Winds of Change.NET: CBS' Non-Apology & Rathergate Update

September 22, 2004

CBS' Non-Apology & Rathergate Update

by Joe Katzman at September 22, 2004 6:48 PM

Allahpundit has an update for you. As for Rather, he still continues to offer evasions about the documents' authenticity, confident in his ability to get away with it while many major media outlets still speak of documents that are merely 'controversial,' rather than the definitive forgeries they so clearly are.

Memo to bloggers and readers: keep the pressure on. I think a strong campaign to your local media is also called for, to get the word out. You're bloggers, which makes you interesting to your local press right now. Write them and volunteer to put the background materials together - the links in this very post will give you all you need. See also this outstanding example by Winds community member AMac, as he guest-blogs a magisterial summation of the evidence and the Baltimore Sun's coverage.

Meanwhile, guess where this quote comes from:

"Several journalism analysts said CBS News producer Mary Mapes' phone call to Kerry senior advisor Joe Lockhart amounts to at least a potential conflict of interest - giving the appearance that the network had assisted a candidate in the presidential race."

Would you believe the infamously liberal L.A. Times? Good reporting, folks - factual, qualified language used where appropriate, and not overboard in either direction. Though it was USA Today who really broke the story. Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt explains why this matters and offers a parallel scenario involving Republicans to make his point.

Let's be clear. None of these people are not saying that the network got the documents from the Kerry campaign. So far, my Sept. 13 prediction is looking pretty good. That said, the level of collusion after the documents were received is a legitimate issue. Alarmingly, Hewitt notes that this may not be the first time CBS News has done such things.

Meanwhile, some hack at Newsday is repeating the same "the real issue is conservatives intimidating the media" spin that Kevin Drum recently used. I've got to say, reading that drivel really undermined a lot of the respect I had extended to Kevin for his admission that the documents were fake. Protein Wisdom absolutely drops the clue-hammer on these idiotic notions, in a post that ranks as one of the blogosphere's finer fiskings. Read it.

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Comments

#1 from nels at 8:49 pm on Sep 22, 2004

Rather, really is changing the world, probably not as intended.

#2 from Glen Wishard at 9:13 pm on Sep 22, 2004

Danny Schechter's pathetic article in Newsday (how much does Newsday pay per word for ruptured metaphors like "rabid conservative grapevine"?) is a sign of things to come.

Look forward to ten years of Schechter's ilk seeking ways to get even with the blogosphere.

#3 from AMac at 9:47 pm on Sep 22, 2004

The under-appreciated aspect of the ongoing CBS News coverup is this: Neither CBS News nor Dan Rather has yet admitted that the Killian Memos are forgeries, meaning that Monday night's CBS News contained only a non-apology apology.

This is a wholly dishonest position. On 9/11/04, Joseph Newcomer posted a devastating expert proof showing that the memos were written with post-1989 font technology. Yeah, he might be wrong, but his arguments haven't been rebutted. It�s much worse: they haven't even been acknowledged by CBS!

Three points.

-- Rather has "surrendered the field" to plugged-in web-log readers, and to a lesser extent to WaPo readers. We know he's lying, he knows we know he's lying, and he doesn't care. Rather is after "flyover country," where one talking head on the TV says one thing and another says another, and who really knows, and down the memory hole it goes until after the election, and some report or other is produced and somebody gets a reprimand.

-- Question: Why wouldn't even the ethically-challenged Dan Rather do the obvious thing, the right thing, and 'fess up?
Likely answer: Because he can't.
Follow-up question: What is it that Rather and CBS are covering up that would reflect even more discredit on them than their current "lyin' eyes" defense?

-- By continuing to extend "professional courtesy" to Rather and CBS, much (though not all) of the mainstream media is enabling this "lyin' eyes" defense. Go check the BlogoRam scorecard the next time you read a phrase in the paper like "experts�weighed in with conflicting opinions.� (Hint: 16 named experts on one side and zero on the other.) That quote, by the way, is from my guest-blog at Dave�s, where I picked on the Baltimore Sun because it�s my hometown paper. I have no doubt that numerous other �flyover country� newspapers are as bad, or worse.

#4 from old maltese at 11:36 pm on Sep 22, 2004

Question posed: why doesn't CBS admit out loud the fraudulence of the documents?

Possible answer: if they did that, they'd no longer have the fig leaf of the journalistic principle of 'protecting a source'.

And they don't want to go down that avenue, countenancing the digging into 'Lucy Ramirez' and so on.

Besides, who says that there was only one source or conduit or destination of the 'Ramirez' documents?

#5 from old maltese at 11:39 pm on Sep 22, 2004

-- and, I should have added, admitting to fraudulent documents may acknowledge that a crime (forgery of military documents?) has been committed, bringing in the Feds.

#6 from Beltran at 1:50 am on Sep 23, 2004

Number one, the DNC released information almost word for word from one of the forged memos almost six months ago. They've had this material for a long time, they just didn't know how to get it out in a credible manner.

Number two, Burkett is a nobody here. A marginal kook who happened to get caught in the middle of a big power play. He is not the "unimpeachable" source Rather is protecting.