Unlike most of the media, CBSNews.com curiously has not changed the story on the “Bush National Guard documents” on their website one jot since yesterday. Deathwatch, indeed. Is Rather the next Howell Raines? For the sake of the future of CBS, he’d better be. What Rather did… piping forged docs about a sitting president to the American public during an election and then (incredibly!) defending that action… makes Raines seem like a high school student who threw spitballs behind the teacher’s back.
“But he did it for a good cause”,Barf
I’m wondering if they’re waiting to see if they’re the topic of the day for the Sunday morning talk shows. If they don’t get hit hard there, maybe they’ll keep “forging” ahead. Never underestimate the arrogance of the MSM.
There was a time I admired Dan Rather – when he took on Nixon. How the times change! Rather’s obsession is eerily reminiscent of Nixon’s. He will undoubtedly try a few “modified hangouts” before he moves on to his well deserved retirement.
The latest is that CBS Evening News repeated the Boston Globe’s lie:
Wizbang says, “On a side note they showed the command post on national T.V.
Which means if they read the blogs they KNEW it was a lie but ran it anyway! BUSTED.”
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/003640.php
This is an orchestrated campaign planned in advance. They have no alternative so Rather has to stonewall on this til the Dems get a new act together.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2004/09/not-according-to-plan.html
3 questions:
Can CBS really act as a moderator in the debates, if this is what their version of journalism has to offer?
Will Dan Rather next offer up his personal pictures of UFO’s as proof of intelligent life?
If so, how will we be allowed to question it?
Dan is standing on a long tree branch and for some reason, he keeps sawing off the branch behind him.
Tonight on Fox News Watch Neal what’s his face said the important issue is that Bush has been dishonest. All we have to do is go to Salon.com and there are 8 pages of stuff to prove it.
It seems these guys don’t know anymore about journalistic integrity than they do the military.
Frank Martin,
Can CBS really act as a moderator in the debates, if this is what their version of journalism has to offer?
This is an interesting point. The answer is ‘no’, but I find myself wondering if the Bush campaign can’t use this somehow. Perhaps they could issue a statement such as: “We believe that CBS has proved itself incapable of objectivity in this election and this debate, and we respectfully request that a new moderator from another organization be found to take CBS’s place. This is requisite for the President to participate in this debate.”
It brings the AWOL thing up again, but it also brings up media bias. Perhaps it is a way of heading off near-certain media shenanigans a week or weekend or day before the election?
Mmmmm ….
The campaign probably is going to let this play itself out without comment, but if they’ve made a decision to address the AWOL issue, now would be the time with further hit pieces coming up and media bias still in the news.
Rather and others like him (e.g., Juan Williams who yesterday said that it didn’t matter that the memo was fake, if the contents were true) consider themselves defenders of a “higher” truth:
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2004/09/defenders-of-truth.html
Don’t say spitballs!
That gets people really upset, just ask Zell!
Roger:
“…piping forged docs about a sitting president to the American public during an election and then (incredibly!) defending that action…
Instead of piping, you should have used pimping.
Confirming Richard Mac’s comment above, Powerline has posted a transcript excerpt e-mailed in by a reader:
KELLY WRIGHT [FOX NEWS]: Tony, here’s the latest that we’re finding out on this story. At least three Pentagon sources believe the documents about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard are fakes. CBS as you mentioned is standing by its story…
About time someone from the military weighed in on this.
The plan says “accelerate here” it don’t say notin’ about a cliff.
In addition on Fox News Watch today:
Pinkerton broke the news that “MSM” is a derogatory term. At least it proves he’s paying attention.
In a reader letter – Jane was outted for always standing up for/defending the biased liberal media and Neal was described as the embodiment of the biased liberal media.
Bimbo ! errrr
Go to
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212559/posts
(Sorry couldn’t hyperlink) to read about Dan’s producer Mary Mapes’ 5 years of lethally-intentioned attacks on GWBush, always from behind the “I’m a pro, so this can’t be libel!” protective screen of what a Clinton Midget Economist has lately been on a mission to remind us great unwashed that we better remember CBS is an “unassailable major major major network!”
It is lie compounded with more lies.
Clearly I have personally underestimated the arrogance of the MSM. They are simply going to continue on with a few honest outlets such as Fox and Washington Times report the story, then come down on those as Fox the Murdoch outfit and the Times the Moonie outlet.
I will never again trust anything the put forward by the MSM.
CBS is now using the Boston Globe’s misquotation of Dr Bouffard to support its story. They even managed to misspell the poor guy’s name.
Strong letter follows:
—————————————————
Sirs — You have both repeated the Boston Globe’s egrigious misstatement of Dr Philip Bouffards’ conclusions, but you have even managed to misspell his name.
It becomes more and more difficult to believe that these misstatements, and the continued reliance on documents that are palpable forgeries, can be mere incompetence, although that would be bad enough. But the repetition, and the compounding errors and mistatements, make it seem increasingly probably that this is purposeful.
It is now imperative that CBS News repudiate the forged documents, and retract its misstatement of Dr BOUFFARD’s conclusions.
Further, given Mr Rather’s clear assumption of responsibility for the truth and validity of the continuing story, the reputation of CBS News now requires his immediate resignation, and an apology to the United States and the viewers and readers of CBS News.
Yours sincerely
Charles R Martin
Dr. Sanity
Thanks for the link. I’ve been enjoying your comments.
What keeps striking me about this are the two views of reality, of truth, espoused by Plato and Aristotle respectively. For Plato, the only “true” circle was the imaginary, perfect circle. All the real circles we see around us, which are always flawed, are only imperfect copies of the one true circle which exists in the one true reality. For Plato the ideas were paramount and the world of the senses was secondary.
