Free Republic

Back on October 7, when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the federal deficit had ballooned to a massive $1.4 trillion during President Obama’s first year on the job, Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News did not tell viewers. But Couric finally caught up to the bad news after the Obama White House put out its final numbers on Friday afternoon. Couric disclosed the news in a brief item on the October 16 Evening News that never mentioned Obama by name: “It’s the biggest IOU Uncle Sam has ever written. Government figures out today show for the last fiscal year, which...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bush administration says it's treating CBS New as a political opponent, and executives at the top-rated news network are responding that the White House can't tell straight reporting from opinion. White House communications director Karen Hughes recently told Time magazine that she thinks CBS offers "opinion journalism masquerading as news," and kept up the criticism on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday and in The New York Times Monday. CBS News president Sean McManus issued a statement Monday, saying: "It's astounding the White House can't distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part." And...

Dan Rather's legal wrangling slogs into its third year: His lawyer vows he will appeal a New York court ruling Tuesday that tossed out the former evening news anchor's $70 million breach-of-contract suit against CBS Corp. The complaint "must be dismissed in its entirety," ruled the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, saying there was no breach of contract because CBS had honored the "pay or play" clause in Rather's contract. That is to say the company had continued to pay Rather his annual salary -- $6 mil -- even after he left the "CBS Evening News"...

NEW YORK – A New York court on Tuesday dismissed Dan Rather's $70 million breach of contract lawsuit against CBS Corp., noting that the network continued to pay the anchor $6 million a year even after he left the evening news broadcast.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former TV newsman Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS Corp in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush's military record. The ruling by a panel of judges of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said Rather's $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and that a lower court erred in denying CBS's motion to throw out the lawsuit. CBS said it considered the legal fight "effectively over" and put an end...

Here is video of Glenn Beck talking with Katie Couric about his comments on Barack Obama being a racist. Beck pointed to Obama's more than 20 years of sitting in the pew listening Rev. Jeremiah Wright's vitriolic statements against white people as evidence that he was comfortable with that kind rhetoric. (Video)

For much of 2008, the TV cognoscenti assumed that Katie Couric would be anywhere but in the “CBS Evening News” anchor chair by now. But despite some of the lowest ratings in the newscast’s history, she says she will remain there until her contract expires in 2011. Borrowing from Mark Twain, she said cheerfully in a recent interview, “I think reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.” What changed? For one thing, Ms. Couric and her bosses say her departure was never actually imminent, despite reports to the contrary. They also credit her work ethic and her election coverage —...

A New York judge on Monday rejected CBS Corp's bid to dismiss former TV news anchor Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit claiming he was fired over a controversial election-year report on former President George W. Bush's Vietnam War-era military service. New York State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman set a December 22 hearing in the case and directed that testimony be taken from witnesses, including Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom Inc, which controlled CBS at the time. "Let's get this case moving," Gammerman said. "I would really like to get this case ready for trial." Rather, 77, sued CBS,...

To Set The Record Straight, first pubished in 2008, is much more than a history of the 2004 presidential race, and the effects the Swiftboat veterans had on that campaign. TSTRS uses the Swiftboat veterans' story to focus upon the role the mainstream media has played in shaping American public opinion over the past forty years, from the Vietnam War until the recent past. When Senator Kerry decided to make his military record a central part of his campaign, the Swiftboat veterans who knew him the best were angered and sickened. They had had enough, and they decided literally “to...

On Friday’s CBS Early Show, White House correspondent Bill Plante highlighted President Obama’s latest media blitz on health care reform and touted a new piece of the PR arsenal: "The President does have a new partner in his nonstop effort to sell health care, it’s the First Lady....Michelle Obama will be more like a stealth weapon in the battle for health care, giving it a softer touch."

