SwiftVets.com

[army72]

I wonder what ever happened to the CBS RatherGate investigation. Did anyone ever question Cleland? What did other news organizations do to uncover this story? What are they doing now? How far into the Kerry campaign and the DNC does this go? There are a lot of questions that need answers, I wonder if people will just forget.

Does anyone really believe that after 2 years of investigating this story, Rather was duped? I have a lot of bridges to sell.

I think the MSM is hoping the masses forget that a major tv station, it's head honcho, and several politicos attempted to hijack the presidency by creating false documents and showing the results of their slanted investigation. Does anybody think they will investigate this with the same vigor that they went after the pres with?

These actions are criminal, I hope the AG and the Justice Dept. are looking into this very seriously.
_________________
Hillary and Kerry in '08? Something smells!!

[shawa]

KerrySpot reports it will come out Friday, but won't really tell
the public anything. If so, I think we have to bombard our
Congressmen, demanding an investigation!

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200501051055.asp

RATHER REPORT COMING OUT FRIDAY?

My little bird that is familiar with discussions within CBS News tells me that the long, long, long-awaited report on the infamous CBS memo by former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and retired A.P. president Louis Boccardi may be coming out Friday.

Hmmm... would this be a Friday at 5 pm release?

Also, you'll recall this little birdie told me that CBS was considering naming Rather's replacement the same day they release the report.

UPDATE: Scylla & Charybdis adds speculation that also points to Friday:

The MSM has geared up to run Abu Ghraib-type headlines over the Alberto R. Gonzales nomination hearings. See, e.g., today's LA Times and NY Times. The hearings begin Thursday.
Not a stretch to smell this coming: CBS will "release" the Thornburgh report this Friday, right into the cacophony of MSM "news" about the nefarious Alberto Gonzales. The MSM "Gonzales story" will detract attention on Friday, from the paucity of details in the release of the Thornburgh Report.

Note: As previously explained at this blog, the "release" will be not much more than a press release stating that CBS management has taken "internal measures deemed appropriate to ensure.... blah blah blah," with perhaps one example being made public.


We're a cynical bunch, aren't we?

[Posted 01/05 10:55 AM]

[shawa]

There is a BIG explanation of why no details will be made public.
Apparently Thornburgh was hired not to do an INDEPENDENT
INVESTIGATION but actually to make sure there are no criminal charges
against cBS et al.

http://scyllacharybdis.blogspot.com/2004/12/thornburgh-to-withhold-cbs-report-to.html

Scroll down to:
What criminal liability is at issue? Plenty
Click on "plenty" for an overview of the criminal charges involved.

The lawyers at this blog http://www.scyllacharybdis.blogspot.com/
have been tracking this investigation for quite a while.
You can track back for the past few weeks and see how it has developed.

[army72]

Is CBS being allowed to investigate itself by hiring it's own team to analyze the dark dealings?

It looks to me like there are a whole lot of people in government that are letting this be swept under the rug. I don't understand why there is not a very big uproar and if the case proven, CBS, Rather, and all the operatives involved should be made to pay dearly including serious jail time for try to steal a presidency attacking a standing president with forged documents. Since when has this become ok? It really burns me to think that they are even still in business after that attempted hijack. Does putting Rather out to pasture for that fiasco make everything nice again?

CBS made itself an accolmpice by stonewalling the investigation and backing Rather. If not for a few very astute individuals that noticed problem with the fonts, they would have gotten away with it. They also made sure they dragged their feet as much as possible until after the election.

I hope Hannity and Hume jump all over this and I hope Fox makes it their headline. I doubt many other stations will cover anything other than a quick snippett.
_________________
Hillary and Kerry in '08? Something smells!!

[shawa]

Local CBS affiliates are anxious that CBS comes clean in their
report. Refers to our email campaign last fall which put pressure
on them.

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=76637

CBS Affiliates Await "60 Minutes II" Investigation Report
January 7, 2005
By Al Tompkins

CBS affiliates hope that the panel investigating what led to a controversial "60 Minutes II" story about President Bush's National Guard service record will report its findings soon. There is growing speculation among affiliate stations that the report is near. But even the affiliate stations have been given no clue what the investigation has discovered.

CBS affiliates are anxious to hear what the internal investigation by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi reveals. In some ways, they say, more than the network's reputation is at stake. The local stations have taken a lot of heat over this issue as well.

"I will put it this way, very simply I want the truth," KHOU-TV Houston President and General Manager Peter Diaz told Poynter Online. "We need to know how the system broke down at CBS."

"There are a lot of smart people at CBS News New York. The affiliates need to know how we got into this awful mess," former CBS affiliates Board Chairman Bob Lee told me in a telephone interview.

"I was, on the one hand, encouraged that the network brought in independent investigators to conduct a thorough look. I am, on the other hand, perturbed that it has taken so long," Lee said.

Lee, who is the President and General Manager of WDBJ Television Inc. in Roanoke, Va., said CBS affiliates began urging the network to be more responsive almost immediately after Internet bloggers began questioning the "60 Minutes II" story.

"We (local CBS affiliates) expressed the concern of the affiliate body that this not be brushed off. We believed very strongly that we needed to know what the facts were. We were all learning as we went. It was the first time that the bloggers and the Internet component took to task a story that one of the traditional network news department had aired. The immediacy and the apparent precision with which the bloggers disassembled the stories took us by surprise. Suddenly we had a new watchdog."

Lee says he is comfortable with the new voice that bloggers found in the CBS investigation.

"I think in any local station with a good solid reputable news department that should be a resource we should not fear. It should be almost an ombudsman for the viewer -- (except) to the extent the bloggers don't get it right either."

Lee said he received 20,000 e-mails from people nationwide who said they were angry about the CBS story at the center of this controversy. One reason he received so many was because of his position on the CBS affiliates board, but he estimated that at least 2,000 of the messages were by individuals who were not associated with mass mailing groups.

"When I was affiliates board chair, I would hear from stations from one end of the country to the other concerned that the viewer reaction to this controversy had been so adverse that they were worried about the rub-off on their local newscasts," Lee said.

Diaz says he logged 400-500 complaint e-mails from the public. "Maybe 300 or so of them were from local viewers. I was never able to tell how it affected KHOU on a day-to-day basis; I didn't see the numbers fluctuate. But on Election Night it sure seemed that our viewership for election results (anchored by Dan Rather) was lower than it had been." Rather once worked as a reporter and News Director at KHOU, and in 1961 made his network debut covering Hurricane Carla for the station.

Lee said the report about the investigation will be critical to restoring the public's trust in CBS News and to all network news coverage. "People did not like what they were hearing. The public puts an extraordinary trust in those who are permitted to come in to their home each night with their daily news. It was like people really thought they were scammed on this one; that they were given a concocted story. They were asking 'If I can't believe this what else can I not believe?'"

Neither Lee nor Diaz expects affiliate stations to get a preview or briefing on the contents of the investigation before it is released publicly.