The more things change at CBS…

Daniel Schorr’s passing on Friday, at age 93, reminded me of the kind of assaults CBS News unleashed on conservatives before there were any countervailing forums available. A 2001 Weekly Standard article (nine years in my “pending” file!) detailed a particularly vicious left-wing hit piece he narrated in 1964 which linked Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater with neo-Nazis in Germany, a CBS Evening News story notorious enough to earn a mention – if without any censure – in the New York Times and Washington Post obituaries.

In a June of 2001 Weekly Standard review of a memoir by Schorr about his years with CBS, CNN and NPR, Andrew Ferguson recited the piece which aired during the GOP’s convention:

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“It looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany’s right wing” also known, Schorr added helpfully, as “Hitler’s one-time stomping ground.” Goldwater, he went on, had given an interview to Der Spiegel, “appealing to right-wing elements in Germany,” and had agreed to speak to a conclave of, yes, “right-wing Germans.” “Thus,” Schorr concluded, “there are signs that the American and German right wings are joining up.” Now back to you, Walter, and have a nice day!

Ferguson pointed out what eluded the Washington Post and New York Times: “Though easily checkable, it was false in all its particulars” and “was false in its obvious implication of an Anschluss between German neo-Nazis and U.S. Republicans.” Nonetheless, “if Schorr was embarrassed by the Goldwater episode, his memoir shows no signs of it.”

…The more they remain the same: “CBS accuses Santorum of comparing Obama to Hitler:”

Santorum makes the point of why the greatest generation is called the greatest generation, and it’s because they were there for American when it needed them, at a ‘time of great peril’, and they did great things. And his larger point from there is that we can be like the greatest generation because our country needs us right now.But this is where the MSM acts as though they don’t understand what he was saying. He then makes the point that the challenge we face now is not as clearly defined as was the challenge for the greatest generation, that is WWII. And yet still, even they sat on the sidelines for a year and a half while Germany plunged Europe into darkness. Why did they wait, he asks? He answers it this way:

Because we’re a hopeful people. We think, ‘Well, you know it’ll get better. Yeah, he’s a nice guy. I mean, it won’t be near as bad as what we think. This will be okay.’ I mean, yeah, maybe he’s not the best guy after a while, after a while you find out some things about this guy over in Europe and he’s not so good of a guy after all. ‘But you know what, why do we need to be involved? We’ll just take care of our own problems. We’ll get our families off to work and our kids off to school, yeah we’ll be ok‘. That’s sorta the optimistic spirit of America.

But sometimes, It’s not OK. It’s going to be harder for this generation to figure this out. There’s no cataclysmic event. It’s going to be hard.

You understand it, you’re here. You wouldn’t be here if you don’t get it. But what about the rest of America? Do they understand what is happening?

He’s really just comparing this generation to the greatest generation and why this situation is going to be harder for our generation to grasp. It’s that simple. There was no Hitler/Obama comparisons made.

Click over for the CBS article and the video of Santorum’s speech.

Silly Santorum — doesn’t he know that only lefties like Paul Krugman are allowed to use the Moral Equivalent of War argument?