It's almost Oedipus Rex -- Oedipus also was determined to establish the truth. And that story also ends with a deposition ...

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 21, 2007 4:08 PM | Permalink

Jay,
In many ways, it is a paradigmatic scenario in cultural war theater, a momentary judicial challenge to the Fox News World that sets the parameters our media betters live by. Rather's gesture has an evangelical fervor I have come to expect from mainstream media representatives of the right, but have seldom observed in the MSM from the left outside of relatively marginal figures such as Bill Moyers and Keith Olbermann.

You are right to suggest that this does look to be better theater than journalism. We'll find out soon enough: Does Rather the reporter have a real lead that amounts to something, or is this some form of repetition compulsion where personal pride brings him to demand yet another personal shaming?

It was the Boston Globe that put the TANG story on the map. The credibility of the charges concerning Bush's lack of guard service thus stands or falls with the status of the Boston Globe story.

The evidence to date suggests that CBS did a shamefully bad job of reporting--to the point that their efforts have became a pretext to ignore the Boston Globe's previously established and entirely unrelated journalism challenging Bush's claims regarding his service. In other words, CBS's bad reporting is entirely compatible with Bush having been AWOL, but you'll have to challenge the Boston Globe to claim otherwise, not Martha Mapes.

How Rather intends to make himself a winner even on this scenario remains a mystery. The report I saw mentioned that he was cut out of the story-checking loop on the memo story, which implies he was later apologizing in his own name for someone else's mistake. (If true, it would be eerily reminiscent of George Tenet publicly apologizing on behalf of the CIA for Stephen Hadley's private insistence on ignoring the CIA.)

If that's the strategy, Rather is standing up for Rather and is just as determined to take down CBS as LGF and the Freepers who think of Rather and CBS as one and the same thing. At the very least, it should be interesting to get corporate's view on this. The most interesting part of the story to me will be how the picture of CBS management looks from the perspective of Rather's lawyers. Accord to LGF, CBS's management is the heart of the liberally biased MSM beast. According to Rather, CBS's management are the handmaidens of MSM right wing authoritarians and their highest priority is appeasing the White House, even in defiance of the truth as they know it if necessary.

Given that culture war theater is grounded in these stark and mutually exclusive alternatives, something would seemingly have to give in the course of the trial. But then what are the odds that this episode of cultural war theater will change anymore minds than previous episodes have? We'll see soon enough.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 21, 2007 5:15 PM | Permalink

There are so many contradictions revealed by the complaint (pdf is here) that the only way the suit makes sense is as theatre.

The most obvious is the apology. Rather has now admitted that he reads things on the air that he does not believe just to keep his job. He looks us in the eye and tells us he's sorry when he's not. He has claimed that he presented stories he didn't do the work for and didn't check. He now claims that when he said he resigned voluntarily he was lying. He has shown that when he told the Los Angeles Times, "I'm of the school, my name is on it, I'm responsible," he was really just joking.

That's some pretty serious damage to his reputation that the fruits of the lawsuit will have to overcome.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 21, 2007 8:41 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen: - I stopped by here to see your take on the Rather story. I learned of your site from the "Hack Who Wrote Rosen" thread at my nominal home, The Next Hurrah. I found your site excellent and, with one belligerent exception, your commenters superb. At any rate, I think you are quite right that there is a significant amount of self serving theater here. That aside, there is a lot of good that can come from this in delving into the biases and motivations of major broadcast news, and attendant political pressures. Also, the final TANG story has never been told, and there are many misconceptions of the facts by both the left and right. I would urge you not to base definitive conclusions about where Rather is mentally and what he personally is up to, by the contents within the four corners of the complaint. It may appear to be a narrative, but it is first and foremost a legal document crafted by lawyers. I have a bit of experience here; and my reading of the complaint reveals it a great source of factual tidbits and information; but not an accurate overall picture of what they have and where they are necessarily going with the exception of opening up their desired theories and "persons of interest" to pursue. Rather has fantastic lawyers; Sonnenschein, Nath et.al. are first rate, and the lead, Marty Gold is superb. Theater it may be, but I predict that several of the acts will surprise and intrigue you. Thanks again for the great discussion on the "Hack" story.

Posted by: bmaz at September 22, 2007 5:51 AM | Permalink

That's some pretty serious damage to his reputation that the fruits of the lawsuit will have to overcome.

Jay, I think you missed one of the primary premises of the complaint --- Rather was asked to "take one for the team" (CBS News) with the (implied?) promise that the team would show him as much loyalty as he showed the team. Rather expected CBS to give him the opportunity to rehabilitate his reputation, and CBS consistently denied him that right.

In other words,the lawsuit is designed specifically to deal with issues you raised.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 7:10 AM | Permalink

Okay, I could see that line of argument, Paul.

I don't know how you rehabilitate a reputation when the man whose reputation it is remains in complete denial about the events that caused him to lose it. It seems to me he only confirms that the loss is just by entering into this action.

As I said in the post, "When your document examiners won’t back you up, and your story is about the documents, you have no story." Rather just rolls over this, and when he says things like "no one has ever proven the documents fraudulent" in explaining why he thinks the story true, thus clinging to "not definitively fake yet" as a evidentiary standard he's willing to stake his reputation on, you have to wonder if the client understands his own interests.

I think there's a substantial chance, given what I said about self-dramatizing, that he does not.

Now, all that aside, and addressing bmaz from Next Hurrah, I can see the potential the case has for interesting revelations about CBS, newsy tidbits about the internal investigation and turmoil, and even further information about Bush's military service. CBS was a mess then, so it's going to be ugly. I have no doubt they were wronged--screwed--by Bigfoot Rather, but it's also possible they wronged him. It was a panic situation in a dysfunctional company.

(See Greg Sargent on an interesting Abu Ghraib story in the court filing. CBS did not want to run it and almost didn't. )

I find it especially sad that comment thread people over at the Huffington Post are cheering on the deluded and disgraced and disgraceful Mary Mapes. But I long ago realized that I strongly dissent from what the die-hard left and culture war right think of this case. I expect no movement on any side there.

I'm with mainstream newsroom opinion on this one. You don't go on the air in September of an election year with a damaging story about a President up for re-election unless you have it nailed, and they weren't even close to having it nailed.

Everyone in investigative journalism knows what "you haven't got it" means. It does not mean the story is untrue; it means you haven't brought it to the standards of verification needed for the story to hold up, especially when attacked. When you haven't got it, you don't run with it. No good can come to Dan Rather until he accepts this.

The reason Rather didn't know about the weaknesses in the story before the story aired is that he was out playing anchorman, not reporting. And this is where a self-image that denies who he is, professionally, hurt him badly. Which is what my post is about.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 10:42 AM | Permalink

Of course it's theater, Jay. This is what happens when professional journalists -- especially those on television, for crying out loud -- start believing their own hype. If you hear the voice in the promos long enough, you begin to believe it.

I've written that the unintended consequence of this suit is that it "focuses attention on the self-centered nature of a once-proud institution, one that lost its way in the lust for significance within a culture it was supposed to serve."

I think many in the professional press have engaged this issue internally and that we're seeing (albeit slowly) important change. It's 2007, after all, not 2004. The question is can an enlightened press afford to relive this saga?

Posted by: Terry Heaton at September 22, 2007 11:00 AM | Permalink

Everyone in investigative journalism knows what "you haven't got it" means. It does not mean the story is untrue; it means you haven't brought it to the standards of verification needed for the story to hold up, especially when attacked. When you haven't got it, you don't run with it. No good can come to Dan Rather until he accepts this

Well, IMHO, the problem was that Mapes did have the story nailed -- "the story" being that Bush was lying about fulfilling his military obligations. What Mapes failed to "nail down" were the bright shiny objects (the Killian memos) that made it worthy of 60 Minutes II.

Keep in mind that the narrative described by the memos is completely consistent with the existing record, that Bush's superior officer confirmed the narrative, and that the White House point person on Bush's military records, Dan Bartlett, made no effort to dispute the contents of the memos, and called the story "old news."

I don't think that Mapes and Rather are in denial about what happened -- both of them are fully aware that they relied on a "trusted source" who proved to be unreliable, and the story had to be withdrawn as a result.

They just look at what happened from a different perspective than you do. Lets face it, if every journalist who ever got careless and reported something that couldn't be verified got canned, there wouldn't be any reporters. Its clear, at least to them (and to quite a few others) that what happened with the Killian memos story was a case of highly selective persecution -- and a highly selective (and politically motivated) lack of corporate support.

I mean, here is some stuff from the Post article you cited that is without any factual basis, and/or demonstrates a willingness to carelessly make statements of fact that, because of a lack of thoroughness, are unreflective of the actual facts, indicative of the mainstream media's rush to judgement....

• Word-processing techniques. Of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents.

while this is true, the question is why proportionately spaced documents that were being produced by TexANG from at least 1971 were NOT released with the rest of Bush's records, and only became available on 9/24/2004 as a result of an FOIA lawsuit.

• Factual problems. A CBS document purportedly from Killian ordering Bush to report for his annual physical, dated May 4, 1972, gives Bush's address as "5000 Longmont #8, Houston." This address was used for many years by Bush's father, George H.W. Bush. National Guard documents suggest that the younger Bush stopped using that address in 1970 when he moved into an apartment, and did not use it again until late 1973 or 1974, when he moved to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard Business School.

actually, there is absolutely no evidence that Bush actually used the Longmont Avenue Address in "late 1973", and its highly doubtful that Bush was using in in 1974. Although Bush's discharge papers gave Bush's address at Harvard (with the wrong zip code), and that same address was used in the confirming order issued by TexANG (with the same wrong zip code), on January 30th 1974 mail was sent to Bush's by the Air Force at his last known Houston address (on Westheimer Ave.) A subsequent document, notifying him of a new job code, was sent to Bush on March 7 at the Longmont Ave address, but by May 1 mail was being sent to Harvard again (but with the correct zip code). The likeliest explanation for the use of the Longmont Ave address -- used in the middle of the spring semester -- is that it was listed as Bush's parents address, and used because Bush was not answering his other mail from the Air Force.

One CBS memo cites pressure allegedly being put on Killian by "Staudt," a reference to Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, one of Bush's early commanders. But the memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, nearly a year and a half after Staudt retired from the Guard. Questioned about the discrepancy over the weekend, CBS officials said that Staudt was a "mythic figure" in the Guard who exercised influence from behind the scenes even after his retirement.

What the Post doesn't mention is that the memo that mentions Staudt (see page 6) clearly differtiates between Staudt and the TexANG leadership to wit... "Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges...[TexANG HQ in] Austin is not happy today either" (emphasis added).

I could go on, and on....

the Washington Post story that you cited includes at least one statement with no basis in fact, but Howard Kurtz still has a job. It also contains a variety of other statements that are just as (if not more) questionable -- and reflective of a lack of thorough investigation -- as are the Killian memos --- let no one screamed for the heads of Dobbs and Kurtz.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 2:13 PM | Permalink

Jay,
A core aspect of the complaint is that Andrew Hayward and Betsy West took up CBS's corporate interest in appeasing the Bush administration by directly intervening in the standard editorial process. This managerial intervention in news judgement was unpecedented, but happened with both the Abu Ghraib story and the TexANG story and for explicitly political reasons.

According to the complaint, the practical result of politicized managerial intervention in the editorial process was that authority and control for vetting the story were usurped by management even as they refused to take any responsibility for the outcome they were explicitly and exceptionally in charge of. When the story blew up, management proceeded to scapegoat the very people they overruled and sidelined in deference to the Bush administration.

The claim is that management took over authority for the editorial process but publicly placed blame for management supervised failure on the very people they had themselves sidelined in the process. It's as if the head coach of a football team tells the offensive line coach he will personally draw up this week's offensive line strategy and when the quarterback gets sacked and suffers a season-ending concussion the head coach begins publicly bitching about the incompetence of the offensive line coach he had directly demoted to only advisory capacity that week.

I agree that the cost of admission for Rather is so high on this one it's hard to see how he comes out ahead. The primary reason being the one you point to, his willingness to bend to corporate will and present talking points he doesn't believe rather than resign. To me, it puts him in a place very much like George Tenet agreeing to apologize on behalf of the CIA for errors at the National Security Council. He alienates actors on every side and simply looks like an opportunist. That's where Rather is right now. He's burned all his bridges. By his own admission he has betrayed his conscience and the truth as he understood it. He will always be a traitor to the right. Not a pretty place to be.

If he detests corporate CBS for their capitulation to Bush administration coercion, then he need only look in the mirror to see part of the problem since he aided and abetted it by consenting to play the lead role. And he certainly won't be getting any sympathy in Freeperland.

To a degree, this complaint seems to bring ammunition for both sides of the culture war. CBS reporters had information damaging to Bush which leads the right to suspect them. Avowedly pro-Republican management figures who see the political future of CBS and Viacom at stake intervene and politicize the editorial process simply because they don't want to piss off the White House. Telling the truth about Abu Ghraib in a manner people will remember is seen as just too costly to CBS because they need administration and Republican good will for future corporate plans so management directly intervenes by delaying and ultimately burying the Abu Ghraib story for explicitly partisan and corporate profit-minded reasons.

The most curious claim is that management refused to seriously consider the facts of the case as related by their investigator as they had already formed an opinion on political and economic, rather than journalistic grounds. None of this makes up for Rather's complicity, but it is simply incompatible with the right's claim that CBS is out to get Republicans when it is pretty clearly run by a devoted Republican who personally identifies corporate CBS and GOP interests. The complaint draws a damning picture of a CBS corporate management for whom journalistic integrity is very low on their list of priorities.

There is a deep disconnect between the facts of a GOP management supervised vetting process producing the Killian memos perceived as an attack on the GOP with the complaint's description of a GOP management supervised white wash subsequent to the journalistic failure on the part of GOP-friendly management itself. Why would such a rabidly pro-GOP management lead vetting process, a group that intervened precisely in the name of raising evidentiary standards, proceed to approve what appears to be one of the weaker prime time broadcast news stories of the last several decades? That part of the complaint simply doesn't add up.

Lastly, it strikes me that the most likely real world result of this legal complaint is not that Rather's reputation gets rehabilitated. It is that the still disgraced Dan Rather gets paid for what looks like a pretty strong case for breach of contract and malicious libel. It was apparently concern for this same money that led Rather to cooperate in disgracing himself in the first place. This suit strikes me as having much more to do with financial self-interest than any serious possibility of rehabiliting Rather in the court of public opinion.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 2:23 PM | Permalink

p.luk said "if every journalist who ever got careless and reported something that couldn't be verified got canned, there wouldn't be any reporters."

Doesn't this go to the very heart of why the press has so little credibility with the public? In the real world, those who screw up pay a price; when journalists screw up they keep their jobs and keep reporting lies.

I think the public sees the hypocrisy of the press, who are always howling about "accountability" for politicians and corporations, but have so little interest in accountability for themselves.

And if the Rather lawsuit is the trend, no journalist
can be fired because he/she can always claim that he/she was a "scapegoat".

I'm looking for Judy Miller to hit NYTimes with a multi-million dollar Rather-suit, for getting thrown under the bus on the Plame and WMD business----and Judy went to jail, which Rather never did.

I do hope this goes to trial, which I doubt it will, because it will expose even more of the ugly side of journalism. The Plame case, which the NYTimes kept beating the drums to investigate, ended up hurting the press and Times more than it did Bush---we got to see how cozy "reporters" are with their powerful sources. I'm thinking the unintended consequences of opening up the Rather/CBS/TANG thing will show how CBS attempted to co-ordinate with the DNC/Kerry campaign, and other unsavory information---this will not be a plus for journalism and the press.

If it's true that sunlight is the best disinfectant, the press is long overdue for a thorough and complete cleansing----they have become sloppy and arrogant by hiding behind the First Amendment and liberal courts for too long, and as a result, the public does not trust them. What power does the press have if no one believes them?

The press is not above the law---when they lie about people or events, even in order to promote the established narrative, they need to pay a price.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 22, 2007 3:05 PM | Permalink

If he detests corporate CBS for their capitulation to Bush administration coercion, then he need only look in the mirror to see part of the problem since he aided and abetted it by consenting to play the lead role.

Mark, I don't think you understand the chronology. At the time that Rather agreed to "take one for the team", he was not aware of the fact that CBS management was, in fact, acting to placate the White House. CBS was telling Rather that it was important for CBS News to get the "scandal" behind it, and move forward. Rather 'took one for the team' - then left him bleeding in the road.

proceed to approve what appears to be one of the weaker prime time broadcast news stories of the last several decades?

I think that were you to scrutize any prime time newscast, you'd find a lot of weaknesses even worse than this story. There was nothing all that "weak" in the story about Bush's dereliction of duty -- it appears especially weak only because of the intensity of the assault against it.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 3:29 PM | Permalink

this complaint seems to bring ammunition for both sides of the culture war.

I think that is unquestionably true, and that it will happen exactly that way.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 3:48 PM | Permalink

"He thinks CBS will settle. BeldarBlog, written by an attorney who in the past has done some work for CBS News, agrees. Because “courtroom truth” is not “boardroom truth.” In the end CBS will protect the boardroom’s narrative, and settle to prevent fatal blows against it"

But, the thing is, Rather does not have to settle. It is not unilaterally CBS's decision. I will bet dollars to donuts that Rather will not even think about settling until he has taken every deposition, requested every document, and collected every other type and form of evidence possible prior to discussing settlement. I think that those that think this is about money for Rather, and that he will be bought off by it to stop, are sorely mistaken. I see no indicia whatsoever that this is being constructed as a vehicle for settlement by Rather's attorneys; in fact, quite the opposite. People who think this is the case may also want to consider who Rather's legal team is and what their history shows.

Posted by: bmaz at September 22, 2007 4:05 PM | Permalink

Paul: I suppose it would come down to parsing the talking points Rather delivered, but the complaint refers to his being coerced into giving an apology he felt unnecessary and possibly untrue. The worst part is that the talking points seem to have presented him as personally apologizing for the outcome of a process in which he was effectively and exceptionally sidelined.

As Jay as already suggested, he just can't have it both ways: either he takes responsibility for the reporting he delivers or he doesn't. He has to choose one or the other. If it isn't his reporting and management pushed him out of vetting the story why take the fall? He himself claims to have been coerced. Regardless of his future knowledge of the partisanship of the later "investigation," he claims to have already been opposed to what he agreed to say at the time he said it.

I realize it is unfair and a very high bar, that the division of labor in the news room makes this kind of judgement-call difficult on a daily basis, but if as opposed to taking the fall he stood up and said, "I have had a long career based on my credibility as a reporter. This apology violates my conscience and will unfairly damage my well-earned reputation as a reporter determined to speak truth to power. I will have no part of it," I think Dan Rather would have come out much better in the long run.

That is a possibility that was completely in his power regardless of his lack of foreknowledge regarding future management betrayal. Management had already intervened and explicitly politicized news judgment. Did he really need the Thornburgh investigation to know where he stood on that count? Saying "I refuse to be the fall guy for management failure" would have radically lessened his disgrace in my eyes and probably improved his viability as a journalist in the future. I understand your point that they betrayed the deal they privately struck with him, but I'm not sure how taking one for a team you already know is corrupt (hence the Tenet reference) can ever be the right choice--or even in his own enlightened self-interest--regardless of the deal he thought he had struck with management.

I would guess he was motivated in part by simple survival strategy because he was determined not to let Republicans run him off the air, he felt that would be giving them just what they wanted. But that choice calls to mind maxims such as "Cutting off your nose to spite your face." It is it really worth compromising your integrity, credibility, and good name and faking an apology in order to stay in news as a discredited lightening rod who has himself admitted culpability for precisely what the enemies he wishes to spite have accused him of? I can't see how management's betrayal of his deal seriously alters that calculus--seriously alters how radically Rather loses with that deal even if management did keep its part of the bargain.

He basically claims his Killian memo apology was an MSM-GOP show trial. Well, there wouldn't have been any show trial if he hadn't played along. How does whether or not they keep his 60 Minutes deal substantially affect his utter loss of credibility by virtue of agreeing to participate in a show trial where he effectively confesses and apologizes for acts that were not his own?

It really passes all understanding I can muster. A Dan Rather who lived up to his self-understanding as a heroic journalist who fights only for truth would have just said no. As Jay has already effectively argued, that means Dan Rather is not who he thinks he is. For all of my interest in the light this case has already shone on White House and corporate GOP manipulation of the media powers that be, as far as Dan Rather's public reputation goes by all appearances the trial can only serve to confirm his opportunism, regardless of where your political sympathies lie. Hard times demand hard choices and it looks to me like Dan Rather made a very bad one.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 4:19 PM | Permalink

Rather does not have to settle. It is not unilaterally CBS's decision.

I agree completely. I think it is quite likely he won't until he's gotten a lot of stuff out. We could say he will seek only a narrative settlement, not paid in cash.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 4:28 PM | Permalink

bmaz: I'll take your word for the track record of the attornies. And I don't doubt that Rather seeks to discredit CBS. So your reading that perhaps he is not inclined to settle is intriguing and very plausible.

But I still have to wonder--how does shaming CBS lessen his complicity in the very acts he is purportedly attempting to expose? I think that is where the difficulty in rehabilitating his reputation lies for me. In the very act of distancing himself from the journalistic failure he apparently was not particularly responsible for, his own complaint exposes a new failing, "I, Dan Rather, journalistic hero agreed to lie to the American public in the MSM show trial of the century."

How does the power of discovery and sending CBS's GOP operatives down in flames make the shame of that act go away? He seemingly seeks to replace a story of journalistic malpractice with a story of moral and ethical failure. Can that really take Rather and his lawyers where they want to go?

