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Friends at Black Rock say Looney Liberal Leslie Moonves may be on his way out the door at CBS. Moonves has overseen a number of CBS fiascos including The Demise Of The Dan (which Rather is about to play out again in a NY courtroom), the hiring of Ratings Remover Perkie Katie Couric as well as very bad ratings for the nightly entertainment (?) block. And of course, most important of all, stock prices are locked in deep declining do-do. Supposedly Moonves has lost the faith of Summer Redstone, and when you lose the faith of His Grace, The Chairman,...

Dan Rather slammed CBS Tuesday for trying to keep his court fight with the network out of the public eye. The newsman - who has filed a $70 million lawsuit against the Tiffany network, where he anchored the "CBS Evening News" for 24 years - said "corporate overlords" are conspiring to withhold several key documents. The 76-year-old was back in Manhattan Supreme Court for a hearing on his suit, which accuses CBS of sidelining him to make nice with the White House following a September 2004 report that questioned President Bush's Vietnam-era military service. Rather left the anchor's chair in...

National Review's KerrySpot looks at a NPR feature that interviews swing voters, and one swing voter in particular: John Ridley, who is also an NPR contributor. First, isn't getting your "man on the street" from the payroll list a little on the lazy side? It's like Ted Baxter using Bernie as his "common man." And does NPR really think their staff represents a sample slice of America? Next thing you know they'll refer to Cokie Roberts as a "soccer mom" and Click and Clack as "NASCAR dads." Anyway, Ridley doesn't seem terribly unbiased. He thinks the Swift Boat Veterans for...

Ken Paulson took over as editor at USA Today in the wake of the Jack Kelley scandal. Kelley had embarrassed the paper by writing a series of stories filled with lies. Paulson said that would never happen again. Then, he presided over USA Today's own version of the CBS Memogate scandal. Like CBS, USA Today used those bogus documents to discredit President Bush's National Guard service. But Paulson managed to exercise a form of damage control because CBS used the documents first and put them on TV. Paulson acted as if the scandal was confined to CBS. Many in the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During the 2004 presidential elections, the mainstream news media frequently engaged in bias -- especially on pro-life issues such as abortion and stem cell research. As with previous polls, a new survey confirms most members of the media voted for Democrat John Kerry over President George W. Bush. The University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy found journalists picked Kerry over Bush by 68 percent to 25 percent. The college sampled 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV. The poll also found that Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 and twice as many self-identified themselves as...

Report just issues, mapes finally fired

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW PANEL DICK THORNBURGH AND LOUIS D. BOCCARDI ON THE SEPTEMBER 8, 2004 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY SEGMENT “FOR THE RECORD” CONCERNING PRESIDENT BUSH’S TEXAS AIR NATIONAL GUARD SERVICE JANUARY 5, 2005 KIRKPATRICK & LOCKHART NICHOLSON GRAHAM LLP Michael J. Missal, Esq. Lawrence Coe Lanpher, Esq. 1800 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 778-9000 Counsel to the Independent Review Panel i TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1 II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...............................................................................................4 A. 60 Minutes Wednesday Background..............................................................................6 B. The Pursuit of a Story on President Bush’s TexANG Service ......................................7 C. Obtaining Documents ....................................................................................................8 D. The Production of...

Tuesday night, I went down to the graduate student lounge in my college for an election night “party;” mostly just people camped out in front of the television with snacks and drinks. My idea for this column was to take along my laptop, which I did, and chronicle what an expat election party was like. Advertisement I figured my fellow Trinity Hall students were good for some amusing and interesting quotes, which they were, and that any British students in attendance might provide a different perspective, which they did, and that even if the night didn’t go my way I...

Courtesy of Newsweek, mainstream media’s pet blogger Wonkette takes a cute little slap at the bloggers who broke the Dan Rather fraud story: Fast Chat: The Wonkette. What did you think of the bloggers’ role in the Dan Rather affair?I think they did a disservice to the debate because they made the debate about the documents and not about the president of the United States. There was another half to that story that had to do with verifiable events of what Bush may have been up to. While blogs like LGF were doing a “disservice to the debate” by exposing...