For Aristotle, whose father was a Greek physician, in the long tradition of famous Greek physicians (cf. “I, Claudius”), reality was what you see before you. Ideas you had about reality were just that, ideas. For Aristotle, the world of the senses was paramount and the world of ideas was secondary.
Epistemology necessarily precedes politics.
If “Bushitler is evil” is the one true reality, it scarely matters what occurs in the world of the senses. Whether the memos were faked or not, whether they make any sense or not, none of this has the least bearing on the ultimate reality to be found in the heads of these people. I’m sure they’ve long hence forgotten why they came to believe “Bushitler is evil” in the first place.
How can anyone fail to see the guise of the religious fanatic in such an attitude?
Roger
It is good to eviscerate the MSM, but the main target, John Kerry has become invisible.The massed minds of the blogosphere should roust him from his obmutescence and get him to put his foot firmly back in his mouth where it belongs.
Charlie
I believe that should be “egregious”. If you’re complaining about misspelling.
I once again recommend edict for your using pleasure.
You sound a little impatient, Roger. Hang on. It may not happen quickly, and it’s important to keep repeating the questions and holding Rather to account. At his age, he’s a survivor who thinks he can outsmart, outlast and outplay the new media(sorry for the TV show cliche, but it fits). He’s trying to reframe the story to his advantage and he must think he can win. He may, but not if enough people keep “picketing” public attention with sloganesque repetition. I can still hear Hilary’s questions about GWB’s responsibility after 9-11 reverberating in the back of my mind. “What did he know and when did he know it?” It’s how doubt gets planted and grows.
Talking about picketing ó Does anyone in the LA area want to discuss picketing CBS Television City down on Fairfax over this?
“It is good to eviscerate the MSM”
“It is even better to crush John Kerry, to see him driven before us and to hear Teresa’s lamentations!”
(apologies to Ahnuld as Conan)
Charlie
Great letter but it is “egregious,” from e “out of” and grex, ” flock,” hence “out of the flock,” wildly out of line, in Latin.
Jamie Irons
“to hear Teresa’s lamentations”,yes it would but after bitch slapping her future ex-husband,”We had it right there dummy,and you have to open your mouth again, after all I told you”, the calls that will be heard will be for a divorce lawyer.
No, let this take awhile. We need to get through the weekend and Ivan (which at present is due outside my front door sometime mid-Tuesday) so the Killian Memo debacle can be at full pitch when MSM watchers are undistracted. Don’t forget that every day – heck, every hour – brings a new absurdity from CBS that further underlines just how rotten the MSM is.
I also want Dan to get a gooood, looooong look at the abyss before he either jumps or is pushed or has an aneurysm in prime time. Dig deeper, please. Say it, Dan. Say “I am not a crook.”
Rick Ballard
Very, very funny!
Rick, you are obviously no girly man.
Jamie Irons
Much as I hate to say it, I have to say that I am not sure that CBS is going to lose this one. So far the stonewall appears to be working, in the sense that CBS’ competitors are not behaving as if they have smelled blood.
Unless we see some concrete new developments in the next day or so (such as a lawsuit, or a public statement by the Pentagon that the documents are forgeries), I predict that CBS will simply stop talking about it, and the rest of the media, not having anything new into which to sink their teeth, will subside.
So let’s hope for another act in this drama, eh?
PeterUK
obmutescence
Hmm…It’s not often I’m driven from the internet to my 20-volume OED.
Thanks!
Jamie Irons
Jamie,
I believe Rick was just paraphrasing one of the sons of Kerry favorite Jhengis Khan.
“Man’s greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women.”
To which Genghis replied that what was best was riding in the open steppe, with the wind in your hair and a falcon on your wrist.
At the moment, I am with the son, but after the election I will probably go with Genghis.
ìHow can anyone fail to see the guise of the religious fanatic in such an attitude?î – Beautiful, Wichita, just beautiful.
This is a reason why I could tolerate Clinton with all his faults, but I was scared out of my wits about possibility of Gore presidency. Gore, once you start paying attention to what he says, has all the characteristics of a zealot; Clinton may have bean a nasty rouge, but ha at least acknowledged the existence of real-world reality, not the post modern/Platonic variety.
On the subject of MSM and TV ìjournalistsî in particular: why does anybody still pay any attention to these hacks? I donít have a cable or network reception and somehow manage to keep abreast with events; for important policy statements there is always streamlined video. If you want to make a difference, dump your cable subscriptions, guys, or use is strictly for Internet access. Movies and TV shows can be had on DVDs (recommended service: Netflix). Eyeballs count.
chuck,
Actually, a screenwriter for “Conan the Barbarian” did the initial paraphrase. Ahnuld played many similiar parts as preparation for entry into the subtly nuanced life of a modern politician.
Katherine,
I dumped my cable subscription a year ago, but please don’t encourage everyone else to do so. How else can I find out what is going on in the news shows, except to freeload off Charlie(C) and the others who do me the favor of watching.
There are a lot of older folks who watch cable all the time. My mother has CNN running most of the day.
Now, to keep up with political nuance, I have to put the Conan movies on my Netflix queue. What a world!
All right, Chuck. Mums the word.
“Actually, a screenwriter for ‘Conan the Barbarian’ did the initial paraphrase.” That was John Milius, who adapted the stories by Robert E. Howard. Milius also wrote the screenplay for “Apocalypse Now”, from which John Kerry appears to have derived his “Christmas in Cambodia” fantasy. And so it all gets back to Kerry, sooner or later.
There is credible evidence that CBS News published forged documents, and that it was aware before publication that those documents cannot be authenticated because they are photocopies.
At this point CBS News has ratified the forgery.
Nothing CBS News says about President Bush’s National Guard service can be trusted absent verification.
Everything CBS News says in the future on any subject should be distrusted absent verification.