Where is the percentage in confessing to moral failure in order to distance yourself from journalistic failure? How would that help to restore your good name? It strikes me as deeply Quixotic, regardless of any financial motive or lack thereof. It is the lack of logic in the argument for salvaging his reputation that led me to suggest that a financial settlement is the only positive I can see coming out of this for Rather personally.

If he took responsibility for caving to CBS pressure now, I could take Jay's description of this as Rather's stab at the last big assignment CBS wouldn't give him a little more seriously. Then perhaps this could be a little more effective as Rather's last public stage to redeem himself for playing a part in the show trial, to show that he has a spine now even if he didn't then, and he will use it to expose GOP and corporate manipulation of the news. Then perhaps we could conclude that Rather may have stumbled and disgraced himself, but now at least he has returned to fighting the good fight.

That, at least, makes a little bit of sense. But as long as Rather seeks to evade both journalistic and moral responsiblity, it is very hard to take the case for rehabilitating his reputation very seriously.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 4:43 PM | Permalink

Anderson sez:"CBS's corporate interest in appeasing the Bush administration by directly intervening in the standard editorial process...(t)his managerial intervention in news judgement was unpecedented(sic)..."

If only it was true. Unfortunately for partisans, there is a wealth of information showing that the Kennedy Administration intimidated and intervened in press coverage, to say nothing of how left-wing hero, Bill Moyers used his power to intimidate the press and spin the Viet Nam war to LBJ's advantage.

Left-wing, right-wing, Democrat, Republican----the establishment press caves to political pressure---which is why they have no credibility with the public----but nice try framing this as a Bush-only event. Unfortunately for you Anderson, the facts do not support your opinion.

You just look stoopid when you stoop to partisan BS.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 22, 2007 4:44 PM | Permalink

QC Examiner: When I described this act as being "unprecedented" I was simply repeating an assertion in Rather's legal complaint. I readily agree that previous administrations have certainly tried and sometimes succeeded in influencing news coverage. I also agree with Jay, however, that Bush 43 has taken "playing hard ball" to a whole new anti-political, anti-democratic level.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 4:57 PM | Permalink

I realize it is unfair and a very high bar, that the division of labor in the news room makes this kind of judgement-call difficult on a daily basis, but if as opposed to taking the fall he stood up and said, "I have had a long career based on my credibility as a reporter. This apology violates my conscience and will unfairly damage my well-earned reputation as a reporter determined to speak truth to power. I will have no part of it," I think Dan Rather would have come out much better in the long run.

That is a possibility that was completely in his power regardless of his lack of foreknowledge regarding future management betrayal.

I really have to disagree, because at that specific point in time (i.e. the day after Burkett told CBS he'd lied about his source for the documents) a "principled resignation" would have looked more like an admission of guilt -- and a pre-emptive resignation. I mean, the fact remained that there had been a screw-up, and he had failed in his "supervisory" responsibilities -- he trusted in the judgment of "the team", and did need to acknowledge that he bore some responsibility. Its really tough to resign on principal because the brass wants you to issues an apology for CBS News when you are the face of CBS News.

Essentially, the broadcast was one big clusterf*ck --- the people who should have been ensuring that the documents were authentic were AWOL themselves, most notably 60 Minutes II executive producer Josh Howard. But for various reasons, including the fact that this was literally his first show as Exec. Producer, and he was probably wanted to start out with a bang and was sufficiently intimidated by the Rather/Mapes combo not to demand the right answers to the right questions, Howard failed miserably in his job. But the entire system failed -- and one of the big reasons it failed was because this was a "Dan Rather" story, and nobody really wanted to challenge Dan Rather (or, by extension, Mary Mapes).

That, at least, makes a little bit of sense. But as long as Rather seeks to evade both journalistic and moral responsiblity, it is very hard to take the case for rehabilitating his reputation very seriously.

Mark, I don't think that Rather is trying to evade all responsibility. If you watched him on Larry King, it was pretty obvious that he didn't consider himself blameless -- that he failed in his "supervisory" role.

Ultimately, I think that Rather is suing because the extent of the journalistic "sin" that was committed was grossly exaggerated -- and the exaggerated reaction to that sin has resulted in severe damage to his reputation. Rather thinks that Redstone, Moonves, etc are responsible for this, and their motivation was anchored in a willingness (if not an eagerness) to kow-tow to White House pressure in order to line their own pockets.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 5:44 PM | Permalink

The record of network news chieftains who have gotten calls from the White House attempting to prevent news from airing is long, and involves many presidents and both parties; but of course it's exceeded in length by all the calls and cave-ins we don't know about because they never came out. I would add that some of these requests from the White House are legitimate and some not. Some pleas were heeded, some were not. The situation is more complicated than anyone's formula for how it would play out.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 5:50 PM | Permalink

Mark - I agree with your, and Dr. Rosen's, thoughts for the most part about Rather and the acceptance of responsibility thing. I guess I might give just a slight bit more potential slack due to the fact that there was a team player aspect and he still had to 60 Minutes part of the gig to protect, or at least so he thought. Once he determined to bring this action, however, it would be a tactical legal mistake to engage in such public introspection, even if he fully believed that, until the suit is resolved. Were I his lawyer, I would tell him under no circumstances will he do that. On the whole though, I very much understand your position on this.

Also, the brunt of the discussion so far seems to be Rather's motivation and desired results vis a vis CBS and major media in general. I think that is a major focus, but but gives short shrift to what appears to me (although it is not nearly as obvious in the complaint; thus why I said above don't focus to hard on the complaint alone) to be an equal quest to settle a score with BushCo on TANG, Abu Ghraib, and their efforts to take him out. None of BushCo are named defendants, but this is about them as much as CBS if you ask me.

Posted by: bmaz at September 22, 2007 5:57 PM | Permalink

Paul writes: Howard failed miserably in his job. But the entire system failed -- and one of the big reasons it failed was because this was a "Dan Rather" story, and nobody really wanted to challenge Dan Rather (or, by extension, Mary Mapes)...

I agree strongly. Everyone at CBS failed, big-time. Rather's involvement raised the stakes and silenced doubts at the same time, a toxic and explosive combination.

I tried to warn CBS about this. Not kidding. No one there was reading my blog, of course, and I had no reason to think they would be, but... Here is what I wrote on Sep. 11, 2004, the Saturday after the story aired (Wednesday, Sep. 8):

It completely elevates the episode and charges it with political and cultural tension that the anchorman, Dan Rather, presented the CBS report Wednesday Night accusing Bush of disappearing from Guard duty. If Sixty Minutes had presented a damaging story of that kind at the height of an election campaign and it turned out to be based on forged documents, that would itself be a crisis. But it was Dan Rather on Sixty Minutes, and it is now Rather on the hook if the documents are fake. (Indeed, Rather told the Los Angeles Times, “I’m of the school, my name is on it, I’m responsible.”) That brings in Rather’s celebrity, the corporate iconography in which an anchorman is always involved, the succession drama at CBS News now that Rather is 72 years old, and the enormous venom out there for Rather, who is seen on the Right as a man of many political sins.

Readers may judge for themselves, but I think it's a pretty good road map to what went down, and the risk of keeping Rather at the center of the furor.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 6:07 PM | Permalink

Paul: I follow your logic. My first response is that Rather's own complaint paints a very different picture of the vetting process. It strongly emphasizes the claim that Rather was not in charge, that he had less authority and time to pursue these matters than usual, and that this was at the direct behest of Heyward, West, and Moonves who represented to him that they had it covered.

Is that compatible with your take on Rather failing in his supervisory responsibility? I read the complaint as stating precisely that he had been relieved of supervisory responsibility and ultimate authority, that these were now matters in the hands of Heyward and West, not staff producers or reporters or anchors.

Do you see the truth as somewhere in the middle, or would you say that the legal filing includes wishful or revisionary moments?

I'm afraid I didn't see the Larry King appearance. I'll check youtube to see if any of it is available there.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 6:09 PM | Permalink

Jay and Paul,
Doesn't the legal filing explicitly claim that Moonves, Heyward, and West did directly and successfully challenge Rather's authority on the Killian memos and the Abu Ghraib story? Doesn't the reading you and Paul are advancing here directly call into question the veracity of Rather's legal filing in that regard?

How do the two of you see that falling out?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 22, 2007 6:16 PM | Permalink

"Do you see the truth as somewhere in the middle, or would you say that the legal filing includes wishful or revisionary moments? "

If memory serves me correctly (too lazy to reread the filing) Rather was not relieved of his own supervisory authority per se... instead, Heyward (and West acting on Heyward's behalf, but not Moonves) exerted his own authority as head of CBS News, which of course exceeded Rather's (and Howard's) authority. It wasn't a question of "challenging" Rather's authority -- on Abu Ghraib the big shots used their authority, and delayed the broadcast. And based on the filing (and other stuff) I think its safe to say that Heyward considered part of his job to be to make sure that politically sensitive stories were presented 'properly'.

I do think that there may be some "fudging" with regard to who wanted this program rushed. Rather acts as if he (and by extension, Mapes) had nothing to do with it.

But my guess is that everyone wanted this story rushed -- keep in mind that USA Today published their own copies of the memos (including two that were not published by CBS) the day after the broadcast. I think that everyone involved was afraid that waiting another week represented a serious risk of losing that part of the 'scoop' altogether. And because everyone knew that the story was solid, they got sloppy with the sourcing.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 6:55 PM | Permalink

Some folks have made the point that they hope the thing is not settled.

Rather needs to prove it's true and CBS needs to prove it's false. If it's false, then Rather screwed himself, without CBS' help.

If the stuff is false, Rather loses.

So CBS, if this comes to the mat, will be trying to prove Rather's stuff is false. They have deeper pockets. They also have a television news show on which to talk about it.

It may be easier to cry for what remains untold of Bush's military records at this date. During and shortly after the campaign, although there was a bunch of noise about the Bush record, it was slightly offset by the unavailability of Kerry's records. He said he'd release them and he has not. Too great an effort toward Bush might generate more effort toward Kerry. But no major journalist AFAIK ever challenged Kerry after he first said he'd release his records. The point, of course, was not to embarrass Kerry, but to embarrass Bush, so Kerry was left alone except by the right. No MSM bothered him.

Now that he's officially a nobody, any cries to get his records can be dismissed with a sneer and their is no offsetting pressure which might keep the pressure on Bush down.

In case you haven't heard, some of the speculation is that he got a nasty discharge due to hanging with the seamiest side of the anti-war movement while a commissioned officer in the USN. Further, Carter upgraded it, and the redone doc, with John Warner's signature on it, is hidden in some vault someplace.
If such were not the case, or something like it, the reasoning goes, Kerry would have released his records.

This is particularly odd, if there were nothing amiss, since Kerry was, in part, running on his miltary history and Bush was not "reporting for duty" (speaking of theatricality). It's particularly odd when Kerry keeps his records under wraps while running on their putative contents, and it's particularly odd when the MSM go after Bush's records when he is not.

Well-a-day. Hope this goes to trial

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 22, 2007 7:55 PM | Permalink

I think on Larry King Live Rather barely allowed for the possibility that he was responsible for what went over the air with the Sep. 8th story. He begrudingly says he had something to do with it, but tries to suggest the editing, vetting, checking and "good-to-go-ing" was taken out of his hands.

I think they were all involved, and all have responsibility for blowing it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 7:57 PM | Permalink

p.lukasiak: And because everyone knew that the story was solid, they got sloppy with the sourcing.

Have you ever looked into how one Captain Alfred Dreyfus came to be convicted of treason against France? Everyone in the French Army just knew he was guilty, so discrepancies in the evidence didn't trouble them ... but what everyone knew, wasn't true.

Regarding the forged memos, if the CBS news executives had yielded to pressure from Bush and killed their story, they and Rather and Mapes would all be far better off than they are now. It doesn't make sense to suppose Bush even applied pressure, but if he did, Heyward resisted it. The one thing the story can't possibly be is "White House and corporate GOP manipulation of the media powers that be"; the only one manipulating CBS News was Rather himself.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 22, 2007 9:17 PM | Permalink

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, Jay. I thought Rutten did a pretty good job, as well.

It's a somber thing to see the ruined house that Murrow built now reduced to a shabby backdrop for the last act in the ego theater of Dan Rather.

I also went back and read Ernest Miller's, Incompetent AND Unethical: The Story of CBS News' Response to Criticism of the Killian Memo Forgeries

Posted by: Tim at September 22, 2007 9:51 PM | Permalink

The hapless Dan Bartlett and his WH cronies really did roll the press on this one.
They weren't clueless.
They went, "huh?" "What, now?" "We don't know anything about....what was that again?"

THE WHITE HOUSE WOULD NOT DENY!!!!

For days.

"You guys got enough rope, yet?"

And you're supposed to the smart ones. Sheesh.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 22, 2007 10:14 PM | Permalink

I don't think anyone is going to find evidence of "pressure from Bush." That's Rather blowing smoke. What they might find is CBS executives worried about the reaction from Washington and making decisions based on that sense of alarm.

Rutten of the LA Times--thanks for the link, Tim--summarizes the shockers in Rather's lawsuit from the newsroom point-of-view. This is why the reputation recovery part of the suit is so odd:

The former anchorman now says that he had little, if anything, to do with the reporting, sourcing or fact-checking that went into the Bush segment. He was busy elsewhere -- covering a hurricane and former President Clinton's heart surgery. Other people reported and vetted the charges against Bush; Dan just went on camera and recited them -- sort of like a court clerk.

If that's true, it's beyond reprehensible. The anchorman of the "CBS Evening News" went on camera and told the world that a wartime president of the United States had deliberately evaded military service himself, even though the anchorman had no firsthand knowledge that the charge was true?

...He now says that the retraction and apology he delivered over the air was not true. He says that he never believed the segment was wrong or that there was anything for which to apologize. Rather says, moreover, that the apology he read was written for him by a corporate employee of CBS.

If that's true, it's the most shocking of all his admissions. Rather was not simply the anchor of the "CBS Evening News"; he was its managing editor. If he knowingly broadcast something he believed was false, it's a stunning breach of journalistic ethics. Moreover, if he aired something that was concocted by CBS' corporate staff rather than produced by the news division's journalists, he cooperated in an unforgivable surrender of the standards that separate the business and news sides in American media organizations.

I like "the last act in the ego theater of Dan Rather." That's what it seems like to me.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 22, 2007 11:15 PM | Permalink

here's my problem with these "newsroom" types like Rutten...

If that's true, it's beyond reprehensible. The anchorman of the "CBS Evening News" went on camera and told the world that a wartime president of the United States had deliberately evaded military service himself, even though the anchorman had no firsthand knowledge that the charge was true?

Rutten assumes that the Killian memos were the "proof" that Rather used to say that "a wartime President...deliberately evaded military service."

Where does Rutten come up with this? Certainly, at no point has Rather ever suggested that the Killian memos were the "proof" that was missing for those who believed, without proof, that Bush "evaded military service." The Killian memos were just more evidence to support what was already known -- and Rather (and Mapes) have consistently emphasized how the documents supported (and were supported by) the narrative described by the documents released by the White House.

Should Rutten be fired -- not just fired, but vilified for all time -- for his failure to fully research this piece before making this completely assinine claim? Rutten simply ASSUMES that if Rather wasn't in charge of verifying the authenticity and provenance of the memos, that Rather's larger point was without any basis whatsoever.

CBS would never have gone with this story were it not 100% sure of the truth of the underlying claim -- that Bush had blown off his military obligation after fulfilling less than 2/3s of contracted obligation -- and serving less than half of the time he'd agreed to serve as a fully trained fighter pilot.

CBS had the proof...the Killian memos were just the bells and whistles that made the story "big" enough for 60 Minutes II.

But nobody is gonna demand Rutten's head, because its open season on Dan Rather right now....just as it was open season on Rather three years ago.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 22, 2007 11:59 PM | Permalink

But what you are missing, Paul, is that the Killian Memos were the reason for running the story when they ran it, along with the interview with Barnes finally saying on camera what he had told others before.

The news in the story was that new evidence, hard to refute, had emerged-- not the fact that Bush had benefited from special treatment. From Rather's set up on that fateful night:

Did then Lieutenant Bush fulfill all of his military commitments?

And just how did he land that coveted slot in the Guard in the first place?

Tonight, we have new documents and new information on the president's military service and the first ever interview with the man who says he pulled the strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

You're also missing the fact that when you are vetting a story like this--which you know will be attacked even if or especially if it's true--all that matters for the vetters is verifiability: the truth claims you can verify and how strong the means for verifying those claims are.

That's why documents that cannot be authenticated are such a disaster for a story of this type. And that's why I agree with Mark Liberman when he says to Rather and Mapes: "You ruined the case for GWB’s military irresponsibility and mendacity… You messed up. Deal with it."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 23, 2007 12:15 AM | Permalink

Despite some sympathy for Rutten's feelings as a journalist about the original Rather situation and the reputational damage he feels; I have to agree with p.lukasiak about the duplicitous and uniformed factual allegations and inferences Rutten makes. Here is another instance:

"In fact, the adjectives that come to mind as you assess the substance of what Rather now has done are wanton, reckless and irresponsible. Let's put aside the fact that Rather has no evidence that the network's owners were anything but understandably embarrassed and angry at having their single most recognizable journalist air something as incompetently put together as the "60 Minutes" segment in question. Let's ignore any questions over why Thornburg and Boccardi -- two men with unimpeachable reputations in their respective fields -- would join a conspiracy to "get Dan Rather."

At least Rather had the underlying germane facts about Bush and his disgraceful and fraudulent Guard service; Rutten certainly did not on his reporting on Rather's lawsuit. Had he checked the Larry King transcript, read the Kurtz Washington Post Piece, or reviewed any number of sources, he would know that the plaintiff does indeed claim to have evidence in this regard some of it previously unknown. Unless Rutten has a crystal ball, or Karnac's turban, so as to know that the future proves Rather and his attorneys to be flat out lying; Rutten has been disingenuous, at best.

Rather's hands are certainly not clean in this story, but to blithely assert that there is no grime on the other side and that the facts as currently believed in public lore are all correct is naive and unbalanced. Time will tell how this works out, but it sure seems, unfortunately like so many things in life these days, like there are, before it has hardly even started, two polarized sides/views and they are both somewhat certifiable.

Posted by: bmaz at September 23, 2007 1:34 AM | Permalink

One other batty Rutten quote:

"Thornburg and Boccardi -- two men with unimpeachable reputations in their respective fields"

That is laughable. Thornburg and Boccardi are very impeachable. In fact, Thornburg has close enough ties to the Bush family that it was arguably improper for him to serve as the arbiter of truth here.

Posted by: bmaz at September 23, 2007 1:41 AM | Permalink

MOONVES

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Rather, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immanent, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Rather?

(pause)

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and A T and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Rather. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by theimmutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Rather! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Rather, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Rather.

DAN
(humble whisper)

Why me?

MOONVES

Because you're on television, dummy.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 23, 2007 2:28 AM | Permalink

But what you are missing, Paul, is that the Killian Memos were the reason for running the story when they ran it,

Jay, I don't think I'm missing that -- not when Rutten is going off about about Rather's lack of "firsthand knowledge", and I respond by saying

CBS had the proof...the Killian memos were just the bells and whistles that made the story "big" enough for 60 Minutes II.

(BTW, how many journalists do have actial "firsthand knowledge" of the stuff they report on. Mostly, its just hearsay...repeating what others have told the reporter. )

And that's why I agree with Mark Liberman when he says to Rather and Mapes: "You ruined the case for GWB’s military irresponsibility and mendacity… You messed up. Deal with it."

No one has more reason than I do for being angry about how Rather and Mapes "ruined the case for GWB's irresponsibility." But I disagree that they did "ruin the case."

I mean, the mainstream media was more than willing to repeat completely the unsubstantiated "Swift Boad" allegations. Even after individuals who were making those accusations were discredited, the reporters who used these individuals as sources didn't lose their jobs -- and the exposure of one set of SwiftBoat lies didn't stop the media from continuing to give credence to other Swift Boat lies.

Indeed, the "Swift Boat" allegations -- and the medias willingness to spread those lies without vetting them properly, act as a funhouse mirror to the Killian Memos story. With the Swift Boats, you have "facts" being reported that were in opposition to existing documentation, being spread by individuals with direct connections to the GOP and the conservative movement. With the Killian memos, you have "facts" being reported that were backed up by Bush's own military records whose source was someone with no significant party/liberal movemment connections.

To me, the abject hypocrisy of the media for going after Mapes and Rather on this story, when they happily repeated the lies of the Swift Boaters without any consequence, is the real media story.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 23, 2007 7:15 AM | Permalink

There are two assertions in the recent comments.

One is that Bush really did cheat on his Guard service. That is so true that you needed forged documents to make the case. Right. The contradictions to that, such as the "special treatment" crap have been shown to be crap so often that only journalists could believe anybody would believe them.

The other assertion, that the Swifties had been rebutted, is also nonsense.

Let's say this: You guys know better. You just haven't figured out that everybody else knows better, too. That's why your credibiilty--as a profession--would sink in a septic tank.

And your complete uninterest in Kerry's records is also a bright and shining reminder of what journalism is all about. Which everybody knows, as well.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 23, 2007 9:16 AM | Permalink

To argue that Bush's service in the TexANG was proper, regular and honorable defies credulity. For Christ's sake, even Bush has refused to deny that. Whatever beef you have in relation to Kerry's records, and I will assume for the sake of argument only that your complaint is valid, is completely irrelevant to the question of the veracity of Rather's reporting and propriety of the investigation and resultant action thereon.

Posted by: bmaz at September 23, 2007 9:39 AM | Permalink

Paul: To understand why people lost their jobs over the TANG story and not Swift Boat reporting I think you have to imagine a story like this....

