[Mia T]

1- I have not here discussed "a conspiracy" involving Rather/CBS. And such "a conspiracy" is not the point of this post.

The point of this post is to expose O'Reilly's--and to a lesser extent, Podhoretz's--pro-media bias, lack of critical thinking skills, lack of technical expertise and lack of a vigorous examination of the facts.

2- O'Reilly, (unlike Podhoretz), is clearly technically clueless and believes the forgery issue is still open to debate.

3- O'Reilly's reasoning ability is always questionable.... and it is invariably colored by his own self-described personal trauma as victim of "personal attack."

4- Rather's bias, alone, cannot account for

• his lack of due diligence,
  
• his own pushing of the story to CBS for months,
  
• his use of an irrelevant--and as we now know, unqualified--"expert,"
  
• his use of a thoroughly discredited prime witness with multiple conflicts of interest, Ben Barnes,
  
• his use of himself as the reporter, given his bias and his close ties to said prime witness
  
• his spiking of exculpatory witnesses, etc, etc.
  

5- If Rather still believes the memos are genuine, then he lacks the minimal reasoning skills required of his job. If he knows they are fake, then he lacks the minimal ethics required of his job....

[mc5cents]

Exactly Mia. Right on, as usual. Thanks.

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[Area51]

Mia I agree with what you say to a point.

But I think when you refer to Dan Rather and his ability to investigate a story you have to take his past actions into account, especially when referring to both the Bush Family and the Military/Viet Nam issues.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1216632/posts

and Also the interview Rather did of Bush 41 in 88, while running for President where Dan attempted to Smear him with the Iran Contra crap. Even his colleagues commented on the record that Dan went over the top.

Given that, I have no doubt in my mind that Rather knew this story stunk, that is why it took them 6 weeks to run with it. I also believe based on the "fortunate Son" Campaign release last week in conjunction with the CBS/Rather Smear job the evidence is overwhelming that Dan Rather was complicit at the least, willing participant more likely in the attempt to Subvert an National Election by fostering a Fraud on the American public that consisted of the commission of felonies.

I also believe that there was collusion between CBS/Dan Rather and the DNC/Kerry Campaign.

[CharacterCounts]

The point of this post is to expose O'Reilly's--and to a lesser extent, Podhoretz's--pro-media bias, lack of critical thinking skills, lack of technical expertise and lack of a vigorous examination of the facts.

I don't think we watched the same program. Podhoretz clearly said that he thought Rather would not make the forgeries himself because to do so would be far too risky. He never intimated that Rather has too much integrity to create the memos. He went on to say tat Rather was "conned" but as in any con game, the person being conned has to be willing.

The view Podhoretz expressed is no less damaging to Rather than the view you express, only different.