Posted on 09/18/2004 2:41:25 AM PDT by elhombrelibre
CBS defense of Rather hints at bigger story
September 19, 2004
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Of all the loopy statements made by Dan Rather in the 10 days since he decided to throw his career away, my favorite is this, from Dan's interview with the Washington Post on Thursday:
''If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story.''
Hel-looooo? Earth to the Lost Planet of Ratheria: You can't ''break that story.'' A guy called ''Buckhead'' did that, on the Free Republic Web site a couple of hours after you and your money-no-object resources-a-go-go ''60 Minutes'' crew attempted to pass off four obvious Microsoft Word documents as authentic 1972 typewritten memos about Bush's skipping latrine duty in the Spanish-American War, or whatever it was.
The following day Charles Johnson of the Little Green Footballs Web site drove a stake through your phony '70s memos by overlaying them with modern MS Word documents, whose automatic word wrap is amazingly an exact match with Lt. Col. Killian's ''typewriter.'' And every document expert agreed with Johnson your memos are junk, including your own analysts.
By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.
So the only story you're in a position to break right now is: ''Late-Breaking News. Veteran Newsman Announces He's Recovered His Marbles.'' And, if last week's anything to go by, you're in no hurry to do that.
Instead, Dan keeps demanding Bush respond to the ''serious questions'' raised by his fake memos. ''With respect, Mr. President,'' he droned the other day, ''answer the questions.'' The president would love to, but he's doubled up with laughter.
I was prepared to cut the poor old buffoon some slack a week ago. But Dan's performance has grown progressively more outrageous, to the point where it's hard not to conclude he's colluding in the perpetuation of a massive if ludicrous fraud. Dan's been play-acting at being a reporter for so many years now -- the suspenders, the loosened tie, and all the other stuff that would look great if he were auditioning for a cheesy dinner-theater revival of ''The Front Page''; the over-the-top intros: ''Bob Schieffer, one of the best hard-nosed reporters in the business, has been working his sources. What have you managed to uncover for us, Bob?'', after which Bob reads out a DNC press release. Dan's been doing all this so long he doesn't seem to realize the news isn't just a show.
Round about the middle of last week, he was reduced to shoring up his collapsing fantasy with Bill Glennon, a Cliff Claven figure who was a typewriter repairman in the '70s. But, because every other CBS expert had abandoned Dan's sunk ship, Bill suddenly found himself upgraded to ''document expert.'' This guy's been insisting that you could produce Dan's bogus memos on a 1972 IBM typewriter: ''The Model D had a lever that when pushed put a rubber stopper in front of the keys so they did not strike the paper. You centered the paper using the paper scale, put the carriage on the middle mark of the front index scale, typed your heading and then made note of the number it stopped on. You then moved the carriage back to the corresponding number on the left side of the index scale and retyped your heading and . . .''
Yeah, right. Every time I want to type a memo saying Bush is unfit to be president, that's what I do, too. Look, if Dan thinks this guy's theory is correct, let's put him and his IBM Model D and me and my computer in a room at CBS News for an hour and see which one of us emerges with the closest replicas of these four documents. I'll give him ten thousand bucks for every memo he reproduces exactly, and round it up to an even 50 grand if he gets all four right.
Any takers, CBS?
So the question now is why won't Dan and Co. just admit their docs are crocks and let it go? On Wednesday, CBS News head honcho Andrew Heyward, in a slippery statement, announced that ''we established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate.'' Note that word: not ''genuine'' but ''accurate'' -- i.e., if Lt. Col. Killian had had one of those IBM Model Ds and been willing to remove the carriage return and replace it with a rubber stopper on the front index scale while turning the crank, etc., these are the memos he would have written. Rather and Heyward are adopting the rogue-cop defense: The evidence is planted, but the guy's still guilty. Or as the New York Times' headline put it: ''Memos On Bush Are Fake But Accurate.''
Why has CBS News decided it would rather debauch its brand and treat its audience like morons than simply admit their hoax? For Dan Rather? I doubt it. Hurricane Dan looks like he's been hit by one. He's still standing, just about, but, like a battered double-wide, more and more panels are falling off every day. No one would destroy three-quarters of a century of audience trust and goodwill for one shattered anachronism of an anchorman, would they?
As the network put it last week, ''In accordance with longstanding journalistic ethics, CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which '60 Minutes' Wednesday received the documents.'' But, once they admit the documents are fake, they can no longer claim ''journalistic ethics'' as an excuse to protect their source. There's no legal or First Amendment protection afforded to a man who peddles a fraud. You'd think CBS would be mad as hell to find whoever it was who stitched them up and made them look idiots.
So why aren't they? The only reasonable conclusion is that the source -- or trail of sources -- is even more incriminating than the fake documents. Why else would Heyward and Rather allow the CBS news division to commit slow, public suicide?
Whatever other lessons are drawn from this, we ought at least to acknowledge that the privileged position accorded to ''official'' media and the restrictions placed on the citizenry by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform are wholly unwarranted.
