Free Republic

Over at Captains Quarters, Captain Ed ponders an interesting question brought forth by one of his readers. Apparently, the only evidence of Fred's work at National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association is a copy of the NFPRHA's board minutes from September 14, 1991 that claims that the group had hired Fred. The big question is, at what point did Fred begin working there? Here's what Captain Ed found. Now a new bit of indirect evidence has been found. Arent Fox brought Thompson into the firm to be "of counsel" in 1991 for his expertise in their lobbying business, including...

"CBS Evening News" executive producer Rick Kaplan has also come out to slam Dan Rather for his sexist comment that CBS' Katie Couric has "dumbed down" and "tarted up" the news biz with her tenure on CBS' nightly news broadcast. But, a little investigation shows that only two years ago Kaplan praised Rather as the "gold standard" of news anchors at an awards ceremony for Rather's "retirement". So, which is it, Mr. Kaplan? Is Rather a jerk, or is he the best there is? Today, Fox News' Roger Friedman reports that Kaplan thinks that Rather should just shut up and...

The Web is a great way to deliver information, but it's also a great way to expose, spread, or jump-start a scandal. A United States senator once said it, so it must be true: The Internet isn't a dump truck, it's a series of tubes. And many a reputation has gone swirling down those tubes, thanks to the Net's ability to expose scoundrels, scalawags, liars, cheats, and fools--and then broadcast the scandal to a billion glowing screens. The Net's biggest scandals are nothing if not democratic, touching everyone from the most ordinary individuals to the highest office in the land....

On March 12, 2007, Dan Rather gave a speech at the South by Southwest interactive conference in which he said the American media had ?lost its guts in recent years.? Rather accused the mainstream media of being afraid to challenge authority and not providing critical reporting of the White House and the Pentagon, for fear of being seen as unpatriotic or unsupportive of America?s fighting troops in Iraq. According to Rather, ?We?ve brought it on ourselves, partly because we?ve lost the sense that the patriotic journalist will be on his or her feet asking the tough questions. My role as...

March 16, 2007 Last summer we went to Vietnam to shoot several "War Stories" episodes for FOX News Channel. As one might expect in a communist country where they take red tape very seriously, my producers spent weeks before our trip filling out forms, questionnaires and documents required by numerous government bureaucracies. In the process it became evident that not all the folks in Hanoi were on the same sheet of music -- but after several weeks of negotiation we were able to accomplish all that we set out to do and more, thanks to their cooperation. As it turns...

The Web is a great way to deliver information, but it's also a great way to expose, spread, or jump-start a scandal. SNIP The Net's biggest scandals are nothing if not democratic, touching everyone from the most ordinary individuals to the highest office in the land. Not everyone deserved the notoriety. Some were hapless victims of privacy breaches; others were exposed by hackers or misguided crusaders. But in almost every case, somebody ended up getting fired, sued, or mortally embarrassed. SNIP 3. Dan Rather Bids a Font Farewell They were supposed to be the smoking gun the Bush Administration was...

As cable news becomes increasingly combative and opinionated, the financial news network CNBC is pushing in the other direction, introducing an hourlong monthly newsmagazine, “Business Nation.” “It really is a first in terms of a business-oriented newsmagazine,” the network’s vice president for special programming, Josh Howard, said. “No one has really done this.” The debut of “Business Nation,” which includes reports about the sale online of stolen goods and the popularity of martial arts fighting, will be Wednesday at 10 p.m. It will be repeated 8 to 10 times before the next installment is broadcast. “In order to make this...

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) believes Karl Rove was behind CBS’s infamous Bush National Guard memos. Today on Sean Hannity’s radio show, Hinchey asserted that Rove “presented” the documents so that CBS would pick up the story. “There’s a significant amount of evidence,” he insisted, while conspicuously failing to provide any. Two years ago Congressman Hinchey made a similar claim at a community forum in Ithaca, New York. A LGF reader was there and recorded what he said. Audio is available at Little Green Footballs.

Absolutely True:" Rather Continues to Defend 60 Minutes TANG Story: Just moments ago on North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston on Raleigh-based News-Talk 680 WPTF, former CBS anchor Dan Rather defended the infamous 60 Minutes story using forged documents to attack President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard as being, "absolutely true," a charge a testy Rather reiterated at least four or five times. Rather not only defended the report, but the validity of the forged documentation that the report relied on, saying it had never been proven false (despite copious evidence to the contrary). I've contacted...

There is an old saying, and I have heard it since I was a kid. "Be careful what you wish for.You might just get it!!" That phrase seems to be quite appropriate today, for this latest dem scandal. As each hour passes, the Foleygate mess is looking to be more and more like another Rathergate--a trumped-up facade, supported by the Dem leaders, Soros, and the DBM-- all with the hope of cahnging the outcome of the election next month. I think what was SUPPOSED to occur here was:: The Foley allegations come out. He resigns. Hasteret and Boehner are inplicated....