Dan Rather reporting for Sixty Minutes. Did John Kerry earn all his medals in Vietnam? And just what kind of discharge did he receive when he left the military? Tonight, we have new documents and new information on the candidate's military service and the first ever interview with a man who served on Kerry's boat and says the candidate lied about drifting into Cambodia.

... where a lot more of the news organization's prestige is on the line. Do you recall a story like that?

Perhaps you think there were presentations in the news media analogous to it. If so, I don't recall them. I recall insufficiently skeptical coverage, underestimating the Swifties, he said/she said journalism that shamefully wussed out, along with strategy coverage that moved away from questions of truth to "how this was playing..." "could this hurt Kerry?" and so on.

I think the Swift Boaters fraud and smear campaign was one of the lowest points in American politics recently, and that to this day it dishonors everyone who believed or supported it. But the sins of the journalists in that one are of a different type than this one.

In particular, the relationship between Mapes and Rather on the one hand and Bill Burkett on the other does not resemble the relationship between any news person presenting the Swift Boaters' story as credible and any Swiftie supplying the documentation that allegedly makes it credible.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 23, 2007 11:34 AM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen - I agree completely. Swift boat and Rather are two different animals. for that matter so is whatever the Kerry records story that richard, and maybe others (can't recall) have raise as well. Rathergate really is a unique stand alone gig; at least in recent memory. That is one of the reasons I think the litigation will be so fascinating.

Posted by: bmaz at September 23, 2007 12:18 PM | Permalink

I agree that the litigation may prove fascinating. This is because it's a case where everyone is dirty, and many of the participants think they are clean.

Note to all: This thread will not be used to re-fight the details of the Kerry medals or Kerry military records "controversies," such as they are. Attempts to do so will result in killed posts and there will be no explanations. If you want to praise the Swifties as truthtelling heroes and thus slime yourself right in front of us, I suppose you can do that, but keep it really, really short because it's embarrassing for everyone.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 23, 2007 1:09 PM | Permalink

Dan Rather reporting for Sixty Minutes. Did John Kerry earn all his medals in Vietnam? And just what kind of discharge did he receive when he left the military? Tonight, we have new documents and new information on the candidate's military service and the first ever interview with a man who served on Kerry's boat and says the candidate lied about drifting into Cambodia.

First off, Jay, we are talking about two different kinds of stories. The "killian memos" narratives were backed up by the Bush military records -- there is documentary proof behind the narrative described in the Killian memos. The Barnes interview was a reinteration on camera of testimony given under oath by Barnes years earlier pursuant to a lawsuit that had nothing to do with Bush's military service per se. (In other words, there was nothing especially newsworthy about Barnes' interview, other than the fact that he was repeating his story in an on camera interview.)

The lies of the Swifties were not backed up by Kerry's military records (which, contrary to Richard's assertions, Kerry did release; and unlike Bush Kerry allowed even his medical records to be examined by journalists, and the Navy opened up its archives to journalists who went digging through the files looking for dirt -- and coming up with information that directly contradicted the Swift Boat liars), and the story told by the general was brand new -- and contradicted earlier accounts that he gave.

Specifically with reference to the general, he was taken very seriously by major media outlets:

NBC/Lisa Meyers whose interview is uncritical

Myers wasn't fired.

Tom Brokaw (covering the GOP convention) treats Schacte's lies as fact

Brokaw wasn't fired.

Boston Globe which does point out the contradictions and inconsistencies in Schlacte's various accounts...

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 23, 2007 1:16 PM | Permalink

Schacte retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral, not a General. He was not a member of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth.

A better example for Schacte might be Novak's: "Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the swift boat veterans dispute ..."

Although Schacte's account was disputed by others, the Globe article does not "point out the contradictions and inconsistencies in Schlacte's various accounts..."

Posted by: Tim at September 23, 2007 4:29 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen et al: Rathergate is really interesting, but am I nuts for thinking that the actual story here is GWB's evasion of his military obligations? All the reporting screw-ups in the world on subsequent stories about exactly how Bush accomplished that do not change one basic fact: we have a wartime President who likes to pose in flight suits but who couldn't be bothered to fulfill his actual military obligations when he was asked to do it. How, exactly does Rathergate take that issue off the table? Well, I guess one way is if the media agree tacitly agree to that rule, which is what everyone seems to be doing. But to allow Rather's personal loss of credibility to be a stand-in for the loss of credibility of the media as a whole seems to be to be assigning Mr. Rather a level of importance that even he has not asserted. Which just seems odd to me, when so much of what we talk about these days is mainstream media's loss of status.

To me, Rathergate is nothing more than a cautionary tale of sloppy journalism, and Rather vs. CBS is about the immense value that one of the exemplars of mainstream journalism places on his personal reputation (including, so help me God, his reputation as "the most experienced reporter in the United States in covering hurricanes" --see page 23 of the complaint in case you missed that little tidbit). Yeah, I agree with what you say about how Rather wants to have it both ways, and yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out. But how exactly is it that George W. Bush gets a free pass out of all this? Could someone explain that part to me?

Posted by: Tracy Thompson at September 23, 2007 4:43 PM | Permalink

I think the Killian memos were created to "fit" the public narrative and provide new "proof" missing from the public record. It would be nice if the Rather lawsuit actually determined who created the documents and forged Killian's signature.

Lukasiak Study Proves Bush Was Legally AWOL
The CBS Memogate Report--an insider's perspective
Forged Killian Memos: 45 Second Briefing

Posted by: Tim at September 23, 2007 4:48 PM | Permalink

A lot of people lost their jobs over this piece of sloppy reporting -- not the least among them, Rather, Mapes, Howard and Heyward.

In that sense, we have to admire CBS's record (as opposed to the Bush administration's record) for punishing incompetence.

But that doesn't change the fact that on this one the clueless Rather is going up against ... Sumner Redstone (head of Viacom and CBS and acknowleged contributor to and voter for George Bush) ... Richard Thornburgh (Bush Sr.'s attorney general) ... and the Bush administration itself.

Was ever a game more loaded ? As I said earlier, Rather must have some secret desire to become a grease spot on the highway.

And that desire will be fulfilled.

Shakespeare, anyone ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 23, 2007 7:05 PM | Permalink

It was always a mystery to me why CBS, with its vast resources, didn't move heaven and earth to find out who provided the forged documents.

The total lack of interest in finding who caused such deep damage to the reputation and credibility of a major network always made me think of O.J. Simpson, who swore he was gonna find his ex-wife's killer.

The killer is still at large, as is the Memogate forger.

But another mystery is why any of this matters now. The establishment press had their chance in '04 to bring down a war time president, and blew it. Mary Mapes had been working this story for over 5 years. Journalists and partisan Democrats had been beating the drum about Bush's TANG service (or lack thereof) since he was governor.

But what if everything every partisan Democrat and journalist believes to be true IS true? Would Bush be impeached for what happened over 40 years ago? Would he resign in disgrace, giving us President Cheney? What would be the real-life consequences if the Memogate memo was true?

What the hell difference does this story make to anyone in real life, except to frothing partisans and journalists (like Rather) who still get upset about the thought of Bush in a flight suit?

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 23, 2007 7:11 PM | Permalink

Rathergate is really interesting, but am I nuts for thinking that the actual story here is GWB's evasion of his military obligations?

Yes; or at least, you're showing poor judgement. Why does it matter now if Bush called in favors 35 years ago to get a place in TANG? What has it to do with the man's qualifications for the presidency? Where's the connection to the flaws in his character (yes, he's got them) or his preferred policies? I can't see any relevance to present affairs in what Bush did in 1971.

Whereas it matters a great deal if CBS News is prepared to blacken a man's character to an audience of millions on falsified evidence; or if Dan Rather is prepared to do that, with the reputation of CBS News behind him. For anyone who is prepared to do that ought not to have the opportunity.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 23, 2007 7:51 PM | Permalink

One of the Bush stories is that Bush got to take cuts in the TANG line. Not true, as pilots candidates were not in surplus. It was true that the other jobs in TANG were filled and with waiting lists. Liars attempt to make that the equivalent of Bush's experience, hoping the unwary will overlook the fact that Bush did not have to have help to get into the fighter business.

I suppose somebody who spent three years in Germany drinking beer and waiting to be overrun by the Warsaw Pact could be said, by the same logic, to have evaded his military responsibilities because, in the event, the Warsaw Pact stayed home. That his presence there, in some tiny increment, encouraged the WP guys to more pacific pursuits ought to recalled as actually true.

Now, of course, somebody who actually knows better is going to challenge me to prove Bush actually helped deter anything. I've got an answer, so don't bother.

From the outside looking in, Rathergate wasn't done by CBS and Rather. Rathergate was done by the media. It was just Rather and CBS happened to get the call this time. Would NBC or ABC have done the same thing? In a heartbeat, given the chance, ditto NYT and LAT. You may disagree. You may even, unlikely though it is, be right. But that's not how it looks. We see exploding trucks, and jiggered Audi transmissions, and Richard Jewell getting a huge settlement and, but you know the roster as well as I.

Rathergate hurt far more than the perps and CBS.

Have you considered the possibility that the ordinary guy might not be able to tell you which network Rather was on? Rather is on the network which is still telling the news when the network I happen to be watching goes to commercials. I, with my handy remote, do not choose to watch commercials. So I watch...whoever. On whichever.

One item that the folks yelling about the Swifties forget--try to obfuscate--that much of the complaint about Kerry is the bogus Winter Soldier crap. That has nothing to do with records.

The Rather story would have been busted eventually. Let's suppose it wasn't until after Kerry was elected. Think CBS would have turned Rather & Co. loose. Or would they have been laughing at the rest of us?

What, guys, would the media have said in that case?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 23, 2007 8:10 PM | Permalink

Schachte v. Kerry

John Kerry's Skimmer Scam

Posted by: Tim at September 23, 2007 10:55 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen, thanks for the link.

I've got strong opinions on peripherally related subjects like the SwiftVets and Bush's TANG service too. Those are distractions in this context. I'm not saying people who want to argue those matters here, or elsewhere, in connection with Rather's present lawsuit are wrong or evil, nor even that they're necessarily trying to change the subject for bad-faith reasons. But such folks are wasting their own time, and the time of anyone who really wants to talk about Rather's lawsuit and its merits (or lack thereof), in a forum like this one.

On the day I found out — via ABC News' reporting that two of the experts whom CBS News consulted before running the broadcast — Emily Will from North Carolina and Linda James of Plano, Texas — could not and would not authenticate the fraudulent Killian memos, and had expressly told CBS that, I wrote:

Nothing — not even Lt. George W. Bush using TANG aircraft to traffic in cocaine sales to minors — could justify what CBS News has done.

I have never seen anyone mount a remotely persuasive argument in favor of a news organization presenting documents as genuine, and then continuing to defend them, after its own retained experts had refused to authenticate them. It's fraud, it's intentional, and it's inexcusable.

I suspect that Rather would enjoy inflicting some financial harm on CBS, but I seriously doubt that he's motivated by personal greed. The reason I think that the case will settle — and settle early, rather than after considerable pretrial discovery — is that both he and CBS have almost nothing to gain from such discovery other than making each other look bad. Rather wants to make himself look better. CBS can give him that through a weasel-worded negotiated "apology." The precise terms of the apology will be the subject of sharp negotiation, but the clarity provided through formal pretrial discovery isn't needed for those negotiations to go forward, and in fact, the whole point of the negotiations will be how precisely to blur things over in ways that both sides find satisfactory, so clarity from pretrial discovery is actually likely to impede the negotiations.

Posted by: Beldar at September 23, 2007 11:26 PM | Permalink

Also worth comparing ....

Dan Rather interview of Ben Barnes and Lisa Myers interview with Bill Schachte

Posted by: Tim at September 23, 2007 11:33 PM | Permalink

Welcome, Beldar. (I linked to his post in After Matter)

You and I had the same tipping point. When I read that the experts CBS had relied on would not authenticate the documents, I knew Rather's story had collapsed and that it was only a question of how much damage would be sustained before the network reversed course.

I agree that Rather wants to make himself look better, but in arguing that he will settle early you seem to regard him as a "rational actor" (to use an academic phrase.) That's problematic with Rather. He is quite capable of acting against his own interest in order to preserve of a view of himself as embattled truthteller.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 24, 2007 12:00 AM | Permalink

Prof. Rosen

Preserving his view of himself as an embattled truth-teller is in, not against, Rather's interest. He won't go bankrupt because of this. He won't lose whatever friends he has because of this-- those he'd have lost were gone long ago.

He can best do this by resurrecting the case and fudging the facts so as to be able to convince himself and others that he was actually right.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 24, 2007 6:29 AM | Permalink

Jay....

While I'm going to respect your instructions, and ignore those who are egregiously misrepresenting both Bush and Kerry's military records, I do think this statement (When I read that the experts CBS had relied on would not authenticate the documents, I knew Rather's story had collapsed) requires a response...

All of the experts (not just Linda James and Emily Will) told CBS that they would not authenticate the documents because they were copies, and forensic document examiners will only authenticate originals. This was never a point of contention. And while ABC breathlessly and unskeptically reported the self-serving statements of both James and Will, what they told ABC does not stand up to scrutiny -- and comes across as ex poste facto personal damage control on their part. (For instance, she said she had five problems with one signature... but when you examine the "signature", you notice that its initialled, not signed, and that is the source of those problems.) More crucially, perhaps, is that ABC's story tried to portray Will and James as disputing the authenticity of the documents ("CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.") -- not even James and Will make a claim that they disputed their authenticity -- James simply refused to athenticate, based on the fact that they were copies, and Will expressed "concerns", rather than disputing their authenticity (except for "disputing" that they were military documents -- which they were not represented to be.)

As for Emily Will, the only concerns she expressed via email were with regard to the signatures---and the one thing that CBS did get an expert (Matley) to verify was the signature.

Will subsequently claimed that she raised other issues over the phone in a short conversation with Mapes. But Will was unable to provide any documentation (like handwritten notes) that support her story (at least that documentation is not part of the exhibits), Will claims that Mapes told her that her source had gotten the documents in the mail anonymously (which, of course, makes no sense at all) --- and perhaps most crucially, even if she'd expressed some concerns, those concerns were based upon the false assumption that the memos were supposed to be official "military documents" -- they weren't.

It should also be noted that Will thought that she should be analysing the substance on the documents (i.e. comparing them with the narrative that official documents described.) Will was completely unqualified to do such an analysis on short notice, however. But because Will wanted to look at the substance, she told ABC that "I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply".

The bottom line is that no one put any "typographic" objections in writing -- and none of the experts contacted CBS told CBS that they were fraudulent, or likely to be fraudulent, based on their examination of the memos.

In hindsight, its easy to say that Mapes should have picked up on these "warning signs" -- if, they in fact, existed. (Both James' and Will's narratives are contradicted by other fact witnesses; for instance, James' denied showing Mapes a copy of Matley's book...but two people recall Mapes telling them that James had shown her Matley's book.)

But the same people who are the most vorciferous in condemning Rather and Mapes are completely forgiving of Bush -- who got us into a war despite "warning signs" that the intelligence was bogus. And the same journalists who forgive themselves and their brethren for careless and incompentent reporting every day (despite warning signs) are happy to participate in the anti-rather witchhunt.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 24, 2007 12:14 PM | Permalink

Jay....

While I'm going to respect your instructions, and ignore those who are egregiously misrepresenting both Bush and Kerry's military records, I do think this statement (When I read that the experts CBS had relied on would not authenticate the documents, I knew Rather's story had collapsed) requires a response...

All of the experts (not just Linda James and Emily Will) told CBS that they would not authenticate the documents because they were copies, and forensic document examiners will only authenticate originals. This was never a point of contention. And while ABC breathlessly and unskeptically reported the self-serving statements of both James and Will, what they told ABC does not stand up to scrutiny -- and comes across as ex poste facto personal damage control on their part. (For instance, she said she had five problems with one signature... but when you examine the "signature", you notice that its initialled, not signed, and that is the source of those problems.)

More crucially, perhaps, is that ABC's story tried to portray Will and James as disputing the authenticity of the documents ("CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.") -- not even James and Will make a claim that they disputed their authenticity -- James simply refused to athenticate, based on the fact that they were copies, and Will expressed "concerns", rather than disputing their authenticity (except for "disputing" that they were military documents -- which they were not represented to be--see below) The media was making stuff up as it went along without doing ANY fact checking on the "Killian memos" story...

As for Emily Will, the only concerns she expressed via email were with regard to the signatures---and the one thing that CBS did get an expert (Matley) to verify was the signature.

Will subsequently claimed that she raised other issues over the phone in a short conversation with Mapes. But Will was unable to provide any documentation (like handwritten notes) that support her story (at least that documentation is not part of the exhibits), Will claims that Mapes told her that her source had gotten the documents in the mail anonymously (which, of course, makes no sense at all) --- and perhaps most crucially, even if she'd expressed some concerns, those concerns were based upon the false assumption that the memos were supposed to be official "military documents" -- they weren't.

It should also be noted that Will thought that she should be analysing the substance on the documents (i.e. comparing them with the narrative that official documents described.) Will was completely unqualified to do such an analysis on short notice, however. But because Will wanted to look at the substance, she told ABC that "I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply".

The bottom line is that no one put any "typographic" objections in writing -- and none of the experts contacted CBS told CBS that they were fraudulent, or likely to be fraudulent, based on their examination of the memos.

In hindsight, its easy to say that Mapes should have picked up on these "warning signs" -- if, they in fact, existed. (Both James' and Will's narratives are contradicted by other fact witnesses; for instance, James' denied showing Mapes a copy of Matley's book...but two people recall Mapes telling them that James had shown her Matley's book.)

But the same people who are the most vorciferous in condemning Rather and Mapes are completely forgiving of Bush -- who got us into a war despite "warning signs" that the intelligence was bogus. And the same journalists who forgive themselves and their brethren for careless and incompentent reporting every day (despite warning signs) are happy to participate in the anti-rather witchhunt.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 24, 2007 12:18 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen and Beldar - I would appreciate being corrected if i am wrong here, and since it has been some time since I looked at the TANG story on it's boafides I may be wrong; but, it is my recollection that the CBS experts simply would not, pursuant to the appropriate legal standard, certify to a reasonable degree of certainty that the documents were genuine, but this had more to do with the aging sequence of the successive generations of copies producing the documents they were working from the inability to analyze the original. However, they did not say they were forgeries and did not say they were not "genuine" in the sense of being valid copies of the original. When the phrase "not authenticate" is used; it is my recollection that is what we are talking about; not that the documents were believed to be forgeries. There is a world of difference between the two; and I don't believe journalists have ever been held to the standard for legal admissibility of expert testimony in a court proceeding. If I am wrong here, I would be happy to accept valid proof thereof.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 3:30 PM | Permalink

bmaz. The concern with generations of copies is a concern when trying to see if a particular document is an unjiggered copy of some original.
Given enough static provided by copying copies of copies to the tenth generation, it might become difficult to compare the original and the one in hand.
However, the problem with the TANG documents is that the original was a fraud. If the original had been available, it would have been no more and no less obvious.
The point of the refuters was that the copies showed the original was a fraud. I won't go into the spacing and kerning and anachronistic military usage and so forth. But the point was not the copies but the original.
And it was never stated AFAIK that the copies, if they had not been so clouded by copying, would have reflected an original which was legit.

You couldn't clean up the fuzz and presto, Staudt was still in charge, or, presto, Killian's family say he really would have done that, or, presto, the secretary says he did do that or she had done the same thing for him, etc. Cleaning it up wouldn't have put a load of sodium pentothal into Lucy Ramirez. Or found her, for that matter.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 24, 2007 4:02 PM | Permalink

bmaz, tell me the real world consequences if the Memogate memos were real/true.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 24, 2007 4:40 PM | Permalink

QC Examiner - None particularly that I am aware of in hard terms; but the ability to show how deceitful and cynical the Bush machine was from the start, which shockingly few people seem to realize, is important. Also the opportunity to expose how they wielded power, and the sycophantic and crass decision making by the management of large media in order to curry favor and benefits from the corrupt Bush Administration, I think is invaluable and quite a public service. There can be a chance for at least some moral accountability by Bush on the wrongs of Abu Ghraib as well; and this is important.

Richard Aubrey - I am quite familiar with the methods and standards of questioned document examiners; i have worked with some of the best in the business numerous times. To the best of my recollection, there was no determination that the original was a fraud; and it has been conclusively established that the meme about the fonts, proportional spacing, etc. not being available at the time thus proving fraud is, itself, fraudulent and bogus. I refer you again to my above comment. The CBS "experts" never said the docs were fraudulent; quite the opposite. They merely could not attest to the legal standard of certification of authenticity due to the copy aging problem described. At least that is my recollection; but hey, I f you can show I am wrong, I will fully accept that. I have not looked at the case for a long time and don't have time to plow through it in detail currently.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 5:04 PM | Permalink

* Court-certified document examiner Emily Will of North Carolina, hired by CBS to look at the documents, told the network she had serious problems with the signatures and typeface. "I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting," she told ABC News on September 14. "And I found problems with the printing itself, as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter."

* Will warned CBS about presenting the documents on the air. "I told them that all the questions I was asking them at that time, which was Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document experts on Thursday if they ran the story," Will told ABC News. "... I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply."

* Will says she presented her objections in both an email and phone call to CBS. "She said she listed five concerns in an e-mail three days before last Wednesday's [CBS] broadcast and that in a call to a producer the day before the program, 'I repeated all my objections as strongly as I could.'" (The Washington Post, September 15)

* The Washington Post reported on September 15 that certified document examiner Linda James of Texas, also hired by CBS, said she suspected the documents were produced on a computer. "Linda James said that she told CBS the documents 'had problems' and that she had questioned 'whether they were produced on a computer.' Asked whether CBS took her concerns seriously, James said: 'Evidently not.'"