I.e., CBS News has inflicted titanic harm on its reputation and brand name. It has also endangered the brand name of CBS overall. These matters affect the value of CBS’s “goodwill”, and its stock price.
The officers and directors of CBS have fiduciary duties to the shareholders of CBS. Likewise the officers and directors of CBS’s corporate owners have fiduciary duties to the shareholders of their companies. I.e., at some point their personal assets will be on the line for this.
Additionally a stockholders’ derivative action might now be feasible.
WichitaBoy – I completely agree with you about the different views of reality as exemplified by Aristotle and Plato. We are still dealing with their opposing descriptions of reality today and it is the source of most of the conflict in the world.
Although things like this might do little good for them, it does some good for me. Below is what I sent to CBS News through the “Contact us” feature on their website:
Well, guys, half of the blogoshpere has started a CBS self destruction watch. The documents are not authentic, and there have got to be some producers who know as much. Your reports are not looking into all the information which is readily available. You are not reporting. You are misspelling your own witness’ name. Your key source feels that CBS has misrepresented what he said. The only CYA happening is at CBS. What you guys are actually doing is far worse than anything Bush is accused of doing. Shame on you. When this story blows up in your face, remember who covered up what. Dan Rather = Howell Raines. You do the math.
Tom,
I hammered on the necessity of getting to Viacom on the boycott thread to deafening silence. If major Viacom shareholders can be convinced that Rather is a threat to value then he will be gone as quickly as Whoopie was gone from her Slimfast contract after her gutter performance before John Forgery Kerry a few months ago. All it will take is a Bloomberg headline of “Is CBS ‘forging’ a new direction?” and Sumner will make a phone call.
Rick,
Starting a pool about the date Fox buys CBS would be more productive.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that Sumner told Moonves to have Rather give this a whirl. I have no idea what Redstone’s politics are excepth that more money in the bank is a good thing. Could he have Soros like ambitions?
Hey, if you guys are gonna complain about a one-character typo, complain about the mangled syntax of that first sentence.
What can I say? I was mad.
I’m still mad. These guys — the “elite”, the “mainstream media”, the “old guard”, the “movers and shakers” — have decided. We the People are too dumb, too ignorant, and too out of touch to be trusted with elections and democracy, with making their own decision.
Remember a few days ago, I wrote a thing about what I believed? Well, in one sentence, what I really believe is this: We the People are wiser, and better able, to make our own decisions than any “elite”, any “main stream” — and when Dan Rather and Robin Rather and Terry McAuliffe and whoever else decide that winning for their side is more important than that, they are no longer on our side.
They are on the same side as bin Laden, and Kim, and al Sadr, and everyone back to Hitler and Mussolini and Franco, back to the first half-ape who decided he could get the good females and the best roots by convincing a bunch of less intelligent apes to follow him and compel or coerce the rest of the apes to do what he told them.
Ellsworth Toohey? Check.
Mr Tompkins? Check.
Huey Long? Check.
Hitler and Mussolini and Franco and Napoleon and Milosovic and all the rest?
Check.
These and their ilk are the real enemies of Mankind, and of the United States, and they must be stopped.
Dan Rather and CBS News have chosen their side.
I choose mine.
Charlie
Sorry. I wasn’t complaining, I just thought your letter would look better without any error.
And, hey…what you just said.
It is really the totalitarian mindset that we’re up against; the left seems quite comfortable with it.
On a positive note, see Mansoor Ijaz on NRO today, Global Jihad In Collapse.
Jamie Irons
As long as I’m having a rant, here’s what I sent the Boston Globe (The Boston Globe Ombuds-person) and that’s a mailto link, click and write if you feel inclined:
————————————
At this point, the Globe is still running with the CBS forgeries. The Globe has egregiously misquoted Dr Phil Bouffard, and completely reversed his conclusions in the article hed today.
As an interested reader, and sometimes jounalist myself, I write to ask: Is this kind of dishonest reporting the Globe’s editorial policy, or will these misquotations and misrepresentations be corrected and their authors and editors disciplined?
Sincerely yours
I think that Dan Rather thinks we have a short attention span and this will all just go away.
In truth I don’t really give a damn about the last year of Bush’s Guard duty. He did not run around the country saying that fighter jet pilots were buggering little boys and dismembering people, unlike some other presidential candidates I can think of, so it just does not make that big a deal to people. Unless they hate him anyway and those people are lost.
So if Mr. Rather wants to play this game he should produce the originals together with all the paperwork that would go with a pilot disobeying orders. And he can name all the other people who had to help Bush. I mean if what they say is true, Bush had to help from more people that just Killian so once they have finished destroying that dead man’s reputation for honesty and integrity let’s see who else they can libel.
You guys are all wet. I have definitive proof that vindicates Dan Rather:
The Proof!
Nah, Jamie, I wasn’t offended, I’d have preferred if I’d spelled it right myself.
And: “It is really the totalitarian mindset that we’re up against; the left seems quite comfortable with it” is exactly right.
For some reason, this time around, I’m really seeing something beyond a simple political disagreement. Seriously: Kerry — and Hillary Clinton and a lot of the rest of those people — and Pat Buchanan and a fair number of the so-called Right too — have decided that they just know better.
My grandfather and great-grandfather were pretty much chased out of the Choctaw Nation because they had a lot of trouble with authority; I come by it natural.
Yeah, Terrye, what you said.
“I’m really seeing something beyond a simple political disagreement.”
None of us has seen the dying gasps of a political party. It’s been over a hundred and forty years since the Whigs disolved. I go with what Dennis says about watching the actions of the candidates and party leaders. The private polls must look like a bottomless pit.
People have mentioned getting Viacom shareholders to push to get rid of Rather, or at least investigate. Two points: 1) The top shareholders include, as you would expect, Fidelity and Vanguard (see Yahoo!Finance). So anyone who holds Fidelity or Vanguard mutual funds can press them to press Viacom to take action. 2) On Yahoo!Finance the message board for Viacom Class B (symbol VIAb) already has a discussion about this situation.
