Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don’t stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape
---talking heads
Some observances from last night talk shows:
Pat Buchanan last night on Hardball: "Rather is using 'The Ted Baxter Defense' ............. I didn't know the facts."
CBS - "just a genuine screw up", "checks and balances fell off," "no political bias, just haste," "the culture of the newsroom," Moonves - "just a mistake," "Rather was just involved in compounding the error," "just a clouded judgment." Yep, like Hillary and her 'Cattle Futures'! No insider trading with her, she just wisely scrutinized the Wall Street Journal. Yep. Like Al Gore was sometimes inattentive and missed parts of fund-raising meetings. He drank a lot of iced tea during meetings, which could have necessitated a restroom break. Yep.
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Now some truth/speculation: 1. CBS aligned itself with party politics and the Kerry campaign. 2. Liz Trotta last night (1/10/05): "Mapes is a psychopathic liar." They were all willing to go with the story because they all agreed politically.
And think of this, just speculation from here on out. Is it a possibility that they all knew the documents were fake and would be seen as that eventually, but the damage done to Bush before and after that finding would be enough, in their minds, to shift enough votes to cause Bush to lose the election and push Kerry to victory? After all, the drunk driving news did the wonders in 2000.
And give this a thought. There are many in the industry ( Mort Zuckerman, Marvin Kalb, Bob Zelnick, etc, etc.) who still want to try to stand by Rather by suggesting that he did not know of the fraud of the memos, that Rather was perhaps too busy with a hurricane and the Republican Convention (yeh, right). Let's say for a moment that their suggestions are true (yeh, right). All these same people then speculate as to why Dan Rather continued to hang out for twelve days denying what the rest of the world knew to be true, especially those in the world in their pajamas. Who could Dan be covering for, or why would he continue for those twelve days in the manner that he did? Why, in the face of everyone in the world and even those in his circle telling him to face the facts, why did he stonewall and bring the world down on himself?
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“One report describes Robin Rather as an environmentalist and "a likely candidate for Austin Mayor in 2006." Another report states that she lives in the same congressional district as the former Texas lieutenant governor and heavyweight Democratic contributor Ben Barnes. He is the man behind many of the charges about President Bush's service record (CBS 60 Minutes expose). Potential mayoral candidates and campaign contributors tend to meet. Robin Rather and Barnes worked together on Democratic party fundraisers.
Dan Rather refuses to disclose the provenance of the forgeries, and CBS claims that they came from Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's "personal" files, which his widow and son deny. So where did they come from? And why is Dan Rather stonewalling--despite the risk both to himself and to CBS News?
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Did the documents come from Barnes? If so, how did they make their way to Dan Rather?