Rathergate Massacre

[Guest Cerebus]

Link:

 

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

 

I have to say, this is late in coming but its good to see CBS is not passing the buck. A senior VP and 3 producers lost their jobs which is hardly a small reaction.

 

Comments?

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Damn. Drudge is going to have a field day since he claims he broke this.

[Guest Cerebus]

Powerline broke it though.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Why does this get a reaction and not this?

[Highland 0]

It's all about who's palm you grease and how much....

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Why does this get a reaction and not this?

And when is asshat extraordinaire Robert Novak going to get his comeuppance?

 

And why does Bill "Fantastic Boobs" O'Reilly still have a job?

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Why does this get a reaction and not this?

*ahem...*

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Why does this get a reaction and not this?

*ahem...*

I think he meant "How come no one is getting their ass handed to them over paying Williams while all of these people are getting the ax over the memos?".

 

Hell, it's pretty clear that, while the documents were faked, what they said was true--Dubyah probably did not complete his Texas Air National Guard service.

 

However, I think these people did deserve to be fired.

[The Robfather 0]

Rather should have been fired.

 

That is all.

[NoCalMike 0]

I wish the media was investigated moreso for blindly supporting the war and not investigating into the misleading and lying by our president leading up to the invasion.

[Guest sek69]

I love how talk radio is screaming about political motivations when most of them work for Fox News, which is pretty much the media arm of the GOP to the point they made a documentary about it (Outfoxed).

[2GOLD 0]

Forging government documents is light years bigger than paying off a reporter to me. Reporters are so easily bought and sold that it's not an ounce of a shock to find out some are in the pocket of the government.

 

That's just advertising to me.

 

Course if you want to hang them, please do. I like it when anyone in the Department of Education hangs. Especially Teacher's Unions.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Why does this get a reaction and not this?

*ahem...*

I think he meant "How come no one is getting their ass handed to them over paying Williams while all of these people are getting the ax over the memos?".

 

Hell, it's pretty clear that, while the documents were faked, what they said was true--Dubyah probably did not complete his Texas Air National Guard service.

 

However, I think these people did deserve to be fired.

Correction: From what I have read, it hasn't even been proven that the documents were faked.

[Special K 0]

From what I read into it, it seemed pretty clear the documents were not government documents. While they may be replicas (I doubt it, the onus is on CBS in this case to provide the original, or admit they either forged it, or blindly accepted it as truth.

 

I think paying reporters is pretty sleazy too.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I'm ready for some firings in the MSM of whoever decided to air the SBVT crap/lies.

[Justice 0]

I'm ready for some firings in the MSM of whoever decided to air the SBVT crap/lies.

?

 

The book might have been complete crap, but to be honest, all the commercials were about his actions as Winter Soldier and throwing his metals away, right? I thought everyone declared those okay, since it wasn't his service record. Perhaps I'm wrong on this one.

[Guest sek69]

I'm ready for some firings in the MSM of whoever decided to air the SBVT crap/lies.

?

 

The book might have been complete crap, but to be honest, all the commercials were about his actions as Winter Soldier and throwing his metals away, right? I thought everyone declared those okay, since it wasn't his service record. Perhaps I'm wrong on this one.

The commercials had people who weren't even on the same boat as Kerry claiming they "served with him" and knew he was lying when they had no way of knowing.

 

Also, O'Neil the unoffical leader of the SBVT, has had a grudge against Kerry ever since the Nixon days.

[Justice 0]

I'm ready for some firings in the MSM of whoever decided to air the SBVT crap/lies.

?

 

The book might have been complete crap, but to be honest, all the commercials were about his actions as Winter Soldier and throwing his metals away, right? I thought everyone declared those okay, since it wasn't his service record. Perhaps I'm wrong on this one.

The commercials had people who weren't even on the same boat as Kerry claiming they "served with him" and knew he was lying when they had no way of knowing.

 

Also, O'Neil the unoffical leader of the SBVT, has had a grudge against Kerry ever since the Nixon days.

No... that was the book. Perhaps I forget, but the people who testified on the commercials were just PoWs. The book, though, did have a bunch of shit on that. I'll come out right now and say that the book was full of shit when written. But the commercials, for all the bitching, seemed pretty fairly aimed at his after-service days.

 

And I don't care if he had a grudge, Kerry deserved to be slammed for his post Vietnam days. His lies as Winter Soldier were much worse than anything the SBVT ever put out.

[The Robfather 0]

Kerry wasn't the only one who served and the others had the right to speak their mind on his post-Vietnam days.