I’m not a lawyer, but can Dr. Bouffard file a civil suit for defamation of character based on these misrepresentations? I mean, his reputation is critical to his work as an expert witness.
I’d contribute to his legal defense fund.
Jamie Irons,
It is really the totalitarian mindset that we’re up against; the left seems quite comfortable with it.
Funny you should mention this. Not two weeks ago I watched a segment on C-SPAN with all the network news anchors, Rather included, discussing various topics related to the media. As is typical with such events, they answered questions from the audience after making some statements (alas, I only caught the end of it, so I didn’t hear their comments). Lo and behold, the hyper-partisan Eric Alterman stepped up to the mike and spluttered and spittled forth some drivel about how organized and well-developed the Republican ‘machine’ was, and what the hell were we all going to do about it? The gist of his diatribe was that ‘those guys’ are a serious threat to the republic and the media needs to stop being so conservative and to call Bush and his administration on their obvious malevolence and malfeasance.
Setting aside the ridiculousness of believing the MSM to be conservative for a moment, it occurred to me that what really INFURIATED Alterman, what makes him gibber and drool, isn’t the Republicans per se but the mere fact that a group of people who disagreed with him had the temerity to organize and politicize, to work quite hard at getting their agenda transformed into policy and law.
In short, what infuriated Alterman was the mere existence of political opposition, period, so enamored is he of the obvious righteous truth of his political positions.
A wild-eyed fanatic, and a totalitarian in the making.
Frightening.
Naturally the anchors didn’t contradict him, although to their credit I think they were a bit uncomfortable with his shrillness. (Perhaps they only bristled at being called conservative?)
What is really puzzling to me is how Rather’s bosses can let this go on. I mean really. There has to be someone in that organization that has got the common sense to admit these things are obviously fakes.
All you have to do is superimpose the memos with the same text typed with default Word settings to know that. No one with the slightest shred of cognitive ability could write that fact off to coincidence.
Are they that blinkered or have their heads so far up their asses they won’t even consider that? It really does seem bizarre. Their brand equity is on the line and you would think that they would jettison Rather in a heartbeat to save that.
Rather and his toadies may think they can tough it out. (And we shouldn’t underestimate them — all this talk here of the MSM wavering on its last legs is just so much wishful thinking. They know how to work the system – shoot, they ARE the system.) I can easily understand why Rather is taking the position he is — it is the result of the inevitable megalomania that despots develop over many years from living in a make believe world.
Nevertheless, executives in charge of the business should realize that such a strategy is extremely risky and the potential gains don’t outweigh the downsides. Particularly when you don’t have a good leg to stand on and must rely on BSing your way through.
Human behavior is not random. Every thing people do has a reason that is grounded in their perception of their own self interest. This perception can be totally screwed up as in the case of Rather, but I just canít reconcile the behavior of his larger organization in this.
I have to believe there is something we donít know about. Perhaps they have something on Bush that is incontrovertible that will come out soon that they think will overshadow this and make the documents moot. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. And the tack of Ratherís ìdefenseî suggests that as well. The only other possibility is that they have some real idiots for executive managers who are making some really poor strategic decisions.
The latest photoshop regarding Rather’s forged memos hit the sweet spot.
The Link
From Glenn:
MORE STILL: A journalist reader offers this speculation:
Are they that blinkered or have their heads so far up their asses they won’t even consider that?
Remember, CBS News has a history with this: they beat the rap on “The Selling of the Pentagon”, even though they basically faked most of their really damaging points. A few seconds googling produced this article in Airpower which starts:
I suspect that Rather et al believe they can weather this storm, because they’ve gotten away with egregious fabrication and bias in the past.
It’s one of the places where I think the dinosaurs of the MSM don’t see what’s coming: the more this remains of interest in theblogosphere, the more it stays a front-page story on Drudge, the less the rest of the mainstream can ignore it.
We’ve already seen that; Fox doesn’t have any loyalty to the old ways, and NBC clearly sees the mene mene. When you’re losing the LA Times, the liberal media isn’t helping any longer.
Sumner Redstone (Viacom CEO) contributed $2000 to John Kerry’s campaign. See http://www.fundrace.org.
Allah is being very naughty with his Photoshop again.
Human behavior is not random. Every thing people do has a reason that is grounded in their perception of their own self interest.
Don’t buy this myself. I don’t think everyone acts in their self interest, that would be far too rational, and would also require them to know what their self interest was, a tricky proposition in itself.
I think the CBS folks just got carried away by Bush hatred and got caught up in the big media push launched by the Dems. I think they do see themselves as partisans and protectors of the right. It ain’t rational.
Large parts of the Democratic Party are flat out nuts IMHO, and a lot of these nuts are also in the MSM. I think the main thing is that reality has changed, their whole view of the world and themselves is under threat, their assumed superior morality exposed as silly. They want nothing so much as a return to the certainties of 9/10. That’s why they are reactionary.
A rational, if cynical approach, would be to out Bush Bush. Push the war, push safety, etc. But that isn’t what we see.
I do love the spectacle of the Dem’s grand Autumn offensive. Blumenthal in the Guardian, the WaPo, the Globe, the NYT, the whole attack to be kicked of by a sustained opening bombardment fired by CBS. But the shells fell short and blew hell out of their own troops. The Republicans in their trenches, watching across the cratered battlefield, gotta laugh, and wonder at the fools giving orders on the other side.
Why the train wreck couldn’t be stopped.
Out on a limb
chuck,
I think they got sold some self-seeking missiles and boomerang torpedoes.
I think they got sold some self-seeking missiles and boomerang torpedoes.
