From IncPen's page. Maybe DanRathergate can take these to FedExKinkoSpongeBob's and...who knows?
Please let it happen. And besides, the actual source of the fraudulent documents must be exposed. Why are they protecting a source of fraudulent documents? IMO, CBS should be charged with criminal conspiracy for attempting to undermine a US presidential election by fraudulent means. They can plea bargain for dismissal folowing disclosure of their source(s).
Interesting. If he can show they pushed the story (which they obviously did) and are making him and others the fall guys, court is the place to be.
Incidentally, just in the past few days I've read articles by MSM such as ABC talking about how CBS "fired" four people and I and others here at FR pointed out they were not all fired. Mapes was fired, the other three were asked for their resignations and have not given them.
Obviously sympathetic colleagues at other outlets trying to give cover to CBS for their outrage. The whole lot of them are pathetic.
Looks like Howard and a few of the others may just be making noise...in an attempt to try and keep even a shred of credibility. Well, too late.
Any e-mails they may present ....likely...will just be part of e-mail transcripts. Meaning they won't show all that came before and after.
Keep in mind....these are journalists that we are talking about here. Taking things out of context is a way of life for them.
And the problem that they will likely run into is the fact that folks like ole Les are corporate types, at least now, and have a habit of saving ENTIRE e-mail transcripts as a way to cover their own ---.
And then there is the other side of the coin. Howard and the others are used to hanging out in their Northeastern coffee house mindset and spewing liberal stupidity when they write and speak. Because they live in that liberal bubble, nobody calls them on it. So they feel free to write and say whatever, and don't worry of the consequence.
Folks like ole Les know when it is best not to write down or say something. Or keep records that are other than e-mail. Again, covering their own a--.
Would not be shocked to see Moonves fire those folks soon. Howard, Mapes, and the others are not doing themselves any service. They have already locked up their legacies as frauds.
HOWEVER, they are doing the rest of us a huge service...as they cause an even greater implosion at CBS.
"Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives"
Wow! Dan Rather, Moonves under oath - must see TV.
Does life get any better than this???
Sounds like he wants a platinum parachute.
Can't say I blame most of these people. Mapes deserved what she got, but the majority were fired to attempt to silence critics of the real conspirators of this fraud.
They should sue and I hope they drag all the dirty little secrets whitewashed from the report into the open including links to the DNC/Kerry campaign that I'm convinced exist.
Mapes also told the Panel that before calling Lockhart, she discussed this request with Howard and that he approved the contact. Mapes said that Howard had reasoned that reporters exchange information from various sources and this request was not problematic. Howard, however, told the Panel a very different version of this conversation and said that he clearly informed Mapes that it would be inappropriate to intervene with Lockhart or anyone else associated with the Kerry campaign on Lieutenant Colonel Burkett’s behalf.
******
Howard had developed concerns about the September 8 Segment on September 9, and acknowledged that the bloggers and other matters, such as the differences in the superscript “th” in the official Bush records as opposed to the Killian documents and the ABC News Nightline report that he found “credible,” had shaken his confidence.
******
Thus, in an e-mail sent at 4:53 a.m. on September 10 to West, Howard proposed a media strategy that would acknowledge the possibility that 60 Minutes Wednesday had been the victim of a hoax:
I wonder if it’s time for us to take the offensive and
say, look, we think we’re on solid ground, but we’re not
just sitting on our hands. We’re continuing to
investigate, and if we were the victims of an elaborate
hoax, no one would be more anxious to get to the bottom
of it than CBS News.
A statement might say:
'There have been allegations that the documents on which
we reported were either forgeries or re-creations.
Nothing we have learned over the past 48 hours leads us
to believe that. We remain enormously confident in
the thoroughness and accuracy of our reporting.
If indeed one or more of the documents is not authentic,
it would meanthat CBS News was the victim of an
elaborate hoax. We have no evidence that that was the
case. But we are continuing to aggressively investigate,
and should we find that anyone - the Kerry campaign, the
Bush campaign, or anyone else – – was responsible for
circulating fraudulent documents and orchestrating a
hoax, no one would be more anxious to break that
story than CBS News.'
