While you are immodestly (and unjustifiably, I might add) patting each other on the back for supposedly "breaking" the "memogate" story (which I think is likely to be a bit premature, given the uncertainty over whether Republican operative Roger Stone was involved or not), ponder this:

Why should America be more concerned with a probably very common journalistic mistake by CBS than the failure of their President to come clean (to put it generously) on his missing Texas ANG service?

Because it's a "probably very common" situation, as you put it, at one of its major news networks. This may be hard for you to grasp, but that sort of thing actually kind of concerns a lot of people. And will continue to do so until it is addressed.

Viacom's Board is running only slightly behind the boobs at Enron, Wolrdcom, Arthur Andersen, and Firestone in the "negligent and should be fired" category, for allowing this to continue.

Also, because almost nobody in your country outside of a bunch of political partisans and veterans gives a rat's ass about Vietnam re: their President. Right or wrong, good or bad, that's how it is.

Being an outright draft dodger really slowed down that Clinton guy, didn't it? You and I both know that if he was running, today, he'd win. That's how much it matters.

I don't really see the Bush campaign attempting this. I know Bush advisors are rumbling about it, but at the end of the day they're just too nice to the media. They won't want it to look like Schieffer (or "Bob", as they like to call him) is being scape-goated for what Rather and Mapes did.

Glen Wishard: On Fox the admistration disavowed any objection to Schieffer. However, that could be the official position while Rove and others agitate behind the scenery. That would make it only more brilliant and more deliciously Machiavellian.

I have no sympathy for the perps. They created this.

VT: As always, your perspective on this completely astonishes me. It is possible that a group of 'journalists' and Democratic Party representatives conspired to affect the outcome of a presidential election, in a time of War. This is a huge story.

I think you need to return to Gor (the counter-earth) and get your translation batteries recharged.

If the administration has disavowed objections to Schieffer, at this stage, then in all probability it means that they really will not embark on Daniel's strategy.

To their great and enduring loss, and CBS' great relief and gain.

Joe: There may be no 'embarking' about it. Now that the whole thing is set in motion, it may just roll forward. I agree, the Bush administration is generally straitforward, but like the swiftvets, other agents might be in play. :)
And consider this, prob'ly some democratic staffer who reads weblogs will see this, and draw it to the attention of his superiors. Ditto some CBS underling. We can have vicarious enjoyment of the many hours of agonized deliberation between now and the debate.

I didn't say, Joe, that it doesn't concern me that the CBS memo flap probably reflects a common problem in the media. In fact I am very concerned about this; it degrades journalism at all levels and political viewpoints. It is not a "liberal" or "conservative"issue, depite your best efforts to make it one.

What is not hard for me to grasp, however, is that you have completely waffled on my countercharge that it is an issue that pales in comparison to the Commander-in-Chief being guilty of the same malfeasance (reliance on dubious sources) with much more severe consequences (a war).

And while you might try to dismiss this as being of concern only to " bunch of political partisans and veterans", you should note that these two groups together comprise a substantial and important part of the electorate. So it is not a small issue of interest to only a small minority.

Is it so hard for you to understand why we should expect our leaders to be honest about both past and present events??? (And I'm not talking about AL's "gaming" theory of political biographies, I'm talking about highly calculated lying and obfuscation.)

Jinndy;

"It is possible that a group of 'journalists' and Democratic Party representatives conspired to affect the outcome of a presidential election, in a time of War."

Here we go again with the highly-offensive "time of war" argument . If this didn't bother you during the Rove-connected Swift Boat Veterans flap in which connections were much clearer than they are now, then I see no objective reason to pay any mind to your current position.

VT
Except, the Swift Boat vets ads, while offensive to some are also largely true, Kerry puffed up his service, "christmas in Cambodia", and more importantly came back and accused his fellow band of brothers of being war criminals as a matter of course not exception, and believe it or not that annoys people, believing that perhaps that he is unpatriotic. The best that the Dems can come up with is the supposition that Bush got preferential treatment getting into the guard and his guard service sort of petered out in the end and he may have missed some meetings. No facts, no proof supposition. Most Americans look at that and say he is telling the truth. So you have CBS, trying to effect an election with forged documents, supposition and rumors because we know its true (but can't prove it) versus ads paid for private citizens that use Kerry's own words against him. Throw in the fact that Kerry has not released his med records, all of his Military files or his wifes tax returns. Taken in the whole who has been more honest. Kerry or Bush? I think Bush.