Damned arms dealers. Just out for a buck.
First time post, although I love to read the comments every evening.
We all know the documents are fake, thanks to the many experts and dectectives on the internet.
My comment is why has no one in the MSM demanded that Kerry release all of his military records to offset the Swift Boats for Truth while they bash the sitting president for what? They don’t like him??
(I personally believe the Swift Boat veterans, especially considering Kerry’s actions and remarks on returning from Vietnam)
Bush has signed the paperwork to release his records and they have been released, so now the MSM is putting untrue words/memos out for those who do not have the opportunity to visit sites like this for the actual truth.
Let Kerry release all of his documents and see how MSM treats those records. I’d bet my life savings, it would be with less than kid gloves, if at all.
Thanks to everyone for making this my #1 read every evening when I get home.
It continues:
Some guys at Clown Posse confirm Don Sensing’s supposition: the regulation cited is incorrect.
As a side issue, the wording of the memo very closly matches what the Kerry website “expected” when it posted about the “missing” documents. I’m not sure how much I think that means since military communications are very stereotyped. (Jerry?)
More at American Thinker.
As I recall, one is usually very very hardcore on citing the right regulation in context….
CBS was warned 10 days before the broadcast,when Killian’s widow told Ms. Mapes the documents were forged, according to Hannity’s radio interview with Killion’s son. More flaws: The word under the Colonel’s name/signature should be “Commanding,” not “Commander.” The military typists were not allowed to deviate from the style book, and the dates on these memos are wrong, and also inconsistent. So are the abbreviations of rank. “Lt. Colonel” should be rendered “Lt. Col.” – There is no doubt whatever these documents are forgeries.
chuck,
They probably got a helluva deal because they figured they didn’t need to translate the manuals from the original French.
JBR,
Good catch on Sumner.
Now some enterprising biz journo can whip up a story that will fit under this headline:
Did Redstone promote Moonves in order to ‘forge’ tighter control over CBS?
It’s as plausible as the NYT’s 6 degrees of separation chart on the Swiftvets.
If they had that they would have abandonded the forgeries ASAP.
Rather has already called the source of the docs “unimpeachable.” Since they’re obviously duds, the word of Dan Rather is now bubkus.
The only incontrovertable evidence CBS could now present would be Bush at a live news conference admitting that he raped Killian’s poodle….
Charlie (C)–
The truly tantalizing thing about the American Thinker piece you linked is it raises a strong possibility the Kerry website was used as a cribbing source for the regs: GIGO, as you comp sci types like to say.
This story has also seemed absurd to me for another reason. All of us logical thinkers here have placed no weight whatsoever on this Bush-was-AWOL-because-he-refused-to-take-a-physical thing. BUT the Moonbats have been enthralled by this silliness since last spring. It stands to reason that only a Moonbat could conceive of constructing a fabricated document based upon a trumped-up, asinine technicality that never meant a hill of bean’s worth of difference to begin with. If you follow my meaning.
Really, it’s Q.E.D. Some dipsh*t in the DNC or Kerry camp is responsible. No sentient being would even consider it.
The new question becomes whether Rather will rat out his source or keep swallowing lemons.
I can’t remember ever being “ordered” to take a flight physical. It seems like some dreamed up document that would come from a Hollywoodized version of the Air Force. Schedulers ran everything in a squadron. You were put on the schedule or you were not, and had the day off. If a commander had to issue some written order for things like this, he would not get anything else done.
FA,
I’m betting Mapes walks the plank first. Rather does a “I was bamboozled by trusted staff” bit and they let it percolate. If the MSM had a shred of integrity in the larger sense, they would have torn Rather to pieces already. A good writer for a high school yearbook could put together a 10,000 word series in two days just on what is available today on the net. The pieces coming out tomorrow in the other DNC/MSM organs are all weak and they all play up the AWOL angle. The DNC/MSM still feels the Bush side of the story needs to be pushed even if its based on forged documents.
It ain’t just Rather and CBS that’s stinking the place up.
I recommend Powerline in two places:
here – http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007806.php
“… What do Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, Capt. George M. Elliott, and now Dr. Phillip Bouffard all have in common? They were all misquoted in the Boston Globe.
What’s more, there seems to be a pattern. The Globe quotes, the source objects, the MSM refers to it as a “recantation,” the Globe stands by its story and claims to be relying on what the source “originally said.” We have an identical situation with Sharon Bush (Kitty Kelly) and a similar set of circumstances with Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges (CBS).
It’s almost as if interviewing these people was just a formality, allowing for the appearance of investigative journalism. In the meantime, they write whatever they wish. If the person quoted never speaks up, great. If they do, then just claim what the person says now is not what they were saying before and it becomes a kind of draw, which is really a victory for them. The public is now left with the impression that it’s unclear what really happened when there was never any evidence to support the allegation in the first place.”
and here -
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007807.php
“… So we have entered a new era. We now know that our richest and most powerful news organizations are willing to blow themselves up–to destroy their own credibility, once considered a news organ’s most precious possession–to achieve a political goal. The landscape will never look quite the same again. Those of us who still value truth must look at the mainstream media in a new, more skeptical and critical way, taking nothing for granted. Because, like suicide bombers, the mainstream news organs will go farther to achieve their political goals than we ever imagined.”
ìI suspect that Rather et al believe they can weather this storm, because they’ve gotten away with egregious fabrication and bias in the past.î
Charlie, I acknowledged that Rather and his toadies in the news division think they can get away with it. Itís not them Iím talking about. CBS News overall, is like any other business. They are in it to make money and give a return to their stockholders. My wife was in the television news business for many years and believe me that is the bottom line. Delivering the news is just the product they sell to make money. People like Rather et al delude themselves into thinking they are ìjournalistsî and above it all rather than shills whose real job it is to sell advertising. The bosses at that company have no such illusions and know their job is to make money and protect the golden goose.