* James told ABC News: "I did not authenticate anything. And I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did. And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anyone to think that I did authenticate these documents."

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2007 5:58 PM | Permalink

I also suggest you look up Thomas Phinney, Joseph Newcomer and Eugene P. Hussey.

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2007 6:00 PM | Permalink

Oh, and Peter Tytell.

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2007 6:02 PM | Permalink

bmaz: If you type the text of the memos in Microsoft Word 2003, and set the font to Times New Roman, the resulting document is pixel-for-pixel identical with the scanned images of the memos, apart from some copying artifacts. Given the complexity of Word 2003's typesetting algorithm, the likelihood that someone in TANG in 1971 would manage to duplicate that algorithm, by accident, to produce a routine memorandum, is miniscule. It is far more likely -- beyond reasonable doubt, in fact -- that the memos actually were composed in Word 2003, then copied several times over. But then, of course, they were composed after 2003, not in 1971.

Moreover, while a document examiner saying "I cannot authenticate this document" does not assert the thing is a fake, he or she does assert that there is a substantial risk that it's fake. And for any responsible journalist, a substantial risk that the key bit of evidence supporting a story is fake is enough reason not to publish.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 24, 2007 6:42 PM | Permalink

As I am working off of recollection only and, as such, cannot specifically refute the statements Tim made above. I do specifically know that both of the QDE experts I have worked with the great majority of the time over the years stated unequivocally that the documents were not necessarily the product of a word processor and were, indeed, able to be produced by common technology at the time. The assertions of Michael, especially the "beyond a reasonable doubt" part are incorrect and are nothing more than right wing talking point without a foundation in fact.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 6:56 PM | Permalink

bmaz: The description of the situation I use because I believe it is most accurate is that the documents could not be authenticated and should not have been used as a basis for Rather's report. They did not meet minimal standards for verifying a story based on those documents.

There is no "legal" standard I know of, other than: what could cause you to lose a libel suit involving a public figure-- in fact the most public figure there is in American society. The more relevant standard, since Bush is not going to sue, is common practice in investigative journalism and forensics generally, as well as prudence and the kind of sophisticated common sense you need in these situations.

The CBS study did not determine whether the documents were forgeries. It said, "we didn't go into it."

I think reasonable minds, as the saying goes, can differ over how solid or circumstantial the proof of "forgery" is. Some think it very solid. It is routine on the cultural right, and we have seen it in this thread, to treat anything less than "documents proven forgeries" as itself conclusive evidence of cover-up, denial and a refusal to accept cold hard fact.

This is demagoguery but again utterly routine, and always appears with the pre-emptive tone of certainty that speaks of a captive mind. Others of course "know" the documents are genuine. There's a lot of fake certainty there too.

I don't have a view of whether they are forgeries or not... I really do not know, and think the question or where they came from is among the most fascinating in this story.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 24, 2007 7:10 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen, I agree completely. When I said legal standard, I was referring to the general standard for admission of an expert conclusion (not necessarily for the allowance of expert testimony, but for the actual definitive conclusion on the question of genuineness) in a trial court. I fully understand there is no such specific standard in journalism. I also agree that CBS was most likely a little shabby in using them without enough backup; but i will withhold final judgment until the CBS experts and CBS news employees are on the sworn record. And I have no idea whether the docs are genuine or fake either; but, I am pretty sure it is not the open and shut case that people on both sides curiously seem to believe it is (as you note). And you are right, this can be a great forum to answer the question of origin, and a lot of other issues too, without the belligerent noise from the two ends of the political spectrum. For a person in my profession, this case looks to be absolutely fantastic entertainment; I think all kinds of goodies are going to flow out of it.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 7:42 PM | Permalink

re: It said, "we didn't go into it."

App. 4 of the CBS Report (Tytell)

Try searching the CBS Report for "we didn't go into it" and then for forg.

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2007 7:50 PM | Permalink

Perhaps you are right; we shall see. The document you cite is not only not sworn; it is not even the words of Tytell. It is a summary of what the "panel" understood Tytell to say. The conclusory statements therein have not been tested by cross examination. Maybe you are right and this information will stand up; maybe not. I know that there are expert QDEs every bit as qualified and respected as Tytell's CV section indicates he is, if not much more so, that have indicated disagreement with several key points. That is the thing about expert witnesses; you can hire one to say just about anything, it doesn't mean much until he under oath and tested by cross examination. We shall see, but at this point, I am not drawing any definitive conclusions one way or another.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 8:26 PM | Permalink

bmaz.
The memos were also ripped to shreds by those familiar with TANG procedure, vocabulary, and context. There are numerous questions about the truth of the statements involved based on factors other than the document's physical appearance. In a broader context, Bush got his points and more, and he got his hours.
Paratroopers get jump pay even when they're not jumping on pissed-off foreigners, and flyers get their flight pay even if they never see an enemy. Reason is, that stuff is dangerous even to practice. Guard pilots in the states were in more danger than REMFs in Viet Nam.
To repeat what I've said in other venues: I went through Infantry OCS in late 1969. Viet Nam was on everybody's mind outside the Army, but we were looking over our shoulder at the Warsaw Pact.
If the balloon went up, the Guard is the reserve combat units. The Reserves provide support units. The Guard provides heavy combat units. The Cold War went the way it went and the Guard guys didn't fight in Viet Nam, but the chances of being torpedoed on the way to the ETO for a fight making both earlier rounds look tame was high. We didn't know, at the time. We didn't know what was going to happen. The Guard guys bet on a small chance of a really horrid thing happening, being involved in WW III, versus a higher chance of a less bad thing happening, being involved in Viet Nam, which was safer than the WW III which didn't happen. But, at the time, nobody knew.

We didn't care much for the Guard and Reserve guys who integrated into our units for their annual training. "What sleeps during the day and comes out at night to drink?" But nobody would have paid much for their chances if the Warsaw Pact had started something. The reserve component looks a lot better in retrospect than it did at the time.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 24, 2007 9:26 PM | Permalink

bmaz,

That's fine.

People can conclude that they don't have the expertise to determine on their own that the memos are or are not authentic and don't have the expertise to weigh the expert opinions and analysis that have been offered.

What I will reiterate, over and over, is CBS was warned by their own document examiners before airing the program not to use the memos. It wasn't a close call to put the documents on the air and/or claim they had been vetted and were authentic.

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2007 9:29 PM | Permalink

From CNN's "Reliable Sources" this week. Hartman is a fomer executive producer of CBS Evening News and also worked for 60 Minutes.

(Howard) KURTZ: Rome Hartman, how can Dan Rather now say, well, I didn't mean that apology, I was pressured into it, I believe the story is true, even though CBS admitted and an outside panel confirmed that it could not authenticate those 30-year-old National Guard memos?

HARTMAN: I don't think he can say it, Howard. I don't think he can say it with credibility. I'm not saying he doesn't believe it, but I just don't think it is going to end up where he wants it to end up. And that is -- when I said sad, I think the biggest part of it for me is there are a lot of people, including me, who came to work for CBS News because we wanted to work for and with Dan.

And you think about the great work that he has done from the assassination of JFK to Vietnam and Watergate and election night and hurricanes. I mean, this is a great giant of television news in our lifetime. And that's -- unfortunately, all of that is being pushed back into the background again by Dan's own doing as he chooses to highlight something that is not going to turn out well. This did enormous damage to him but this was a self-inflicted wound, this story.

KURTZ: I agree with that. And he pushed for it to get on the air, although in the lawsuit he kind of makes it that, well, it wasn't really his decision.

The Philadelphia Inquirer agrees with PressThink on this part:

As anchor, managing editor of CBS Evening News, and contributor to 60 Minutes, Rather presented himself constantly, tirelessly, as the man on the scene, the reporter, the boss, engaged, involved, directly responsible.

And he was: responsible for every word, sound, and image that met the viewer. When 60 Minutes aired its report on Bush's National Guard record at the height of a passionate, contentious national election, Rather was lead reporter; the story bore his stamp and credit. And it blew up.

Bore his stamp and credit is right. Check out the finish:

...A chain of bad decisions, a mess from top to bottom.

But Rather was the man; he always made that clear. He lasted 24 years as CBS anchor, longest ever. He worked hard to establish the very responsibility, under his name, that his suit now seems to abjure.

Rathergate often is used as ammunition to argue that "bloggers do better than mainstream media." But it really illustrates the very opposite point. Highly placed, responsible officers at CBS made a huge error and were fired. That's called accountability. MSM have it and the Internet doesn't - and doesn't even seem to care.

The courts will determine the worthiness of Rather's suit. But the heart and soul of journalism is credibility with its public. That is reinforced professionally by institutional responsibility - by consequences (for workers and bosses) that get worse as their mistakes get worse. Not even Dan Rather can say one day he wants to have that responsibility, and the next he'd rather not.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 24, 2007 10:30 PM | Permalink

I am fully capable of "weighing the expert opinions and analysis offered". In fact, I have a great deal of experience both working with my own experts and against my opponent's experts, including many questioned document cases. The chap that was usually my first option when the need arose is a retired senior head of the FBI's Questioned Document Unit and was an instructor for the FBI program at Quantico. It is exactly my experience that leads me to be skeptical of anything not sworn and tested by cross examination.

Here is an extremely thorough study and report by a Utah professor that unequivocally concludes the document indeed was typed and not the product of a word processor. WARNING: IT IS A LARGE PDF FILE.

http://imrl.usu.edu/bush_memo_study/supporting_material/bush_memos.pdf

As there was insufficient evidence available to verify authenticity, he did not attempt to draw any conclusion in that regard. The issue of whether the doc is typed or not is dipositive of a great many of the memes commonly bandied about. So this guy unequivocally disputes your guy. You know what that proves? Nothing. This professor's report is not sworn nor tested by cross examination either. That is the beauty of the Rather lawsuit; maybe we can get some first rate experts under oath and examination and see where the buck stops. It won't be earth shattering whatever the final result is, but it sure as hell will be fun to watch.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 11:03 PM | Permalink

Dr. Rosen - I think that is about right. Kind of applicable to CBS as much as Rather though, and on several different fronts. Everybody attached to this story, including Bush, has a fair amount of stink on them. The best outcome possible can show nothing more than the fact that one side is slightly less lame than the other. I made a comment a minute ago, that got caught up in moderation. I suspect it was due to a four letter word, quite innocuously used and not directed at any person. Fine with me if it needs to be removed. Sorry, didn't really think or consider that it might cause any issue.

Posted by: bmaz at September 24, 2007 11:14 PM | Permalink

Jay....

While I'm going to respect your instructions, and ignore those who are egregiously misrepresenting both Bush and Kerry's military records, I do think this statement (When I read that the experts CBS had relied on would not authenticate the documents, I knew Rather's story had collapsed) requires a response...

All of the experts (not just Linda James and Emily Will) told CBS that they would not authenticate the documents because they were copies, and forensic document examiners will only authenticate originals. This was never a point of contention. And while ABC breathlessly and unskeptically reported the self-serving statements of both James and Will, what they told ABC does not stand up to scrutiny -- and comes across as ex poste facto personal damage control on their part. (For instance, she said she had five problems with one signature... but when you examine the "signature", you notice that its initialled, not signed, and that is the source of those problems.)

More crucially, perhaps, is that ABC's story tried to portray Will and James as disputing the authenticity of the documents ("CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.") -- not even James and Will make a claim that they disputed their authenticity -- James simply refused to athenticate, based on the fact that they were copies, and Will expressed "concerns", rather than disputing their authenticity (except for "disputing" that they were military documents -- which they were not represented to be--see below) The media was making stuff up as it went along without doing ANY fact checking on the "Killian memos" story...

As for Emily Will, the only concerns she expressed via email were with regard to the signatures---and the one thing that CBS did get an expert (Matley) to verify was the signature.

Will subsequently claimed that she raised other issues over the phone in a short conversation with Mapes. But Will was unable to provide any documentation (like handwritten notes) that support her story (at least that documentation is not part of the exhibits), Will claims that Mapes told her that her source had gotten the documents in the mail anonymously (which, of course, makes no sense at all) --- and perhaps most crucially, even if she'd expressed some concerns, those concerns were based upon the false assumption that the memos were supposed to be official "military documents" -- they weren't.

It should also be noted that Will thought that she should be analysing the substance on the documents (i.e. comparing them with the narrative that official documents described.) Will was completely unqualified to do such an analysis on short notice, however. But because Will wanted to look at the substance, she told ABC that "I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply".

The bottom line is that no one put any "typographic" objections in writing -- and none of the experts contacted CBS told CBS that they were fraudulent, or likely to be fraudulent, based on their examination of the memos.

In hindsight, its easy to say that Mapes should have picked up on these "warning signs" -- if, they in fact, existed. (Both James' and Will's narratives are contradicted by other fact witnesses; for instance, James' denied showing Mapes a copy of Matley's book...but two people recall Mapes telling them that James had shown her Matley's book.)

But the same people who are the most vorciferous in condemning Rather and Mapes are completely forgiving of Bush -- who got us into a war despite "warning signs" that the intelligence was bogus. And the same journalists who forgive themselves and their brethren for careless and incompentent reporting every day (despite warning signs) are happy to participate in the anti-rather witchhunt.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 24, 2007 11:22 PM | Permalink

Paul: We are in accord that the document experts CBS relied upon said in the crunch that they could not authenticate the memos, which is another way of saying "uncertain," not that they were fraudulent.

We know that culture war theater requires certainty to clash with certainty. But with Rather, CBS, Burkett, Bush and Texas Air National Guard, that's a situation with a lot of uncertainty. Some people just hate that.

To me the real divide lies there: between the people who know what happened and those who, knowing the same facts, don't.

I am coming at it from another perspective, Paul. It's not yours, but then yours is not Hartman's and Hartman's is not Beldar's.

For once I am in harmony with newsroom opinion. In a well secured story of this type, a story that is ready to air during the heat of an election, the experienced observer of American journalism expects to see certain things happen. In my view and the newsroom view, unforgivable lapses of attention occurred in this case.

Only if you didn't know your own document experts can you be surprised by what they say when they are asked to authenticate the documents. So, yeah, when I read that the experts CBS had relied on would not authenticate the documents, I knew Rather's story had collapsed. So did the media beat reporters writing news and analysis pieces for the big newspapers. I know because I talked to them, as a possible source and partner in bafflement. Nobody at CBS was reading PressThink, but these guys were.

I didn't see what I would expect to see in a well-made story of this type. Neither did they. We agreed the story was in peril from the start, and it got worse every day, primarily because Rather, acting melodramatically, kept raising the stakes.

... Dan, Mary, Josh: do you know where these documents come from? Can you can establish any, well, chain of custody?... Again, I didn't see what I would expect to see in a well made story of this type.

It's the same with... how about keeping this investigation scrupulously clear of any taint by one of the presidential campaigns two months from the election? did we at least do that?.... Did not find what I would expect to find if the story were competently made.

When Burkett turned and said he had misled CBS about some things, that was not what I would expect to find in a ...

Well, you get the idea.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2007 12:03 AM | Permalink

bmaz,

I apologize if you took offense at "weighing the expert opinions and analysis offered". That wasn't my intent, and I stand by the reasonableness of people coming to that conclusion.

I agree with the rest of your response. It would be beautiful to have Howard, West, Heyward, Mapes, Matley, Pierce, James, Will, Phinney, Newcomer, Hussey, Hailey, your retired FBI guy and anyone else that wants to weigh in deposed and cross-examined in the Rather case.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2007 12:05 AM | Permalink

Tim - No offense taken. I am not necessarily on either side in this deal; as I said above, I think just about everybody involved screwed the pooch in some aspect, and most of them in multiple aspects. I can understand why someone would conclude I am on Rather's side because I have defended the validity of his lawsuit; but I did that simply based upon whether I thought he had enough basis to get the counts he has pled to a jury. Knowing his attorneys, and from the initial little tidbits that they appear to have, I think he probably can get his complaint to a jury. Watching the discovery, i.e. depositions and document production will be great theater and then the trial, if indeed there is one, well that would just be icing on the cake. I highly doubt anyone will come out looking good and, you know, they all deserve it; from Bush to Rather to CBS to other lame and uncritical media - they were all derelict to the truth and to their duty to honestly inform the American public. So, I have no horse in the race, but I'm dying to watch it.

Posted by: bmaz at September 25, 2007 12:56 AM | Permalink

Tim mentioned Joseph Newcomer -- here is what he said about those memos, specifically the typographic evidence. Note that he is not a right-wing partisan, and that he is an expert typographer, and was personally involved in the development of typesetting algorithms. My statement that the memos were composed with Microsoft Word is based on his arguments.

Paul, if CBS News' experts wouldn't authenticate the memos just because they were copies, Rather should not have broadcast the story until he received the originals, which could be authenticated (or not.) That is the "unforgivable lapse" Dr. Rosen is talking about. Journalists don't get to assert things about public figures just because what they say sounds plausible, as you seem to believe they may; "nobody can prove us wrong" is the standard for political ads, not investigative reporting.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 25, 2007 1:30 AM | Permalink

Also, this is one of the better interviews I've read with Phinney.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2007 1:45 AM | Permalink

I happened to work with the typography equipment involved during the early seventies. From what I have seen of the actual type on the web I would be surprised indeed if the memos we have seen were produced by anything available at the time. People who lack this experience are freer than I am to entertain the possibility of the memos being authentic originals. But for me, my knowledge of typography just makes them either true or fabricated transcriptions of an original that may or may not have been produced in the seventies. I too will be interested in what experts who know what I know and a great deal more besides and who have actually examined the physical documents have to say under oath. I also doubt that the originals are available, if indeed they do exist in whole or in part, or they would have been produced by now. So in my view Rather's suit is unlikely to shed any light on the memos unless the originals actually surface. It seems to me that the stakes in the suit are how we will remember the end of an era of broadcast journalism ushered in by Edward R Murrow and ending with Dan Rather. My earliest memories of broadcast journalism are of Murrow reporting from London with the occasional bang in the background. It looks to me like that era is ending with a whimper.

Posted by: lgude at September 25, 2007 4:18 AM | Permalink

There are two issues with the docs.

One is if they are true copies of some original. Some think the number of copies between the docs now on hand and the original make that an open question.

The other is whether the original is a fraud. Besides the typeface issue, there are a number of other issues which don't have anything at all to do with the typeface but instead to things like--paper size. What size was the TANG using in those days? When I was in, our standard letter paper was smaller than 8.5x11. So there would be lines on the larger paper if the smaller one were copied to it. Are the dates in the format used then? The paragraphing? I've seen lengthy discussions of the question(s), and to answer them satisfactorily for the CBS side would require all of them having the possible-but-most-unlikely answer. As if, iow, you threw the same number on each of nine throws of the die.

IMO, it went far beyond preponderance of evidence toward beyond a reasonable doubt. Not impossible. Just extremely unlikely.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 25, 2007 7:24 AM | Permalink

One thing we haven't discussed is how the lawsuit and the ongoing story of it will gain fans and a, "yes, yes, we must have more" cheering section that will be cross partisan, as CBS haters and doubters cheer for more dirt to come out, and Bush's haters and doubters urge for more dirt about him to come out, while hopes for seeing Rather even more fallen join with hopes of seeing Rather vindicated.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2007 2:42 PM | Permalink

If Rather and CBS settle quietly with everything sealed to the latest generation, perhaps the journos could amuse themselves finding out how Norman Hsu was able to hide in plain sight for fifteen years.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 25, 2007 3:14 PM | Permalink

Dr Rosen - That would be ideal to have everybody out for the other and demanding to air the dirt. Man, I would pay for admission to that. Don't see it however, CBS, the Bushies, the Rather loathers (a not insubstantial group), and the corporate part of big media were already in bed on this; they will stay that way, at the very least, until opening statements of a trial. And I don't necessarily mean that in a conspiratorial sense (possible, but not likely), but simply that their interests, and perceived interests, lined up.

Richard - I will be literally stunned if Rather agreed to a quick settlement and non-disclosure agreement. for better or worse, I think that is the last thing he has on his mind. He might agree to a loud settlement, but not a quiet one. Even that is highly doubtful; I am convinced it is the discovery process, i.e. subpoena power, that he is after.

Posted by: bmaz at September 25, 2007 3:49 PM | Permalink

bmaz.

At the risk of doing distance pshrinking of Rather, I get the impression he is doing this to prove to himself that he was right.

He can do this in one of three ways. One is to go to trial or at least have discovery out in the public to prove he was right. Another is to have discovery out in the public in such a fashion as to muddy the waters and he can think that, under it all, he was right.

The third is a settlement, proving that CBS was too scared that he was right to let the thing go any further.

For a rational person, presuming the impulse to prove a fraud is not a fraud is rational, the third option seems best.

It will demonstrate to everybody else, he might think, that he was right.

I would be very disappointed.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 25, 2007 4:05 PM | Permalink

I love watching Professional Journalists at work. It's nice to see that amateurish opinionated bigotry isn't allowed to reach the public... If he was really correct in his story, he would write a book -AND- file a lawsuit... I guess the lawsuit was just to get oer the book rejection slips...

OR...He could advise journalism students to go work for GQ and follow along doing re-writes and fluff pieces in exchange for the celebrity access...

How do we trust any of the media when they can be controlled and manipulated so easily-?

Why should we care-?

