Remarkable 60 Minutes
It has been well-documented throughout the blogosphere that the recent 60 Minutes story regarding President Bush's National Guard service featured forged memos.
Powerline notes that the evidence given by 60 Minutes as to the memos' authenticity would not stand up in court for a $10,000 civil case, yet is being used to influence the Presidential election.
This is ends-justify-the-means journalism, and as Kerry's position worsens, the more the media will shift from reporting to advocacy, to make sure the proper end --Kerry getting elected -- is reached.
When they tell their side of the story, and people still don't seem to care, it must be that they need to tell it again, or be more forceful with their story, because surely their side is right, and they must not be reporting it clearly enough if their views are still the minority.
Case in point: A 60 Minutes II story from a few weeks ago. The story is about dropout rates in Houston city schools.
The story is germane because President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, was superintendent of the Houston city school system. 60 Minutes claims that the city's low dropout rates, cited by then-Governor Bush's 2000 election campaign as part of his "Texas Miracle", are faked.
There may well be an argument here. However, the link to Paige is less than incriminating. Paige provided financial incentives to school principals whose high schools had low graduation rates. Principals then "cooked the books" to "reclassify" students who dropped out as "transfers" or as pursuing their GEDs, drastically reducing dropout rates.
Again, there may be an argument here against school prinicpals. There may also even be an argument against Paige for setting up a system of incentives that begged to be defrauded. Fine. But here's the million dollar question: why report it now? The 60 Minutes report contains the following line:
As he reported last winter? And it makes 60 Minutes in August? What new information has surfaced since the original report?
If I didn't know better, and I hadn't been assured that we have objective journalists in this country, I might take from this that CBS is willing to push any story they can find about Bush onto the air, with minimal to no checks and balances.
A bit of Googling at cbsnews.com yields the following circumstantial but still revealing results:
There were 62 results that pertained to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Of those,
13 contained "testimony" as in half of SBVT's argument against Kerry.
17 contained "negative"
15 contained "smear"
35 contained "anti-kerry"
22 contained "ties" as in "ties to the Bush campaign", etc.
20 contained "denounce"
Just 2 contained "betray", "betrayed", or "betrayal"
None of them contained "band-aid", "winter soldier", or "self-inflicted".
By contrast, a query for "Texas Air National Guard" and "Bush" yielded 132 results. Of those:
2 contained "negative"
1 contained "smear"
11 contained "anti-bush"
6 contained "ties"
5 contained "denounce"
Additionally, 51 contained "AWOL".
Since I was on a roll, and watching MSNBC mention Kitty Kelley appearing THREE TIMES on the Today show, I thought I'd check CBS for its book references:
Liberal Books:
Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: 55
Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: 8
John Dean, Worse than Watergate: 6
Bill Clinton, My Life: 51
Hillary Clinton, Living History: 48
Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: 27
Maureen Dowd, Bushworld: 11
Michael Moore: Dude, Where's My Country: 8
Joe Wilson, The Politics of Truth: 7
Conservative Books:
John O'Neill, Unfit for Command: 11
Sean Hannity, Deliver Us From Evil: 7
Buzz Patterson, Dereliction of Duty: 0
Buzz Patterson, Reckless Disregard: 0
Zell Miller, A National Party No More: 1
Dick Morris, Rewriting History: 0
Tommy Franks, American Soldier: 1
Bill Gerz, Treachery: 0
Ann Coulter, Treason: 0
Ann Coulter, Slander: 5
Richard Minitier, Losing Bin Laden: 0
This is far less than scientific. However, the correlation seems hard to be all coincidence. In anti-Bush stories about the Guard, they're just stating the facts. Hence the absence of negative words to describe the accusations, and the necessity to repeat AWOL allegations. It's a fact lots of people accused Bush of being AWOL. It's their duty to report it.
On the other hand, CBS does not want to believe the Swifties, therefore the words "smear" and "negative" appear frequently and prominently. There are demands to "denounce" the charges. And since the charges are baseless anyway, no need to repeat their substance. Better to just summarize as "anti-Kerry."
As far as the books go, that's easliy explained as well. Coulter sold a lot of books and is entertaining, but she really can't be taken seriously. Uh... Franken's just an exception.
After 9/11, it was important to interview those who could shed light on intelligence and policy failures, like Richard Clarke. That Buzz Patterson held the "football" for President Clinton (to which Patterson alleges Clinton lost the codes) and was in on many of the same meetings as Clarke, doesn't count for much. Besides, he doesn't seem too reputable. Now if the world would just lay off Dan Rather so that he can get to that Kitty Kelley story...
Powerline notes that the evidence given by 60 Minutes as to the memos' authenticity would not stand up in court for a $10,000 civil case, yet is being used to influence the Presidential election.