Former "This Week" host and National Public Radio veteran Cokie Roberts blamed conspiracy filmmaker Michael Moore on Sunday for causing Sen. John Kerry to lose the presidential election. "I think Michael Moore actually had a very major impact - a negative impact - on the Democratic Party," Roberts told NBC's "Chris Matthews Show." "I think he exemplified all of the things that people hate about Democrats. And the fact that he was - it was a hate-America-first campaign and that hurts the Democrats every time." Adding insult to injury, Roberts also contended that Moore's "physical appearance did not help."

SEATTLE - Rod Watson had to cancel 1,000 flu-shot clinics in four states when the national vaccine shortage cut off his supply two months ago. Now Watson has flu shots aplenty - and he can't give them away. "My biggest fear is I'm gong to end up with a lot of serum, and there's a national shortage," said Watson, president of Prevention MD, a medical screening and immunization company. He offers $20 flu shots Monday through Friday at his Seattle-area office. Public health officials in California, Colorado and other states have voiced similar fears. Some are relaxing the rules to...

I would like to make a point about the election that I think has been missed by all the pundits. Why was it as close as it was? The 9/11 attacks have been widely cited as helping Bush. They certainly did give him an opportunity to prove his leadership, but they also hurt him in another very important respect that nobody seems to realize. They sucker-punched the U.S. economy just as we were trying to come out of a recession. The economy is still a very important factor in Presidential elections whether we realize it or not. Had the 9/11...

WITH the CBS News investigation of Memogate almost done, Mary Mapes, the producer who obtained the fake memos used in Dan Rather's George Bush-bashing report, is fighting to save her job and her reputation. The sleuths at ratherbiased.com report Mapes wrote up a 68-page statement in her own defense and has been lobbying to convince the CBS probers that Rather's exposé on Bush's National Guard service was accurate, even if the documents obtained from a crackpot Texas Democrat were bogus. Rather acted preemptively by quitting as the "Evening News" anchor.

When I was linking to CBS News for my Stupefy Me report earlier today (directly below), I came across this gem of a story (FR THREAD ON THE CBS ARTICLE: Blogs: New Medium, Old Politics NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2004). It appears that CBS News not only is striking back at the blogs and bloggers that took out Dan Rather and embarrassed their entire organization, but they are also supporting censorship of us rascally citizens. Internet blogs are providing a new and unregulated medium for politically motivated attacks. With the same First Amendment protections as newspapers, blogs are increasingly gaining...

Rumor has it that the results of the investigation into CBS Memogate are going to be released tomorrow. And in a rather ... uh ... curious coincidence, Dr. David Hailey, the Utah State professor who is desperately, quixotically trying to prove the CBS memos are real, has released what he claims as the final version of his shoddy, laughable "analysis". And I'm sure you won't be shocked at all to discover that his conclusion is ... the documents were typed. On a magical typewriter that somehow produced an exact duplicate of a Microsoft Word document, down to the spacing, line...

Publishers Weekly Names 'America' (The Book) Jon Stewarts Riff on Politics, Book of the Year Jon Stewarts' 'America,' (The Book) the television commentators riff on politics and other matters of historical staire, has been named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.In announcing the award Monday, Pubishers Weekly called the book 'a serious critique of the two party system, the corporations that finance it, and the spinless cowards in the press who aggressively print allegiation and rumor independent of accuracy and fairness.'Stewart's book was released in September and immediately topped best seller lists even as Wal...

After the 2000 presidential campaign, strategists for President Bush came to a startling realization: Democrats watch more television than Republicans. So by buying millions of dollars' worth of television advertising time, Republicans were spending their money on audiences that tended to vote Democratic. What to do? With the luxury of four years until the next election, the Bush team examined voters' television-viewing habits and cross-referenced them with surveys of voters' political and lifestyle preferences. This led to an unusual step for a presidential campaign: it cut the proportion of money that it put into broadcast television and diverted more to...

