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We are supposed to believe that news organizations like the NY Times and CBS/60 minutes have these intrepid investigative reporters that through great skill and unflagging determination are able to ferret out all these nefarious conspiracies that are being perpetrated on the American electorate. The truth of the matter is a lot less glamorous and idealistic. What really happens is that nutcases and/or persons with an ax to grind seek out these news organizations with their tales of conspiracies and evil doings. Thus, rather (pun intended) than doing real investigate reporting they are faced with the task of sifting through incredible tales woven by deranged people and individuals looking to get even with somebody who either fired them or who they perceive harmed them in some way, in order to see if there is any nuggets of truth to their claims.

Whether in the past they actually went to the trouble of attempting to validate these claims I do not know. However, now they accept them at face value. In fact, it appears that the more incredible the charges are the more they want to believe them. Thus you get the Dan Rather story on President Bush, the NY Times story on McCain and now the 60 Minutes accusations against Karl Rove. Every time I think that the MSM has reached bottom and could not go any lower they prove me wrong. It is obvious that they don’t even have the journalistic standards of the National Enquirer. When they dig through the muck they at least attempt to get credible sources to back up their claims because they know they are going to get sued otherwise. However, since the Supreme Court has made it virtually impossible to win a lawsuit against the MSM they know they can act with reckless abandon without the fear of having pay for their shoddy and dishonest reporting.

I have not watched 60 Minutes for years. My attitude is fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on you.

Or something like that. Stories like this are obviously hit jobs. All one has to do is look at the convoluted self serving nature of the socalled testimony here to know this woman is after her 15 minutes. CBS was either so excited to get some dirt on the Bushies that they did not care to look closely..or…they knew it was nonsense and ran the story anyway.

People should have caught on by now that these people are not to be trusted.

Have they rehired Mapes?

More “fake but accurate” – people are surprised by this? It’s “Network” come to life. Any potential scandal that can drive ratings will do. I have spoken to otherwise sane aquaintances who will lap up any story put in front of them so long as it might possibly nail Bush and his “cronies” to the wall. It truly IS derangement. Look for these baseless broadsides to increase right up to the inauguration of the next President. If W. stole elections, not to mention all that oil, he’s bound to grab some furniture and flatware on the way out the door, right? Maybe pardon a fugitive or terrorist or two to boot. That would be novel, considering the Clintons left the White House with only their humility and the pride of a job well done. {gag-choke-sputter}

For me its not so much “Bush Fatigue” that I’m weary of – I will miss the man, his leadership, and his basic decency – but it will be a relief to leave the absolute friggin’ LUNACY of his detractors behind. Seven years of this crap is a lot to take – and even more reason to respect his resolve and strength in the face of vicious, senseless hatred. What will they all do with their time?

These people reside in an echo chamber. Dissenting voices have essentially been marginalized out of existence. All those remaining are virtually always on the same page. This results in their hysterically jumping on the latest bandwagon that promises to damage their ideological foes. And this is something you must also understand: they rarely pay a serious price for their errors. On the contrary, they may even be promoted and given a pay raise—because they have proven their loyalty to the leftist establishment. The retired General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, a few years ago let the cat out of the bag. He basically admitted that he leaves these people alone. They had nothing to fear from him. One suspects that their own employees often intimidate the corporate leaders.

You did not mention Bernard Goldberg’s books Bias and Arrogance. He has a good handle on machinations at CBS News.

After the Rathergate-Nat’l Guard documents flap, I was reminded of the Agatha Christie short story, “The Augean Stables”: required reading for anyone who needs to know how to kneecap the opposition in a political race. Could CBS have fallen once again for a too-good-to-be-true scoop?

Try to imagine what would have occurred if Jack Welch attempted to seriously reform NBC. He would have almost certainly been a victim of a slander campaign complaining how corporate interests are trying to destroy the independence of saintly journalists. Welch may have even been subpoenaed by the US. Congress to explain his “vile and disgusting behavior.” Running GE’s widespread empire? Nope, he would not have time to do that. Welch’s main focus would exclusively be directed towards NBC. Soon thereafter, GE’s stock price would drop—and the board of directors would have fired him.

I want to congratulate the ‘boys’ at Power Line for a job well done.

Try to imagine what would have occurred if Jack Welch attempted to seriously reform NBC. He would have almost certainly been a victim of a slander campaign complaining how corporate interests are trying to destroy the independence of saintly journalists.

My solution? Cut them loose. Reform or die!

But 60 Minutes is CBS, not NBC. CBS is owned by Sumner Redstone’s company, National Amusements

I work with a Liberal and he is certain that the MSM is controlled by large corporate interests. He thinks that the news is slanted to a conservative message, and so even though I feel that Iím constantly bombarded by low quality lies and overt propaganda, to some people out there, they might actually think they _are_ being fair.

Iím glad the shoddy MSM product is losing market share.

Hinderaker missed one element of this story, passing it off as Simpson insanity: Why? That is, why would anyone try something so obviously harebrained?

I’ve witnessed the steady unraveling of the Democratic party in Alabama throughout my voting years. It started when the party bosses took the nomination away from Charlie Graddick. (Superdelegates in the current presidential race ring any bells?) In a group rejection, conservative Alabama Democrats crossed lines to vote in Guy Hunt, the first Republican governor of Alabama since reconstruction.

Hunt, in an effort to save the taxpayers money, asked for donations for the inaugural ball. Donations vastly exceeded cost. On the advice of his lawyers, Hunt (a rather personally poor minister) used the excess to pay off campaign debts. On these grounds, the Alabama ethics commission managed to get a (Democrat) judge, in Montgomery, to convict Hunt, which conveniently put the Democrat Lt. Governor into power. At the time, most of the Alabama judicial system was vastly Democrat. There was some rather questionable instructions from the judge to the jury that various layers of appeals in the Alabama system ignored.

BTW, the initial case with the ethics commission was launched on behalf of a Mobile area individual, supposedly a Republican donor to the inaugural ball fund. It came out later that this supposed Republican donor had some close ties to Mobile Democrats and his party registration was ambiguous. Sound familiar?

The Alabama voters response to this was rather telling. The earlier votes for Hunt became GOP party registrations. The judiciary, which is elected, got steadily replaced (until the Roy Moore fiascos blunted the trend).

Meanwhile, the fact that every Democratic governor since Wallace’s last hurrah engaged in blatant funneling of taxpayer money to their cronies was routinely ignored by the Alabama ethics commission. (Not excusing Wallace here. I simply don’t have any evidence to put him in the same group, and doubt he needed that kind of blatant vote buying, anyway.) Siegelman’s only distinguishing feature in this regard was that he was caught.

Now, it is not hard to understand why the Democrats are sure that Republican prosecuters would go after Siegelman on trumped up charges. It is precisely what Democrats would do. It is precisely what they *did*, the last time they thought they had the smallest of openings.

Or to make a long story short, this is the oft-cited Democrat projection, all over again. I apologize for the length of this little jaunt down memory lane, but now you know the real reason why moderate Alabama voters are more firmly GOP than their counterparts in GA, TN, and MS.

“It is precisely what Democrats would do.”

I’ve found that concept to be the most useful and telling judge of what the Democrats are up to. Any time they make some crazy, non-sensical accusation about what the Republicans are up to, closer examination inevitably reveals that it’s a massive case of projection, with Democrats engaging in (or wishing they had the power to engage in) the very practices they are accusing the Republicans of.