******
Later on September 10, Howard would again express concerns to West, Mapes and Heyward about the Segment after speaking with Peter Tytell, an individual with extensive typewriter experience. At that time, Howard’s concerns again were not acted upon and thereafter Howard did not have a major role in the Aftermath
******
You go, Josh. Don't let them railroad you. You're probably a pinko, but not nearly as bad as those who held your leash.
Once the scandal broke, CBS should have hired an outside panel to conduct a complete and thorough investigation. No, not a pathetic whitewash like what Thornburgh and that other clown did (apparently in collusion with CBS), but a REAL investigation, no holds barred.
Too late now....
By Josh, this sounds like real entertainment.
The Reckoning
Mona Charen
September 24, 2004
dalythoughts.com
Though some have dubbed the Dan Rather docugate story a distraction from the real issues of campaign 2004, I would argue that, in some ways, the episode illuminates those issues.
For more than 30 years, John Kerry has been vaulting back and forth over the Vietnam fence -- believing that the war was his trump. As his coattails flapped with each jump, he radiated confidence. He had the thing nailed. He opposed the war, but he served. He was wounded and he protested. How perfect. Through the years, he sometimes ran on his credentials as a war protestor and sometimes as a war hero. He threw his ribbons away. He kept his medals. His undistinguished career in the Senate would not damage him, Kerry reasoned, because he had that gold-plated, two-sided, Vietnam credential. Others suggested that the Democratic Convention focus on the economy. But Kerry was determined to make it a Vietnam-fest.
In 2004, the jig is up. Vietnam veterans who have seethed for decades about Kerry's treachery are getting their licks in. Kerry's lies (such as the shameful declaration that the memory of being in Cambodia in 1968 "is seared in me") have been exposed. Kerry's grotesque and deceitful 1971 testimony before the United States Senate about the war -- calling American soldiers "monsters" -- has been remembered.
How does this connect to Dan Rather? Aside from Kerry, there is no man more responsible for libeling Vietnam veterans and derivatively, America, than Dan Rather. As B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley document in "Stolen Valor" (must reading), Rather produced a program for CBS in 1988 called "The Wall Within" (see "The First Rathergate" by Anne Morse in National Review Online).
Along with recycled falsehoods such as the claim that more Vietnam veterans have died of suicide since the war than were killed in combat, the program (which CBS supposedly researched for 18 months), featured interviews with "veterans" who told lurid tales. Rather asked a former 16-year-old Navy SEAL "You're telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?" Steve said "Yeah." "For propaganda purposes at home?" Rather probed. "That's correct," said Steve.
The program was lauded by critics and helped revive CBS's documentary tradition. But nearly everything in the report was a lie. There were no 16-year-old Navy SEALS. In any case, Steve Southards was never a Navy SEAL at all and spent a good deal of time in a Navy brig for going AWOL. Burkett used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the service records of each of the veterans CBS profiled and discovered that some had not served in Vietnam at all, and others had never been where they said they were, never held the rank they claimed, and never received the medals of which they boasted. Burkett shared this information with Rather and CBS. But the response in 1988 was a total stonewall. The CBS president proclaimed that "this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."
The falsehoods and libels about American servicemen in Vietnam did not originate with Rather or CBS, but both played huge roles in legitimizing those lies.
Just as in the case of the forged National Guard documents, Dan Rather did not just commit an error or get duped, he led with his chin. It was a matter of a simple FOIA request to discover the service records of those bogus vets. But Dan Rather and CBS liked the story of savage Americans sent abroad to commit atrocities by their venal government. It was too delicious to check.
This time, on the National Guard story, there is a reckoning. The Internet, talk radio, Fox News and conservative print journalists have risen up like ghosts to haunt Dan Rather. CBS cannot get away with the stonewall this time. The same forces that have humbled the Kerry campaign -- the formerly silenced Vietnam Veterans, conservatives and bloggers -- have taken a huge bite out of CBS. And one has a gratifying sense of justice about the whole thing.
What's CBS?
The hits just keep on comin'
the executives shall cooperate and the cover up will be as it should be.
Gentlemen, the fix is in.
Interesting, very interesting. But Rats eating their own is an old story, what I want is CBS news to admit their very liberal bias,! I'm sick of them denying it saying they don't know what people are talking about. It it can be proved that somebody at that station had something to do with creating those bogus documents its the end for CBS!