[NoCalMike 0]

The fact that guys like Hannity are all up in arms about how the documents could have affected the election, yet when someone arguing with him said, "and airing the Swift Boat movie wouldn't do that?" Hannity's response was "well everything in that movie was a fact" shows just how much integrity Sean Hannity has. I don't agree with his political agenda, but what is worse is this total fake outrage he has when saying things like "if you had it your way, mass graves would be filling up still" I mean he says it like it was some major gripe of his more then three years ago or something.

[NoCalMike 0]

Kerry wasn't the only one who served and the others had the right to speak their mind on his post-Vietnam days.

Yes they had the right to speak, which is what writing the book was all about. However ABC being forced to air a biased one-sided movie set out to destroy Kerry's character two weeks before an election should not have been allowed.

[Guest sek69]

They didn't have the right to launch an all out smear campaign that was proven almost entirely false right before the election. I think every national and local conservative TV and radio host had some Swift Boat reperesentitive on their show to give their falsehoods some credibility.

 

But hey, at least they didn't forge memos. That would have been really bad.

[Justice 0]

They didn't have the right to launch an all out smear campaign that was proven almost entirely false right before the election. I think every national and local conservative TV and radio host had some Swift Boat reperesentitive on their show to give their falsehoods some credibility.

 

But hey, at least they didn't forge memos. That would have been really bad.

Your kidding, right? This both campaigns were just smear campaigns against one another. Jesus, let's just ignore F9/11 and all the bullshit that tried to pass off as facts. I'd say the SBVT attacked an excellent spot where Kerry was weak: His after-war actions in the US. The book was false, yes. But the accusations made on the commercials were just fine: He deserved to be cooked on the Winter Soldier testimony and throwing his medals away. It was a testament to how weak he really was when he couldn't even properly explain his throwing away of his medals. Jeez.

[Guest sek69]

Which is why the right wingers getting their panties in a bunch over this memo stuff is laughable. Especially when guys like Hannity had every Kerry basher they could find on his shows before the election and now when it's CBS getting 40 lashes he's all "OMG POLITICAL MOTIVATIONZ~!" as if he's completely naive to the concept. All's fair in love and politics, but when you act innocent when the other guy gets nailed playing politics is just insulting to the audience.

 

For the record, the reason the Dems lost in 2004 was mainly due to Kerry's inability to answer even a basic question in less than 1,000 words made people think there was more to the Swift Boat stuff than there really was.

[NoCalMike 0]

Which is why the right wingers getting their panties in a bunch over this memo stuff is laughable. Especially when guys like Hannity had every Kerry basher they could find on his shows before the election and now when it's CBS getting 40 lashes he's all "OMG POLITICAL MOTIVATIONZ~!" as if he's completely naive to the concept. All's fair in love and politics, but when you act innocent when the other guy gets nailed playing politics is just insulting to the audience.

 

For the record, the reason the Dems lost in 2004 was mainly due to Kerry's inability to answer even a basic question in less than 1,000 words made people think there was more to the Swift Boat stuff than there really was.

And the fact that he basically waited way to long to even respond to it. He should have squashed that shit right off the bat, but he remained silent for so long that the con artists were able to build momentum.

[The Robfather 0]

THE END OF RATHER: He has to go now, doesn't he? When all the people directly associated with this debacle have quit or been fired, on what basis does he stay? He fronted the report. He stood by it. He took responsibility for it. On his watch, CBS News became a laughing stock. Is he really going to let everyone else take the hit? Has he lost all sense of self-respect as well as loyalty? For goodness' sake, Dan. Go. Even Howell did eventually. People will remember the rest of your legacy. But if you hang on to your job as long as you hung on to that "story," all you will prove is your pride.

 

-- Andrew Sullivan

[Guest sek69]

Christ knows Andrew F'N Sullivan is the bastion of journalistic morality.

[NoCalMike 0]

Quite frankly I can care less if Rather stays or goes. I don't watch CBS to get news, just like I don't watch NBC, ABC, FOX etc.....they all are pretty unreliable in my eyes.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Why should anyone fire Rather when he already announced that he was going to step down from CBS months ago? Or did he rescind that while I wasn't paying attention?

[Guest Cerebus]

What makes this important, I think, is not, necessarily, that it could have affected the election (even if they weren't exposed I don't think there was nearly enough interest into Bush's Vietnam's service to matter much). What makes this important is that:

 

1) CBS apparently didn't even do cursory checking for these memos.

2) They refused to budge for weeks, insisting that they were accurate.

3) Unlike Hannity and those guys who ran the Swift Boat ads, CBS claims to be an objective and unbiased news source.