CBS falls for Kerry campaign's fake memo [Mark Steyn]

Chicago Sun Times ^ | September 11, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[Quilla]

Outta the park!

[onyx]

As always!
I love this guy's writing.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Only Steyn and Ann Coulter can put it in such great perspective.

[Stentor]

The only thing he missed were posts 107 and 47.

[Quilla]

Yea, I noticed that. I love seeing mention of Free Republic in the mainstream.

[publius1]

Steyn is always good, but that last line--"''Exclusive! Handwriting Expert Says Bush Wrote The Hitler Diaries!''" -- is perfect!

[beyond the sea]

Buckhead rules.

[stands2reason]

The only thing he missed were posts 107 and 47.

Thanks Mark, just keep ignoring your hundreds of rabid fans over here at FR. Certainly no savvy chappies here. We're nothing. We don't exist. (/whine)

[jporcus]

Great article. The only thing missing was what I heard a guest on Scarborough Country say tonight: "Dan Rather is the 'Jason Blair' of CBS". Unfortunately, this is an insult to Jason Blair.

[Quilla]

I guess we're the "Internet wallahs" he mentions.

[marty60]

what Thomas Oliphant's ''basic standards'' are

Yes, he proudly talks about how he PERSONALLY escourted Skerry to the 1971 Senate lie (I mean testimony). Makes you wonder if HE wrote skeey's testimony for him doesn't it.

[rhema]

George W. Bush ought to wake up every morning and thank the Lord the media aren't on his side.

Outta the park, indeed!

[PogySailor]

Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking, so the ''60 Minutes'' crew rushed on air with a damning National Guard memo conveniently called ''CYA'' that Bush's commanding officer had written to himself 32 years ago. ''This was too hot not to push,'' one producer told the American Spectator. Hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera -- that's way too cold to push; we'd want to fact-check that one thoroughly, till, say, midway through John Kerry's second term. But a handful of memos by one dead guy slipped to us by a Kerry campaign operative -- that meets ''basic standards'' and we gotta get it out there right away.

Bam!

[edwin hubble]

"Only Steyn and Ann Coulter can put it in such great perspective."

Steyn writes like the late great Michael Kelly, killed in Iraq. Kelly was courageous and brilliant.

[nuconvert]

"Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking,"

LOL!

[TomGuy]

The spin will be:

Rather--'I stick by my guns; the documents are not fake; they are real; but if they are fake, Karl Rove planted them.'

[Quilla]

One could say the same thing about the Kerry campaign. They certainly haven't spent a dime for an "on message" coordinator.

[Popman]

Rather--'I stick by my guns; the documents are not fake; they are real; but if they are fake, Karl Rove planted them.'

You're getting a little ahead of the curve here. That part of the story needs some time to build. If Rather starts blaming the "Bush's brain" to quickly the story can't get any legs.

I think you are 100% correct, in the end the DNC will plant a story the "DNC operatives" were really men from Texas who meet Rove at a BBQ twenty plus years ago, so obviously they did it to embrass Rather and CBS over the Kitty Kelly book.

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

Outta the park and jumpin' the shark!

Semper Fi,

[libertylover]

Rather should show us the typewriter capable of producing the memo or appologize. He'll do neither.