Posted by: AndyJ at September 25, 2007 6:01 PM | Permalink

bmaz, can you construct any scenario in which George Bush would be involved in, or affected by, Rather's lawsuit? As far as I can tell, the only possibility would be if the memos could be proven authentic after all, and (for reasons already adduced) that just isn't going to happen. Rather's subpoenas are going to force the staff of CBS News to explain to the court just how they came to broadcast to the nation accusations against Bush which they could not substantiate. That'll be hugely humiliating for CBS News, and for Rather; but Bush is only the target of the accusations in question, and there's nothing in that to be humiliated by. If there is any dirt on Bush from his time in TANG, CBS News never found it, so it can't come out through Rather's lawsuit. Not even a subpoena can extract evidence that isn't relevant to the case.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 25, 2007 6:04 PM | Permalink

Jay,

you said you found this interesting: "Highly placed, responsible officers at CBS made a huge error and were fired. That’s called accountability. MSM have it and the Internet doesn’t - and doesn’t even seem to care" (Philadelphia Enquirer)

I'm not sure what you mean by that -- you agree with that? re: "MSM have it and the Internet doesn’t - and doesn’t even seem to care"

Delia

Posted by: Delia at September 25, 2007 8:45 PM | Permalink

Aubrey --

"How Norman Hsu was able to hide in plain sight for fifteen years" is not a question for the press.

It's a question for the idiot law enforcement authorities in northern California from whom Hsu slipped away in the first place ... a group who apparently didn't read a national or an east coast newspaper for the next 15 years.

It wasn't like Hsu was "invisible" during that period -- once he started slinging money around, he was mentioned repeatedly in political reports and society reporting in both New York and in Washington.

Makes you wish the gumshoes in the sticks read more than the local rag.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 25, 2007 8:52 PM | Permalink

oops... source was The Philadelphia Inquirer D.

Posted by: Delia at September 25, 2007 9:06 PM | Permalink

I thought it was a provocative remark, Delia. That is all the endorsement I would give it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2007 9:26 PM | Permalink

ok, may well haver been... but the charge itself is pretty serious and if it's not true it should be fairly easy to refute it (or are you just tired of this whole topic by now?) D.

Posted by: Delia at September 25, 2007 10:38 PM | Permalink

I hate to be that guy, but that was Geoff Pullum, not Mark Liberman, you were quoting from Language Log. But Geoff's a good guy to have speaking for you, too.

And, thinking out loud here, but is it too late to point out that Rather has been hanging out with Mark Cuban, and that Cuban might be the inspiration for the lawsuit?

Posted by: m e at September 25, 2007 10:48 PM | Permalink

I hate to be that guy, but that was Geoff Pullum, not Mark Liberman, you were quoting from Language Log.

Any idea why Goeff puts at that bottom of his posts:

Posted by Mark Liberman at September 21, 2007 10:03 AM?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2007 11:09 PM | Permalink

Star Witness

Under sharp questioning from Gallo way's attorney, Bruce Friedman, Rather was confronted with some factual errors and acknowledged a minimal effort to reach the doctor for comment. But much of the drama, and the potential consequence for TV journalism, resulted from an unprecedented judicial order compelling CBS to hand over all of its outtakes (sound and picture footage that has been edited out). As the outtakes were shown to the jury and to TV audiences watching the trial live on Cable News Network, viewers got a unique chance to see how a story is put together and to second-guess CBS's editorial judgment. They watched the Rather team coax witnesses, stage a confrontation and repeat questions until it got the best camera angles or the most vividly phrased answers; they heard Rather testify that people who do not return phone calls are probably guilty.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2007 11:09 PM | Permalink

Jay,

I'm with you on this one: even if the "posted by" name may have been somehow mistaken, the post itself makes it clear this *couldn't* have been Geoff Pullum talking...

re: "On this point, I'd like to suggest that you go read Geoff Pullum's 9/15/2004 post "Typography, truth, and politics", and (if you have the time and care about this question) some of the rest of the Language Log commentary from the period. I'm suggesting this not because Geoff -- for all his diversely excellent qualities -- produced the definitive assemblage of evidence on this point..."

Delia

Posted by: Delia at September 25, 2007 11:38 PM | Permalink

Thanks for your support.

Here's the new passage I wrote for the Huffington Post version:

I'm with those who think he is crazy. When your own document examiners won't back you up, and your story is about the documents, you have no story. Mary Mapes, Rather's collaborator back then, refuses to recognize that the experts she had relied upon fled the scene. In her commentary on the lawsuit for the Huffington Post, she writes as if none of that had ever happened. Her post is delusional, scary. And I think it's deeply sad that so many Huff Post readers were cheering her on in the comments.

Language Log's Mark Liberman [Geoff Pullum] speaks for me:

"Grow up, people. You humiliated yourselves on national TV by accepting documents that could be spotted as forgeries as soon as they were released in facsimile. You were had. You were patsies, you were careless, and you caused enormous damage to the reputation of CBS. You ruined the case for GWB's military irresponsibility and mendacity... You messed up. Deal with it."

As Dan Gillmor says: "The journalistic standard, not just when making a major claim against a sitting president in the middle of a campaign but for all reports that can damage people's reputations, is not whether the other side can prove the documents are fake. It's whether the journalist can persuasively show that they are authentic. CBS failed, miserably, in its duty."

Rather on Larry King proved that he does not grasp Gillmor's point. "Nobody to this day has shown that these documents were fraudulent," he said. "Nobody has proved that they were fraudulent, much less a forgery, which they're often described that way. The facts of the story, the truth of the story stands up to this day."

Please understand: I have no doubt that George W. Bush benefited from favoritism during his service in the National Guard. Those who think that story should have been brought before the American people should be angry at Dan Rather and Mary Mapes for blowing it, big-time.

But theatrically--and in no other way--this suit makes sense for Rather. It puts him back on the big stage as "Dan Rather, reporting."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2007 11:57 PM | Permalink

Daniel Schorr's Thoughts on the Dan Rather Case

via comments at Gillmor's Dan Rather: Still Not Getting It ...

Posted by: Tim at September 26, 2007 1:45 AM | Permalink

Michael Brazier - Yeah, I think so. There are two areas where Bush would appear to be a relevant fact witness, and therefore subject to deposition. One, the authenticity and veracity of both the documents and facts stated in Rather's report is a germane issue to Rather's termination, and CBS's actions, in most all of the counts; but probably more so on the fraud and prima facie tort counts. Multiple counts also allege CBS acting in a symbiotic manner with the Bush Administration and attempting to curry favor with them. Two, it does not appear a significant part in the complaint, but I fully expect Rather's lawyers to make the Abu Ghraib facts more prominent as the case moves forward, especially in relation to the alleged symbiotic relationship and currying favor claims. I think Rather is probably entitled to explore these areas in discovery, i.e. deposition. Now that being said, it is by no means clear that Rather will get enough information and factual ties out of Bush in these and other areas that Rather would be allowed to put Bush's testimony on the witness stand in front of a jury at trial. The standards are very different for being able to work up your case by investigating facts through depositions etc and for actually admitting that testimony at trial. Others may differ, but it appears to me that Rather gets to do the former; I am not so sure about the latter, it will depend on how the discovery goes. The rules for discovery are pretty broad so as to give plaintiffs every opportunity to make their case. You know, this is just my best guess from the little I have seen in the complaint and the press coverage, and from the outside looking in. Bush will fight all this tooth and nail, and it will take a lot better justification than this quick guestimation to win that fight. I think Rather's lawyers will make that hurdle ok, how much further, time will tell.

Posted by: bmaz at September 26, 2007 2:18 AM | Permalink

bmaz: I am not a lawyer, I speak only from intuition, but it seems to me that, as regards Bush's TANG service, the most Rather can ask is "Does the text of these memos match your memory of events?" Rather cannot ask Bush, say, "how did you come to be admitted to the TANG fighter pilot training course?" because that question isn't relevant to any count of the lawsuit. What Bush did at TANG is germane only as far as it confirms or impeaches the memos.

Of course Bush could be deposed on the nature of CBS News' communications with him while Rather was preparing his story. I'm now imagining some minor functionary explaining, more in sorrow than in anger, how he did his very best to persuade CBS that the memos had to be modern forgeries, and how ridiculous Rather and CBS would look when they were exposed, as they surely would be, and how much better it would be for them to forget the whole business ... wouldn't that go over well in the courtroom?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 26, 2007 5:10 AM | Permalink

If you look at Liberman's original post, he not only quotes a bit from Pullum's other posts, he then tacks in a long comment from Pullum (who must have emailed him but couldn't do a post of his own). This part is in brackets, down at the bottom of the post, and is introduced by "Note added by Geoff Pullum."

You quote from Pullum's bit, from the bracketed material, which Liberman has included in his own post.

In their sweet linguist/salty linguist act, Pullum plays the salty one. It would be out of character for Liberman to write (on his blog, anyway), "Grow up, people."

Posted by: m e at September 26, 2007 9:08 AM | Permalink

Ah, I see it now. I didn't read that properly. Thanks, I will change it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 26, 2007 9:13 AM | Permalink

Steve.
Idiotic law enforcement. Right.
Couldn't have had anything to do with the big bucks spread around to CA officials.
Nope.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 26, 2007 10:24 AM | Permalink

me: oh... that added note ends at the end of the post itself??? -- pretty clumsy and confusing and I doubt only Jay and I were confused by this.

Delia

P.S. Indenting that whole note (since it made up a substantial part of his overall post) or at least starting the note in a new paragraph would have made a lot more sense. The way he has it, if you are not familiar with the guy -- what he would or would not say -- it gives the impression that the note ends at the end of the paragraph in which it started and he takes over the commentary from then on (that closed bracket at the end is a good hint but it seems to come way to late...) D.

Posted by: Delia at September 26, 2007 12:04 PM | Permalink

Ted Koppel on Rather Suit

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 26, 2007 1:39 PM | Permalink

This week's New York Observer has a good piece trying to discern the logic of the suit. Worth reading. Especially this graph about the mystery man Rather mentioned on CNN:

Readers of this newspaper knew that long ago. In February 2005, The Observer’s Joe Hagan reported that CBS had hired a former FBI agent and Navy aviator by the name of Erik T. Rigler to dig into the source of the documents at issue. Mr. Hagan further uncovered evidence suggesting that Mr. Rigler’s investigation led him to believe that (a) he was close to uncovering the original source of the documents; (b) CBS was only interested in finding the source if it could be done before the presidential election; and (c) in all likelihood the content of the documents was accurate, even if the documents themselves were not authentic.

Sure enough, Mr. Rigler’s ultimate findings were eventually excluded from the panel’s report. And, to this day, he has remained mum on the subject. So: How close did he come to solving the mystery? What did he tell the CBS chieftains? Why did they shut him down?

That would seem to be the clearest target of the suit; subpoena for the Rigler report if there is one, or his deposition.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 26, 2007 3:25 PM | Permalink

"Steve.
"Idiotic law enforcement. Right.
"Couldn't have had anything to do with the big bucks spread "around to CA officials.
"Nope.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey"

Interesting theory, Richard. For 15 years, Norman Hsu bought his way out of getting nailed for skipping bail with political contributions ? Pretty serious charge, especially if you are one of the recipients charged with taking money to enable a crime.

One question: Got any proof ? Surely you remember "proof," Richard-- it's what you demand of journalists.

And by new definition of journalist, by the simple act of posting here that's what you are -- a journalist, contributing to a public forum.

So suck it up and produce.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 26, 2007 4:04 PM | Permalink

Jay, I'm wondering if you have some sort of an idea as to what *might* have happened? what *could* have Rigler found out? (that would explain, although it could never justify, what CBS did) D.

Posted by: Delia at September 26, 2007 5:26 PM | Permalink

None. Except that just as people rarely consider that the police can frame a guilty man, they neglect the possibility that an authentic document might have been faked, which means there would be a second "event" that is definitely newsworthy: a trick, a fraud, a project to fabricate, a conspiracy of some kind, possibly carried out by one person or more, without which the first story is incomplete.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 26, 2007 6:12 PM | Permalink

bmaz,

Richard Aubrey is Jay Rosen's Jodi.

Anybody else who wants to understand that comment just needs to hang out at thenexthurrah for a while.

Posted by: William Ockham at September 26, 2007 6:14 PM | Permalink

MSNBC

"Dan Rather is a loser. I used to say whoever represents Dan does a great job because he always was in third place and had terrible ratings and they didn’t fire him. And now finally, they get smart and fire him and he sues. Explain it to me, I don’t get it," Trump said. "I think he feels left out. I think he feels like a loser and that’s what he is."

"Donald Trump is a first class idiot," a candid Cuban responded. "Donald Trump, you’re an idiot."

Posted by: Tim at September 26, 2007 6:31 PM | Permalink

Rather chokes up, and hunkers down

Former "Evening News" Dan Rather choked back tears on several occasions today when discussing his decision to file a lawsuit against CBS and he left many audience members with a sense that he may call President George W. Bush as a witness should the lawsuit proceed to trial (and Rather said he hoped it would).

Posted by: Tim at September 26, 2007 6:38 PM | Permalink

Original Observer piece discussing Rigler's results (from 2-05).

Posted by: Kristen at September 26, 2007 6:51 PM | Permalink

From the Examiner piece where Rather chokes up talking about the suit...

Compare PressThink....

The real him was simple: Dan Rather Reporting, not a prince of news, or the anchoring intelligence for the big newscast, not a corporate figure or boss type at all, but a hustling correspondent out in the field who will drop everything for a story...

to Rather before the Examiner:

Rather insisted that his lawsuit is not born out of resentment: "I'm not angry, I'm not bitter -- never have been. I'm a reporter … and this is a story... people might come around when they find out what really went on."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 26, 2007 7:23 PM | Permalink

I think Dan Rather should be remembered for his contribution to increasing public cynicism of the news and taking CBS News from 1st place (where he got it) to a dysfunctional third place. Ken Auletta's Sign Off is worth reading again (long piece):

The face and voice of CBS, however, was then [August 1974] Walter Cronkite, who was wary of Rather. He respected him for being "dogged" in his reporting, he recalls, but worried that he was "showboating." Rather was in any case something new in network news: a star not because his name and his face were before millions of viewers nightly but because of his performance. When Rather covered a hurricane, he became as much a part of the story as the storm....

David Poltrack, CBS’s executive vice-president for research and planning, conceded that in recent years CBS has lost conservative, older male viewers to NBC because they were "unhappy with our coverage." He continued, "The conservative part of this country, while talking about the liberal bias of the networks and the New York media, tends to speak more of Dan Rather representing that." The "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace, who considers Rather a friend, says that Rather’s style reinforces the impression of bias. "Rather is a superb reporter, and dead honest," Wallace told me. "But he’s not as easy to watch as Jennings or Brokaw." Wallace does not watch Rather. "He’s uptight, and occasionally contrived," Wallace explained. "It’s his style, and it’s been a very effective style. God knows, I believe him. But I don’t find him as satisfying to watch."

Cronkite, who said that he often watched Brokaw, agreed with Wallace. To viewers, he said, it seemed "that Dan was playing a role of newsman, that he was conscious of this, whereas the other two appeared to be more the third-party reporter." Don Hewitt, who created "60 Minutes," and who prefers to watch Jennings, believes that ratings success is linked to the personality of the anchor. "The 'Evening News' is like Miss America, only it’s Mr. America," he said. "If you’re in a three-network race and you come in third, then the public is against you." In contrast to Brokaw and Jennings, Rather makes some viewers uncomfortable because he conveys discomfort with the camera.

Posted by: Tim at September 26, 2007 8:23 PM | Permalink

Paul, if CBS News' experts wouldn't authenticate the memos just because they were copies, Rather should not have broadcast the story until he received the originals, which could be authenticated (or not.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dan Ellsberg gave the New York Times Xerox copies of the Pentagon Papers...

And when sources pass off documents to US intelligence officials, they are almost always copies, not originals.

In other words, I personally think the "reporters can only do stories based on documents if they have originals of those documents" is a standard that has never applied in the past.

***********

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 26, 2007 8:46 PM | Permalink

Jay,

Here's another thing that made me think along those lines: "It’s not about one man’s legacy, or the money, he said last night. It’s about reporters who won’t cave in to big government and big corporations." --> is he claiming CBS did just that? found out information valuable to the public but killed it (was forced to kill it?) because it was against the interest of big government and/or big corporations... Could this be it? The forgery was done by powerful entities so CBS caved in...

Delia

Posted by: Delia at September 26, 2007 9:12 PM | Permalink

Steve.

The question for idiot law enforcement is to be asked by....?

Not journalists, apparently.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 26, 2007 10:41 PM | Permalink

Delia: almost certainly, Rather's theory is that CBS has evidence that the memos were authentic, which they suppressed at the request of the White House. Mapes' self-deluding post at HuffingtonPost said as much, and Mapes and Rather are joined at the hip.

Paul: intelligence analysts, whatever state they work for, do not make their conclusions known to the public. Or, at any rate, they're not supposed to. Therefore intelligence is not journalism, and it isn't prima facie clear that the standards reporters ought to follow are binding on intelligence analysts. Would you care to build an argument that they are?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 27, 2007 3:13 AM | Permalink

There's a kind of karma coming to Rather, here.

His first public notice came after the JFK assassination when he lied about a bunch of schoolkids cheering the news of Kennedy's death. Then, as now, the lie fit the worldview of the liberals.

In with fraud, out with a fraud.

How many other frauds have been between these bookends?

One, accepted but considered by liberals as fake but accurate, is his report on Viet Nam vets and the atrocities they committed. Despite being provided evidence the guys interviewed had not been where they could have done it, or not been in the service at all, Rather went with it. Liberals liked it. Even if it wasn't technically true, it reflected a greater truth.

Others? Somebody might have the time and resources to get into CBS' pants--I mean files--on this, but, since Rather is now a nobody, I guess it isn't necessary.

Maybe Rather had been coddled by the libs so long he thought he could get away with it forever. Like spoiling a child.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 27, 2007 7:52 AM | Permalink

Jay (and anyone else),

Did you look at the email Emily Will sent to Yvonne Miller that Paul provided?

I hadn't seen that before (thanks, Paul!). How do you read that email? Was Will confirming that the signature was Killian's or a forgery?

Posted by: Tim at September 27, 2007 8:03 AM | Permalink

My reading is she was pointing out some problems she wanted to discuss with CBS people, but not making a judgment that it was real or fake.

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters: Dan Rather is right. Makes the case that the story was accurate and did not depend on documents that count not be authenticated, blames the press for getting more interested in Rather's crimes against journalism than Bush shirking his National Guard duties.

"It wasn't the suits at CBS or the right-wing bloggers who busted the biggest vein over Rather's lawsuit. It was mainstream journalists who rushed in to denounce the former anchorman as dishonest, arrogant, bitter, and delusional, all the while making sure not to take up Rather's challenge of addressing the underlying facts of the story surrounding Bush's no-show military service.

"Right-wing bloggers may have sparked the so-called Memogate story in 2004 by raising doubts about the military memos, but three years later it is the mainstream press that is adamant in condemning Rather, forcefully declaring the Guard story to be bogus because CBS was caught using memos that it could not authenticate."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 27, 2007 10:03 AM | Permalink

Michael: I suspect Rather has just hunches at this point, not a well founded theory of what really happened. Neither he or Mapes *know* what Rigler found out. As Jay said, Rigler may have come into an inconvenient truth -- an inconvenient truth that Rather could himself unearth. D.

Posted by: Delia at September 27, 2007 11:12 AM | Permalink

Sometimes you have to spread a festering and pathetic lie with the memos you have; not the memos you wish you have.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 27, 2007 1:28 PM | Permalink

Rather's filing makes it very clear that releasing the Rigler report is near the top of the list of what his team hopes the suit will accomplish. It also seems to be a primary source of Rather and Mapes' surreal assurance that their problematic documents were not problematic at all.

The remaining mystery, of course, is why they would be so sure about the conclusions of a report they are suing for the opportunity to read. It's still not clear how the vaguely leaked results of the investigation help them with their document problem in the slightest. The charge that Bush blew off TexANG duty was fairly established before they got involved. Their contribution was the introduction of the bad documents. They are literally staking their reputations on the contents of the black box they still haven't opened yet.

It is one thing to sue so as to force the release of the results of Rigler's investigation, whatever they may be, to force CBS to respond to questions of veracity rather than political expediency. It is something else entirely to swagger about the imminent prospect of being vindicated by the results of an investigation you haven't seen yet. That's the part that colors me baffled.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 27, 2007 2:54 PM | Permalink

One Year Gap in Bush's Guard Duty
Walter Robinson, Boston Globe
May 23, 2000

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 27, 2007 3:27 PM | Permalink

The issue of Bush's dereliction of Guard duty had the potential to bring him down, it was THE achilles heal. Karl Rove knew this, his BRILLIANT plan worked and it was this:

1)give Rather access to FAKED documents (convincingly done) with REAL information on them
2)Rather would believe he had 'the clincher' and go public
3)call a prominent blogger and instructs them to carefully examine the 'kerning' of these documents
4)media storm: the "story" is now about Rather and the Liberal Media trying to take down a conservative president with faked docs. Any question as to the factuality of the 'faked' documents is obscured forever.

Posted by: Nathan at September 27, 2007 3:33 PM | Permalink

Can't wait for the "Downing Street Memo" lawsuit, or the "Jeff Gannon Will Bring Down The Bush Administration" lawsuit.

But looking forward to '08, I eagerly anticipate the "Hillary Murdered Vince Foster" lawsuit and the "Sandy Berger Destroyed Federal Documents" lawsuit.

To say nothing of the "I Want My Blue Dress Back" lawsuit.

The fun never ends!

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 27, 2007 3:36 PM | Permalink

Nathan.
It wouldn't have worked, except....

Rove was absolutely convinced--and absolutely right--that Rather would jump at the chance to use obviously fake documents.

Had Rather been by nature honest, the scheme you impute to the repubs would have fallen flat.

