Tuesday -- January 11, 2005
 MORE
INTERESTED IN RATINGS?
 That's
what Mary Mapes had to say after CBS handed her her walking papers
yesterday. Mapes was the producer -- the producer with some pretty
startling left wing credentials -- who saddled Dan Rather with those phony memos
in the waning days of the 2004 election. Now that she's been fired she
says that Les Moonves, the HLWIC of CBS, is more interested in ratings than he
is in journalism. Let's see ... she gets fired because she takes some
memos that obscure Internet bloggers immediately identified as being fraudulent,
she presents them to CBS as being authentic, CBS uses them and is mightily
embarrassed, then she's fired. Now Mapes says that Moonves isn't
interested in journalism? Well, maybe not her type of journalism.
Those now looking for a job include:
- Mary Mapes, producer of the original story, who was fired outright.
- Josh Howard, Executive Producer of '60 Minutes Sunday,' who was asked to
resign
- Mary Murphy, Senior Broadcast Producer, also canned (I mean..."asked
to resign")
- Betsy West, Senior Vice President was also shown the door.
So what's wrong with that? Well, two big names are missing from the story:
Dan Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward. It was Dan Rather that
defended the story over and over on TV, grinding his political hatchet with the
Bush family and refusing to admit the documents were forgeries. Les
Moonves, CEO of CBS, says since The Dan is retiring from the anchor chair,
that's punishment enough. But he's still going to be a reporter for 60
Minutes, he'll still get paid and he won't lose his job, unlike the
others. It's too bad CBS felt the need to protect Dan Rather to the end.
Also getting a pass is Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News. I'm not sure
I understand this one. The senior VP gets canned because the story
happened on her watch, yet the big cheese doesn't so much as get a slap on the
wrist. Too bad. Wrong message to send to the rank and file at that
network.
Oh...and will anyone be apologizing to President Bush? They haven't yet,
you know.
This was a victory of the New Media, the Internet, bloggers and talk radio, over
the Old Media, the New York Times, Washington Post and, of course, CBS.
NO
BIAS? I THINK NOT
Today's guest on the Neal Boortz Show, Newt Gingrich |
The entire forged documents story at CBS served only one purpose: to defeat
President Bush for re-election and elect John Kerry President of the United
States. Yet, in the entire 234-page report (counting the table of
contents,) there are only 15 occurrences of the word "bias."
Considering this was the whole point of the controversy, that's pretty weak.
Easily the most ridiculous portion of the report is this passage:
"The political agenda question was posed by the Panel directly
to Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, who appear to have drawn the
greatest attention in terms of possible political agendas. Both
strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment. The
Panel recognizes that those who saw bias at work in the Segment are
likely to sweep such denials aside. However, the Panel will not
level allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof. The
Panel does not find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted
or aired the Segment of having a political bias."
CBS CEO Les Moonves reveled in that conclusion in his response announcing the
firings: "We are also gratified that the Panel, after extensive analysis and
consideration, has found that, while CBS News made numerous errors of
judgment and execution in this story, these mistakes were not motivated
by any political agenda. As the Report states, "The Panel does not
find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired
the Segment of having a political bias."
What a crock. No basis to accuse them of political bias? What
proof did they need? A John Kerry for President bumper sticker on Dan
Rather's forehead? The entirel problem at CBS is institutional liberal
bias. That should have been the focus of their report. From the
start, the National Guard story was a politically motivated hatchet job,
designed to destroy George Bush's campaign.
Too bad the report came up short. I
JUST THOUGHT THIS WAS INTERESTING This came from an aviation website I frequent, AvWeb.com: On Dec. 27, The Washington Post ran a story about a V that's been seen
landing at military airports around the Middle East. The story alleged that
the plush jet was actually being used by the spymasters to take terrorism
suspects to countries where, when prisoners are interrogated, amenities like
the Geneva Convention are not strictly observed. The story included the
N-number (N379P) and the name of the owner (Premier Executive Transport
Services Inc.) Go ahead, look them up on the FAA's
database . We did. Assuming the Post got the name and number right,
someone's been tinkering with the FAA database. Not only does the company not
exist anymore on the database, neither does the N-number. And all within a
week over the holiday season. The
Post's story says the plane was being used in an activity known as
"rendition," in which secret transfers of prisoners are allowed
under special presidential consent. But the Post's story kicked over an even
bigger hornet's nest for the agency. Seems the journalists uncovered 325 fake
identities while researching the story and showed them to the CIA brass,
probably not long before those identities (and N379P) disappeared.
You know, there's a lot of stuff going on out there of which we have no clue!
GETTING
WEAK ON SOCIAL SECURITY
Republicans are starting to get weak-kneed at the prospect of Social Security
reform. Some members of Congress are pointing out that the program isn't
scheduled to go under until 2042, and they don't want to pay any political price
for changing the program. In short, they're afraid to fight the battle to
do the right thing. Maintaining the status quo is the easiest thing to do.
So why is it so hard to change? Because the AARP, the Democratic party and
various other demagogues will be out in force telling as many lies as possible
about the president's program. The Gimme Generation will be scared into
thinking that George W. Bush is going to take away their check and everybody
else will be told fictional tales of "gambling" the mythical
"Social Security trust fund" in the stock market.
Lost in these arguments is the fact that the money belongs to the individuals
that earn it, and the program offers an absolutely lousy rate of return.
Would you invest in a retirement program that had an almost non-existent return
and that kept all of your money when you died?
I didn't think so. So why do people continue to support Social Security?
READING ASSIGNMENTSHow about visiting a website that keeps close watch on evil, hate-filled,
neo-con, fascist, dirt bag conservatives in the media? Here's
your link! I'm truly honored to be one of the people watched closely
by this group! I'm even more excited that I seem to get
their thongs in a wad every once in a while. Read the bios of the
people involved with this August organization. You have an assortment of
Democratic activists, ex-PBSers and other left-wingers; and they don't seem to
like me very much at all. In case you'd like to read it, here
is the full report of the investigation into Dan Rather's Bush-bashing
forgeries. Scapegoated producer Mary
Mapes responds with her statement here.
The fact that those involved in the CBS National Guard story don't see
themselves as biased should come as no surprise. Jonathan
Last at the Weekly Standard looks at that ridiculous premise.
CBS has fired four staffers, but fails to see any media bias. Cal
Thomas says this is the equivalent of letting the whole Nixon administration
off the hook for the Watergate burglary.
Armstrong Williams says he's not the only media figure that has taken payments
from the government to promote a program. He
ran into David Corn from The Nation, who has this account.
The U.N. features a group of countries run by thugs and dictators and not only
is a failed experiment, but doesn't deserve a dime of anyone's money. Dimitri
Vassilaros has more.
The chicken littles that are publicly wringing their hands about the trade
deficit just
don't get it, argues John E. Tamny. He says very rich nations often
run trade deficits, and it just doesn't matter all that much.
In a time when the nation is fighting the war on terrorism, Islamic terrorists
are not the only ones on trial. David
Horowitz says that the left itself is often on trial, starting with those
who defend people who attack America. Good read.
In the latest round of his battle with PETA, Professor
Mike Adams answers an e-mail from an animal rights nut. Today the good
professor seems inspired to do a little gun shopping.
The Congressional Black Caucus is already lining up to oppose private accounts
for Social Security. Star
Parker wonders what they're thinking. Then again, "thinking"
is not exactly what politicians in the Congressional Black Caucus tend to do.
Almost everybody these days claims to be a victim of something, and John
Leo runs down the list of some of the more famous victims of 2004.
It's quite the list. |
Neal Boortz's Latest Tweets
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