NEW YORK (AP) - The New York Times Co. told investors Thursday that its fourth quarter and full-year earnings would come in below Wall Street estimates on weaker-than-expected advertising in the fourth quarter and higher costs for promotion, printing, distribution and newsprint. The company also said it would begin expensing the cost of stock options and its employee stock purchase plan. It also said that it would no longer provide estimates for full-year earnings, focusing instead on quarterly estimates, due to the greater uncertainty in the current environment for media companies. The company, which also publishes The Boston Globe and...

George W. Bush ran the most negative presidential campaign in history, and the media never covered the story, an aide to Sen. John Kerry's campaign said last Monday at the journalism department. Marco Trbovich, a United Steelworkers of America employee who advised Kerry on labor policy, told the 20 students gathered at Carter Hall that about 80 percent of Bush's campaign money was spent on negative advertising. "If you can think of a few positive commercials that you saw, you saw all of them that were there," he said. Bush's campaign played upon fear, using patriotic and religious fervor to...

IN A recent speech at Tufts University, Andy Rooney reflected on the election and said, according to The Tufts Daily, that Christian fundamentalism is a result of "a lack of education. They haven't been exposed to what the world has to offer." Those comments as well as the identification of the "bigoted Christian redneck" after Election Day in various editorials left me wondering: Where do these "liberal elites" get this fictional image of Christians? When did this distorted perspective begin in our cultural history? How can I work to bridge this gap? Rooney is reflective of the "liberal elite" in...

NEW YORK Feeling a bit lost lately? You should, at least according to a compendium posted today at Jay Rosen’s popular PressThink Web log, because the biggest loser on Election Day was not John Kerry but the mainstream media. Daniel Henninger, writing in The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal, put it this way: "It is often said that the only sure winner in American politics is the media. Amid GOP victory parties or the ruined dreams of the Kerry candidacy, the one constant is that the media marches on. Maybe not this time. Big Media lost big." "I was interested...

What the Republicans did, cleverly, was to establish effective "memes" in the minds of the public and the pundits... Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state... [I]t was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born. The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." These words were chanted...

Hoo-boy. It's a hot time in the old blogtown. The pajamahadeen are firing their virtual bullets into the cyber-air in celebration of CBS anchor Dan Rather's announcement on Tuesday that he was retiring as the top talking face of the network after 24 years. "This has been a simply outstanding month," crowed a poster on http://www.freerepublic.com. "Bush won, Arafat died, we're kicking ass in Fallujah, and now this!" Typically, the above-quoted "Freeper" didn't get that Rather may be down, but he certainly isn't out. When he steps down as front man for The CBS Evening News on March 9, he...

THE last presidential election in the United States is as American as apple pie. Even till the last second before the event started, nobody in the US or elsewhere knew for sure whether George Bush would retain his job or whether he would be defeated by John Kerry. Characteristic of American presidential elections in recent history, the last one was tough, rough and sometimes acrimonious, although some degree of razzmatazz was also noticeable.Key issues in the run-up to the election were security, the war against terror, the American misadventure in Iraq and the worrisome state of US economy. Generally speaking,...

The Ehrlich administration has taken the unusual step of banning all state officials from speaking with two Sun journalists, who they say are "failing to objectively report" on state issues. The governor's press office sent a memo Thursday to all state public information officers and to the governor's staff ordering them to not speak with State House Bureau Chief David Nitkin or columnist Michael Olesker. "Do not return calls or comply with any requests," press secretary Shareese N. DeLeaver wrote in the memo. The ban is in effect "until further notice." "There's no hiding the fact of The Sun's distaste...

Between the end of the Republican National Convention and Election Day, the Houston Chronicle spent roughly 50,000 words on President George W. Bush and his campaign for re-election. Perhaps most impressive, one of its own columnists had major news to break on the race. He just didn't, umm, break it to the Chronicle. Russ Baker, a New York-based freelance journalist and contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review, had been circling the reporting waters around President Bush for several months, dialing up hundreds of possible sources for material on the commander in chief. "I just didn't think we really knew enough...

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Election mythsPublished November 18, 2004 As a wrap-up to Election 2004, it should be noted which election "myths" helped shape each party's strategy. Not surprisingly, the losing party held to the losing myths, and vice versa. Here are some that failed to hold up on Nov. 2:      • Anger is a platform. Ever since the 2000 election, Democrats rallied around their mutual disdain for President Bush. The Democrats should have remembered that Republican anger at Bill Clinton didn't work, either.     • It's the money, not the message. The myth is that the candidate who...

