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This is outstanding news. Not a few miles from Rather's hometown, a radio affiliate has kicked him to the proverbial curb. Story here

....I do not agree with readers who say the Globe should have held off writing about the CBS broadcast until it made its own verification. The Globe had no reason at that point to doubt the network's judgment. And newspapers routinely report important news generated by other media outlets as a way of keeping readers informed. That's their job. But I do think that in the week after the initial CBS broadcast, the paper could have better reflected the emerging doubts, either by publishing available wire service stories or, better yet, developing its own. The Globe has a history of...

Lokisfur asks: How come there is no federal criminal investigation into the CBS memos? We now have forged US military records that

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x900099 starroute (1000+ posts) Sun Sep-26-04 12:40 AM Response to Original message 1. Buckhead and the others who propagated the forgery claims This chart shows along the top the line of transmission from "Buckhead," who first proclaimed (incorrectly) that the memos could have been produced in MS Word, to the blogger who passed the story along, to the media firms which pushed it along to The Drudge Report. It shows how these various individuals and groups are involved in a dense network of associations with one another and with most of the figures and organizations of the vast right-wing conspiracy...

Concerning those forged memos: What did John Kerry know and when did he know it? There are a few seldom mentioned interesting facts that almost answer that question. The accumulation of "facts" do not speak well for John Kerry and his campaign workers at all. The first interesting tidbit was published in the Sept. 21 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle[1]. The lead paragraph tells the story: "Former Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign heard but did not pursue allegations about George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, similar to the information in discredited documents aired by CBS News this...

POLITICS: Staff shake-ups. Debate one-liners. Unsubstantiated rumors. Dirty tricks. Terrorism. It must be October, and this must be an ­election year. "I called the guy,"(Burkett) Mr. Lockhart admitted to The Wall Street Journal. "We talked for three or four minutes about the swift-boat controversy. He believed our response was inadequate, that Kerry should push back about the Vietnam experience. I thanked him for his advice. End of the story." But it wasn't quite the end. Mike McCurry, another Kerry adviser, later said Mr. Lockhart told campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill about the conversation, and she, in turn, relayed it to...

With careers in jeopardy, 'the knives have come out' at CBS News. Rather's job seems safe, but he's fighting to keep it. ....Internally, CBS News appears to have moved from "What went wrong?" to "Who gets the blame?" With careers hanging in the balance and the reputation of the news division on the line, "the knives have come out," said one insider. Many insiders think that Rather, who is 72 and has more than two years to run on his contract, will keep his job and that Mapes will bear much of the blame. She has not responded to requests...

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As he described it, Bill Burkett was sick of the Kerry campaign's sheer ineptitude. A member of the Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party and a retired Army National Guardsman, he became incensed as he watched his candidate's credibility suffer from TV ads sponsored by Swift Boat veterans, while Kerry and his staff bungled their responses. Burkett wanted to do something about it, and believed he had the means to do it. But Kerry's people weren't listening. In an Internet posting, he candidly wrote that he waded through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids trying to get a job...

Please shut up, Terry McAuliffe--that is, about George W. Bush and his missing-time in the Texas Air National Guard. I keep receiving press releases from flacks at the Democratic Party about Bush's Guard service (or lack thereof). For instance, moments before John Kerry delivered a major speech on September 20 that refocused his campaign with a blast against Bush's war in Iraq, the Democratic National Committee press office emailed me and other reporters an invitation to participate in a conference call with McAuliffe on Bush and the Guard. The call was scheduled to occur in the middle of Kerry's speech....

A political stink bomb has detonated. And the Kerry campaign, supporters and political operatives are all running for cover. The smell is seeping into the pores of our political system and could destroy the Kerry campaign. We've now learned that CBS producer Mary Mapes contacted high-level Kerry campaign advisor Joe Lockhart before the falsified Guard/Bush story aired to suggest he speak to Bill Burkett about potentially damaging information on Bush. What? CBS tried to aid the presidential campaign of a specific candidate? Yes. And indications of coordination between CBS and the Kerry campaign regarding the forged documents are increasing. Such...

Famed anchorman Walter Cronkite, once widely considered the most trusted figure in news, called the journalistic mistake that has marred CBS' credibility ``embarrassing,'' but stopped short of placing blame or predicting the network's future. ``We must wait while CBS management conduct the investigation they have promised. We can then decide what our reaction to it should be,'' said Cronkite, 87, whose CBS newscasts reached millions of Americans for more than three decades. ``The reaction at the moment of course is embarrassment for everyone who is connected to CBS, and that embarrassment I hope will be squashed in time as we...

CNSNews.com) - Two top executives at media giant Viacom, which owns CBS, have given money to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign and are supporting other liberal Democrats this year. Sumner Redstone, the 81-year-old chairman and chief executive of Viacom, and one of his top lieutenants, Tom Freston, the corporation's co-president, have each given Kerry the maximum $2,000 donation allowed under the law. The media giant that acquired CBS in 1999 has come under fire this week for Redstone's and Freston's support for Kerry. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised the issue Wednesday when talking about the...

FORT WORTH - The former Texas Air National Guard commander who gave CBS documents critical of President Bush's military service said he thinks the network has tried to make him the "fall guy" in the dispute over whether the memos are authentic. ADVERTISEMENT Bill Burkett, who lives on a ranch near Abilene, said he still believes the memos are real, but he said he warned CBS to independently verify the documents before airing them. CBS broadcast a story on Sept. 8 that accused Bush of using family connections to get into the Guard to avoid military service in Vietnam, and...

Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. --- U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343. That was no mere "dirty trick"; it could be a violation of the U.S. criminal code. If the artifice had not been revealed by sharp-eyed bloggers, a national election could have been swung by a blatant falsehood. Who...

WASHINGTON – Bill Burkett of Baird, Texas, will have a prominent place in the annals of political trickery. He'll be remembered as the one who aimed at President Bush and felled the mighty Dan Rather and "60 Minutes." Who could've contrived this hoax? Suspicions settled on Mr. Burkett, himself a former Guard officer with a lively hatred of President Bush. With a sinking feeling, Rather and staff, who'd worked long and hard at developing the "scoop," realized they'd been had. Rather flew to Texas and strong-armed Burkett into an interview confessing all - almost all. He said he'd worked in...

It's a long way from the glass and brass doors of CBS News in New York to the glass and aluminum doors of The Vicksburg Post, but a reporter here as slipshod as staffers there would be shown how to use our far more humble doors - as an exit. Believing that basic fairness still matters here in the hinterlands helps me keep my sanity while the national press corps gets weirder and weirder. Too many ignore the obligation to report information accurately and let the chips fall where they may. Left or right, their agendas trump the journalistic judgment...

......But some CBS staffers questioned the selection of a man once named to the Cabinet by the father of the story's subject, and they asked why Heyward, who approved the "60 Minutes" story, was involved in the appointments. "I don't see it as a hanging crime, but it would have been better to let someone not involved make those appointments," said Tobe Berkovitz, an associate communications dean at Boston University. There are signs that the controversy is hurting CBS and anchor Dan Rather at the local level. Bob Lee, general manager of WBDJ-TV in Roanoke and president of the CBS...

CBS reports eFing has a cold and has lost his voice. Yet, with CBS's track record, inquiring minds want to know what the real reason is...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. " U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343. WASHINGTON — At the root of what is today treated as an embarrassing blunder by duped CBS journalists may turn out to be a felony by its faithless sources. Some person or persons conceived a scheme...