Assuming they realize the memos are BS, the smartest thing to do is cut their losses. Say they got taken in (they can use the line that there was so much other evidence that they just didnít do the due diligence necessary), apologize to the President and to their public and that would deflate the criticism and take the story out of the news. That would not be a disaster for them and they live to fight another day. In fact, it may even be a positive for them by admitting they were wrong and apologizing. But continuing to back an untenable position just worsens the day of reckoning and could really have unknowable negative consequences. I just donít see a smart executive taking that kind of risk on the face of it.
ìDon’t buy this myself. I don’t think everyone acts in their self interest, that would be far too rational, and would also require them to know what their self interest was, a tricky proposition in itself.î
Chuck, I said people act on their “perception” of self-interest. It doesnít have to be rational or make any sense at all. If this werenít true then why are suicide bombers fed the 72 virgins in heaven story? Even in that case, it is a tacit acknowledgement that people are motivated by rewards. However, we generally assume rationality on the part of others in order to function in the world. If you didnít believe that then driving down a two way highway would be a pretty scary thing cause you could never be sure when some idiot might decide to pull into your lane just for sheer kicks. The top executives at CBS should not be playing ìchickenî with the franchise. I donít see how that is in their self-interest.
Fresh Air:
I agree. What do they think the penalty for not taking a physical is, death?
They are saying the guy was screwing around, but we are talking about a phsysical, not major surgery.
With a lot of advanced notice you go pee in a cup and talk to the doc and they do a chest xray, tell you to bend over and cough. It was 1973, half the stuff they do today was not even around then. It was not worth getting in trouble for or risking your career for or going through a boat load of paper work for and 31 years later it is worth even less.
anal.
sammy:
I heard a military guy on Fox talking aobut this. He was in the Air Gaurd himself and he said you took a physical on the last day of your birth month. For Bush that would be July 31. So he said he did not why Killian would make an issue of Bush doing something it was not time for him to do. He said the physical was done just to make sure you had no underlying medical problems that would disqualify you from flying jets. If you weren’t flying and had other ways to do your time or could make it up later there was no need to do the physical.
“What’s more, there seems to be a pattern. The Globe quotes, the source objects, the MSM refers to it as a “recantation,” the Globe stands by its story and claims to be relying on what the source “originally said.” We have an identical situation with Sharon Bush (Kitty Kelly) and a similar set of circumstances with Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges (CBS).”
I just drives you nuts how these SOBs operate. No logical consistency, the veracity of a shyster defense lawyer yet they just seem to get away with it. Even if the people ìrecantedî their story – they now say it isnít true – so therefore it isnít true. And that means the story no longer has any basis (although they are off the hook for reporting it in the first place). But thatís not how they are playing it – they are still insisting the story is true. Duh? What makes this even more ridiculous and infuriating is that one of their main on air witnesses, Barnes, ìrecantedî his earlier story, yet that recantation is absolutely valid. There is a major internal contradiction to their whole case yet I predict not one other MSM outlet will call them on it. It is disheartening.
Terrye
The flight physicals were a little more involved than what you hint at. They did the EKG, blood work, eye testing, and all the normal stuff. If you ever read the book “The Right Stuff”, they talk about how pilots hate physicals. Nothing good could come from them. There was only bad news (something didn’t look good) or neurtal news (you passed for another year).
I’m not holding my breath waiting for CBS to admit fault. About the most what we’ll ever see from them is a statement parroting the talking point being espoused by the DNC and their lackies like Juan Williams that the question shouldn’t be about the authenticity of the documents, the question should be about Bush was AWOL and Bush lied.
And at this point I don’t think it matters really. Once the rest of the MSM picked up on the story that the documents might be forgeries it broke through critical mass. Most everyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention knows about the forgery allegations and has made up their minds one way or the other. It’s too late for both CBS News and Dan Rather; their reputations have been damaged beyond repair with a significant portion of the population. And in fact the more they stonewall, the more they’re just cementing the opinions of those who believe they are lying throught their teeth.
And it’s not like they ever had much left to lose anyway when only 25% of the population has any trust in the media. Actually what I think this scandal has done is to finally and fully sever what last little bit of relationship a lot of us have had with the MSM. It has been like a marriage gone bad for a long time now. We’ve known it was over, but we were still going through the motions. But this is the last straw. Now we’ve filed for divorce and packed our bags, and we’re outta here. And we’re flipping the bastard the bird as we walk through the door.
The MSM has got to be hating the internet and the blogosphere, as they are no longer free to make up the news as they see fit. This is really a test case: will it all blow over or will there actually be consequences to RAthER’s incompetence and failure to come clean. The next few days/weeks will tell if the blogosphere has come of age and is able to take a spot as a true institutional check-and-balance. Great work guys!
Charlie (Colorado) – For some reason, this time around, I’m really seeing something beyond a simple political disagreement. Seriously: Kerry — and Hillary Clinton and a lot of the rest of those people — and Pat Buchanan and a fair number of the so-called Right too — have decided that they just know better.
Reading list:
- The Vision of the Annointed, Thomas Sowell
- The Fatal Conceit, Friedrich Hayek
- The Future And Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel
*****
The creepy thing about all this is:
- How many other lies have they told?
- How many reputations have they ruined by misinformation?
- How many times has the phrase “Documents acquired by 60 Minutes…” been preface to outright fraud?
Someone should start going through the back catalog.
Looks like this isn’t going away – US News and World Report has found out Bush was even more awol than originally thought.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040920/usnews/20guard.htm
JohnPV
I agree with you about the television business; at the higher levels it’s all about money and nothing but money. I don’t see, though, how Rather’s stonewalling is bad for business. Why isn’t it at least as likely to drive up ratings?
