CBS has fired Mary Mapes, Dan Rather’s producer, who was in large measure responsible for the disgraceful airing of the story about Bush’s GUard fitness that was based on documents that were forgeries.
About damn time.
I do note that the CBS internal investigation concluded that there was no political bias behind the report; it was, CBS found, simply a matter of “competitive pressures” and a “zealous belief in the truth of the segment” that caused Mapes to ignore basic journalistic standards and falsely claim that an expert had authenticated the documents. It’s unclear to me what, if not political belief, contributed so greatly to her “zealous belief,” but I’ll settle for this result.
I had earlier faulted CBS for dragging their feet on this investigation, and frankly had suspected that nothing would come of it. I salute CBS for defying my mordant expectation and taking action.
CBD also asked Senior Vice President Betsy West, “60 Minutes Wednesday” Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy to resign.
Yes, this is the right thing to happen to those people.
Now, why are you more torqued up about the bogus documents report than about their topic, Bush’s Guard performance? Last I heard, none of the CBS employees was running for President. Did you let yourself get redirected from the real issue?
Lost in all of this is the fact that the story was true and such documents did exist. Rove did a brilliant job planting those phony pages and stealing the real ones.
Another concern here … the liberal reporters and their staffs lose their jobs wholesale for being gulled when they should not have, but conservative reporters tell lies wholesale (Fox “News” anyone?) and conservative reporters even help Bush administration figures commit treason (Robert Novak in the Valerie Plame affair). And they DON’T get fired, no, they get PROMOTED if anything. It looks to me as if the consequences for deceit and treachery are so one-sided that conservatives can eventually take over journalism just because THEY don’t get fired for grotesquely bad reporting, whereas liberals do.
And how IS that Plame investigation coming along? I heard the Bush Admin. had vowed to get right to the bottom of things …
Condolleeza: “I don’t think anyone could have predicted that these people would slam planes into the World Trade Center.”
On March 30, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld said in an ABC News interview when asked about WMDs: "We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
A few “bad apples” and a lack of proper supervision – not a failure in military training, doctrine or policy – were responsible for detainee abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq, senior Army leaders told a Senate committee today.
You may want to review the interview with the secretary that worked for Bush’s boss. She indicated that the documents in question were not original but that there did once exist documents that were real that said the same thing.
That the allegations based on the document were true, even where the documents themselves were proven to be fakes, is what Dio is referring to.
CBS took a shortcut in putting the faked documents out there as incontrovertible proof and that is where their judgement when wrong. They had “good” evidence in hand, no need to look further (right).
And as for Elvis, that Bush deserted doesn’t modify his qualifications to be CIC whatsoever. Whether he is qualified is an entirely different question.
Suuuuure, Karl Rove planted the phony letters and stole the real ones.
Then Karl put on his Mission Impossible-type Mary Mapes mask, penetrated CBS News headquarters, and ordered staff to forget about expert confirmation, saying that “she” had done it already. With the real Mapes given a quick dose of chloral hydrate and knocked out in the janitor’s closet, Rove worked quickly to assure that the CBS report would go out as planned. Then, just as the knockout drops were wearing off, he slipped away into the night, leaving the real Mapes befuddled and ready to take the blame.
It must be exciting to live in your head, Diogenes, and never need to pay for a movie ticket because the show unfurling inside your skull is much more exciting than anything Hollywood could put out there.
Thornburgh, by the way, is a Republican, which sorta undercuts Bricker’s sneering at the report’s conclusion that the story was not motivated by political bias.
The report itself – which, lest there be any confusion, is helpfully titled "Report of the Independent Review Panel, Dick Thornburgh and Louis D. Broccardi – is available online here.
One might well think that his own service either enhances or detracts from his ability to lead. We did hear a lot of that not so long ago when there was another President who’d chosen to stay home, didn’t we?
The point was that the more partisan of his supporters allowed the CBS flap to let them overlook Bush’s actual background entirely - they were quite happy to get that large, steaming turd off their dinner tables by any means available.
Correction noted. CBS obviously authorized the investigation, but it was an independent investigation. This does lend a bit more credibility to the conclusion that there was no overt political angle, and I’m now prepared to accept that political bias was, if a factor at all, only an indirect one… that is, Mapes was no Bush fan, and that caused her to be predisposed to believe the letters. But that’s a far cry from what I was first picturing – an active desire to use her office to assist the Kerry campaign and discredit the Bush campaign. That view is unsupported by any evidence at all.
CBS had the professionalism to hire an independent panel review the case. They indeed appeared to have lack of due diligence in authenticating the memos. But the content of the memos is true. Bush failed to take his physical. We don’t know for sure why he failed to do so, but there is strong evidence he was a cocaine user at the time. He did use influence to get into the National Guard. And he failed to complete his obligation. The conclusion was right, however the memos could not be proven authentic.
Compare CBS’ actions to that of FOX (fair and balanced). There are documents showing that FOX journalists are instructed to spin the news to Bush’s advantage. Compare it the the ethics of the Bush White House in paying a columnist to say nice things about No Child Left Behind. Compare CBS to Sinclair Broadcasting and their smear campaign against John Kerry. It is clear where fairness and professionalism abound and where the righties have turned their media outlets into an American version of Pravda.
You know, I have never voted for anyone named Bush, and I did vote for Clinton and like him quite a bit, but I wouldn’t equate dodging the draft by running off to Europe to get stoned with avoiding Vietnam service by serving honorably in the Air National Guard, but that’s probably because I’m not trying to grind a partisan political act.
