4 out at CBS news

crimresearch said:

It was a matter of knowingly using documents which expert after expert in quantitative matters identified as forgeries, and yet refusing to admit that they were forgeries,
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Kind of like making claims that aluminum tubes were to be used for nuclear centifruges despite having every expert in the your own nuclear program tells you that they couldn't be used for that purpose.
 
HAH!

This is all very funny! HS4, you can't compare CBS to the Bush admin...THAT is the apple to Bush's orange if you ask me!

I mean, c'mon...there are surely more cynical skeptics than just myself here, right??

Let me spell it out for you guys. TRUTH(tm) is CBS's business. Without these firings they might never be taken seriously again. (Outside the Democratic party faithful that is...)

Whereas the Bush admin...or more properly "The Office of the President of the United States" is made up of what? Politicians right!? Are politicians ever interested in objective TRUTH? I mean TRUTH even if it embarrasses the President, or endangers stated US policy???

Of course not. Politicians spin. The MSM is not supposed to spin...they're merely supposed to report the TRUTH. When they get caught doing otherwise heads must roll or the MSM outlet (CBS for instance) is perceptably out of the TRUTH business. They fire 4 bigwigs and the perception changes back to their favor.

Simply put CBS had to do this to survive....the White House does not.

It's sad commentary...cynical commentary...but it's true. Apparently one aspect of being a good president is to lie effectively...which is why the "honest man" Jimmy Carter was also the worst President.

-z
 
rikzilla said:
HAH!

This is all very funny! HS4, you can't compare CBS to the Bush admin...THAT is the apple to Bush's orange if you ask me!

I mean, c'mon...there are surely more cynical skeptics than just myself here, right??

Let me spell it out for you guys. TRUTH(tm) is CBS's business. Without these firings they might never be taken seriously again. (Outside the Democratic party faithful that is...)

Whereas the Bush admin...or more properly "The Office of the President of the United States" is made up of what? Politicians right!? Are politicians ever interested in objective TRUTH? I mean TRUTH even if it embarrasses the President, or endangers stated US policy???

Of course not. Politicians spin. The MSM is not supposed to spin...they're merely supposed to report the TRUTH. When they get caught doing otherwise heads must roll or the MSM outlet (CBS for instance) is perceptably out of the TRUTH business. They fire 4 bigwigs and the perception changes back to their favor.

Simply put CBS had to do this to survive....the White House does not.

It's sad commentary...cynical commentary...but it's true. Apparently one aspect of being a good president is to lie effectively...which is why the "honest man" Jimmy Carter was also the worst President.

-z
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Not sure I disagree with you here...indeed, I probably over-reached (how unlike me!;) ). In the end, I would say that CBS, rightly, will pay a price for its sloppiness and bias (to the extent it was there). Rather leaves his career with his reputation rightly besmerched. They are, after all and as you pointed out, in the business of truth.

Our president clearly is not in the business of truth, and the price he and his administration pays for perpetraiting falsehoods...whether intentionally or by mistake, is minimal and no one seems to pay a price or be too outraged (outside of us crazed Bush haters and shrinking number of liberals). Anyway, if I had a point, that would be it...standards are falling fast and escape from responsibility is the political norm.
 
rikzilla said:
HAH!

This is all very funny! HS4, you can't compare CBS to the Bush admin...THAT is the apple to Bush's orange if you ask me!

I mean, c'mon...there are surely more cynical skeptics than just myself here, right??

Let me spell it out for you guys. TRUTH(tm) is CBS's business. Without these firings they might never be taken seriously again. (Outside the Democratic party faithful that is...)

Whereas the Bush admin...or more properly "The Office of the President of the United States" is made up of what? Politicians right!? Are politicians ever interested in objective TRUTH? I mean TRUTH even if it embarrasses the President, or endangers stated US policy???

Of course not. Politicians spin. The MSM is not supposed to spin...they're merely supposed to report the TRUTH. When they get caught doing otherwise heads must roll or the MSM outlet (CBS for instance) is perceptably out of the TRUTH business. They fire 4 bigwigs and the perception changes back to their favor.

Simply put CBS had to do this to survive....the White House does not.