What's intersting to me is that this Rathergate flap has completely canged my mind about Bushe's National Guard service. I used to assume, like everyone else, that he got a special deal. But since this last erruption, someone - finally - went and talked to the guy that originally inducted Bush into the National Guard. He retired general said there were no special favors. And apparently, there was no waiting list. In fact, there was a surplus of slots, for which advertising was being used in an sttempt to attract candidates.

This is starting to look like some more Rovian master strategy. Since the charges have never been flatly denied, the Democrats are always encouraged to dig deeper, constantly dogging Bush. Not only has this rope-a-dope basically worn out the Democrats by sucking their attention and resources into a non-issue, but has now severely wounded CBS. The master stroke may well be that Bush served honorably, just as his discharge says.

Anything to do with Vietnam is a loser for Kerry. He should stay off the subject.

VT: Here we go again with the highly-offensive "time of war" argument

Grrr! I hate this argument most of all! We are at war! How can you deny it? This is the New Terrorist War and we will loose if you guys across the aisle can't get serious. When it comes down to the actual vote, I care not a whit (channelling Trent) for TANG or swiftvets or CBS! I want to know who is going to keep me alive! And if Kerry can't even admit we're fighting a War, and so has no plan to win it, well, he's lost my vote forever.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said I don't care about the memo forgeries. I do care. Americans are having their heads cut off, our soldiers are dying every day, Iraqi civilians are being shot and blown up with car bombs and CBS is screwing around with forged memos. The only war the Left believes in is the War for the Whitehouse.

Jinnderella;

"This is the New Terrorist War and we will loose if you guys across the aisle can't get serious. "

"The only war the Left believes in is the War for the Whitehouse."

"...Kerry can't even admit we're fighting a War...and so has no plan to win it."

Well, that sure erases any doubt about where you stand on the political spectrum and how you view opinions that do not match your own.

And how this perpective has seemingly totally confused you on which candidate claims the War on Terror cannot be won and which one thinks it can but only with a change of leadership.

If only everyone agreed with you, or if their disagreements were inconsequential (or treated as such), wouldn't the world be a simpler place in which to reside? But isn't that what Republicans and those who express sentiments like yours are seeking, anyway?

You are free of course to continue to sing in the chorus of the damned proclaiming that all those who do not side with you are un-patriotic or un-American, but you're going to have to drag me and half of America through hell before we give in to this crap.

VT: Unpatriotic?? Where did I say that? You're throwing up chaff, that's the Kerry defense. Can you imagine any network behaving as CBS has during, say, World War II, or the Korean War? Perhaps what happened in Vietnam was because the Left refused to believe that was a "real war" also.
I don't believe the Left thinks we're in a war. They are not serious. You're an examplar, convince me otherwise.

VT,

Defeated on the issue of Vietnam service's relevance by the Clinton point, you look at the CBS forged documents scandal and go into "Bush lied!" seizures again over the Iraq war. Good grief.

This may come as a surprise to you, but unlike Rather, the President of the United States is not a passive reporter of news with an obligation of fairness between both sides of the dispute - in this case, Saddam Hussein and his legislated enemies in America (regime change was already official U.S. policy by Congressional legislation, and had been for a while). The President's duty is clear, and it exists to only one side of the equation - the American people. He's someone who makes decisions and acts in concert with Congress & the Senate (who also authorized this war), sometimes on limited information because that is the way of the world. This is reality, not some high-school test where all the answers are known.

I'll point out that if Bush is a liar re: Saddam's WMD, then so was Clinton and so were many, many prominent Democrats - and many others in the world, too (including Saddam, who issued orders for their use during the war). And of course, that was just one argument among many when the decision was made in America.

But there's no point rehashing all of those Iraq arguments here. We've been over them again and again, and I'll cut future comments that make Iraq the focus rather than CBS. The point here is that the Presidency has very different duties in these cases, duties that are shared with the legislative branch. This difference invalidates your comparison.

To illustrate the point further, let's step away from Iraq parallels and focus on an op-ed columnist vs. a news anchor.

Let's imagine that an op-ed columnist were to argue that W. should be defeated because of his flawed Guard service, the deficits he has run up, and the need for universal health care. Now let's imagine that Bush's Guard service was later found to be without flaw. This would NOT make our op-ed columnist the equivalent of Dan Rather.