This is ends-justify-the-means journalism, and as Kerry's position worsens, the more the media will shift from reporting to advocacy, to make sure the proper end --Kerry getting elected -- is reached.
When they tell their side of the story, and people still don't seem to care, it must be that they need to tell it again, or be more forceful with their story, because surely their side is right, and they must not be reporting it clearly enough if their views are still the minority.
Case in point: A 60 Minutes II story from a few weeks ago. The story is about dropout rates in Houston city schools.
The story is germane because President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, was superintendent of the Houston city school system. 60 Minutes claims that the city's low dropout rates, cited by then-Governor Bush's 2000 election campaign as part of his "Texas Miracle", are faked.
There may well be an argument here. However, the link to Paige is less than incriminating. Paige provided financial incentives to school principals whose high schools had low graduation rates. Principals then "cooked the books" to "reclassify" students who dropped out as "transfers" or as pursuing their GEDs, drastically reducing dropout rates.
Again, there may be an argument here against school prinicpals. There may also even be an argument against Paige for setting up a system of incentives that begged to be defrauded. Fine. But here's the million dollar question: why report it now? The 60 Minutes report contains the following line:
Now, as Correspondent Dan Rather reported last winter, it turns out that some of
those miraculous claims which Houston made were wrong.
As he reported last winter? And it makes 60 Minutes in August? What new information has surfaced since the original report?
Perhaps a Houston School District "Where Arey They Now?" program on VH1 would be a more appropriate venue for such an update.After 60 Minutes broadcast that story, Robert Kimball filed a whistle-blower
suit against the Houston School District for retaliating against him.The school board dropped its reprimand and paid Kimball $90,000. Kimball resigned and is now teaching at a local university. A few weeks later, three top school board
officials, including Superintendent Kay Stripling, resigned their posts.State Representative Rick Noriega, a major in the Army Reserves, is now on active duty in Afghanistan.
If I didn't know better, and I hadn't been assured that we have objective journalists in this country, I might take from this that CBS is willing to push any story they can find about Bush onto the air, with minimal to no checks and balances.
A bit of Googling at cbsnews.com yields the following circumstantial but still revealing results:
There were 62 results that pertained to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Of those,
13 contained "testimony" as in half of SBVT's argument against Kerry.
17 contained "negative"
15 contained "smear"
35 contained "anti-kerry"
22 contained "ties" as in "ties to the Bush campaign", etc.
20 contained "denounce"
Just 2 contained "betray", "betrayed", or "betrayal"
None of them contained "band-aid", "winter soldier", or "self-inflicted".
By contrast, a query for "Texas Air National Guard" and "Bush" yielded 132 results. Of those:
2 contained "negative"
1 contained "smear"
11 contained "anti-bush"
6 contained "ties"
5 contained "denounce"
Additionally, 51 contained "AWOL".
Since I was on a roll, and watching MSNBC mention Kitty Kelley appearing THREE TIMES on the Today show, I thought I'd check CBS for its book references:
Liberal Books:
Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: 55
Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: 8
John Dean, Worse than Watergate: 6
Bill Clinton, My Life: 51
Hillary Clinton, Living History: 48
Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: 27
Maureen Dowd, Bushworld: 11
Michael Moore: Dude, Where's My Country: 8
Joe Wilson, The Politics of Truth: 7
Conservative Books:
John O'Neill, Unfit for Command: 11
Sean Hannity, Deliver Us From Evil: 7
Buzz Patterson, Dereliction of Duty: 0
Buzz Patterson, Reckless Disregard: 0
Zell Miller, A National Party No More: 1
Dick Morris, Rewriting History: 0
Tommy Franks, American Soldier: 1
Bill Gerz, Treachery: 0
Ann Coulter, Treason: 0
Ann Coulter, Slander: 5
Richard Minitier, Losing Bin Laden: 0
This is far less than scientific. However, the correlation seems hard to be all coincidence. In anti-Bush stories about the Guard, they're just stating the facts. Hence the absence of negative words to describe the accusations, and the necessity to repeat AWOL allegations. It's a fact lots of people accused Bush of being AWOL. It's their duty to report it.
On the other hand, CBS does not want to believe the Swifties, therefore the words "smear" and "negative" appear frequently and prominently. There are demands to "denounce" the charges. And since the charges are baseless anyway, no need to repeat their substance. Better to just summarize as "anti-Kerry."
As far as the books go, that's easliy explained as well. Coulter sold a lot of books and is entertaining, but she really can't be taken seriously. Uh... Franken's just an exception.
After 9/11, it was important to interview those who could shed light on intelligence and policy failures, like Richard Clarke. That Buzz Patterson held the "football" for President Clinton (to which Patterson alleges Clinton lost the codes) and was in on many of the same meetings as Clarke, doesn't count for much. Besides, he doesn't seem too reputable. Now if the world would just lay off Dan Rather so that he can get to that Kitty Kelley story...