Posted on 09/22/2004 6:21:25 AM PDT by OESY
Last week, as the furor over Dan Rather's National Guard memos grew more and more intense, media critic Ken Auletta, appearing on PBS, criticized Fox News Channel for having "treated this story as if it were Watergate. It's not Watergate."
Actually, in many respects, it is indeed broadcast journalism's Watergate....
There are two serious problems with this entire episode, beyond the obvious blow to CBS News' credibility.
One is Rather's defensive — even accusatory — reaction to any and all questions about the documents' legitimacy....
First, they refused to consider any questions whatsoever — even from respected news organizations — about whether the documents were forged. Then Rather repeatedly charged that only "partisan political ideological forces" were the ones raising doubts.
Back in the days of Richard Nixon, that was known as "stonewalling."
...And the broadcast was aired at a time when John Kerry was sinking in the polls, largely because of questions being raised about his own military record — which led much of the national media to start refocusing attention on Bush's National Guard service.
Indeed, Rather and others at CBS repeatedly complained that the critics were "ignoring the larger story."
Now comes an admission that Rather's senior producer put Burkett directly in touch with the Kerry campaign — as a condition, says Burkett, of getting the documents....
Which is why journalists at other networks fear they may end up catching the flak for CBS's sin. Those who have long been convinced of a liberal bias in journalism have found their smoking gun — and those who were undecided may now be asking themselves some serious questions.
How CBS reacts is important, too....
Thirty years ago, Watergate changed the rules of American journalism. Now, it's time for another upheaval — and Rathergate could make that happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
First, Iraq supposedly = Vietnam.
Now, Rathergate = Watergate.
Wow, what time period are we in again?
I am still kind of amazed, nobody seems worried about who forged the documents. Certainly, CBS passing off obviously forged documents as some kind of smoking gun indicting the President is a huge story, but who created the forged memos is potentially a bigger story.
What are the odds it's Kerry?
What matters more is the identity of Buckhead, and what party he is affiliated with. /sarcasm
Dead Anchor Walking.
Extremely low, I'd say.
What are the odds that it comes from those wishing to make sure Kerry doesn't win.... such a the Clintons? Remember, if Kerry wins, Hillary doesn't get to run for probably 12 years (possibly 8).
As of last night, Rather STILL believes the documents are true, they just can't be authenticated with originals.. Doesn'this suggest to you that Dan has truly lost his mind?? Maybe he's senile and no one has had the guts to lead the old mule to the pasture.
CBS has GOT to fire him now, or to my way of thinking, allow themselves and all their employees to go down with the ship for this old troll.
For investors this has got to be troubling.... not only do they have ZERO objectivity in the news department, their business ethics suck too. CBS employees must ask themselves, have I just been 'Enron'd'?
The longer Rather hangs on, the better. He's the "anchor" who will drag down the entire MSM.
Forged documents were used by a major media outlet in collusion with a major political party to fraudulently effect the outcome of the presidential election. Major, heavy duty felony offenses.
IMHO, quite a few people need to be going to jail over this for the rest of their natural lives. If we don;t prosecute...if we allow the perps to skate...then we will be well on the road to Bannana Republic ourselves.
They should treat this every bit as seriously as they did Watergate. Investigate, investigate, investigate! What did Rather, Mapes, Cleland, and Lockhart know and when did they know it?
They owe that much to America.
By the way, what government agencies should be investigating the forgery of Texas Air National Guard documents? Are they doing so? If not, why are they not?
Can someone help me out here?
How is it that some character that no one knows, and without sufficient tracability, be considered "unimpeachable" by anyone on anything.
I would expect a traffic cop to have done a better job getting identification from a witness to a traffic mishap.
Who is Lucy Ramierez? How did she come by the documents? Why did CBS believe her? Why did CBS believe her (whoever she is or pretended to be), over and above all of their in house and outside experts?
And, finally...does CBS even have a news division left? I mean, one with more credibility than a 3rd grade class newspaper?
If I were in a position to try to salvage CBS NEws from the ashes of this catastrophe (and provided I had any inclination to do so), I would detail a small group, within CBS to break the story on the whole sordid scandal... The only thing that can possibly salvage this, for CBS, and its shareholders (people have to know that this spells doom, financially and every other way for this organization, and thus the network, itself, is in peril, too) is for them to trade on the only thing of value they have left...access to the players in the melodrama who made the decisions that led them to this point.
They can trade on that to build the story that will (or should) trigger the purge that the news division absolutely needs, and, thusly, post purge, leave them with some tangible amount of journalistic integrity.
The longer Rather hangs on, the better. He's the "anchor" who will drag down the entire MSM.
===
Of course I hope you're right...
But I can see them trying to spin this as Dan the Victim. The network needs to MAKE HIM say the words, the documents were forged, Mr. President, I am personally sorry... I, apologize. I and my semi-beautiful daughter apologize. My former unemployment line Producer apologizes. I lied, I've learned that hatred breeds hatred and affects ones mental health. I am a certified partisan nutbar. I will make a donation to the Veterans Administration in the amount of $500,000. That's how sorry I am. Really really sorry. And he needs to say it every night until the day they walk him to the rubber room.
Isnt't that a fair request?? ;)
The "Break-In" was an intelligence gathering operation. It did not involve planting false evidence against George McGovern or his campaign. In other words, however it was botched and covered up the underlying event itself does not compare at all to CBS' Rathergate. What we have in that case is a blatant attempt to smear and defeat a sitting US president with documents whose very existence is damning evidence of felonies, both State and Federal.
Pat may not be my favorite, but sometimes he hits the nail squarely on the head.
"As of last night, Rather STILL believes the documents are true, they just can't be authenticated with originals.. Doesn'this suggest to you that Dan has truly lost his mind?? Maybe he's senile and no one has had the guts to lead the old mule to the pasture. "
Rather knows they are not real. His marching orders from the DNC is to keep the thought that Bush still has to answer the question about his guard service in the public eye. Rather will not get fired over this. The DNC will make sure that Rather is not touched.
Expect some low level researcher to lose their job over this.
Burkett originally told CBS that it was George O. Conn, a National Guardsman who was the source. But they never checked with him, since when USA Today asked him, he denied any knowledge of the docs. Last weekend Burkett switched his story to Lucy Ramirez.
Rather is an old guard Texas Democrat. Like my mother, he is what we in Texas call a " Yellow Dog Democrat." That means they'd vote for a yellow dog before they'd vote for someone other than a Democrat. Dan was born in 1932 and raised in Texas at a time when the Democrats ran this state. Hatred for anything and anybody from the north was very real. Republicans were, in those days, from the north. That is who Dan is. Someone should ask him some time if he has any real Confederate money from the Civil War. I promise you he will say yes. I have some given to me by my maternal grandmother.She always told me to save that Confederate money cause the south was gonna rise again. Dan is from the same kinda poor white trash that L.B.J. came from. They believe and always have that the Dem. party represents the poor and downtrodden. Dan doesnt see W as a Texan. He sees him as the priveleged rich son of a yankee from Mass. His bosses at C.B.S. know this and have been using/exploiting it for years now. Cronkite, also a Texan I believe, was the same. When the time is right, they'll burn Dan and sweep the ashes out the back door. Then, they'll install the next useful idiot and history will repeat.
That 70's Show?
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