Update (6:25 p.m.): “CBS Faces New Charges Over Discredited Bush Report”
Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton’s former spokesman, poked his hand in the cookie jar once too often. He got stuck. According to USAToday:
CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard.Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn’t recall the producer’s name. But CBS said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart….
The network’s effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS’ handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This “poses a real danger to the potential credibility…of a news organization,” said Aly Colon, a news ethicist at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Why would CBS need to contact the Kerry campaign? Wouldn’t their efforts to topple George Bush be more likely to succeed if they at least pretended to be non-partisan? This country doesn’t produce smart people the way it used to, I guess.
The Kerry campaign is involved. Wishes do come true. I’ll sit back and watch the fallout.
One more thing, I almost collapsed in hysterical laughter when I read this headline from the Chicago Tribune: “Admission about memos will likely fuel debate over media bias.”
That’s some understatement, isn’t it? Leon Lazaroff is obviously a liberal because he doesn’t know the “debate” has been raging for quite awhile and he’s just now catching on (or pretends to be). Liberals like Lazaroff probably consider the Media Research Center (MRC) a fanatical right-wing fringe group. On the contrary. The MRC has been providing a valuable and underrated service by exposing leftist bias since 1987.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Mr. Lazaroff, a new medium. Gone are the days when disgruntled readers had to be content with writing letters to the editor that may or may be read or published. We citizen-journalists have descended upon Big Media and left-wing bias, and reporters like you will no longer have the last say. This is an extraordinarily exciting moment: the blogosphere brought down Dan Rather.
And I thank the founding fathers for crafting something so innovatively astounding as the First Amendment.
If you don’t like it, move to Iraq.
For updated links…
Power Line has more questions for CBS. Allahpundit has more on the alleged source.
Bush camp tells CBS debate moderator to take a hike. Also see VodkaPundit and Slant Point.
More on collusion between CBS and the DNC from Balloon Juice.
Power Line blogger interviewed on CNBC. Also see Ace of Spades.
Support independent journalists!
La Shawn,
Amazingly, CBS News has been advertising itself as “the REAL fair and balanced news network” lately. Their apology thus far, particularly in light of their claim of “fair and balanced” is totally inadequate. This story was not only sloppily researched, it was presented with only one side of a controversial issue. Even with all the backpedaling they have been forced to do, CBS in general and Rather in particular still have not set this thing right.
They have interviewed ontly the people they knew would agree with or substantiate the story (such as Killian’s lifelong Democrat secretary) and have ignored critics who have intimate knowledge of Killian and the TexANG (like his wife and son, along with officers and former officers of the TexANG who disputed the veracity of the letters from the moment of their unvealing).
I am also disturbed by the contact between CBS News and the Kerry campaign prior to the running of the story, it seems mighty suspicious.
Comment by Montie — 09.21.04 @ 10:06 am
>This country doesn’t produce smart people the way it used to, I guess.
Just think about the people who dote on every word Michael Moore utters…
Comment by William Meisheid — 09.21.04 @ 10:35 am
The whole imbroglio is just so disturbing to watch. What I want to know is, who was the original instigator, in other words, the key person who gave the orders to “do whatever one can do to get all those fake stuff passed off for real, so as to influence the election”? This person ought to be tarred and feathered, as was done back during the Revolution. I also can’t believe how they tried to palm it off the Bush campaign - they are just too “together”, if you know what I mean.
Comment by Lola — 09.21.04 @ 10:43 am
In light of the apparent collusion between CBS and the Kerry campaign, do the recent stories on CBS and its affiliates constitute illegal corporate contributions to the campaign? Or might the President be entitled to equal time?
Comment by ThePrecinctChair — 09.21.04 @ 11:00 am
I’m just smirking like crazy cause I know that this is an evolutionary event - evolutionary in that the ‘liberal media’ is outted for all to see and those that have said for years that the mainstream media is biased are finally being vindicated.
Take notice of all happening now cause this is a pivotal event in the social history of American society.