I agree with chuck that self-interest, even the perception of self-interest, is not the only thing that drives human behavior, although it is certainly one of the most powerful motivators.
I have a friend–a math professor who has done some work with Roger Penrose, he’s nobody’s dummy–who spends all his spare time thinking about the “Environment”. When he starts to talk about it, a certain starry-eyed look comes into his face. Walking with him once we passed some houses in his neighborhood which are being “popped up”, i.e., having a second or third storey added. He became livid. He went on and on for an hour about how horrible this is for the “Environment”. If you let him, he will spend hours telling you how evil it is that people have replaced the grass originally in their lawns, which had four or more species before the house was built, with a monoculture such as Kentucky Blue Grass.
I cannot understand his behavior as any sort of self-interest or even perception of self-interest. Rather, he has decided that the world needs to be a Certain Way. It doesn’t need to be that Certain Way because it is in his self-interest or even in the self-interest of the species; for all I know, he’d love to see the species disappear entirely. No, he has simply decided that this Certain Way is how the world needs to be, don’t ask why. The point for him is that moving the world to that Certain Way gives him meaning in life. Most folks need meaning in life. There are people, and plenty of them, who look out for number one only and seem to be content with that. I imagine this would well describe the top executives at the networks. But for many people there needs to be something else, some sense that their brief run around the track on the third rock mattered somehow. Such people need the feeling that their lives are important, not just from the viewpoint of helping themselves but from some broader viewpoint, whatever that may turn out to be.
For other examples, there are people who collect Barbie dolls for a sense of meaning. They really get into it. There are people who solve the Rubik’s cube in competitions. There are people who run grueling 200 mile marathons. None of that seems like self-interest to me either.
How and when a certain behavior or belief becomes meaningful, becomes the thing to which one dedicates ones life, is an interesting psychological question. It’s clear that many of our fellow citizens, apparently including Dan Rather, have settled on unseating Bush as the most meaningful activity with which they can while away their weary hours. There is a sort of entropy in the process of finding meaning, so that, once one has travelled down a certain “path of meaning” a certain amount, it becomes extremely difficult to pull back and pick a different “path of meaning”.
You may argue that a sense of meaning is a kind of self-interest. That may or may not be, but I would suggest that to view it as such is to miss the point. Life can be viewed through various prisms and picking the appropriate prism can yield enlightenment. Trying to force everything through the self-interest prism will not always yield enlightenment.
Dan Rather doesn’t want to be merely a guy who reads the copy he’s handed. He doesn’t want to be a mere talking head. He wants his life to be important, to be meaningful. If he can control the outcome of one of the most important elections in years, that’s meaning. If this isn’t necessarily in his self-interest, narrowly defined, so be it. It still makes sense.
JohnPV:
“veracity of a shyster defense lawyer”
Hey – take that back!
Wichita,
BTW, Iíve read many of your posts and agree with them and am impressed with the thinking behind them. (howís that for softening you up)
Iíd love to get into a full blown discussion of human motivation ( I did major in Psychology for 3 yrs)but Iím tired. I didnít mean to come off as some sort of strict behaviorist/rationalist. I was simply trying to illustrate a point and was speaking more from a ìforensicî standpoint. Maybe I should have used the term, motivation. In any murder trial the prosecutor has to show the motivation of the alleged murderer. Why did he commit the murder? There has to be a reason that makes sense to the jury for committing such an extreme act. And while the bosses at CBS could be partisan Democrats, they have a completely different fiduciary duty & responsibility than Rather and should have a completely different outlook in this situation. Their ego and political agenda shouldnít be at the forefront.
That ratings would go up if they were nailed in a clear breach of journalistic integrity, not to mention competency, after sticking to an untenable position to the last doesnít strike me as likely.
You know, Iím not trying to argue for this position at all costs. I was really wondering why CBS as a whole was sticking with an obviously losing position. It worries me. I used to play a lot of poker and when I saw somebody with what seemed like a losing hand keep on throwing money in the pot I had to consider what their game was because people donít normally just throw money away. They could be bluffing of course. But it just seems like such a crappy hand to bluff with.
“veracity of a shyster defense lawyer”
Hey – take that back!
Posted by: holdfast
Sorry. And I thought I was being magnanimous by offering all defense lawyers the fig leaf of “shyster”. “I may be a defense lawyer, but I’m no shyster!”
Methinks the blogs are winning. So far both NYT (foggy)and LAT (better) have articles moving away from the CBS’s “Its true because we and our experts said so” line.
No Disputing It: Blogs Are Major Players
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blog12sep12,1,1043155.story
“Absolutely, positively, on my own, sitting at my computer in my bedroom just before midnight but not in my pajamas,” he wrote in an e-mail exchange with The Times. “But once I posted the comment to Free Republic I was no longer working alone, and that is the real point of the story about the story about the story.”
As I’ve said before:
The problem for the AWOL club is that they are unable (so far) to definitively clear the documents (not even taking on all of the other technical failures of same), and when they try to run to a he said/she said type of argument (as Rather did with Hodges) they run smack dab into the widow, the son, the daughter of Barnes, and now Hodges all claiming that:
1. They don’t believe the memos are real
2. CBS played dirty tricks on them
3. CBS spiked their stories
4. And a host of details like Staudt’s timeline that throw suspicion.
How long can Rather and CBS stand up against this storm? Great drama awaits …
Even Josh Marshall isn’t sticking his neck out regarding these documents:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003462
I guess he doesn’t want to get burned again like he did regarding Joe Wilson.
And isn’t it funny that the Democrat’s reaction was that the forged documents were a Karl Rove plant? Isn’t that an implicit admission that they knew beforehand that the documents were faked? Otherwise, wouldn’t they go along with CBS’s spin at least for a little while?
sammy:
Eons ago when I was a child the school nurse told my parents I would never be a pilot. I have lousy depth perception. So I am sure that a lot of things could pop up in a physical that could mess a guy up.