Forget Bipartisanship, Comity or Civility - Schieffer Says Mindless Meanness Has Invaded the Public Commons (CBS) That was not a State of the Union speech we heard the other night, but it had all the trappings - and when that Congressman hollered "You lie!" at the President, we did get a snapshot of the nation's state. It was not a pretty picture. The country is in an angry mood - people are frustrated, tempers are short, congressmen are being shouted down at town hall meetings (where constituents sometimes show up with guns), and at rallies like the one yesterday in...

If you want some indication of the disarray that the "progressives" find themselves in, consider that disgraced broadcaster Dan Rather will be keynoting a September 23 event sponsored by The Nation magazine on "What Will Become of the News?" The Nation calls Rather "legendary," ignoring how he was put out to pasture by CBS News after he used fake documents in 2004 to smear then-President Bush. Tickets to hear and see Rather are $200 each. Rather is a legend in his own mind-and apparently the minds of those left-wingers who appreciate his effort to defeat Bush's re-election bid and throw...

A military appeals court has ruled against CBS in a battle over unaired portions of a "60 Minutes" interview with a key figure in the 2005 slaying of 24 Iraqis in the city of Haditha. The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals rejected the network's claim of reporter privilege in its battle with Marine Corps prosecutors who want access to the outtakes of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich's interview. Wuterich is charged with nine counts of voluntary manslaughter and related offenses in the incident that was triggered by a roadside bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others. His case...

I don't usually watch 60 Minutes, having learned 20 years ago how left-wing the program is and how much of it is devoted to liberal propaganda. Last night though, after seeing a promo, I decided to watch the episode on forest fires to see if it would be a propaganda piece for Cap & Trade (Climate Change or man-made global warming).I was right. My suspicions were justified. With no evidence whatsoever, except that forest fires in the west have increased substantially, the program blamed the fires on global warming. They did mention in passing the fire problems caused by past...

Van Jones took a bullet for his boss. After more than a week of withering criticism for past comments, Jones has resigned as an advisor to the White House on green jobs. The White House announced the news in the early hours of Sunday morning. In a statement, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, thanked Jones "for his valuable contributions to the Council on Environmental Quality. Over the last six months he has been a strong voice for creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources. We appreciate his hard work...

Here is a video report from CBS News on the death of an American soldier in Afghanistan, and also saying August has become the deadliest month of the war in Afghanistan. Harry Smith also reported that CBS News Correspondent Cami McCormick was seriously injured in the same attack that killed the U.S. Soldier. She underwent surgery and is now in stable condition. . . . . (Watch Video)

Media Bias: Veteran reporter, author and commentator Bernard Goldberg reports that when CBS News did its fake National Guard story on George W. Bush avoiding service in Vietnam, it knew it was a lie.It's a liberal urban legend that Bush used the influence of his father and his father's friends to land a cushy position in the Texas National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. The Democrats would run John Kerry as a hero in the war, and CBS News was all too eager to help with Mary Mapes producing a "60 Minutes II" segment in September 2004 charging exactly...

This story by Bernard Goldberg certainly takes me back to the early days of my blogging career. Shortly after the 2004 Republican convention, Mary Mapes produced a segment for 60 Minutes II that alleged that George W. Bush had manipulated his enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid serving in combat in Vietnam. The documents used by CBS, Mapes, and Dan Rather turned out to be clumsy hoaxes, which the blogosphere exposed through careful review of their substance and their form (the latter of which I played a small part in refuting, with my expertise in printing and...

Bernard Goldberg is getting a good bit of attention for something he said on O'Reilly tonight -- that documents show the CBS investigation in 2004 revealed that George Bush volunteered to fly combat missions in Vietnam. The following is from his website, Bernard Goldberg.com (via Newsbusters):

On Tuesday, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg as the former CBS News correspondent highlighted a story recently posted on his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, in which he complains of how little mainstream media attention was given to the fact that former President George W. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam as part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, but that he was turned down because other pilots were more experienced, and that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, even though she knew this part of the story before the report aired, did not include...