Exsqueeze me? If the conservatives aren’t interested in truth, then why are we the ones who are asking about the veracity of these documents while the left are saying “Well, even if the documents are fake you can’t question that what they say is true!” If the conservatives aren’t interested in accuracy, why are we the ones saying that the source of the documents must be uncovered? If the conservatives aren’t interested in ethics, why are we the ones questioning the concept of one of the premiere sources of “news” in this country going public with unverified documents and then refusing to back down from them when their provenance is called into question?
Are you living in topsy-turvy world? Conservatives are blinded? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are you talking about man?
And the suggestion that John Kerry was in the same room as an activist actress is equivalent to the suggestion that the President of the United States failed to comply with the direct order of his superiors when in military service?
I disagree. I think that the fact CBS reported something like this is actually a sign there may be a conservative bias. Let’s look at the facts:
The release of this story moves the focus of the presidential election from current events to past events: Result- Favor Bush.
Almost every political analyst, left, right, middle, is saying that this has “blown up in Kerry’s face”: result- favor Bush.
The poor journalism points towards a “bias” against the right, fostering a frothing hatred towards the left for “controlling the media” and thereby creating a backlash: Result- Favor Bush.
It seems to me as if the media actually helps George Bush. At a time when the death toll in Iraq reached 1,000, Putin was consolidating power in Russia and North korea was slowly advancing their WMD program (anyone remember Axis of Evil) the country was focused on whether or not two snot nosed, rich little brats were fighting/avoiding a war 30 years ago.
Brilliant work by the conservative media.
I mean, come on… think about it people. Who owns the freaking media? Yes, maybe the reporters are individually different in their political affiliations, but it is almost a rock solid bet that most of the executives and owners are die hard republicans.
The “bias in the liberal media” is one of the most succesful, and greatest cons, in the history of politics in the United States.
No one on the left has said you cannot question that what they say is true! That is a far cry from CBS News defending the autheticity of the documents.
Conservatives aren’t the only ones interested in determining the source of these documents. I specified in another thread on this subject that if the documents are proven false, then the sources need to be revealed. We would all like to know the truth.
I wish that Conservatives had been as deligent about finding out who within the White House blew the cover of a certain CIA agent to Robert Novak. That was a felony.
I was interested in following up on what CBS had to say on Sixty Minutes II tonight. I remain open to evidence either way. But our CBS affiliate decided that it was in our best interest to air religious programming introduced by Franklin Graham instead. I doubt that that decision came from the left.
Why? Because they are demonstrably drooling idiots, whereas Rather and company are supposed to be a respected news source. Nobody disputes Fox’s right-wing credentials, but the national network news is supposed to give the unvarnished truth. You know, unbiased, thoroughly researched, and credible?
Oh, geez. There I go being idealistic again. Is it any wonder why people see a media bias? It shouldn’t be.
Let me ask you something. Do you think that Fox News would be nearly as successful if the network news were unbiased? How do you think Fox News got a foothold in the first place? Hint: it’s not because of their superior reporting skills.
Because 1) the only answers that those to whom I refer accept to those questions are the ones that agree with their preconceived conclusions, and 2) when someone asks questions about the validity of evidence that supports their preconceived conclusions, they soon include the words “tinfoil hat” in their utterances, which they assume is brilliant repartee and sufficient as the last word.
And CNN and the rest of the cable news networks are bending over backwards trying to copy Fox in a failed effort to match their success and ratings.
But back to the main story: the memos are forged. Because of this, their contents should not be viewed as reputable, regardless of any unsubstantiated hearsay of the validity of the contents. If the assertion is that Bush missed his physicals or acted illegally or dishonorably during his Guard service, then the burden of proof falls on those that support that notion. President Bush or any of his supporters are not required to respond to baseless accusations with no supporting proof.
As much as the democrats and the liberal media (yes, I said it) would want to change the focus of the story, the real story is that CBS put out forged documents in an attempt to affect the presidential campaign, and is now blindly standing behind them, stonewalling in an attempt to wait out the controversy. Pathetic.
Because you’re participating in another misdirection game. The topic isn’t the source of the documents, not really - it’s “What was Bush really doing with his life at the time, what is he still not saying, what does his present conduct reveal about his character and fitness to be CinC?” That has been an open topic for years, and it is still unanswered. However, this subject, the veracity of some old documents, that are not in conflict with the known facts and could be ignored entirely without affecting a damn thing, allows the more-reflexive of the Bush supporters to avoid the real, larger, uncomfortable topic and instead demonize their opponents, in their usual misdirection approach. So, Tea, why *have * you swallowed the Kool-Aid?