In May 2003, I suggested in this space that the exit polls would need more than a makeover. I also questioned the wisdom of putting veteran exit pollster Warren Mitofsky in charge. Shortly thereafter, I received a telephone call from Mitofsky, who, naturally, expressed his disagreement with my opinions. Later in the year, I heard from Mitofsky again when I criticized his exit polls in the California gubernatorial recall election. I’ll say this for him: Mitofsky is a great flack. And he must be a great salesman. Anyone who can talk the networks into giving him $10 million for the...

Liberals again illicitly claim moral high ground By Charles Krauthammer WASHINGTON — In 1994, when the Gingrich revolution swept Republicans into power, ending 40 years of Democratic hegemony, the mainstream press needed to account for this inversion of the Perfect Order of Things. A myth was born. Explained the USA Today headline: "Angry White Men: Their votes turned the tide for the GOP." Overnight, the revolution of the Angry White Male became conventional wisdom. In the 10 years before the 1994 election, there were 56 Nexis mentions of angry white men in the media. In the next seven months, there...

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As amazing as it might seem, a retired correspondent for CBS News recently wrote an op-ed for his previous employer wherein he suggested that the worst news coverage of an election in history was likely performed by America’s bloggers this past November 2. ''As a retired mainstream media ('MSM') journalist--and thus a double-dinosaur--I don’t begrudge these knights of the blog-table their grandiose dreams. But I worked on a school paper when I was a kid and I owned a CB radio when I lived in Texas. And what I saw in the blogosphere on Nov. 2 was more reminiscent of...

HIGH SCHOOL ATTACK: KERRY TAUNTS TIED TO FIGHT Wed Nov 10 2004 09:55:52 ET Three high school students face charges for using a bat to beat another student who taunted them about being John Kerry supporters days after the contentious election. The 17-year-old Apple Valley victim was assaulted Thursday in a Minnesota Zoo parking lot near Apple Valley's School of Environmental Studies, better known as the zoo school. Chad McKay, also 17, stood over the victim attempting to protect him. "It's a good thing to see young people interested and excited about politics," said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. "It's...

As the depth of President Bush's victory became apparent last week, I wondered exactly how the Democratic Party would spin the results. Although the DNC itself has been somewhat reserved, its spinmeisters in the press have been in full throat. Many of these nationally recognized editorialists have become completely unhinged by Bush's victory; some actually accusing those us who voted for the president as being part of an American religious jihad. This broad-brush swipe at conseratives just shows the inability of the media elite to understand not only why they lost this election, but also why they will continue to...

Just because it was November, didn't mean that the Kerry camp and its network shills couldn't come up with some more "October surprises." After all, for the Democrats and their media affiliates, it's always October. No Exit On Election Day, the early returns from the Big Media-commissioned "exit polls" were that Sen. John Kerry was drubbing Pres. Bush across the East, especially in the two states Bush had to carry, Florida and Ohio, if Bush was to have a chance at winning the election. Keep in mind, that unlike the network election coverage, which begins in earnest only after the...

Guide to Local MediaLocate media in your zip code, gives you links to YOUR local media with phone, e-mail etc info. Free Internet Fax Service Free E-Mail to Fax from your computer, just fill in form on page , they do the rest. Make sure you enter fax # like this 12025551212 (no spaces or -) Areas they SEND free faxes to includes ALL of WASH. DC Area Code 202 Is the number you want them to SEND FREE FAX covered? Complete list of areas they SEND FREE FAXES to

By Jim Emerson Editor, RogerEbert.com October 14, 2004Who's the, uh, biggest villain in "Team America"? Kim Jong Il or Hollywood celebrities?"You should learn to keep your opinions OUT of your reviews!" Every critic I know has received at least one letter like that from an indignant reader. Of course, it's an absurd proposition; critics are paid to express their opinions, and the good ones (who exercise what is known across all disciplines as "critical thinking") are also able to cite examples and employ sound reasoning to build an argument, showing you how and why they reached their verdict. Well, since...