Also, Rove believed he'd have to alert somebody (the internet-wandering typography expert) to look at something which was his life's work. Well, that probably wasn't necessary, but Rove wasn't taking chances.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 27, 2007 3:58 PM | Permalink

How exactly does the Killian memos party challenge Walter Robinson's story from four years before Dan Rather ever heard Mary Mapes pronounce the words Bush and AWOL in the same sentence?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 27, 2007 4:27 PM | Permalink

Therefore intelligence is not journalism, and it isn't prima facie clear that the standards reporters ought to follow are binding on intelligence analysts. Would you care to build an argument that they are?

The argument that I'm making is that access to originals is not, and never has been, the only way to authenticate a document. Indeed, the New York Times thought Daniel Ellsberg was a flake, and authenticated the "Pentagon Papers" in pretty much the same way that CBS "authenticated" the Killian memos.

***************

I hadn't seen that before (thanks, Paul!). How do you read that email? Was Will confirming that the signature was Killian's or a forgery?

Will was questioning the authenticity of the two signatures. The one she had the most questions is not a signature, but initials -- and when you look at it as initials the problems disappear. The other signature is one that even Matley had problems with initially -- he requested, and received, additional copies of "known" Killian signatures
(full disclosure...when CBS needed all the Killian signatures that appear in the Bush records, they came to me....)

*************

Re: Rove setting up Rather with the docs -- that is simply absurd. There is no way that Rove could have anticipated that CBS would get the documents. And while the "discredit the story by telling the truth using 'fake' documents" theory is legitimate, the target of any such effort would have been Burkett.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 27, 2007 6:20 PM | Permalink

Actually, Paul, the 5 problems are with the signature (Q2) not the initials (Q1). The Q2 signature is the one from the "24 June 1973" memo.

Posted by: Tim at September 27, 2007 6:38 PM | Permalink

p. lukasiak:

You apparently don't think Rove is omnipotent. You need re-education.

The forged docs regarding WMD were forged under the tactic that, if you know something is going to come out, you forge documents saying it. The docs have to be slipshod, so as to be detected. Getting away with it would be counterproductive.

Then, whenever whatever it is that was going to come out comes out, you can point to the forged documents and the true believers will believe the whole thing is a fraud, and the liars will pretend the whole thing is a fraud. They may even accuse, say, British intel of having been fooled by the forgeries.

So it's a useful ploy. But it depends on the gullibility or venality of various folks in the chain of publicity. Of course, the people who bought into the forged documents equal Bush lied are both gullible and venal, but we knew that to begin with.

In this case, Rove would have had to guess that everybody involved was either gullible or venal. Since they are, obviously, he had a pretty good thing going.

Had there been an honest man in there someplace, it would have flopped.

So. For this to be a Rove ploy, we have to acknowledge that Rather and everybody else involved is either stupid or venal and was known to be so beforehand. There can be no exceptions.

You guys want to go there?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 27, 2007 6:48 PM | Permalink

Nice catch, Tim. I stand corrected.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 27, 2007 6:50 PM | Permalink

I agree with Paul that the documents being copies was not the crux of the problem with the 60 Minutes Wednesday report or the aftermath. From the CBS report:

The most serious defects in the reporting and production of the September 8 Segment were:

1. The failure to obtain clear authentication of any of the Killian documents from any document examiner;

2. The false statement in the September 8 Segment that an expert had authenticated the Killian documents when all he had done was authenticate one signature from one document used in the Segment;

3. The failure of 60 Minutes Wednesday management to scrutinize the publicly available, and at times controversial, background of the source of the documents, retired Texas Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett;

4.The failure to find and interview the individual who was understood at the outset to be Lieutenant Colonel Burkett's source of the Killian documents, and thus to establish the chain of custody;

5. The failure to establish a basis for the statement in the Segment that the documents "were taken from Colonel Killian's personal files";

6. The failure to develop adequate corroboration to support the statements in the Killian documents and to carefully compare the Killian documents to official TexANG records, which would have identified, at a minimum, notable inconsistencies in content and format;

7. The failure to interview a range of former National Guardsmen who served with Lieutenant Colonel Killian and who had different perspectives about the documents;

8. The misleading impression conveyed in the Segment that Lieutenant Strong had authenticated the content of the documents when he did not have the personal knowledge to do so;

9. The failure to have a vetting process capable of dealing effectively with the production speed, significance and sensitivity of the Segment; and

10. The telephone call prior to the Segment's airing by the producer of the Segment to a senior campaign official of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry - a clear conflict of interest - that created the appearance of a political bias.

... and ...

Once questions were raised about the September 8 Segment, the reporting thereafter was mishandled and compounded the damage done. Among the more egregious shortcomings during the Aftermath were:

1. The strident defense of the September 8 Segment by CBS News without adequately probing whether any of the questions raised had merit;

2. Allowing many of the same individuals who produced and vetted the by-then controversial September 8 Segment to also produce the follow-up news reports defending the Segment;

3. The inaccurate press statements issued by CBS News after the broadcast of the Segment that the source of the documents was "unimpeachable" and that experts had vouched for their authenticity;

4. The misleading stories defending the Segment that aired on the CBS Evening News after September 8 despite strong and multiple indications of serious flaws;

5. The efforts by 60 Minutes Wednesday to find additional document examiners who would vouch for the authenticity of the documents instead of identifying the best examiners available regardless of whether they would support this position; and

6. Preparing news stories that sought to support the Segment, instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy.

Posted by: Tim at September 27, 2007 6:58 PM | Permalink

Tim....
the only real flaws were #2 (Rather said that the documents had been authenticated by an expert -- the signatures were 'authenticated', the documents were not) and #4 (CBS did not make a sufficient effort to reach Conn.) The rest is pure BS.

Interestingly, the report doesn't cite another error -- in a short 'preview' segment on the CBS Evening News on September 8, Rather used the word "government" (or governmental) to describe the memos.

The rest of the panels objections are pure BS -- and indeed, I suspect these bogus 'flaws' will play a role in Rather's argument that the panel was biased and had a predetermined conclusion.

(perhaps more to the point -- the panel failed to come even close to meeting its own standards, making demonstrable false statements because of its failure to research the issues appropriately.)

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 27, 2007 7:41 PM | Permalink

Why does Boehlert think right-wing bloggers are angered by Rather's lawsuit? The ones I know are all gleeful over it, saying things like "break out the popcorn!"

Paul, you were the one who claimed that the document examiners CBS News consulted on the memos refused to authenticate them because they were copies, and not because they looked suspicious. That claim implies that only originals can be authenticated. So you're contradicting yourself now, when you say copies can be authenticated.

Regarding the notion that the memos are vericidal, and were forged to discredit the story they tell: Never multiply entities beyond necessity. Anyone who says it doesn't matter whether a document is authentic as long as it's vericidal, is capable of forging a document to support an assertion they firmly believe to be true. We do know Mapes got the memos from Burkett; we don't know where Burkett got them, but the theory he got them from a Machiavellian forger who expected them to be published and discredited requires more strain on credulity than the theory of Burkett being the forger himself.

And, from what little has leaked from the Rigley report, it appears Rigley decided, and reported, that Burkett made the memos himself; and his inquiry into Mapes was to help establish whether Mapes was deceived, or a willing accomplice in Burkett's fraud. If Rather does issue Rigley a subpoena, I predict the resulting deposition will finish him and Mapes entirely ...

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 27, 2007 7:52 PM | Permalink

Michael Brazier.

In addition to requiring too many entities, the idea that the things were planted requires the entities in question to be uniformly dishonest. That is, the journalists and their associates in CBS.

That is a logical requirement of the planted meme.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 27, 2007 10:04 PM | Permalink

But that doesn't change the fact that on this one the clueless Rather is going up against ... Sumner Redstone (head of Viacom and CBS and acknowleged contributor to and voter for George Bush) ...

Actually, Redstone didn't contribute to Bush and I seriously doubt he voted for him - despite his pronouncement.

But I suggest you check it out yourself at OpenSecrets. Just type in Redstone for the last name and Viacom for the occupation for 2004 (or any election cycle you like). You'll see Kerry, but no Bush.

Posted by: Tim at September 27, 2007 10:06 PM | Permalink

Michael: Jay's idea that Rigler may have come into an inconvenient truth may be the simplest explanation overall.

Delia

P.S. But I think it would have *had* to be some powerful entity behind it -- something that could explain things like CBS being forced to choose the lesser loss (which apparently was to just go ahead with it as it was) as well as things like Burkett/whoever actually committed the forgery not being prosecuted (that's a *federal felony* among other things....). A whole lot of things are just bizarre, otherwise... D.

Posted by: Delia at September 27, 2007 10:40 PM | Permalink

Delia: inconvenient to whom? CBS would have found it very inconvenient if Rigley discovered Burkett forged the memos.

And I suppose Burkett hasn't been prosecuted because it hasn't been proven that he, and not someone else, was the forger.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 28, 2007 5:45 AM | Permalink

Michael Brazier:

If Burkett wasn't the forger, he may have known who was, or at least the previous possessor. You'd think somebody would be talking to him to move backwards along the chain.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 7:46 AM | Permalink

Paul, you were the one who claimed that the document examiners CBS News consulted on the memos refused to authenticate them because they were copies, and not because they looked suspicious. That claim implies that only originals can be authenticated. So you're contradicting yourself now, when you say copies can be authenticated.

michael, forensic document examiners are employed primarily in legal matters --- and a copy cannot be authenticated for use in a court of law.

****************

And, from what little has leaked from the Rigley report, it appears Rigley decided, and reported, that Burkett made the memos himself...

you need to stop reading wingnut website....

*************

In addition to requiring too many entities, the idea that the things were planted requires the entities in question to be uniformly dishonest. That is, the journalists and their associates in CBS.

Richard, you assume that the target was CBS/Rather. If one assumes that the target was Burkett (who'd claimed to have witnessed the destruction of Bush documents) it becomes much less complicated, and much more plausible.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 28, 2007 8:12 AM | Permalink

In other words, a major whodunnit is who might have faked the docs and why.

A week after writing this I have slightly more sympathy for Rather's suit than I did, though no more for Mr. Rather and less for Ms. Mapes.

Slightly more sympathy for the suit because I would love to know more about what was going on inside CBS with things like the Rigler report, allowing the CBS Evening News to become the defense attorney for Rather's 60 Minutes story, and cancelling another 60 Minutes report on a different subject because it was critical of the Bush Administration and too close to the election.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 28, 2007 9:40 AM | Permalink

Michael: *much* more inconvenient than that... (I'm pretty sure a random guy passing CBS some documents he himself faked wouldn't have been something CBS hasn't successfully dealt with repeatedly in the past).

Delia

P.S. I think Jay is right: who faked the documents and why is probably the key to understanding what really happened... D.

Posted by: Delia at September 28, 2007 10:11 AM | Permalink

P. lukasiak.

You mean the stuff ended up at CBS by accident? Damn. That's just too good. Way too good. You've made my day. Only a tragedy of major proportions will keep me from grinning until my ears cramp up.

But that brings up the question of who thought Burkett was important enough to eff with? And why was he that important?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 10:49 AM | Permalink

You mean the stuff ended up at CBS by accident? Damn. That's just too good. Way too good. You've made my day. Only a tragedy of major proportions will keep me from grinning until my ears cramp up. But that brings up the question of who thought Burkett was important enough to eff with? And why was he that important?

I'm happy that I could bring some joy to your life richard.

As to why Burkett was important -- he claimed to have witnessed the scrubbing of Bush's military records. By the time (early March 2004) Burkett was ostensibly first contacted by "Lucy Ramirez" John 'war hero' Kerry was all but certain to be the Democratic nomimee.... and one can imagine that the Bush campaign was concerned with the prospect of running against a 'war hero' and having Bush's dereliction of duty become an issue.

One need only consider the whole Swift Boat Liars/"Unfit for Command" scams to realize that lies and deception are part of the Bush campaign playbook. One doesn't have to be a complete paranoid to think that the same people who came up with the idea for the whole Swift Boat scam would be willing to work a scam on the other side of the "military service" equation as well...

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 28, 2007 12:04 PM | Permalink

The Swift Boaters were liars?

All 200 and something of them?

That simply beggars belief. What, precisely, was the lie? And how did all of them come up with the same one?

Support the troops! Call them liars!

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 28, 2007 12:16 PM | Permalink

P. lukasiak.

The libs' meme is that the Swifties have been thoroughly rebutted. This is, as you know, false. But, as a lib, you are probably hoping sheer repetition will take the place of facts in the public consciousness. You could be right. Worked before.

But, to skip any he-said, he-said about Kerry's tour in SEA, let's see how the libs handle the Swifties' justified complaints about the Winter Soldier hoax. That stuff is all on the public record and nobody with an ounce of conscience could defend it. Which means the libs have circled the wagons.

Nevertheless, if they tried to get Burkett, still a nobody, the stuff still ended up at CBS by mistake.

And that again brings up the question of why CBS and Rather & co. bought it. The answer is that they were stupid and/or dishonest. Consider that the docs had to be slipshod, or they might not be discovered to be forgeries and frauds. That's part of the tactic. So, if you're right, CBS could not have been honestly fooled by slick work, since the work was designedly not slick.

Rove got himself a two-fer, completely by accident. As my father often says, better be lucky than good.

You want to think Rove's luck was that good?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 12:41 PM | Permalink

We're not re-fighting the Swift boat case in this thread. No way. Let's just stipulate that we agree on nothing about what happened there, every single fact is in dispute and will always be so, and no one will ever give up in inch. There is nothing to be learned and nothing to be gained. Fourty-four comment posts later the Swifties will still be truthelling heroes to you and the lowest of the low to me, Paul and others. It's a black hole, so forget it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 28, 2007 12:55 PM | Permalink

Jay. Sometimes truthtellers are really inconvenient, aren't they?
But you seem to be pointing to the records issues of Kerry's tour and passing up the Winter Soldier issue, the anti-war activities and so forth, none of which are open to dispute. Just open to interpretation.

However, the point about trying to get Burkett: We had the ancient DUI ticket, we had the other stuff about the TANG service, we had rumors of cocaine, and now we have a guy who is known, at least in Texas, as somebody with an irrational obsession. Bush survived the others, why would Burkett have been worth a second look?

Either Burkett made this up to embarrass Bush and throw the election, probably with CBS' help, or somebody else made it up to embarrass Burkett and possibly CBS.

And if you go there, you can't say they were genuine.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 1:29 PM | Permalink

The mark of the modern liberal:

American servicemen are "the lowest of the low."

Nevermind. We get it.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 28, 2007 2:07 PM | Permalink

"You want to think Rove's luck was that good?"

Posted by: Richard Aubrey

Ummm, yeah. He's still walking around breathing free air, isn't he ?

But luck had nothing to do with it. (Ask Scooter Libby.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 28, 2007 2:12 PM | Permalink

Jason, stop putting words in people's mouths.

Jay didn't say American servicemen are the lowest of the low. He said the stooges on the Swift Boat payroll were the lowest of the low.

It is a manifest unfairness to "American servicemen" to equate the vast majority of them with those latter-day masters of mendacity and duplicity -- and you know it.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 28, 2007 2:21 PM | Permalink

Aubrey --

..."throw the election, probably with CBS' help"...

The 60 Minutes II story is important for those of us interested in PressThink, but to imagine that it was important enough to make tens of thousands of voters switch allegiance in a Presidential election is a completely disproportionate stretch.

Even if there was ever a day when a broadcast television network's journalism could control the outcome of a Presidential election, those days were long gone by 2004.

The reason the Rather case is instructive is because it offers insight into the problems faced by former monopoly, mass media institutions as they try -- or fail -- to adapt to new regimes of openness and fragmentation.

Rosen says that Rather held a "glamor position in the media hierarchy" but by 2004 CBS News' onetime glamor was already threadbare, a shadow of what it once was. Rather was its overworked and underesourced (although personally well remunerated) frontman, a vaneer of oldtime big-budget credibility for newer straitened production values.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 28, 2007 2:23 PM | Permalink

The mark of the modern liberal:

American servicemen are "stooges" on somebody's "payroll."

Yeah, yeah, Steve. We get it. All those tired old tropes.

Except just about every single one of the stooges who served with Kerry had the same story.

Oh, and we're not going to engage in the facts here. It's obvious why your side can't.

By the way--when is Kerry going to get around to releasing those service records, as he promised?

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 28, 2007 2:30 PM | Permalink

Andrew Tyndall

I hope CBS couldn't throw an election. But it appears they thought they could. You should talk to them about it.

Evan Thomas of Newseek said the media was worth fifteen points for dems, later ratcheting it down to five points. I'd point out that recent elections--especially in swing districts--have been won on less than that.

So Thomas, at least, thinks the media can and would throw an election. Seems they try like hell.

Nice to know they can't. I think.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 2:54 PM | Permalink

Richard Aubrey --

For the sake of argument let's accept your reference to Evan Thomas. So "the media" can influence between 15% and 5% of the electorate to abandon a Republican Presidential candidate and vote for a Democratic one.

A single report on 60 Minutes II does not represent even a fraction of a year's output of 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes in its entirety represents one part of the output of CBS News. CBS News represents a small, and dwindling, proportion of the output of "the media."

Clearly Rather's story, even if it had happened to have been vindicated, could only make a minuscule contribution to the supposed "15% to 5%" influence of the media as a whole.

Even if Thomas' estimate is accurate -- which I personally doubt -- and George Bush entered the 2004 election with this enormous media-induced handicap, he was still able to prevail. It makes no sense for anyone, at CBS News or elsewhere, to suppose that the addition of this one story would have increased that already-large handicap sufficiently to make it insurmountable.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 28, 2007 3:41 PM | Permalink

Andrew Tyndall. You are doing the math. But if you were in CBS' shoes before the election, would you do the math and despair, or would you take your best shot? Clearly, anybody with an ounce of energy would take their best shot on the chance that it would be one of the increments which, in sum, makes the difference. If everybody did the math and decided their own effort wouldn't be all that great, what would happen? Nothing. That's what.

You'll recall--while hoping others don't--that CBS and the NYT connived to put the al Kaka ammo dump hoax out close enough to the election as to be unassailable before voting. In the event, the NYT chickened out and ran it too soon. Is that just normal journalism, or does it one more of the increments making up the 5%?
Nobody said CBS could do it all by itself. But if CBS abandoned the good fight, Thomas' 5% wouldn't be 5%, it would be....something less.

Besides, since the docs were so obviously garbage, how did all these professional, experienced, competent journalists--honest as the day is long and living and dying to get at the truth--decide to use them in a story? If they weren't trying to do something, like throw an election?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 3:50 PM | Permalink

Shoot...this is absurd. If the media didn't have the power to sway public opinion, nobody would ever spend anything on advertising and public relations.

The media exist by selling their ability to reach and sway public opinion. It's how they justify their ad revenues.

Entire media empires are built upon this one self-evident principle.

It's also how former reporters who go into public relations justify their retainers.

At issue isn't whether the media can influence the public sector to the tune of five or fifteen percent. It's whether they, wittingly or unwittingly, do so as a result of their own biases or personal vendettas.

In Mapes' case, she certainly did.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 28, 2007 4:31 PM | Permalink

Jason.

All that you say is true.

Except in this case.

For some reason.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 28, 2007 4:46 PM | Permalink

Paul: the New York Observer is a "wingnut website"?

By the time (early March 2004) Burkett was ostensibly first contacted by "Lucy Ramirez" John 'war hero' Kerry was all but certain to be the Democratic nomimee.... and one can imagine that the Bush campaign was concerned with the prospect of running against a 'war hero' and having Bush's dereliction of duty become an issue.

Among those voters for whom being a war hero is positive, John Kerry's record with the anti-war movement, and particularly the Winter Soldier episode, is a much bigger negative. Telling a string of lies which imply that your fellow soldiers commit war crimes and atrocities as a matter of course is a far worse sin against military honor than pulling strings to avoid combat would be. Kerry was an utter idiot to build his 2004 campaign around his tour in Vietnam; his record in the Vietnam War was no threat to Bush at all. And that means concocting an elaborate hoax to discredit Burkett wouldn't have been worthwhile.

I cannot help but notice that many commenters here would very much prefer to think that Bush was, in some way, the villian in this affair. If I wanted evidence for the claim that anyone who thinks the memos are vericidal is in denial, I could quote from them at length ...

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 28, 2007 5:24 PM | Permalink

van Steenwyk --

If I understand your logic...

a)the media have the power to sway public opinion in advertising and public relations campaigns
b)the public, exercising its opinions, decides elections
c)the 60MinsII story appeared in one section of the media

...therefore...

d)those who produced the 60MinsII story believed it would change the result of the election.

...then it is unpersuasive.

I accept that Aubrey has vastly reduced his claim: producing a story "on the chance that it would be one of the increments which, in sum, makes the difference" is a major pullback from his earlier charge of "throwing an election."

I argue, though, that even this lessened "increments" theory overreaches.

The explanation for the story appearing when it did does not need to be any more complicated and conspiratorial than the fact that stories about the candidates are more likely to be aired as Election Day approaches.

Every four years, campaign coverage heats up in the final three months after Labor Day. Such coverage includes policy issues, campiagn tactics, the horse race, the mood of the electorate and -- yes -- the personal biographies of the candidates. Obviously the Air National Guard would be more likely to run when it did on journalistic grounds alone.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 28, 2007 5:39 PM | Permalink

Kerry is irrelevant to the discussion, he was part of the "Bush" ticket as the gentleman in FL was trying to point out the other day as he was being tasered. Kerry was a shill paid to take the fall as voting machines prescribed victory to the establishment man. Bush's assured victory was 'stomachable' to the nation because there are statistically enough 'right wingers' to allow for his victory, exit polls aside. The unwavering devotion of 'the right' for Bush is entirely dependent on their perception of him as a war hero, that illusion they maintain at all costs.