Try it this way:
[ol][li]The Swift Boat Veterans move the focus of the presidential election from current events to past events. Result - Favor Kerry.[/li][li]Almost every political analyst, left, right, middle, is saying that this has “blown up in Bush’s face”: result - favor Kerry.[/li][li]The poor journalism points towards a “bias” against the left, fostering a frothing hatred toward the right for “controlling the media” and thereby creating a backlash: Result - Favor Kerry.[/ol] So the Swift Boat Veterans have helped Kerry. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, it’s far more likely that they found the news/commentary to be so unique after years and years of liberal-spun news. But you could never understand that, because that would require you to acknowledge a liberal media bias, and you’re far too invested in denying that. For you to admit that there is a liberal bias would be like hacking off your own hand.
Am I the only one considers that they jumped the gun on it not because of political bias, but because simply it’s a juicy find? Seems to me that attributing it to political bias is unnecessary. Occam’s Razor and all that…
No, you’re not the only one. Although CBS/Rather might want to see Kerry in the White House, I doubt either would risk reputations to make that happen. In hindsight, they should have done a little more investigating before “Ooo! Look what I found!”. Seems it’s more about making the news than reporting it nowadays.
Some said that the memos must be authentic, but if not then must be forged by K. Rove.
So, did K. Rove distort Bush honorable record and fed forged information to CBS? Can’t be.
But all these contradictions can be easily reconciled.
That’s what happened: K. Rove retyped the old typewritten memos on a computer, destroyed the originals and gave copies to CBS, setting them up for a huge scandal.
That way, the memos are indeed authentic, Bush is indeed a “traitor”, K. Rove is still behind the whole debacle, and Kerry… oh, but who cares about Kerry?
Doors, one good apple don’t polish the whole bunch. Just because you can find individual media organs that have a liberal slant doesn’t change the *fact *that systemically, culturally, basically, the media has canted rightish since the Reagan years. You’re talking about the media that connived at the neocon-led coup attempt against Clinton and at the rightwing nutjob slanderous libeling of Kerry’s war record; the same media that’s helped Bush convince the public that AWOL debauchery is more honorable than decorated combat.
If you think that puts the media on the left, I hope you get help putting your shoes on.
Ah…Actually, I think it is often disputed. And, for example, when I went to pick up a friend at the airport recently, these “drooling idiots” are what passed for the TV news available there.
It sounds like CBS may have screwed up here but when they (well, the national networks in general, they presumably among them) reported as fact claims of Gore’s “exaggerations” that themselves were exaggerations or untrue, they also screwed up. And, of course, they completely screwed up by being lap dogs in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
The only way one finds the media to have a general liberal bias is by filtering out all the evidence to the contrary (or focussing almost exclusively on social issues where the more urban and educated demographic of journalists at least has the potential to cause some bias to creep in).
This Burkett character has had a hard-on for the Guard and Bush for a long time. He came out in the past and said that he saw Bush documents being destroyed. But he had no evidence so no one listened to him. This guy’s venom against the Guard and Bush approaches obsession levels.
Burkett decides to fake the memos. He SAW the memos, so he knows they are real. But he doesn’t have them any more, so he reconstructs them from memory and makes new ones, and carefully ages them. But being a non-technically savvy type, he doesn’t even understand the various font issues that could cause problems.
In the meantime, CBS has been working the Bush/Guard story for five years (by their own admission), and getting nowhere. Lo and behold, Burkett shows up and says, “Hey! I found the documents!”, and faxes them to Rather.
Rather, who long ago decided Burkett is the real deal, accepts his documents at face value. He’s certain they are real - after all, they’ve been looking for exactly those documents for five years. Rather is in the twilight of his career, and sees these documents as his legacy - his opportunity to go out with a big Woodward/Bernstein sized splash. So, due diligence goes out the window. They go through the formality of getting the documents ‘authenticated’, but the experts who disagree are written off and the one who agrees is held up as the real expert.
Documents go on the air, and all hell breaks loose.
Anyway, that’s what it sounds like to me. A case of obsession and big ego run amok. But then CBS compounded their error - when news of the forgeries broke, rather than immediately retracting the story until an internal investigation could be conducted, they announce that it’s all a big right-wing conspiracy and that they are standing their ground. That raised the attention of the other mainstream media outlets, and the big guns started firing at CBS.
At this time, CBS appears to be trying to change the story. They are going to claim that what’s important is the ‘whole story’, and that the documents were just a small part of it. If they can get away with that, then they can quietly announce in a week or two that they have withdrawn the documents as evidence because of ‘questions regarding their authenticity’, but they’ll continue to claim the story is true.
The problem is that without the documents the ‘story’ amounts to 30 year old hearsay. They could have run with that five years ago. Without the documents they’ve got nothing. But they’ll try to bluff their way through. But I don’t think they are going to get away with it. I think what’s going to happen is that Rather is going to go on ‘leave’, or maybe he’ll decide to be a ‘real reporter’ and so some spot reports or something in an attempt to save face. Then after the election CBS will quietly retire him.
If the conservatives aren’t interested in accuracy, why are we the ones saying that the source of the documents must be uncovered? If the conservatives aren’t interested in ethics, why are we the ones questioning the concept of one of the premiere sources of “news” in this country going public with unverified documents and then refusing to back down from them when their provenance is called into question?
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