The first thing we have to realize is that media liberals tried to throw the election for the party of the ass again. Of course, this newsletter's readers were alerted[1] back in issue 321 (Another Election Reporting SNAFU Coming Up). In a nutshell, the failed Voter News Service was replaced by two groups headed by former CBS News reporters with their election results funneled to Associated Press to tabulate and disseminate to media outlets. So, we had the very-left (Bush Administration haters) AP essentially programming most news outlets on election results. AP will never be confused with fair and balanced...

Just lately (noticeably since the US election result) there seems to be an awful lot of anti-British sentiment on here (there always was a little but I put that down to a handful of xenophobic kiddies) What I would like to know is do most Freepers now share the low opinion that some (many) on here seem to have of our nation or is it just a small (but very vocal) minority of morons? I've enjoyed this forum (for the relatively short time that I've contributed) and have always liked Americans in general, but I now find myself reconsidering my...

Well the fat SOB has finally come out from under his pile of candy bar & cheese burger wrappers to comment on GWB's victory...

11/5/04 Dear Friends, Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There IS some good news from Tuesday's election. Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists: 1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again. 2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. 3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving...

Im sure many have already done this but everyone should email Mikey moore and let him know that his movie did no good in taking down bush! Sorry but it was kind of a release just to tell him how I felt. HA EMAIL MIKEY MOORE!

Friday, November 5th, 2004 17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists...by Michael Moore Dear Friends, Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, “always look on the bright side of life!” There IS some good news from Tuesday's election. Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists: 1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again. 2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. 3. The only age group in which the...

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If pop culture is a reflection of a nation's values, then the signs of a Bush victory were there a long time ago for anyone to see. There've been two runaway box-office surprises this year: Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." The Bush political team intuitively understood the tone of the U.S. voters much better than the media did. To be honest, I still don't quite understand how certified media junkies like me could have been so wrong. I read the New York Times (NYT: news, chart, profile) and the New Yorker religiously. I...

11/5/04 Dear Friends, Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There IS some good news from Tuesday's election. Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists: 1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again. 2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. 3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving...

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES(the self-anointed 'intelligentsia' and 'intelligence' are mutually exclusive constructs) by Mia T, 11.05.04 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'" John KerryNEWSWEEK ELECTION ISSUE: 'How He Did It' "Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush? I'm sure the candidates' SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead." Howell Raines - Former Executive Editor of the New York Times "The 'Dumb' Factor"Washington Post, August 27, 2004 "Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump LOWER IQ = SMARTER WAR?(AND WHY DOESN'T KERRY SIGN FORM 180, ANYWAY?) POURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST...

I received this email because I am subscribed to the moveon.org email blast. It's always good to keep an eye on the enemy. Read and enjoy him trying to put a good spin on the drubbing they received.

Al Franken just gave a surprisingly candid list of Kerry's mistakes : Global Test, turning over our defense to UN, France Health Care program was a bloated nightmare Admitted Kerry lied about his purple hearts, were self inflicted wounds, and throwing his medals away "Banning the Bible" [I don't remember this??]

ANOTHER UPDATE: You can see a more complete statement on CNN's homepage -- click the "Netscape responsible for Bush photo insult" link at the top right. But since that's a java box and can't be directly linked, and probably won't be archived anywhere, I'm going to reproduce the full thing in the "extended entry" area below. Hit "read more" to read it. Read More » Text follows: Netscape responsible for Bush photo insult Disparaging image tags used to identify photos of President and Mrs. Bush currently circulating on the Internet were not created, disseminated or posted by CNN at any...

Please take a few moments to send the following email to the Federal Communications Commission at: Michael.Powell@fcc.gov; fccinfo@fcc.govOr, CLICK HERE to generate a pre-addressed email. Subject:  Two Alleged FCA ViolationsDear Chairman Powell,The FCC has previously has ruled that broadcasters, as public trustees, may not intentionally distort the news. The FCC has stated that "rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest."  I am writing to alert the FCC to two potential violations of this ruling that have occurred over the past two weeks.  The FCC must carry out it's statutory duty -- i.e. implementing...