My point was that the physicals were not that complicated and they had forwarning of them. That means that if the president was a cocaine addict [which is the vervent dream of all Bush haters] he would have time to clean up his system and pass a physical unless there was some real medical problem there in which case it would have no real bearing 31 years later.
Morwai, sadly, it probably isn’t going away, even though all those points have been beaten to death again and again, because if you’re a “journalist” and you don’t like an answer, you can generally find someone to question it.
If you go back and read the discussion of this back four years ago, or when Bush was running for Governor, you can find someone to say this same business about “they don’t know how Bush got an Honorable Discharge.”
The answer, which never seems to get as much press, is that the Air Force’s computized accounting system shows that Bush accumulated sufficient “points” to complete his requirements. The records were reviewed by retired JAGs and personnel specialists, in service and out, and they all said “yeah, all there.”
Then Lawrence Korb, who isn’t a JAG, isn’t a military man, and who has been an opponent of the more vigorous defense approach since he left Reagan’s DoD, takes a break from writing books with Gary Hart and says something, and back it comes.
Honestly, if the records were all that unequivocal, why is it that Bush’s opponents had to forge paperwork to bolster their case?
Sorry, “Mogwai”.
Powerline:
CBS News apparently has had previous trouble with forgeries that were too good to check.
The military is a black box to these wankers. No context. No knowledge. No cultural reference. To them it reduces to ‘you were supposed to do such and such and you didn’t therefore you’re slime nyah nyah’.
Bush was signed up for six years. He left early. Red flag because these idiots don’t understand how the system worked. That Bush fulfilled his requirement means nothing because it doesn’t make sense to them that Bush fulfilled his requirement yet didn’t fulfill his requirement at the same time. They think he was supposed to show up every weekend or something and he didn’t so somebody must be lying.
Same with the physical. Bush was ‘supposed to’ take a physical. He didn’t. And the ensuing application of the routine regulation is considered ‘punishment’ by them. Bush could no longer fly. Punishment always means you did something ‘bad’. To them this is a giant red flag.
It doesn’t matter that there’s no reason for Bush to have a rectal exam if he already knew he wasn’t going to fly anymore.
And since these folks always concern themselves with motivation, they assume that not taking a physical meant that Bush was on drugs or something and was afraid of being tested. Context again. Drug testing didn’t start until later.
The war was winding down. The guard had many more pilots than were needed. And the plane Bush flew was being phased out. Harvard was a much better deal for everyone involved.
Someone had posted statistics similar to the below but I couldn’t find them so I googled. Just to show that the war was really and truly winding down. Copy the below and spread around. People just don’t have any context:
US Forces KIA in Vietnam by year:
http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html
1961-65 1,864
1966 5,008
1967 9,378
1968 14,594
1969 9,414
1970 4,221
1971 1,380
1972 300
The war was obviously winding down. So what if Bush wanted out a bit early in 1973?
My brother in law was in the National Guard from 1970 to 1987. In 1986 his wife got breat cancer and their youngest child was only a baby.
They let him take some time off and after her death my mother in law went to live with the family so that he coould time and make up meetings and get the points he needed for a discharge.
Gale was in the Guard from 1968 to 1976. He did not make a lof the meetings the last year because he had accumulated a lot when his unit was out on high alert. He said that the idea was to get the points. If you had the points one way or another you had met your obligation. He thinks this whole discussion is stupid.
Terrye touched on this above,but for me the most despicable part is CBS using documents attributed to the late Colonel Killian secure in the knowledge that he could not refute their claims.
To me this is grave robbing of the worst kind and those perpetrating the forgery obviously took advantage of the situation.
When there are no morals,no ethics,no sanctity of the truth, only politics,those guilty have no more justification for overweening hauteur than the foam flecked mudering madmen who have come gibbering out of the seventh century.
OT – John O’Neill in the lions den now on C-Span2
Mogwai and Charlie (C): I dont think the USNWR is anything other than a lame MSM attempt to pile–and even though they quote “experts,” (and Larry Korb is no expert), they dont realize that the operation of guard units including time spent in drill is determined ultimately by the United States Code. An illustrative story: I was the regular army advisor to a national guard tank battalion; I inspected a drill in which the guardsmen gathered for a half day and then spent the remaining half day doing a unit BBQ. Looked to me like waste, fraud and abuse, so I brought this to the attention of the Senior Army Advisor, a regular Army colonel stationed at the state AG’s office–He said, “Roger, let’s look at the law, and not the regs.” He pulled out a copy of the pertinent US code and showed me that the US Code specified that to get full credit for the drill (8 hours) a guardsman only had to spend 2.5 hours.
I dont know what the USC says with respect to Air National Guard activities, but I would be tempted to look there first. The USC trumps Service regs. It is the difference between Legislation and Administrative codes.
PeterUK: Damn, sir–you can turn a phrase!
WitchitaBoy,
Wonderfully put and illustrated. I would add that the self interest hypothesis easily becomes circular once it is accepted, because self interest is then defined by behaviour, and the problem becomes trying to show that it *is* self interest. Put differently, the hypothesis is only useful if there is a list of things that can be considered as in ones self interest, *independent* of perception. Once perception enters the picture, self interest becomes a moving target and loses its explanatory power. It explains everything and nothing at the same time.
Peter UK,
Obmutescence?
I admit to being stumped.
A well-known axe-grinder has been fingered by Newsweek as the source for the “documents.”
He has apparently suffered multiple mental breakdowns in the past.
RogerA,
Thank you Sir.
ricpic
Obmutescence:-becoming wilfully,mute,speechless or dumb-the action of obstinately remaining mute.
Seemed better than mere silence which can be given an excuse.