Posted on 09/10/2004 8:18:20 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
This is an excerpt that captures the point:
One day. That was all it took for the ranks of citizen journalists to swarm and then thoroughly discredit a story which ran in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and on a network news magazine.
From the Kerry perspective a scandal involving forged documents is a disaster. Kerry had yesterday to get in front of the story and he missed that boat. Instead of being able to stay on message and trying to beat down the post convention pulse which has sent Bush several points ahead in various opinion polls, Kerry is likely to face questions about who was responsible for the forgeries. While it would be astonishing if anyone inside the Kerry organization had a hand in them, it is a question that will be asked. Moreover, the spectacle of Kerry announcing that his campaign organization and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with issuing those documents will occupy several critical news cycles and focus attention on character -- exactly where Kerry does not want to be.
From the perspective of the establishment media, this, too, is a disaster. CBS will have to explain: where did the documents come from? What were the bona fides of the source? Who was the source? Which expert looked at the documents? How closely?
Those are the starter questions.The more basic question is how could a rabble of bloggers, in one day, provide hard core proof of forgery when major news organizations took those documents at face value? Most fundamental of all, why did the New York Times, the Boston Globe and CBS allow themselves to be used for such a transparent attempt to slander President Bush? Out in the blogosphere there are a swarm of people rooting for the answers.
Dan Rather should resign or be fired !!
CBS news should fire Dan Rather for not being absolutely positively certain of the authenticity of these forged documents. We are in the absolute final leg of a Presidential election and Dan Rather rushed to press to get these dociuments on the air because he thought it would potentially help Kerry and hurt Bush. He is blinded by his partisanship and is not fit to be a journalist.
Dan Rather never even looked into where these papers came from. It was his job to be CERTAIN of their authenticity. It's fitting that Rather's career comes to an end under this cloud of his extremist partisanship. He will always be remembered for this. His legacy will be fitting....a reporter who would lie to America if it supported his Left Wing Ideology.
How dare average citizens question the journalistic authority of the NY Slimes and CBS News! (lol..)
Because we're smarter, and we don't hate George Bush.
As to whether they knew they were frauds or whether they didn't want to find out if they were frauds, well, I can't answer that. I hope we find out, though, if CBS presented them while knowing they were forged.
Either way, wow, what a stake through the heart of the 'awol' bullshit.
Exactly. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
"Kerry is likely to face questions about who was responsible for the forgeries..."
I hate to rain on the parade, but I'm guessing MSM will avoid asking very many questions, and not ask Kerry or his group at all. If MSM DOES ask anything, it will be spun so as to appear that they know nothing about nothing, or else the papers they were given came from republican sources. I am truly fed up with NBCABCCBS, but I figure things are only going to get worse before the election! Thank goodness for the internet (especially FR), Fox News, and talk radio.
Because the internet has Free Republic.
Dan Rather, a proud Marxist Liar, may he rest in peace.
Dan Rather-biased was the "guest of honor" at a Gore/Democrat fundraiser here in Austin in 2000 organized by his ugly daughter (looks like Dan in drag), one of the big-shots in the Democrat party in Travis County at the time. Dan had the gall to say afterwards that he didn't know that the event was a Gore/Democrat fundraiser
We should start it as: "Senator Kerry, John Sasso was the man who leaked plagarism accusations against Joe Biden in '88, attempted to put the blame on Gephardt's campaign, and had to resign from the Dukakis team. He's now a senior aide on your campaign. Did John Sasso leak the forged documents to Dan Rather?"
I remember that. Dan's career is finished, again.
I somewhat understand the desire to protect the identity of sources, though if that source is providing fake documents I would think they have fortfeited their "right" to confidentiality. However, I cannot understand why you would need to keep the identity of the experts hidden.
Unless:
If Rather had any honor, he would do the honorable (Tom Lanto's) thing.
---Dan Rather should resign or be fired !!---
But first he must apologize! He must apologize often and everywhere! Every word that comes out of his filthy hole must be of regret and repentance. He must apologize to the President, to Killian's family, to the ANG, and to the American people.
Exactly. According to the Prowler article on this, people working on the show for 60 Minutes suspected that the documents were faked, but their bosses insisted on going ahead anyway.
Why? Because they fake and lie like this practically on a daily basis, and they have gotten used to getting away with it. They still have a majority of the voters as passive viewers, and ordinarily they can lie faster than anyone can catch up with them.
Same lesson that clinton learned in his second term. No more need to put out contracts on awkward witnesses, because he can lie faster than they can contradict him, and the media will bury them more effectively than the Dixie Mafia ever could. Ron Brown would still be alive if clinton had realized that earlier. What harm could he do if the media wouldn't let people hear him talk?
But I think CBS got a bad case of hubris and neglected to think what widespread distribution of "forged documents" would do to their reputation--especially if their MSM rivals jumped on board to use this heaven-sent upportunity to steal their market share.
He should apologize as part of his resignation letter.
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