It's sad commentary...cynical commentary...but it's true. Apparently one aspect of being a good president is to lie effectively...which is why the "honest man" Jimmy Carter was also the worst President.

-z
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Yeah. I mean, in the most cynical approach, CBS used their fabricated information for the most evil means, to try to influence an election.

All the President did was use bad information as a reason to start a war. Not like people died or anything...
 
pgwenthold said:
Kind of like making claims that aluminum tubes were to be used for nuclear centifruges despite having every expert in the your own nuclear program tells you that they couldn't be used for that purpose.
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And how do you figure that the subsequent reaction to the aluminum tubes and yellowcake uranium stories is any different than the reaction to the CBS story?

As I said, where the factors are the same, the reaction and criticism should be the same...are you seriously claiming that no one has criticized the administration on those two issues?

Besides, if you wait around long enough, I'm sure the White House can come up with some lower level female staffers to sacrifice. After all, Bush, like Dan Rather, is only a 'narrator', not a policy maker, right?
 
crimresearch said:
And how do you figure that the subsequent reaction to the aluminum tubes and yellowcake uranium stories is any different than the reaction to the CBS story?

As I said, where the factors are the same, the reaction and criticism should be the same...are you seriously claiming that no one has criticized the administration on those two issues?
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How many of the people who have called for Dan Rather to be fired voted for George Bush in the most recent election?

How close to "all of them" do you think it is?
 
Is that the same as 'Anyone who questions Rather's integrity, must have voted for Bush'?

Or did you mean 'No true Democrat would criticise Rather'?
:p
 
crimresearch said:
And how do you figure that the subsequent reaction to the aluminum tubes and yellowcake uranium stories is any different than the reaction to the CBS story?
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The only thing remotely interesting about the yellow cake story is that US/British Intel still claim Saddam was trying to aquire it. Not only that, it turns out Valerie Plame and her husband were actively trying to subvert investigation of it.

Valerie Plame was a martyr du-jour but after that last series of documents showed what her and her husband were really up to they fell off the map. Its funny when I see people mention her since they must have not watched the news that week or wondered why nobody cared about her anymore.
 
rikzilla said:
Whereas the Bush admin...or more properly "The Office of the President of the United States" is made up of what? Politicians right!? Are politicians ever interested in objective TRUTH? I mean TRUTH even if it embarrasses the President, or endangers stated US policy???

Of course not. Politicians spin. The MSM is not supposed to spin...they're merely supposed to report the TRUTH. When they get caught doing otherwise heads must roll or the MSM outlet (CBS for instance) is perceptably out of the TRUTH business. They fire 4 bigwigs and the perception changes back to their favor.
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You're correct, and it brings out the point--if the truth that endangers stated US policy is that the proffered BASIS of that policy is untrue, how can the policy be any damn good?

I thought you conservatives weren't into "nanny" government... "Don't worry, you don't have to know what we're really doing with our foreign policy. Here's a nice story that will make you feel better about it."
 
corplinx said:
The only thing remotely interesting about the yellow cake story is that US/British Intel still claim Saddam was trying to aquire it. Not only that, it turns out Valerie Plame and her husband were actively trying to subvert investigation of it.

Valerie Plame was a martyr du-jour but after that last series of documents showed what her and her husband were really up to they fell off the map. Its funny when I see people mention her since they must have not watched the news that week or wondered why nobody cared about her anymore.
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Oh, I suspect there will always be people who gamely cling to the notion that Plame was a courageous secret agent whose covert operations were exposed by Bush in order to get her killed and silence her...just as there are those who will remain convinced that the Rather memos really did prove that Bush was a deserter, and the only thing CBS did wrong was use modern copies, instead of the Sooper Secrit originals...

But that is a little outside the scope of this thread, which is why I was focusing on the more appropriate comparson of faked memos.
 
crimresearch said:
Is that the same as 'Anyone who questions Rather's integrity, must have voted for Bush'?

Or did you mean 'No true Democrat would criticise Rather'?
:p
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I voted for Kerry, and as seen above, I call for Rather's ouster.
 
gnome said:
You're correct, and it brings out the point--if the truth that endangers stated US policy is that the proffered BASIS of that policy is untrue, how can the policy be any damn good?