As for Heyward and Rather, the other day I came across a rare memo from April 20, 1653, typed on a 17th century prototype of the IBM Selectric. It's Oliver Cromwell's words to England's Long Parliament:
''You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!''
Steyn's thumbnail descriptions of Rather: double wide trailer with the panels falling off...priceless. The hokey suspenders and over the top intros to whatever idiot they drag in to prop up Rather's sorry behind. Steyn does a bangup job, so thanks for the great, great post. His point is deadly serious, and the media and congress had better pay attention.
That's the elephant in the living room, but we won't talk about that. No, with all due respect, the President had better answer those charges. Maybe they're hoping GW's landslide and whatever treat we have in store for Iran will divert our attention from this. Not going to happen.
How long before Rush names names?
Memogate links...
from http://www.washingtondispatch.com/page2/
September 16, 2004
Posted by CK Rairden at 01:34 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
And while it’s still not crystal clear who fed him the memos, many are theorizing that is was retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett. Now we see that his attorney is David Van Os who is a former chairman of the Travis County Texas Democratic Party. By the way, Robin Rather (Dan’s daughter) is also big in Travis County Texas Democratic Party, and Dan Rather actually spoke at a fundraiser (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34557-2001Apr3) there in March [2001].
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from http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002489.php
Posted by: jack risko at September 11, 2004 09:17 PM
Nor did we learn about Dan Rather’s personal fund raising efforts on behalf of the Travis County Democratic Party, where Ben Barnes sits on the Finance Council. Rather raised $20,000 for the organization on March 21, 2001. Rather has extensive personal ties to Travis county: he owns a home in the Austin area, and his daughter Robin, an environmentalist and marketing executive, is said to have considered running for mayor of Austin as a Democrat. Rather has sometimes now said that he attended the fundraiser as a favor to his daughter, but he told Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post on April 4, 2001 that he agreed to appear “at the invitation of an old friend, Austin City Council member Will Wynn.” Rather’s appearance at a Democratic Party fundraiser was contrary to the official policies of CBS and most of the MSM.
Now, three years later, Rather interviewed the same fellow without disclosing the reporter’s previous involvement in raising money for the Democratic Party of Travis County, or his other, even larger, conflict of interest. If Robin Rather wants to have a future in Democratic politics in Austin, she needs the support of Ben Barnes and the other movers and shakers among Travis County Democrats, including those on the Finance Council.
Dan Rather had no business conducting the interview with Ben Barnes because of his extensive conflicts of interests. Since he chose to do the interview anyway, at a minimum he should have disclosed his conflicts, or CBS should have done so for him.
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from http://www.madkane.com/wwwboard/messages/3280.html
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 most of the charges about President Bush's service record. Potential mayoral candidates and heavyweight campaign contributors tend to mingle. And according to that second report, Robin Rather and Barnes worked together on Democratic party fundraisers--perhaps including that March 2001 event described above.
How about "danrather", to make it distinctive - and like algore :-)
I question the timing.
These are partisan attacks (as Bill Clinton's shills used to say.).
The scoop, when it comes, will probably be from Drudge sources. He is certainly the Pajamatola.
Exactly, they aren't covering for a disgrutled ex-guardsman who has it in for Bush. The only explanation for the cover-up is that they are protecting the "big fish" up the food chain of the DNC.
WMy writing hero Steyn, FreeRepublic and Buckhead all together...Can it get any better!
What CBS has to fear more than anything is another network doing some investigating and getting evidence the DNC provided the forged documents. Only CBS is still playing the game the documents aren't forged so ABC is under no moral obligation to defend CBS's right to keep the source a secret. In fact, ABC can argue that CBS is bringing down all the networks and needs to come clean. This could happen in the next 30 days easily.
I haven't heard this floated but... what if there are connections to the jihadists buried deep within this fiasco? Would it be that surprising?
Read the NY Times article posted in Breaking News.......Memogate goes into the Kerry Camp..
Yup, that is the big question and the answer is inCriminating with a Big Cee, as in Conspiracy.
I could not agree with you more...and watching this debacle play out I only wonder just exactly how contrived Watergate and CBS' role in THAT may have been....and if that is the leash Rather holds on his emplyer.....
That might be one outcome, but another is that this becomes so scandalous that any chance of Kerry "getting out the message" becomes impossible.
The last 6 weeks of the campaign become a media assault on the Texas DNC (clearly involved), the national DNC, and possibly/probably the Kerry campaign.
Here's the interesting thing: all of those involved know that Dan Rather could "out" them. The Kerry campaign knows that in one sentence, he could crush them
That puts Dan Rather in an interesting position, no?
And while CBS has 1st Amendment legal precedents ensuring that a libel lawsuit brought against it would be very difficult to win, the same cannot be said of their sources.
Any "source" who is openly repudiated as having given CBS false and defaming counterfeit documents is in DEEP legal trouble, which leads me to think his daughter is tied in with it (his daughter being a Dem party activist in Texas)
A new word has entered the lexicon. "Buckhead" - one who debunks nonsense and exposes frauds.
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