Comment by Mad Mikey — 09.21.04 @ 11:28 am
It looks like we might have two big feasts in November. There’s a good chance that we’ll have roast donkey for election day and the traditional roast turkey on Thanksgiving day.
I can smell it cookin’ right now!
Comment by Phil Dillon — 09.21.04 @ 12:41 pm
Montie, I would take issue with the phrase; “This story was not only sloppily researched…”, don’t you mean “This hit piece was not only sloppily assembled…”. Gotta keep the proper perspective, eh?
Poor Danny-Boy, he must be agonizing over his legacy, 30 years summed up as partisan fraudster for the history books bwwww-ha-haa
Comment by Andy — 09.21.04 @ 1:30 pm
“The Kerry campaign is involved. Wishes do come true. I’ll sit back and watch the fallout.”
I’m not expecting any fallout. I’m not expecting much reprecussion at all. People with a clue (and Internet connection) are already reading blogs.
I don’t think most people will ‘get’ this. I don’t think most people, to this day, understand most of what’s true in life. I don’t see why this should be any different.
I’d love to think things will happen. Perhaps down the line, after a respectable-looking time elapses, Dan will “retire”. But I don’t think most people will understand how tight most media sources are with the Kerry campaign any more than most people understand Bill Clinton really did do some horrible things back in the 90s.
I don’t think this will leave Kerry looking especially bad to the general public. Many of them, for example, actually believe the (still unknown!) charges from the swiftboat veterans have been discredited.
I’d love to be wrong.
That said, I don’t think Kerry will win, but I think that’s larger more due to is own direct public appearances and statements.
Comment by Tim — 09.21.04 @ 1:36 pm
Trail to Kerry Hollow
Adding to the memo-gate story is a new connection to the Kerry campaign. The CBS source of the documents, Bill Burkett, divulged that he insisted talking to Joe Lockhart, a top aide to Kerry, before he would hand the documents over to CBS. CBS producer…
Trackback by Slant Point — 09.21.04 @ 1:44 pm
Lazaroff must be living in a cardboard box under the San Francisco bridge.Guess he hasn’t noticed all the anti-Bush books and story’s that are on 60 minutes week after week.I’m still waiting to see the swift vets and Bernie Goldberg on the MSM.Oh that’s right they only had #1 books on the NYTimes book list, not enough to get them coverage.Al Gore? His book is number 2000 on the list so cbs, nbc and abc will give him 3 days coverage.
Comment by ratso ferrari — 09.21.04 @ 1:57 pm
It has seemed clear to me all along that CBS wouldn’t sit by and fiddle while CBS News burned unless they were protecting a lot more than the ’source’ of some forged memos. What could be that big? Only John Kerry.
Kerry probably thought things couldn’t get worse after the awful August he had. He must be dreading October at this point.
Comment by MartiniPundit — 09.21.04 @ 4:30 pm
Drudge just came out with a developing item about the nut case Burkett.
Burkett is now claiming that Lockhart ask him to release the documents to him.
I am loving this a lot!
Is that so wrong?
Comment by Richard — 09.23.04 @ 11:01 pm
I am very disturbed over the actions by “60 Minutes” and their fraudulent actions in attempting to make President Bush look bad.
First we had the forged documents produced by CBS and broadcast to the public that attempted to show Bush in a bad light over his National Guard service.
Today, Joe Lockhart echoing the John Kerry modis operendi of deceit and lies stated, “Instead of distorting John Kerry’s words, the Bush campaign is now falsely and deliberately twisting the reports of journalists. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous.”
This was regarding the false claim by “60 Minutes” who released a UN report taken more than one year ago to the New York Times that over 380 tons of explosives have been found missing. The truth was that these explosives were missing when the 101st Airborne arrived at the location. An NBC News staff was with them and confirmed this.
Yet Lockhart blatantly lied, knowing this full well. How bad does the Kerry campaign want to win? This shows they will go to any length to do so.
Robert Hallett
dis operendi
Comment by Robert B. Hallett — 10.26.04 @ 5:16 pm