Posted by: Nathan at September 28, 2007 5:50 PM | Permalink

re: Richard: "since the docs were so obviously garbage, how did all these professional, experienced, competent journalists--honest as the day is long and living and dying to get at the truth--decide to use them in a story" --> this is another way to get to the question Jay identified as essential: who forged these "obviously garbage" documents and why?

Delia

P.S. CBS must have *known* what the result was going to be... (and must have decided that, given the circumstances, they would incur less loss by going ahead with the story as it was...) --> this is the only explanation that makes sense to me

what was the chance that *nobody* was going to point out those documents were "obviously garbage"? CBS has been in this business for a while, they couldn't have been that naively optimistic D.

Posted by: Delia at September 28, 2007 8:37 PM | Permalink

Nathan: The right's "devotion" for Bush is constantly wavering, and depends entirely on his enacting right-wing policies. That is, the right is a normal bloc of voters in a democracy, not some sort of mass cult looking for ikons to venerate. Furthermore, if you're looking for an explanation for Kerry's being nominated to run against Bush in 2004, you need go no farther than the belief, amongst the Democratic power brokers, that the voters wanted "a war hero" and would be forgetful enough to accept Kerry as such. That is, in 2004 the Democrats accepted your theory, tried to turn Kerry into a substitute ikon, and got trounced at the polls.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 28, 2007 8:43 PM | Permalink

All over the map.

It seems to me that the legitimate questions that need to be asked and answered are:
1. Should the media, any media, sit on a story until it deems that the story can/will have the most effect--or do they have a responsibility to report it promptly?
2. What is/ought to be the standard of 'proof' that is responsible journalism? Is there a standard that cuts across both liberal and conservative political spectrum? How can that become the norm--and so restore trust in from the public toward journalism as a whole?
3. What is the responsibility of journalism to police it's own?
4. Does the public have right to know not only the redacted, edited 'truth' presented or both the content and the process employed by the journalist?

It may be 'fun' and 'entertaining' to debate the fine points of this (or any case), but if journalism is to be trusted it must seem to present the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a way that can be packaged in a relatively short way--unless it is clearly editorializing. The question I would have is how do you do that knowing that you must edit material and simply do not have the time to walk through the process of why something is cut and other things not--why sometimes receive greater weight than other things--why it is written from a certain perspective, when a different perspective would give a somewhat different conclusion.

Just some thoughts

Posted by: swats at September 28, 2007 9:05 PM | Permalink

"Actually, Redstone didn't contribute to Bush and I seriously doubt he voted for him - despite his pronouncement."

Posted by: Tim at September 27, 2007 10:06 PM

Well, Tim, you could well be right. But you'll have to check out that with Redstone himself. It ain't me calling him a liar -- it's you.

Good luck with that.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 28, 2007 9:37 PM | Permalink

Andrew Tyndall -- You seem to be forgetting this amazing string of coincidences:

9/6/04 [DNC Chair Terry] McAuliffe holds press conference questioning Bush's NG Service

9/7/04 ["Independent" 527 group] Texans for Truth airs a commercial questioning Bush's NG Service

9/8/04 CBS, The Boston Globe, and the NY Times do stories questioning Bush's NG Service

9/9/04 DNC Launches Operation Fortunate Son questioning Bush's NG Service

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 28, 2007 11:33 PM | Permalink

Steve, Redstone never said he contributed to Bush. That was you saying he did. Here's what he did say:

There has been comment upon my contribution to Democrats like Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry is a good man. I've known him for many years. But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican Administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.

Now, if you want to believe that Sumner Redstone doesn't put his money where his vote is, that's fine.

Posted by: Tim at September 28, 2007 11:50 PM | Permalink

I did not say that CBS thought it would throw the election all by itself.
My point is that CBS did all it could to throw the election. There were other folks at work looking to do the same thing. But CBS, like any team player, resolved to do the best it could with what it had.
Had CBS thought it could throw the election by itself, it would have done so. But, the fact of others involved in the same effort means that CBS would have had to share the credit. Still, if it worked, they could all party together and laugh at the rest of us when the lies were busted...too late.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 29, 2007 12:07 AM | Permalink

" But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life,and I do believe that a Republican Administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one." --Sumner Redstone

Thanks for the exact wording, Tim. Expect to see those words again if discovery ever starts in the Rather lawsuit.

Far from, in Richard's words, trying "to throw the election," in truth Redstone's sympathies (and vote) were with the Bush administration.

And, as we all know, Redstone runs Viacom and CBS with an iron fist -- ask Andrew Heyward, or Tom Freston. Or, hell, ask Dan Rather.

This could be fun.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 29, 2007 7:47 AM | Permalink

Andrew...

I have no idea where you got step D from.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 29, 2007 1:43 PM | Permalink

Corrente: Froomkin's editors won't let him mention Lukasiak's work on Bush AWOL when writing about the Rather suit, so I'll do it for him.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 2:22 PM | Permalink

Since when are Media Matters, Dan Froomkin and p.luk considered non-biased sources?

Besides those already in the "reality-based community" bubble, who else will give them credibility?

Information, please.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 3:07 PM | Permalink

Non-biased? Who in blazes claimed anything like that?

What a weird way of saying you don't believe anything Froomkin says because you're a Bush dead ender and he isn't.

I wrote:

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters: Dan Rather is right. Makes the case that the story was accurate and did not depend on documents that count not be authenticated, blames the press for getting more interested in Rather's crimes against journalism than Bush shirking his National Guard duties.

Do you see anything in that about Eric Boehlert from the unbiased, solidly objective, non-partisan, scientific research association, Media Matters? What claim are you refuting?

And please, for our edification: List your non-biased sources for the "Bush in the Texas Air National Guard" story, please, QC. Where should we start? The White House? Free Republic, perhaps? Maybe it's the Boston Globe? MSNBC? How about Bush's father?

It seems you don't know the first--and I mean the very first--thing about the culture war that's captured you.

Wacky, man. Really wacky.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 3:51 PM | Permalink

You don't know me, but you put me in a little box as a
"Bush dead-ender." How mainstream media.

What a wacky way of saying you're a BDS "Bush Hater".
You can't handle the fact that many of us dismiss the East Coast Establishment Press view of events.

Sweet! Cultural warriors come in two sizes---left and right.

It's good to know that all the j-schools are churning out "left" cultural warriors.

What a hoot! This makes it so much easier to dismiss everything that the establishment media puts out.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 4:23 PM | Permalink

My comment on my blog at a post critical of Dan Rather makes it easier for you to dismiss the establishment media? Huh? Wackier and wackier.

I'm disappointed that there I didn't get my list of unbiased sources. Where is it?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 4:26 PM | Permalink

OK, I give up---if Media Matters, Dan Froomkin and p.luk said it, it must be true.

snort!snicker!guffaw!

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 4:30 PM | Permalink

Richard --

Are you by any chance related, even distantly, to James T. Aubrey Jr., aka "The Smiling Cobra" -- and the guy who as president of CBS in the 1960's pretty much wrecked the joint and was subsequently shown to the door. (Later, the same thing happened to him at MGM.)

Probably not, I know. And, truth be told, the thought never even occured to me until this latest thread ... but the venom of your acrimony toward the Little Network That Couldn't does make one wonder if there's some sort of familial thing going on here.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 29, 2007 4:39 PM | Permalink

OK, I give up---if Media Matters, Dan Froomkin and p.luk said it, it must be true.

Huh? Each comment and each link is offered as a perspective on Rather, Bush, and the TANG. Thus the thread as a whole offers perspective on top of perspective. None definitive. None is... The Truth. None settles the matter, which any adult reader--left, right, Bush hater, Bush supporter--can see is quite unsettled, pending more information. You decided to act like an adolescent clown, debunking an idiotic claim no one made and then pretending to accept the idiotic claim no one made. Wacky, man.

What's next? Spitballs at the teacher when he turns his back to write on the blackboard?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 4:40 PM | Permalink

Steve.

Nope. My relation was James G. Aubrey 1LT USAF, killed in a crash on Taiwan in October of 1970. Younger brother.

Seems to me that the amount of venom directed at CBS is inadequate to the task, considering what they have done.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 29, 2007 5:11 PM | Permalink

Ok teacher, you're right.

Happy now?

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 5:36 PM | Permalink

Since when are Media Matters, Dan Froomkin and p.luk considered non-biased sources? --QC Examiner

Where's my list of non-biased sources on Rather, CBS, Bush & TANG? You know, the ones with The Truth.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 5:49 PM | Permalink

I've already said "you're right" about "The Truth", what more do I have to do or say?

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 6:32 PM | Permalink

Corrente: Froomkin's editors won't let him mention Lukasiak's work

I love Lambert, but given the paranoid conspiracy theories that abound on the whole subject of CBS-Rather/Killian Memos/Bush-AWOL and related topics, I suspect that there are those who will incorrectly take this seriously...

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 29, 2007 6:46 PM | Permalink

So true p.luk. The same morons who dispute you/Froomkin/Media Matters are the same morons who doubt Democratic Underground, Firedoglake and DailyKos.

The nerve! Every one who doesn't believe you/Froomkin/Media Matters is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I knew that.

We all know that you, Froomkin, Media Matters, Democratic Underground, Firedoglake, DailyKos, etc. are the only ones who speak truth to power, and everyone else is just a tool of McChimpyBushitlerhalliburton.

All rational people believe that.

I'm sure.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 29, 2007 7:18 PM | Permalink

QC Examiner --

Why are you so angry ?

After all, it's your clowns who are in charge -- well, okay, minus Rumsfeld, Rove, Gonzales et. al.

Oh, wait-- maybe that's why you're so angry.

I sympathize.

It's a bitch being in charge of a fiasco.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 29, 2007 7:38 PM | Permalink

Angry? I would say unhinged. Case in point: When Paul referred to "the paranoid conspiracy theories that abound..." he was mainly thinking of people who put a lot of faith in Froomkin, Media Matters and Corrente, who would congregate on the Left, and who might think that Washington Post editors really did ban mention of Paul Lukasiak.

But QC sees the words "paranoid conspiracy" and since--at the moment--all he knows is culture war, he stops reading, puts his brain on freeze and assumes through automatic settings that it's just another missile lobbed across at the divide at those who doubt Firedoglake, Kos, Media Matters and Froomkin. Wrong-o.

Thus: "Every one who doesn't believe you/Froomkin/Media Matters is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I knew that."

Unhinged, he misread completely.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 29, 2007 9:01 PM | Permalink

Why Dan Rather is right by David Neiwert, blogger and freelance journalist in Seattle, formerly with mainstream newspapers. This is the part that I liked:

I criticized both Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, at the time -- and still do -- for their journalistic sloppiness in failing to ascertain the provenance of the Killian documents. As someone who had been carefully shepherding this story over the course of four years and was looking forward to the breakthrough it was finally getting (remember that the story was being discussed in other quarters than just CBS), it frankly angered me that their sloppiness led to the story being tossed into the pit.

But he thinks the suit has merit and the press reaction--jeering at Rather--is unwarranted.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 30, 2007 12:49 AM | Permalink

re:"I criticized both Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, at the time -- and still do -- for their journalistic sloppiness in failing to ascertain the provenance of the Killian documents."

Jay, it seems to me that Rather and Mapes were not the ultimate decision makers (and thus not the ones ultimately responsible for this). CBS brought in a *specialist* (Rigler) to look into those documents. This doesn't completely absolve Rather and Mapes of culpability but CBS could/should have stopped the story when it found out from Rigler that the documents were forgeries. I see no good reason why they didn't do that or why they would have kept Rigler's findings secret especially from
Rather and Mapes who were presumably "the clients" for Rigler's report -- they were ultimately the ones that *needed* to know the truth about those papers).

Delia

P.S.unless CBS thought they were better off keeping Rigler's findings secret... and they would have *had* to have a damn good reason for that... D.

Posted by: Delia at September 30, 2007 1:53 AM | Permalink

Delia, I thought Rigler's investigation was after the 60 Minutes II broadcast -- his job was to discover how Rather and Mapes came to make their appalling blunder.

And, on the assumption that Rigler established, to CBS News' satisfaction, that Burkett forged the memos -- I fear that CBS reasoned that their internal deliberations were not the public's business, and that removing Rather from any position of authority would be enough to satisfy the requirements of justice. After all, if Rather was left alone, he might do some real damage to the reputation of CBS. It doesn't really matter what you say about a Republican politician, everyone who matters knows they're all crooks and frauds; but if Rather would be so careless over something as trivial as blackening George Bush's record in TexANG, who knows how careless he might be over something important?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 30, 2007 4:28 AM | Permalink

oops! you are right, Michael...

here's what tripped me up:"Segment producer Mary Mapes and anchor Dan Rather were both aware of Mr. Rigler's assignment. Because the independent panel was looking into the memos, Ms. Mapes and Mr. Rather were no longer investigating the case themselves" but that was in *September*... which was AFTER the fact (http://www.observer.com/node/50441)

Delia

P.S. sorry, Jay (I was wrong) D.

Posted by: Delia at September 30, 2007 6:59 AM | Permalink

Angry? I would say unhinged. Case in point: When Paul referred to "the paranoid conspiracy theories that abound..." he was mainly thinking of people who put a lot of faith in Froomkin, Media Matters and Corrente, who would congregate on the Left, and who might think that Washington Post editors really did ban mention of Paul Lukasiak.

thank you Jay. I'd found it difficult to come up with an appropriate response to QCE's rather novel intepretation of my previous comment -- but you nailed it.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 30, 2007 10:58 AM | Permalink

re: In other words, a major whodunnit is who might have faked the docs and why.

I'm pessimistic that the Rathersuit will answer those questions. The basis of the lawsuit seems to be that CBS violated Rather's existing contract by reducing his "air-time" and negotiated renewing his contract in bad faith.

I don't think CBS has to prove the docs are frauds/forged and by whom to justify their actions in the aftermath of the 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast. IANAL and would be interested in hearing any legal argument for how the whodunnit and why would be an important legal question to answer in the Rathersuit.

Posted by: Tim at September 30, 2007 1:01 PM | Permalink

re: "I don't think CBS has to prove the docs are frauds/forged and by whom to justify their actions in the aftermath of the 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast."

Even if they don't have to do that, it looks like they may well have to hand over copies of Rigler's finding to the Rather team (as part of discovery?) -- Rather seems to be at least hoping (if not knowing) that something in that report will exculpate him or at least help with his public image. And it might...

Delia

P.S. I don't know how much this lawsuit is really costing Rather (it may be disposable income for him) D.

Posted by: Delia at September 30, 2007 2:07 PM | Permalink

IANAL and would be interested in hearing any legal argument for how the whodunnit and why would be an important legal question to answer in the Rathersuit.

IANALE, but my impression is that an effort will be made to discredit the Thornburgh/Boccardi panel by examining its conduct of the "investigation", and the report based on the conclusions. This would require a lot of "here are the facts, here is how the report misrepresents/ignores the facts" kind of stuff.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 30, 2007 3:50 PM | Permalink

Rather asserts CBS damaged his rep.

How? By firing him after the TANG story blew up, thus implying he was at fault either positively or by being negligent. Also depriving him of a livelihood.

That requires the story to be true. If CBS ageess the story is true, they're hosed. Rather can only have been negligent if the story is false.

Irrespective of who said what when, the veracity of the story--which is to say, the documents--is going to be the dispute

Would CBS want to be making the assertion in public sworn on a Bible that they inadvertently ran a story they now know to be false?

As others have said, Rather is delusional about either the veracity of the story or CBS' ability to beat him like a rented mule if it comes to a trial.

Rather is no longer the journo who walks on water surrounded by fish and others of the lower orders. It is possible his attorneys will tell him to take a settlement and shut his mouth.

As I said, I would find that disappointing.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at September 30, 2007 11:37 PM | Permalink

Careful, Richard: the issue in the lawsuit is whether the documents were authentic -- not whether they were vericidal. That is, it wouldn't save Rather if the version of events described in the Killian memos did turn out to be correct, because what Rather was removed for was broadcasting his story without testing the memos' authenticity.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 1, 2007 1:19 AM | Permalink

MB.

Correct. Problem is, if the story is true, so true that a professional journalist could think it worthy of national air, fake documents wouldn't be necessary.

Perhaps the story was true but the media despaired of proving it with enough drums and trumpets before the election. No use proving it afterwards.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 6:40 AM | Permalink

"Problem is, if the story is true, so true that a professional journalist could think it worthy of national air, fake documents wouldn't be necessary."

Richard, you don't understand how (what passes for news) on television works. Its the sizzle, not the steak, that counts. For instance, Barnes had already testified under oath years ago to the fact that he'd help get Bush into the Guard. That wasn't news. What made it "newsworthy" enough was merely that Barnes was willing to go on camera and say what he'd say in court.

And at least three major news organizations have examined Bush's records, and come to the conclusion that he blew off his legal and contractual obligations to the military (Boston Globe, LA Times, US News.) NO ONE who has done a comprehensive review of Bush's records thinks that Bush fulfilled his obligations -- that he wasn't "AWOL" in the colloquial sense.

But explaining why the documents show that Bush blew off his obligations makes lousy television... the Killian memos were the "sizzle" -- the grill marks on a 3" thick filet mignon. CBS wasn't able to prove that those grill marks weren't painted on... but it still a steak.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at October 1, 2007 12:00 PM | Permalink

Mr Aubrey: as I said above, the faked documents were planted by Rove. They were done convincingly enough to hook the unsuspecting Rather AND cbs into running the story. At which point Rove released his dogs. It is an explanation that ties all this wierdness into a single sensible narrative.

Posted by: Nathan at October 1, 2007 12:01 PM | Permalink

Perhaps the story was true but the media despaired of proving it with enough drums and trumpets before the election. No use proving it afterwards. (Richard Aubrey, link.)

Notice how we were talking about a particular company and its decision-making about a particular story that the company's news division thought it had in the fall of 2004. But here that's all faded away, replaced by an abstraction, "the media," which has magically gained the power to think, plot, weigh options and "despair," as if it were a single organism, a living being with intention, agenda, motive, method.

Now it's not what CBS and its people did in 2004 and 2005--there's a record of that--but what "the media" decided and despaired of. There's no record of that, which is the whole point of talking that way!

This shift to the abstract, this slip into the fictional from the real, which is completely habitual to the point of being unconscious, is a good example of how "culture war theatre," as I call it, works in a comment thread.

By switching from CBS, a particular actor with a history we can examine, to "the media," an abstraction or collective noun with no known address, the author can now say any damn thing he wants about The Media, which is actually his invention in the first place.

This is far more pleasing to your culture warrior because there is no risk of being contradicted, and the tone of fake certainty about matters quite murky is more easily managed. When there's no referent for anything you are saying you are free to say anything, and to speak as if everyone knows what you are saying is true (everyone who's not lying, that is.)

This is the liberation culture warriors seek when it comes to criticizing "the media" or "MSM."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2007 12:18 PM | Permalink

Comic Relief:

Sesame Street 360

The face of CNN is temporarily switching channels — to GNN: Grouch News Network. This fall Anderson Cooper will broadcast from a garbage can for the 38th season of Sesame Street with co-anchors Walter Cranky and Dan Rather-Not. Cooper, who will discuss the letter G, struggled in his youth with a mild form of dyslexia. The show, he says, was "vital" in helping him learn to read.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 1, 2007 12:20 PM | Permalink

Jay writes:

"He’s intending to do this over, not only Rathergate but the real story of Bush in the Air National Guard."

Why does Rather think he needs a 70MM lawsuit to "do it over"?

The answer that occurs to me gives me a heavy feeling in the chest: the lawsuit is neccessary because Rather thinks that it is attention that fuels the journalism machine. The lawsuit is a gambit to get all those eyes to swing back in his direction, even for a minute, just to jump start the machine.

I feel as if I've heard variants of this often -- "it doesn't matter if nobody's watching."

This seems pretty dismissive of the craft of journalism.

"Would you do it if nobody was watching?" is a pretty good working definition of authenticity. Authenticity is what Rather lacks. He doesn't trust the work itself enough just to do it, without regard to whether anyone is looking.

Lovelady sez it looks like Shakespeare. It bears a strong resemblance to Pascal, too -- "all man's troubles come from an inability to sit alone in a room."

Posted by: Lisa Williams at October 1, 2007 12:32 PM | Permalink

Jay.

I didn't switch to "the media" as if I were going to an abstraction.
I did it because every other big, medium, and little media outlet would have done it in a heartbeat if, 1, they'd thought of it, or, 2, had the bogus docs presented to them. It was just CBS and Rather who lucked out.

There is no dispute that Bush flew his F102 a substantial number of hours and, at the very worst, had nothing to do after the Dart was obsoleted.

I've been in the service. I know what happens when you get a supernumary who shows up just to make his appearance--which is one of the things that Bush was supposed to have bailed on when he got a temporary change of unit to work in politics. You put him in a corner and tell him not to break anything. You send him home immediately. You think of a special project you need an extra body for and for which he has some potential skill. It is unlikely anybody would have seen me in my temporary stay with a reserve SF group. My commander, so to speak, said he didn't need me. If he did, he'd call. But not to bother showing up. And, not to pat myself on the back, I was far more qualified to do at least some paperwork for the group (Airborne qualified, Infantry) than Bush was (Fighter Pilot and...fighter pilots aren't much else).

And it's been made clear for some time that Bush didn't need help getting into the flight program, since there was a shortage of guys qualified or potentially qualified for flight school although getting into the TANG for non-flying MOS in general required help. So Barnes said he helped Bush get into something that didn't need help to get into. "Hell, I knew him when he was just a kid. Helped him in lots of ways."

