Click for the entire CouNTeRPuNcH Collection
Political Parodies and more
www.counterpunch.us
Posted on 09/22/2004 6:53:40 PM PDT by wagglebee
The jig is up. The game is over. CBS tried to energize the country into voting against President Bush by highlighting forged documents it said would prove Bush's failure to serve honorably in the Texas Air National Guard. The smoking gun went up in smoke. Once caught, CBS and Dan Rather could have responded with a simple apology. Instead, they went ballistic -- and now must pay the price for their defiance.
For more than a week, Dan Rather responded like a cornered politician, blaming a vast right-wing conspiracy of "partisan political activists" for unfairly trying to change the subject from Bush's alleged misdeeds to CBS's increasingly obvious misdeeds.
In an interview with USA Today, Rather became seriously overwrought, charging that his "partisan" critics want him ... dead? What? Look at Rather's glimpse inside the conservative mind, as he sees it and decrees it: "Because he won't report it our way, we're going to hang something bad around his neck and choke him with it, check him out of existence if we can , if not, make him feel great pain."
Rather's journalistic defenses weren't any more effective than his political attacks. First, CBS cited handwriting expert Marcel Matley and Gen. Bobby Hodges to vouch for its documents. But soon, Gen. Hodges had something else to say on the matter: CBS never showed him the documents, and when he finally did see them, he said they were forgeries. Matley also contradicted CBS, maintaining he could not authenticate the documents, because they're copies. The widow and son of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the supposed author of the phony memos, also denounced the documents as fake. The supposed superior pressing on Killian as described in the memos had retired 18 months earlier.
Innumerable news outlets easily found the inconsistencies and untruths within days -- even hours -- yet CBS, which claims it spent five years on the story, found ... nothing wrong?
The real turning point of the Rathergate scandal came when ABC interviewed two document authenticators hired by CBS who said they warned CBS just days before the offending segment aired that they found "red flags" in the documents. The "honest mistake" defense was dead. CBS was now outed as complicit in this very ugly plot.
None of these developments were allowed inside Dan Rather's hermetically sealed news bubble in his on-air defenses on Sept. 10 and Sept. 14. The ultimate insult to the viewing public came on the next edition of "60 Minutes," a week after CBS aired the original fraud. The only guest was Marian Carr Knox, a secretary and typist for Lt. Col. Killian. The new CBS line, manufactured after the network flew Mrs. Knox to New York for a sitdown with Rather: Here's a single guest on camera who says our procured documents are phony, but she says the substance of them are true. And since that's all that counts, we continue to stand by our story.
What a complete dodge. A fake is a fake. Journalism schools don't teach that it's OK to fake a document to smoke out a larger "truth." (Would CBS endorse police departments planting evidence on criminal suspects who they believe are guilty for the larger "truth"?)
They may still pretend to dismiss conservative critics, but CBS and others will probably pay the most attention to the bottom line, and that broadcast news ratings meltdown continues. In 2001, the American Journalism Review reported the "CBS Evening News" lost half its viewership from 1981 to 2001. Last week, the show averaged 6.7 million viewers, which still looks powerful next to everyday cable news ratings, but hardly represents the old hegemony of the Big Three over the political process.
When I titled my book "Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media," I had no idea Dan Rather and CBS would provide such a blatant show-and-tell to prove my point. In its early days, the Big Three ruled the roost, and critics were treated like gnats -- a small annoyance, easily ignored.
After decades of liberal media arrogance and abuse, a conservative media counterculture has arisen in cable news, talk radio and the Internet. The conservative counterculture buzzes daily about the misinformation the liberal media tries to feed the people. Media accountability to their audience is now coming directly from the audience. Democracy has arrived at the CBS door. No wonder Dan Rather came unglued.
And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the elitist left will do everything in their power to close the floodgates of the information age, because they realize their biggest enemy is the truth.
And Harvard University is at the top of that list ........
It is unbelievable that Rather did not know these were fakes. The MSM is refusing to report that, instead cooperating with the "we was duped" defense.
Heard it come over on the CBS 6pm radio news feed.
This tells me Rather has been back-benched as Managing Editor and can't keep up the masquerade of "unverified".
Must have been blood on the wall at CBS to pry him out of his position of power, but he's sliding down the chute as we read.
Dan Rather's "partisan attacks" defense is about the worst a so-called straight journalist could use. By labeling his detractors as being on one side of the political divide, he exposed himself as being on the other, for all to see.
Of course he knew they were fakes! The travesty of the situation is the fact that he didn't care, because he assumed we "little people" were too stupid to figure it out and too gullible to care if we did.
"It is unbelievable that Rather did not know these were fakes. The MSM is refusing to report that, instead cooperating with the "we was duped" defense."
Yep, they are all saying Dopey Dan was Duped.
I agree with the author, Dopey Dan showed his hand when he replied in a manner consistent with that of a RAT politician (VRWC).
READ ANN COULTER.COM for a great sumation on Dan Rather.
Bozell is a prophet.
I did, it was perfect!
That's the first time, to my knowledge, that they've admitted that they're bogus.
That's the first time, to my knowledge, that they've admitted that they're bogus.
Everything before was a variation of "unverified", "cannot vouch for", etc.
<< Would CBS endorse police departments planting evidence on criminal suspects who they believe are guilty for the larger "truth"? >>
Of course it would.
Provided, that is, the believed ["Felt?"] suspect was a Republican and/or other Pro-American.
Those elitists who suffer from the Liberal Psychosis always justify the means to the end.
Ya, Al Gore must be really sorry that he invented the Internet.
Dan, you're fired.
Blather and Mapes should both get axed, based upon the "three strikes you're out" principle.
Great tagline!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.