The columnist's job is to look at the world, and decide, and attempt to persuade (albeit without the corresponding responsibility of those in office). There is no obligation of even-handedness present here. This imaginary scenario would just be a case of someone being wrong in one of their assertions, which would not disqualify them as a columnist (Too bad, otherwise there'd be a constant revolving door and we'd all get a crack at it eventually).

The key point is that unlike the President or an op-ed columnist, Rather DOES have a broader duty to both sides of the situation in question. He is obligated to even-handedness and scrupulousness between both sides of the political aisle in America, without favouritism. That has been CBS' brand promise, and many also believe its professional obligation. Nor do Rather's repeated violations of that duty (to the point of having a bestselling book written about it) remove it.

THAT why people think Rather's attempt to influence the 2004 elections with crudely forged documents that could not survive even the most cursory checks is so serious.

"The key point is that unlike the President or an op-ed columnist, Rather DOES have a broader duty to both sides of the situation in question. He is obligated to even-handedness and scrupulousness between both sides of the political aisle in America, without favouritism. That has been CBS' brand promise, and many also believe its professional obligation."

They have no such obligation, and it's my contention that it's high time that we abandon this ultimately flawed and untenable attitude to have toward media of any kind. You cannot count on "objectivity" from any single source whatsoever, whether it's a blogger or a major news network. It's logically impossible because every person and every organization has its own worldview which is ultimately going to shape its output.

Objectivity is not attained by any professional standards and practices of "evenhandedness"; it's attained in the wonderful way we've just seen: by submitting information and theories to the world to be examined and critiqued in public by whoever wants to step up to the plate. (Individual intellectual honesty is a nother matter, of course, and I agree that CBS has shown a lack of it here.) This is what goes on every hour in the blogosphere, and I think the blogosphere provides a good model of the shape of media to come: everyone takes it for granted that the person they're reading has a political angle and compensates for it. As a result, the blogosphere gets collectively get closer to the truth a lot faster than the major media outlets do.

In the blogosphere, ideas are put out there and the criticism of them comes fast and furious from all directions. In the mainstream media, things take longer for institutional reasons: less collective knowledge on which to form criticisms, less speedy publishing, and especially the absurd pretense of objectivity employed by all mainstream media which encourages credulousness. Episodes like this are going to make people increasingly suspicious of where they get their information, and that's all to the good (unless you work for CBS).

I elaborated a bit on this in my blog a few days ago. I owe props to the late Karl Popper for calling it from 60 years ago.

Even if we accept that all media is baised one way or another, they still can't make up facts, or forge evidence. We are all allowed to have our biases and opinions, but presenting falsehoods as facts is beyond the pale.

I agree, which is why I made that little aside about intellectual honesty. Anyone who deliberately fudges the facts deserves to lose their credibility. This is a natural and welcome part of the marketplace of ideas.

Joe,

Just like your master, you are claiming victory where note exists. Defeat does not come simply by declaring your opponent vanquished and hoping no one notices differently.

"This may come as a surprise to you, but unlike Rather, the President of the United States is not a passive reporter of news with an obligation of fairness between both sides of the dispute..."

What clearly comes as a surprise to you is that this does not give the President or anyone else the right to lie to the public. And neither CBS nor any other news organization has any obligation to present an imbalanced set of facts as 'balanced", sorry. But that is what those whose primary arguments are based on lies must seek otherwise their lies will become very obvious.

I've seen this referred to as "faux fairness", which serves to neutralize any important challenge to plutocratic reality by making all discussions symmetric.

In other words, if Bush is representing a biased position, as you argue (and the contention that he is doing it for the "American People" is simply too ignorant to comment on), then we need an adversarial media to counterbalance this. Especially in a Time of War where presidential powers can become dangerously concentrated in the hands of a few.

I therefore think it is clear that your arguments here can be veiwed as simply another part of the concerted effort by the Right to continue to define the debate on your terms and further concentration power in the hands of those on your side.

I'm not buying into it, and neither are most people who have the capacity to think for themselves.

In other words, if Bush is representing a biased position, as you argue, then we need an adversarial media to counterbalance this.

I thought this was the purpose of the opposing party, not the media.

VT - this is such a perfect encapsulation of your snark, and the reason why I con't take you too seriously - "Joe, like your master..." - heaven forbid that he should make upo his own mind.