Foley..Foley... Foley.... The end of the GOP. The election is over. Speaker Pelosi. Loss of the "values voter". And on and on and on........ Since last Friday, we have been hearing this and more. Today, the phone messages have started, that the GOP protects pedophiles and perverts just to get elected. The latest polls shows that nearly all of the races that are said to be "up for grabs" are now tilting in the demons favor. This was a nuclear bomb for the GOP. Stick a fork in the pubs...their done!! OR...ARE...THEY????? Maybe...just MAYBE.....This is gong to be another "rope...

Dartmouth Professor Hany Farid already devised software tools to detect when someone has tampered with digital photos. His next challenge: determining whether video or audio files have been retouched. "I thought, 'This is going to be so much easier,' but it turns out to be much harder," Farid said. "In a minute (of) video, you are talking about thousands of images. Just the sheer mass of data that you have to contend with is challenging. You have memory and run-time issues that you don't have with (still) images." The Dartmouth Image Science Group is also releasing a series of tools...

Memogate Reunion! QUEEN MARY MapesGood news, phony document fans! The team that gave you Memogate is back in action. Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes has rejoined her old running partner Dan Rather at Mark Cuban's HDNet channel. Rather, 74, is starting all over at hi-def cable network with a weekly one-hour show that will translate the day's events into awkwardly-worded homespun similes. It debuts in October. Mapes, of course, was at the center of the scandal that triggered Rather's abrupt retirement from CBS: She was the producer of a 60 Minutes segment that showcased documents suggesting that, just maybe,...

With tears welling up in his eyes, Bob Schieffer finally concluded his 18-month tenure as anchor of the CBS Evening News with an emotional in-studio tribute. Incoming anchor Katie Couric joined Schieffer at the end of Thursday night's broadcast in studio for a retrospective of his career, featuring a one-one-one pre-taped interview with the former Today Show host herself (perhaps to give viewers a sneak peek of the Katie to come?). Schieffer's professionalism resuscitated the reputation of the CBS Evening News at a time when the legendary news organization was mired in scandal in the wake of a widely disputed...

Which means at this point that the burden is on Mr. Thompson to supply evidence: # that there is a "George Harleigh"; and # and that he is the man described and quoted in innumerable articles, who taught Political Science at SIU and worked in the Nixon and Reagan administrations. If "George Harleigh" is a pseudonym, that fact should be disclosed, and if there is a person calling himself "George Harleigh" whose remarks are being repeated, it falls on Doug Thompson to provide some evidence that this man is who he says he is. Under the circumstances, until I hear...

Title Can the internet ever produce a purity of consent? A case study of Rathergate. Introduction On September 8th 2004, memos by the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian purporting to show that a subordinate of his, one George W. Bush, had a less than perfect war record during the Vietnam conflict, were aired by CBS show 60 Minutes II. I believe no academic study on this topic exists. A search of the Proquest dissertations database reveals no existing work. There are several books extant which subjectively cover the episode from various points of view. I will utilise these as...

Declaring he “absolutely” believes “the truth” of his discredited story based on forged memos, about President Bush's National Guard record, on Wednesday's Larry King Live on CNN Dan Rather contended that “we had a lot, a lot of corroboration, of what we broadcast about President Bush's military record. It wasn't just the documents.” Rather then attacked those who dared to expose his misdeeds: “It's a very old technique used, that when those who don't like what you're reporting believe it can be hurtful, then they look for the weakest spot and attack it, which is fair enough. It's a diversionary...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather says he has considered filing a lawsuit against the network where he had worked for 44 years. Appearing Wednesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," Rather paused after a question from King and then said he wouldn't talk about whether he would file a lawsuit against CBS. But he acknowledged, "I can't say that I've never thought about it." It wasn't clear from the interview what Rather considered to be possible grounds for a lawsuit. A CBS spokesman commented late Wednesday after the interview, saying, "CBS believes that it...

Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, who recently left the network after heavy criticism for standing by a story based on forged documents, is being considered for a teaching position at Harvard University. Published reports in Philadelphia and Boston indicate Rather might become a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, which is run by Alex Jones. "I'd love to have him come here for a semester or full year on campus," Jones told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Dan Rather has all the credentials, as far as I'm concerned." Jones told the Boston Herald, "I...

Dan Rather's 44-year relationship with CBS News came to an unceremonious end this week. This should remind us that of the many differences between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq, the three most important are talk radio, Fox News, and the Internet. Mr. Rather must think his fate unfair. He was in effect fired when the documents on which he based an expose of President Bush's National Guard service were shown to be clumsy forgeries. But Walter Cronkite, who told a much bigger lie, is still an esteemed figure at CBS. The one great similarity between Vietnam and...