06/13/2012 6:10:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
The so called profession of journalism is dead.

They are all trained activists for the LPDC Community (Libs/Progs/Dems/Commies)

“Journalists” should be put on the defensive, questioned and their “bias” made the focus of every “interview”.

A little research into the background of individual journalists could arm every conservative who is a target of these biased inquisitions.

Democrats don't hesitate to do this when interviewed on FOX. They commonly avoid the difficult questions posed by FOX as illegitimate claiming FOX and The journalist are “right-wing or biased.”

In general Conservatives need to be quicker to go on the offense and put Lib Journalistas on the defensive.

2 posted on 06/13/2012 6:38:00 AM PDT by Awgie (truth is always stranger than fiction)
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To: Awgie
“Journalists” should be put on the defensive, questioned and their “bias” made the focus of every “interview”.

You are right about that.

And I think the worm is finally starting to turn for these marxist journalism malpractitioners.

3 posted on 06/13/2012 7:09:17 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: Awgie

Conservatives should answer every reporter’s first question with “Are you a democrat or a republican?” Of course, conservatives should do a lot of things that they won’t do.


4 posted on 06/13/2012 7:56:00 AM PDT by Terry Mross ("It happened. And we let it happen." - Peter Grifin, FAMILY GUY)
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To: Kaslin

People should go watch that news story, available on YouTube I believe (posting this from a smartphone, can’t pull up the link right now) from early in the Vietnam War where Unca Walt got to fly backseat in a B-57 Canberra on a combat mission.

The post mission footage of Walt pretty much peeing himself in glee over having dropped bombs on “the enemy” (probably civillian Vietnamese working the rice paddies) is priceless.


5 posted on 06/13/2012 8:24:32 AM PDT by tanknetter
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To: Terry Mross

I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!


6 posted on 06/13/2012 8:43:36 AM PDT by jayrunner
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To: Kaslin; ml/nj; Shellybenoit; ExTexasRedhead; rmlew; dennisw; juliej; reaganaut1; firebrand; ...
Few Barry Goldwater backers forget 1964, when Cronkite repeatedly smeared the GOP nominee. When Goldwater accepted an invitation to visit a U.S. Army facility in Germany, CBS hack Daniel Schorr said he was launching his campaign in "the center of Germany's right wing."

The whole inane idea of Schorr's CBS hit piece on Goldwater in 1964, aired just at the time Goldwater was nominated at the GOP Convention in San Francisco, was to tie Goldwater to the to the neo-Nazis in Europe.

How outrageous and concocted out of thin air was any notion of a link between Goldwater and Nazism or neo-Nazism? Just remember that according to Nazi ideology, Goldwater, born to a Jewish father, would have been a target for the "Final Solution," a candidate for their gas chambers and ovens. So the truth was the direct opposite of what the CBS fraudsters - disguised as "newsmen" - would have their audience believe.

7 posted on 06/13/2012 9:23:51 AM PDT by justiceseeker93
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To: Awgie
"The so called profession of journalism is dead."

People simply need to recognize that CBS was the home of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather who made up facts and falsified news to fit their political opinions. CBS is still in business and both Cronkite and Rather are held in high esteem by people in the news shaping business.

8 posted on 06/13/2012 9:25:52 AM PDT by Baynative (REMEMBER: Without America there is no free world!)
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To: justiceseeker93

The useful idiots for communists Martin Luther King Jr was no better.


9 posted on 06/13/2012 10:42:08 AM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: rmlew
The useful idiots for communists Martin Luther King Jr was no better.

Please elaborate: what or who are you comparing King to? CBS' biased broadcasting? Don't quite get your point.

10 posted on 06/13/2012 1:27:21 PM PDT by justiceseeker93
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To: justiceseeker93

Has anyone noticed over many years it’s the Republicans that have been demonized and run out. It’s always Republicans and never Democrats.


11 posted on 06/13/2012 2:00:57 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: justiceseeker93; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; ...

Thanks justiceseeker93.


12 posted on 06/13/2012 2:17:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: justiceseeker93

The philandering reverend called Goldwater a fascist.


13 posted on 06/13/2012 4:00:59 PM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: justiceseeker93

Thanks for the ping!


14 posted on 06/13/2012 7:55:37 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: justiceseeker93; NFHale; fieldmarshaldj; GOPsterinMA; Perdogg

Pondscum all of them, “Uncle” Walter, “trusted” what a joke, he was a forerunner to Where’s the frequency Kenneth.

And Moonves, why does he love gays so much? $25,000?


15 posted on 06/14/2012 1:46:45 AM PDT by Impy (Don't call me red.)
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To: Impy; justiceseeker93; NFHale; fieldmarshaldj; Perdogg

“Uncle” Walter as in “Uncle” Joe.

He’s as/was trusted as much as LiLo is to be trusted not to screw up a glass of water.


16 posted on 06/14/2012 5:54:02 AM PDT by GOPsterinMA (The Glove don't fit.)
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