In my post on tolerance above, no one on the right ever seems to accuse me of having a 'master' or being 'spun'...might I suggest that a modicum of mutual respect might get you further?

A.L.

Matt,

But CBS DOES have this obligation. Not because of Olympian standards of journalism, but because they have made that their brand promise. They may therefore be judged on that basis.

VT, in addition to A.L.'s points...

Lying is not the same thing as being wrong, except possibly in your mind and then only when it comes to your political enemies. Bill Clinton did not lie about the cruise missile strikes in Sudan. He ordered a strike against a target, and it may or may not have been what he thought it was. You can question his approach (and I do), or question his target, but he didn't lie. He may (may) have turned out to be wrong. There's a difference.

Too bad we can't all be perfect like you.

On the Iraq issue, Congress voted for the war based on all of the available arguments. These went beyond WMD. And belief in Saddam's WMD goes back beyond Bush's tenure. As I noted earlier if Bush is a liar because the WMD weren't there, then so was Clinton and so is most of the Democratic Party.

This was also the point of the op-ed analogy, but it wasn't convenient to your argument and so of course you simply ignored it to repeat, again and again: "Bush lied! Bush lied! Bush lied!"

You would do us all a favour if you simply restricted your comments to this concise 6-word entry in future. You never seem to say anything else of substance, and this way your comments would convey the same message but take up far less room.

Lurker -- Have you read the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung lately?

I am not kidding. Yesterday it had a delightful local interview with Col. Staudt. Here it is (hat tip to the Powerline folks):

http://herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?ewcd=a52a42e53f6b2fed

Lurker;

The media should have the same adversarial position toward both parties. What we have instead is the Republicans trying to shift this balance (heck, it is already shifted) so that they are only permitted to go after one side--the Democrats--with impunity, while even the merest hint of direct opposition to Bush becomes un-patriotic. Like I said, we ain't buyin' it.

The completely unilateral manner in which every media issue has been addressed on this blog is a perfect testament to this.

JK;

"On the Iraq issue, Congress voted for the war based on all of the available arguments."

They were fools. I am not defending what the Democrats did. They caved in and wimped out to everyone's detriment, and I harbor plenty of anger toward them for this sorry episode. But you see, I have a sense of perspective. I think it much worse that they were duped by Bush. Of course you are well aware that congress voted to authorize the President to use force "if necessary", and apparently were led to believe that it would only be a last resort after all else failed. Unfortunately for them and us all, now we know Bush full-well intended to depose Hussein by invasion as soon as he entered office. He never intended to allow the inspectors to do their job, because if they had found earlier, as we have now seen, there were no WMDs, public support for the invasion would collapse. This scenario explains all the information I am aware of better than any other.

That the "intelligence" was the same as when Clinton was in office is hogwash. Cheney set up his shadowy Office of Special Plans precisely to cook the data to justify an Iraq invasion. In other words, they made up new intelligence all on their own.

I clearly remember the administration ratcheting up their rhetoric against Hussein in the months leading up to the invasion, even mentioning nuclear weapons many many times. My question then, and now, was if the intelligence was the same as it had been in the time leading up to this, why the sudden urgency? Either they had "new" info suggesting a more imminent need (they didn't), or they had simply decided for whatever reasons, not excluding domestic political ones, that the time was ripe for some ass-kickin'.

And furthermore, you are simply wrong to assert that the media is required to be "fair to both sides". Even if it is in their damn motto. Why don't we dissect Fox's "fair and balanced" motto? A corporate slogan has no bearing on the role of the media in our public discourse. You're really flailing around here with this argument.

Shorter VT:

"Bush lied! The Democrats were fools! Bush lied! He deserves anything he gets from the media! Bush lied!"

In order...

No he didn't! Oh, you've noticed! No he didn't! I don't think so! No he didn't!"

V.T.:

"Cheney set up his shadowy Office of Special Plans precisely to cook the data to justify an Iraq invasion."

The Office of Special Plans was created by Rumsfeld, not Cheney. The idea that this group was the real force behind Iraq policy seems to have originated with Seymour Hersh. The left has inflated the OSP with enough hot air for it to rank alongside the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminati, and Lovecraft's "The Forbidden Corpse-Eating Cult of Inaccessible Leng."

