It seems that too many thought that Thornburgh and Boccari were appointed Special Counsel or Independent Consel in the mold of Cox and/or Starr.

This is not the report of a criminal prosecutor, Indpendent Counsel or Speical Prosecutor as it is obvious that no determination of criminality is attempted. It is also obvious that no attempt was made to get to the truth of the news segment in question.

Rather, this report is an analysis, using the facts at hand, to determine if CBS employees of Sixty Minutes II followed corporate policy when reporting on Bush’s Air National Guard service. As such, no investigation outside of interviewing CBS employees was necessary.

Those searching for the truth of the news segment or for prosecution of criminal acts have their hopes and anger improperly directed. They should look to Congress or the AG-s of NY, TX and/or the USA.

Any attempt to attribute the report with truth telling will be futile.

I finally told him he was full of…. well you know.

I tried my best to avoid even talking about this with him. One of the reasons I come here is so that I will not feel inclined to talk politics with my ill informed and paranoid brother, but he was in a mood and so he picked a fight and it was not pretty.

Damn… he is my only brother. This stuff should not come between people like that.

My sympathies. Almost all of my in-laws are in the same boat.

Well according to my brother everything from the evils of communism to the war on Terror are just examples of right wing propaganda. To him a report like that would sound about right.

I don’t know what happened to my little brother, he was not always so silly.

Heyward recalled speaking to Rather on Monday, September 6, and being told that the story was thoroughly vetted. Heyward also told the Panel that Rather said he had not “been involved in this much checking on a story since Watergate.” Heyward also said that Rather commented, “This isn’t as big as Abu Ghraib, but it’s very big, and you should probably look at it before it goes to air.”

Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.

The combination of a new 60 Minutes Wednesday management team, great deference given to a highly respected producer and the network’s news anchor, competitive pressures, and a zealous belief in the truth of the segment seem to have led many to disregard some fundamental journalistic principles,”

Given that the MSM and CBS were clearly out to hurt Bush, I suspect that “zealous belief” was driven by a political bias.

As an example of CBS tactics and bias, CBS evening news had a segment that was classic propaganda – against the Swiftie messengers.

Excerpt (emphasis added):

PITTS: For nearly an hour, this group, called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, unleashed decades of bitterness, attacking Kerry’s service record and his anti-war testimony before Congress, which they say painted them all as war criminals.

Unidentified Man #2: I’m here today to express the anger I’ve harbored for over 33 years about being accused with my fellow shipmates of war atrocities.

PITTS: But if you think this is just a group of concerned veterans, think again. Some of the organizers have a track record of going after Democrats and Republican opponents of President Bush.

Mr. JOHN O’NEILL (Vietnam Veteran): We believe, based on our experience with him, that he is totally unfit to be the commander in chief.

PITTS: John O’Neill. He debated Kerry about Vietnam on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1971. Back then, he was handpicked by the Nixon administration to discredit Kerry.

The press conference was set up by the same people who tried to discredit John McCain’s reputation in Vietnam service when McCain faced George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000. It’s the same strategy used to go after Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam.

Notice the guilt by association, the “bitterness,” etc, the use of the great villain, Nixon, and the hero McCain.

The statement about Nixon implies that O’Neil was chosen and turned into an anti-Kerry person, when in fact O’Neil was discovered because he was already publicly speaking out against Kerry.

The last paragraph of the excerpt is highly misleading.

And then:

Mr. WADE SANDERS (Vietnam Veteran): It smells like another dirty trick from the Bush-Cheney machine.

PITTS: Vietnam; politicized then, politicized now. Byron Pitts, CBS News, Washington.

This is your MSM at work.

For more information on the press conference, see this insider account – especially the penultimate paragraph.

This is CBS practicing the kind of journalism it is proud of. This was not a commentary or hit show like 60 minutes, but the primary news show. This is well crafted propaganda, and nothing else. H

as anyone heard about an investigation of it? Hardly, because it is almost completely true – it was simply the selection of information to be presented and left out, the language used and the use of facts as implications that makes it propaganda.

The O’Neil is a Nixon stooge implication lasted to this day.

Thanks CBS! It’s a good thing that John O’Neil is a tough and honorable man. He fought over 12 months in Vietnam – CBS is small potatos in comparison.

If you dig around deep enough in Rather, though, you find that he’s very Nixonian. Maybe there is something Freudian in all this, or Horneyian or Adlerian (which one?), with Rather’s hatred for Nixon being a projection of his distaste and rejection of himself.

He remains untarnished, but is really a despicable person.

in Mapesí work.” Pg 221

Well, that’s OK then. Rather’s confidence in Abu Hersch Mapes is certainly understandable. The provenace and reliability of sacred texts really should be left in the hands of the faithful and who among us has the standing to declare such a bastion of Democratic faith as CBS to be resting on a foundation of sand?

This report is not a whitewash and semi-tough measures were suggested and accepted by CBS. I am content that the rot at the heart of the matter has not been addressed. As the decomposition of CBS and the NYT continues, live media will continue to grow and it is quite possible that the corpses will return nutrients to the environment as they rot and that those nutrients will aid growth in live media. It’s really not a bad outcome.

I know Bush didn’t, but what if he did? SO WHAT? Many sons of privilege did the same (including Dems), and he never ran on his TANG record. (She started way before Kerry appeared on the scene, so it wasn’t tit for tat for the Swift Vets, although it ended up serving that function.) You spend 5 years employing dubious tactics which could destroy your professional reputation for THAT? If you’re going to go to that kind of trouble and risk, why not aim for “in bed with a dead girl or a live boy,” as the saying goes?

This isn’t just dishonest and unprofessional, it’s DUMB.

Roger, if I read this in one of your novels I would say that the characterization was weak and the plot line just doesn’t ring true.