I thought you conservatives weren't into "nanny" government... "Don't worry, you don't have to know what we're really doing with our foreign policy. Here's a nice story that will make you feel better about it."
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I'm only temporarily "conservative"...I reserve the right to change my mind at any time...much like the fine print on your credit card agreement says they can change the rate. :p

What I am 100% of the time is skeptic/realist. The skeptic in me believes I'm being told "nice stories"...the realist in me believes that sometimes those nice stories are the lesser of evils. Sometimes thay are not...it's up to us to try to tell the difference. But hey, that's what makes these left/right political discussions so much fun! ;)

-z
 
rikzilla said:
HAH!

Simply put CBS had to do this to survive....the White House does not.

It's sad commentary...cynical commentary...but it's true. Apparently one aspect of being a good president is to lie effectively...
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And the death and destruction is sure to continue.
 
kalen said:
And the death and destruction is sure to continue.
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Trotsky's "Theory of Permanent Revolution" comes to mind. Yes Virginia, there is no Santa Claus...and the usual state of humanity is permanent revolution...death...destruction. Social evolution is the crop that grows from such fertilizer. Liberal democracy was once just an idea for a more just society, once that philosophy was passed from mind to mind it took a bloody revolution to implement.

Perhaps if we're all real lucky the blood and destruction we have wreaked on the terrorists...and they have wreaked on us....will have some good result for humanity? Perhaps this is the beginning of democratic reforms in the Arab world?? We can't say, but the process must start somewhere...perhaps this is it?

Personally I'm not that optomistic...but then again, I'd like to think that all the blood in Iraq is leading to something other than more blood. A good solid voter turnout in the upcoming Iraqi elections would go a long way to giving me a warmer, fuzzier felling about the future of Iraq...and the WOT.

-z
 
rikzilla said:
I'm only temporarily "conservative"...I reserve the right to change my mind at any time...much like the fine print on your credit card agreement says they can change the rate. :p

What I am 100% of the time is skeptic/realist. The skeptic in me believes I'm being told "nice stories"...the realist in me believes that sometimes those nice stories are the lesser of evils. Sometimes thay are not...it's up to us to try to tell the difference. But hey, that's what makes these left/right political discussions so much fun! ;)

-z
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I should think it's always a greater evil to deceive the public with a "nice story" when the matter is the use of war power. That is the most powerful and dangerous of the government's functions, and IMO requires the most oversight.

I'm not asking for the public to know our planned military strategies... but the justification for the fighting is 100% the business of the public.
 
crimresearch said:

It was a matter of knowingly using documents which expert after expert in quantitative matters identified as forgeries, and yet refusing to admit that they were forgeries, going so far as to lie after the forgeries were revealed, and even going so far as to attack people who were pointing out the forgeries.
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No one has “proven” that the documents are forgeries. Every question raised about typeface, spacing, Killian’s typing ability, etc. has an explanation when taken individually. No one has been able to “replicate” the memo with 1970’s technology, but no one has been able to “replicate” it with modern technology without making modifications and changes so tedious it would be easier for a forger to just find a 1970’s typewriter in the first place. And if someone does replicate it with a 1970’s typewriter, the Bushies can just say that the forger used an old typewriter. There are no silver bullets like anachronistic inks or paper like with the Hitler diaries. We will probably never “know” for sure since the closest we have been able to get to an original of these documents is still a photocopy.

That being said, CBS couldn’t prove that the memo is authentic. Its origins are murky, and while every question about its authenticity has an answer, there is no way to check if any of those answers are correct. That in and of itself is inexcusable, even if the documents are real. There are many people who want Bush out of office, myself included. The possibility that CBS was getting played should have entered their minds, and they should have been able to back up the authenticity of the memos. It’s supposed to be “60 Minutes”, not “the Drudge Report”.
It’s even worse since the documents in question are completely unnecessary to show that Bush ditched his National Guard obligations. Even the carefully weeded documents released by the White House show that fairly conclusively. It’s even worse than that because they had a thoroughly vetted WMD story ready to go that they put off for this poorly researched pierce of garbage. After everyone started pilling on Dan Rather, that story got shelved until after the election (of course that only gets anti-Bush people mad for some reason).
 
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