Who is the Baphomet-God of the OSP? None other than dead philosopher Leo Strauss, of course ... [creepy organ music] That's right ... they're NEOCONSERVATIVES! [scream]

Even shorter VT:

"Bush Lies. Even when he speaks truth it should be verified independently."

VT,
I have a few questions for you. What is the purpose of your posts? Is it to vent your frustrations? Or is it to convince the folks here of your positions? If it's the former, please save your breath and go hang with Kos of DU. You'll get plenty of sympathy at those places I'm sure. If it's the later purpose that interests you, then you are failing. Utterly.

For example, T.J. Madison is another commenter here. He has an opinion that runs counter to most of the other visitors. Though he can be grating, he enters the debate and makes his points, sharply, but mostly civilly. He has mentioned in the past that he is considering starting a blog with some of his buds. I may visit there, because his ideas, though I will likely never agree with many of them, are interesting and have some honest consideration behind them. Your posts here have long ago ceased to be interesting and apparently contain little consideration. Instead of adding to them, you seem only to derail conversations. Why is that? Do you hate seeing people converse that don’t agree with you? Do you think that, perhaps, one more well aimed zing will change someone’s mind? Are your trying to save us from Rovian mind control? Just what is your purpose here? Is it anything beyond being a troll?

This is interesting to me as we seemed to have started in the same place. I suspect that you voted for Gore, as did I; and you obviously thought Bush was unqualified, as did I. Did our positions start diverging with the contested election? I never thought it was "stolen". It was clear to me that the Constitutional process was being followed. Is this where we split? Do you think the election was stolen? Or was it 9-11? Or was it the events following 9-11? I supported the Afghanistan invasion? Did you. I supported the Iraq invasion. Did you – wait – I know the answer to this one.

Maybe we’ve never been in the same place. And these recent events have served to make this clear. I just think you should know that your comments are not helpful, at least if you are trying to convince me of anything. And if it’s not working on me, a verifiable moderate, then who do you think it is going to work on?

I thought there was one important possibility missing from the narrative presented. I think it's likely that the initial Powerline/Freeper posts pointing out the typographical evidence of forgery were set up by the White House ahead of time. That fits in well with the suggestion that Rove disseminated, after he got them from CBS, the memos to lure and then clobber CBS.

Also worth reading: Tina Brown (yeah, I know that is a surprise.)

Andrew, this is way beneath you.

There is such a thing as self-organizing systems, and it isn't a huge shock that a lot of bloggers would be people with deep Desktop Publishing and Typographical expertise. Did you really think they wouldn't check given the magnitude of the claimed story, and the abysmal quality of the documents?

What we just saw is a very familiar pattern to those if us who've been on the net for a long time. TIME Magazine's 1995 story on Internet porn, anyone? A sloppy, foolish and biased news story hit the net and met a cadre of real experts, with predictable results. Even Tina Brown says as much, once you pare away the old media apologetics and liberal-chic smarm. Only difference 9 years later is a context where more people care enough to pay attention.

But you insist on a Bush campaign conspiracy. A natural consequence of CBS' poor approach? Of course not. It must be that fault of Satan, er, Karl Rove. Proof? Don't be silly. None is needed - you've asserted it, and that's enough. Apparently.

Your casual put down of Powerline's integrity and success in partcular is contemptible. They are quite clear on how this all went down, and the GOP campaign was nowhere to be found. Or can you not give a team of bloggers and distinguished lawyers some credit for intelligence? Oh, I forgot, they're right wing. Maybe that means you can't imagine them as intelligent or self-motivated.

Y'know, maybe, rather than wondering how it could all be Karl Rove's fault, you might ask yourself what need these conspiracy beliefs and avoidance responses serve in you. Fulfilment of an obsession? Envy? Desperate need to deny credit to the bloggers who worked to make this happen, lest they be strengthened? Jealousy? A need to deflect potential questions and CBS and the media? What?

This much I do know: these kinds of responses sure aren't helping your cause any outside the asylum audiences at Democratic Underground or Indymedia. Here you and VT are, and what you're projecting is such clear denial and avoidance behaviour that you're invaluable in making the other side's case for a media and a liberal establishment in bed with each other, dishonest, and reality-avoidant.

Is that the impression you want? The malignity of your cause? It's the one you leave when you do stuff like this.

Seriously, take two asprins, and lie down for a while, and call me in the morning.