Bush got his points.

We still have the conundrum that Kerry has not released all his records while "reporting for duty", and Bush, making little reference to the issue in his campaign, gets the third degree. The difference is striking, but not surprising.

The interesting thing about the documents is that,if done by the evil Rove, they had to be lousy. If they'd been perfect, everybody would have believed it and CBS would have looked like geniuses. They had to be good enough, hypothetically, to fool various Bush-haters who were so nuts as to bite, but not so good as to escape even casual inspection. So, if this is all a masterpiece of Rovian plotting, the docs were crappy. On purpose. And so we have the spectacle of CBS and Rather biting on designedly crappy documents.

Considering that the estate of the late Richard Jewell would be considerably smaller if Tom Brokaw were a serious journalist, the idea that TB would have passed up the docs if presented to him, for example, is minimal. Or the NYT, or LAT, or....Playboy, I suppose.

You guys screw up a lot. And some of it is not merely incompetence. Some of it is deliberate, which I suppose is not really screwing up unless you get caught. And some of it is when your prejudices overcome normal skepticism. The TANG thing combines all three.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 4:08 PM | Permalink

"You guys" refers to...?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2007 4:21 PM | Permalink

"you guys" means professional journalists.

One Ratherist screw-up didn't exactly qualify.
He purported to have interviewed a bunch of wacked-out Viet Nam vets who pretended to be horrified at the atrocities they'd seen or committed.
He was warned that most of the guys hadn't been in a position to do this stuff, some not in SEA, some not in the military, and it was all bogus. He went ahead. Now. He lied. He got caught (see Stolen Valor). But getting caught didn't have any effects. Given the latter, did he screw up in journalistic terms, or not?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 4:42 PM | Permalink

Lisa: another expression that is used to register the same attitude about attention holding veto rights over the real is... "if it didn't happen on television, it didn't happen."

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2007 4:43 PM | Permalink

I see Tom Harkin is on the floor denouncing Rush Limbaugh just as if he doesn't know Media Matters lied about Limbaugh's words.

Which reminds several people about Harkin's lies about being Viet Nam fighter pilot and all the zeal with which the media went after him. Not. Of course, the fact that there is a "D" after his name has nothing to do with it.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 8:18 PM | Permalink

Jeepers. The level of wingnuttery and diversion here is simply unbelievable. My condolences Dr. Rosen.

Posted by: bmaz at October 1, 2007 9:09 PM | Permalink

Nathan: Compare these two scenarios:
1) Burkett, convinced that Bush had shirked his duty to TexANG, composed a series of memos matching what he believed had occurred, using a modern word processor and getting many details of TexANG jargon and history wrong, because he didn't know very much about real TexANG documents from 1972-3. He then showed the fake memos to Mapes, who seized on them as proof of Bush's iniquity and passed them on to Rather. Rather then built a story for 60 Minutes II around the memos, ignoring warnings from the professional document examiners whom Mapes had consulted, because it was vital the public be told what an evil man George Bush was. People in the broadcast audience with expert knowledge promptly exposed the memos as fakes, leaving Burkett, Mapes and Rather humiliated.

2) A political operative working for Bush, knowing of Burkett's convictions regarding Bush's time in TexANG, composed the memos to match what Burkett believed had occurred, using a modern word processor and getting many details of TexANG jargon and history wrong, to ensure they could be easily discredited once they became public. The operative then sent the memos to Burkett, who sent them to Mapes, who sent them to Rather. Rather then built a story for 60 Minutes II around the memos, ignoring warnings from the professional document examiners whom Mapes had consulted, because it was vital the public be told what an evil man George Bush was. People in the broadcast audience with expert knowledge promptly exposed the memos as fakes, leaving Burkett, Mapes and Rather humiliated, as the operative had intended.

There is only one difference between these two scenarios: in 2) the guilt of forgery has been moved from Burkett to an unnamed, and hypothetical, operative working for Bush. Moreover, said operative somehow knew that Burkett, Mapes and Rather would all be so fascinated by the lure of the memos that none of them would think to check their authenticity -- for if any of those three had checked, and believed the results they got, the whole plot would have failed. 1) explains the incompetence of the forgery by Burkett's ignorance, which is also assumed in 2). So 1) is clearly the simpler scenario.

But 2), of course, has the immense advantage of making Bush responsible for Rather's downfall, and any theory which casts Bush as an evil genius is more credible than one that casts him only as a victim of slander.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 1, 2007 9:40 PM | Permalink

Michael. Number 2 also requires that Rove or his minions had to be absolutely sure that Rather, Mapes, and CBS were so utterly credulous, so incompetent, and/or so venal that they would, inevitably, bite. If they failed, the entire thing went to hell.

And, in number 2, they were right. How come, do you think, they judged the CBS crew so exactly? Was it a SWAG? Or did they think they had lots of evidence?

Anybody who supports number 2 has to admit that Rove & Co. judged CBS exactly right and, more to the point, had every reason to be confident in their judgment. "Yeah. Those guys are both stupid and crooked. Here's forty-'leven examples with never a countervailing example of honesty and professionalism."

To push number 2 is to condemn CBS, Rather, Mapes and all the enablers who pretended to believe that crazy story.

The more I think about this, the more it looks like a lose-lose situation. They'll have to settle. Too bad.

So, bmaz. You referring to the Harkin situation where the guardians of military virtue among our candidates did (not) such a terrific job vetting his claims and trumpeting the results?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 9:57 PM | Permalink

Why does your Republican operative have to be "working for Bush?" There are plenty of Republican operatives capable of acting independently of the White House but in the interests of the party (and the White House) who are smart enough to realize that complete deniability for the White House is necessary on this one.

Re-do 2.) without White House involvement or Rove string pulling. Just independent Republican groups freelancing around the election bring the guy out of the crowd to supply Burkett with the (false) documents but no plausible story about where they came from.

Doesn't this simpify 2.) and make it more plausible?

Also possible: a believer in Bush's "guilt" for skipping out on his guard service supplies that final push--the documents--that will get the story on the air and Mary Mapes is the one who is played.

You got something against that contingency?

I have no idea what happened, just spotting.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2007 10:16 PM | Permalink

"you guys" means professional journalists.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey

Uh huh. And that would be as opposed to ... what ?

Unprofessional journalists ?

And who exactly would that be? Anything like unprofessional
civil engineers ? Or unprofessional dentists ?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at October 1, 2007 10:41 PM | Permalink

Doesn't this simpify 2.) and make it more plausible?

Not really. The least plausible aspect of 2) is that what actually happened was the forger's intended result. As Richard Aubrey's been pointing out, this would mean the forger could safely assume that everyone in the chain of custody from himself to Rather would be gullible enough to accept a deliberately bad forgery. That isn't something I would be comfortable with assuming, before the event. There are some responsible journalists left in the USA, and who could be sure one of them wouldn't vet the memos before Rather's broadcast?

Also possible: a believer in Bush's "guilt" for skipping out on his guard service supplies that final push

Well, that's exactly what I think Burkett did, and why he did it, so obviously I have no objection to that hypothesis. None, that is, beyond a reluctance to introduce yet another character into the story, whose reality hasn't been verified.

Incidentally, do I understand correctly from those quotation marks that you share my opinion, that even if the 60 Minutes II story had proven out, it was not of great political importance?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 1, 2007 11:20 PM | Permalink

Jay. The "freelancer" point has been made about some of the less savory things that just happened to have advantaged the Clintons. No connection. In a different context, it's what the Homeland Security folks call it the "lone wolf".

However, the freelancer, doing it on his own, means two things. One is that it takes the blame away from the WH. The other is that either the freelancer is a real insider in bigtime journalism, to be so confident Rather & Co. would bite, or he wasn't a real insider, but that Rather & Co. would bite was obvious to everybody who thought about it for a moment. Boy, wouldn't that be a thing for one side or the other to claim in a deposition.

Steve. There is a difference. Professional journalists don't take a kind of entrance exam, as do dentists, and, possibly, engineers, although I'm not sure of the latter. I would suggest you look up the Order of The Iron Ring and consider if the proportion of journalists who could honestly assert they'd be professional as the oath requires is very high at all.

To answer your question, it's anybody who gets paid to put stuff out there as if it's "news". You think you've accomplished something by this question?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 1, 2007 11:34 PM | Permalink

re:"Also possible: a believer in Bush's "guilt" for skipping out on his guard service supplies that final push--the documents--that will get the story on the air and Mary Mapes is the one who is played.

You got something against that contingency?"

well... how does the forger get away Scott free, Jay? (given the shape "the supplied documents" were in and the fact that the whole thing exploded in public view --> he/whoever is ultimately behind this is not just ..."a believer in Bush's 'guilt" but has enough power/influence to pull this off)

Delia

P.S. and this is a common problem to all the scenarios I've seen so far... D.

Posted by: Delia at October 2, 2007 1:04 AM | Permalink

Delia, why would it take power or influence to pass off forged documents? All it really takes is chutzpah.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 2, 2007 4:46 AM | Permalink

Delia:

To make my point yet again, it also takes confidence that the mark would bite. The forger chose CBS because of special knowledge that CBS would bite, or he chose CBS because of convenience, absolutely certain that whoever got the stuff would bite.
And for the same reasons. Venal, incompetent, wired to find something on Bush.

The more I think about it, the more this whole thing condemns the media, or CBS particularly, because there'd have been no point in starting absent the confidence somebody would eat it up. So whoever started it had confidence--and was right--which means the previous performance of CBS in particular had to have been such as to convince him. Or, if he was thinking any big media outlet would do, the previous performance of any big media outlet would have had to convince him.

Further thought: What if somebody had heard Mapes or someone else muttering, "If I just had something that looked halfway good....", not entirely to herself. An invitation, so to speak. After all, she'd been on the trail for five years and the election was getting closer.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 7:37 AM | Permalink

Aubrey wrote....

There is no dispute that Bush flew his F102 [blah blah blah]

Aubrey then procedes to spew a series of outright falsehoods.

Which is all well and good, except that Jay has asked us to refrain from re-arguing Bush's (and Kerry's) military service, so I can't provide an effective rebuttal....

Posted by: p.lukasiak at October 2, 2007 8:03 AM | Permalink

Yeah, P.L. I know. Like I started on the subject.

This is another one of those things I don't understand. I fully expect you would tell somebody who doesn't know what's going on here something false about me. Why not? There'd be no way of checking.

But to do this to me, who is the one who said, or didn't say whatever it is, where there is a record of what was said or not said to be had by scrolling up.... Are you trying to fool me about what was said? About what I said?

How is that supposed to work out?

Anyway, that was considerably further back in this thread. What's the point of bringing it up now?

Perhaps you could tell us how come CBS looked like such a perfect mark.

Posted by: RIchard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 9:01 AM | Permalink

Perhaps you could tell us how come CBS looked like such a perfect mark.

perhaps, if you understood the sequence of events, you would realize that it was mere coincidence that CBS was involved at all. (if a media organization was targeted, it would have been USA Today, which had used Burkett as an important source in its 'ghost soldier' series a few years back.)

But, as Jay has pointed out, you are so enamoured of your theories about 'the media' in general, and in this particular instance CBS, that facts and logic are mere supernumeraries on the stage of your Wagnerian scaled conspiracy theories.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at October 2, 2007 9:16 AM | Permalink

The "freelancer had to be confident Rather & Co. would bite," and "CBS was the perfect mark" are hilariously revealing.

This particular "must" is needed because the inventors of it really really really want the revealed outcome to vindicate a view held prior to the episode, during the episode, after the episode and today-- in other words, a fixed idea.

What is that fixed idea? Rabid anti-Bush partisans populate CBS and will do anything to bring him down; but in this case they got caught. That's the favored conclusion. That's where this has to go. The logic of culture war demands it. The key word is "deliberate."

That's familiar enough. What's amusing is how the preferred outcome comes to influence one's probability estimate for a given course of events, when, of course, these two factors should be completely independent if we're struggling with what actually happened.

We're told the forger had to be "absolutely certain that whoever got the stuff would bite," or, as Michael writes, "the forger could safely assume that everyone in the chain of custody from himself to Rather would be gullible enough to accept a deliberately bad forgery..."

May I introduce you to the person known as a "cutout?" A shadowy figure who shows up, performs a required action, isn't heard from again, and cannot be traced, subpoened, deposed because (let's say...) Burkett didn't know who the cutout was and the cell phone number he had for the person is long abandoned. This would square with his lame and boneheaded explanations for where he got the documents once the excrement hit the fan.

If a cutout were involved--and I'm not endorsing this theory as a fave, just listing it as plausible along with others--there's no need to know for near certain that CBS would bite. There's just knee-slapping delight if they do bite, and awe at how stupid they were to use the documents. Since the forgeries cannot be traced back to anyone connected to Bush and the Republicans anyway, if the plan doesn't work it's just a dirty trick that fell harmlessly away.

Maybe it had a low probability of working but was worth a try because the consequences of failing were low. It's possible, but since it provides no support for the fixed idea the warriors blow right past it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 2, 2007 9:26 AM | Permalink

Jay.
Ref. Cutout. Certainly possible. He just got lucky.

Because he did get lucky. There's no denying that. The stuff got to CBS and, just by luck, CBS happened to be the one, the only one, the sole, lone, only media outlet that was dumb enough, venal enough, and anti-Bush wired enough to bite hard.

The only difference between Brazier's #2 and yours is that CBS, dumb, venal, and anti-Bush wired, didn't seem that way from the outside. From the outside, we all saw Dick and Jane and good, honest, straightforward journalism. How were we to know they were the perfect mark? No overt indication, right?

You say so.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 10:21 AM | Permalink

What's amusing is how the preferred outcome comes to influence one's probability estimate for a given course of events, when, of course, these two factors should be completely independent...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 2, 2007 10:28 AM | Permalink

Michael: chutzpah + a whole lot of luck might explain passing the documents but not getting away with the forgery (not being prosecuted).

Delia

P.S. I suppose Jay's "cutout theory" could explain it... but you'd think some sort of investigation would still be done: how many people had access to the original documents so they could have committed the forgery in the first place? (probably not that many...) D.

Posted by: Delia at October 2, 2007 11:09 AM | Permalink

Delia -- if a suspect were found who could plausibly be accused of forging said documents, what law would he have broken to make him vulnerable to prosecution?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at October 2, 2007 11:22 AM | Permalink

Andrew:

I heard, during the original discussion, that forging federal documents is a federal crime. Seems reasonable.

As to being a cut-out. That only moves the manufacture/acquisition back one step. Maybe Lucy Ramirez was the cut out. Did anybody ever track her down? Maybe the cutout was a step back from her. Point is, nobody seems to have been interested in finding out.

If the admin had done it, it would have been useful for the dems to claim that speaking truth to power was being criminalized. If CBS had done it, it would either have the possibility of ruining their story, or the possibility of being entirely redundant.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 11:28 AM | Permalink

Just being a suspect is not against the law, Andrew, but that would have been the beginning of the investigation, not the end of it...

Delia

P.S. I agree with Richard on this:" Point is, nobody seems to have been interested in finding out." D.

Posted by: Delia at October 2, 2007 11:49 AM | Permalink

Maybe everybody who is anybody already knows.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 12:20 PM | Permalink

May I introduce you to the person known as a "cutout?" A shadowy figure who shows up, performs a required action, isn't heard from again, and cannot be traced, subpoened, deposed because (let's say...) Burkett didn't know who the cutout was and the cell phone number he had for the person is long abandoned.

Jay, if I were sent a sheaf of documents supposedly by, oh, let's say someone formerly on Hillary Clinton's campaign staff which, if authentic, would prove she'd received large sums of money from the Chinese Army; and I couldn't discover who had sent them, for any addresses or phone numbers in the cover letter were abandoned -- well, I would be extremely suspicious that the documents were bogus, and I don't think I'd send them on to a reporter. Nor would I expect a reporter to believe in the documents without taking some pains to trace them back from me. In short, a cutout is fairly easy to recognize, and anything that comes through a cutout is unreliable on its face, nothing to build a story on.

Let's take the view of the forger using a cutout, making deliberate errors, and composing the forgery on a computer. Now you have him raising suspicion of the documents in three different ways -- one of which, to be sure, greatly lowers the risk to himself; but all of which greatly lower the likelihood that an honest, intelligent person would be taken in. I don't think anybody would consider the forgery worth their time, unless they were quite sure that no honest and intelligent people would see it before it was published. The odds of rejection would be so high that the cost in time and thought would outweigh the expected benefit. So where would this forger have gotten the idea that Burkett would find a newspaper or TV network as gullible as himself, to publish the memos and be destroyed? Either the forger was a right-wing "culture warrior" with a fixed prejudice against the liberal media, which Rather helpfully confirmed ... or (more disturbingly) he was a clear-eyed judge of the media, and the "culture warriors" are correct in all respects.

I'd think you would share my preference for the "true believer" hypothesis, since that one doesn't raise the specter of the whole trade of journalism being corrupt from top to bottom.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 2, 2007 2:37 PM | Permalink

I don't see, Michael, where the "true believer" thesis excuses the media from anything but the actual manufacture of the paperwork, which nobody is claiming, anyway.

At this point, I believe the question is down to whether the forger got lucky, finding the media so stupid, or knew in advance because their incompetence and bias were so obvious. Or, instead of "the media", he might have had his eye on CBS all the time, considering the others too professional. But the question would be the same, probably.

Pick one.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 2:47 PM | Permalink

Those sound like two possibilities but not the two possibilities, Michael.

It's true that a cutout would and should have been easy to spot, and that simple checks would have raised serious questions, but you are forgetting that the entire chain of events is full of these types of startling lapses, where asking basic questions and taking basic precautions would have led to a different and happier outcome for CBS.

It boggles the mind what happened, up and down the hierarchy. If you focus on one "moment" and say, "but it's mind boggling, that they could do that...." it may indeed be so, but no more so than other defaults and screw-ups.

For example, I am convinced that no one at CBS even realized that putting the documents on the Internet would instantly expose them to wider scrutiny and that they had to be rock-solid in every way before you press that button. Mind-boggling!

In answer to a previous question, no, I don't think that the story if true would have changed the outcome of the election.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 2, 2007 3:20 PM | Permalink

Jay, the cascading screwups remind me of multiplying a number less than one by a number less than one by a number less than one.... five or six times.

If the possibility is that in any one node, we have 90% likelihood of getting it right, we can do the math.

.1 x .1 several more times leads to the probability that all five nodes would fail in any one process at about .00001. That's the ten percent chance of getting it wrong each of five times (as the item passes through the process). Since we only need one node to twig, that's the likelihood the process will get it wrong.
That view takes into account common sense as the major gatekeeper as to whether the item is valid or not.

So we have a probability about five places to the right of the decimal point that the process got this wrong by the usual methods of getting it wrong.

Could be.

Some decades ago, in college, I was, unknown to me, in a group being tested for a new way of teaching statistics. When we did miserably, compared to the control group, the prof in charge gave us all courtesy Ds. I guess that's how research is done. So somebody may want to check out my story problem.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 3:51 PM | Permalink

re:"It boggles the mind what happened, up and down the hierarchy. If you focus on one "moment" and say, "but it's mind boggling, that they could do that...." it may indeed be so, but no more so than other defaults and screw-ups."

that's why I said that a whole lot of luck might have explained how the papers got passed to CBS but that was just the first step -- how did it ALL work so badly...? how many times had this sort of thing happened previously: some dubious papers were handed to CBS -- this should have been no problem whatsoever...

Delia

Posted by: Delia at October 2, 2007 4:08 PM | Permalink

Andrew Tyndall: Texas laws? "There Are Laws That Apply to this Sort of Thing ..."

There are many possibilities that I can come up with. Not all are equally probable and I'll list them in no particular order:

1. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos typed in 1972/3, signed/initialed by Killian's hand, and kept hidden somewhere for 30 years (20 years after Killian's death in 1984). These documents were then provided by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat to Burkett.

2. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos created after 1972/3 but before 1984 - backdated but still signed/initialed by Killian - and kept hidden for 20 years after Killian's death. These documents were then provided by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat to Burkett.

3. The Burkett docs were created by Burkett and he forged Killian's signature and initials.

4. The Burkett docs were created by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat who forged Killian's signature and provided the memos to Burkett.

5. The Burkett docs were created by a third-party pro-Bush/Republican who forged Killian's signature and provided the memos to Burkett.

Any others?

Posted by: Tim at October 2, 2007 6:51 PM | Permalink

These documents were then provided by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat to Burkett.

I'd like to challenge the assumption that the original source of "authentic" memos would have to be "pro-Kerry/Democrat".

If the memos are authentic, the most likely source would be a member of Killian's family (i.e. someone who had access to Killian's personal papers) and the likeliest esplanation for passing them off to someone like Burkett would be to preserve Killian's reputation without publicly "betraying" Bush. As Bush's immediate superior, Jerry Killian was the likely "fall guy" -- the person that history would point to as the corrupt individual who let Bush get away with blowing off his obligations to the US military. The motivation for getting the memos out (even 'fake but accurate' ones) may have had nothing to do with presidential politics -- it may have simply been about preserving Jerry Killian's reputation.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at October 2, 2007 7:34 PM | Permalink

OK, let's add those two ...

1. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos typed in 1972/3, signed/initialed by Killian's hand, and kept hidden somewhere for 30 years (20 years after Killian's death in 1984). These documents were provided by "a member of Killian's family (i.e. someone who had access to Killian's personal papers)" to Burkett "to preserve Killian's reputation". Marjorie Connell (Killian's widow) and Gary Killian (Killian's Son) then attack the authenticity of the documents publicly immediately after CBS airs them.

2. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos created after 1972/3 but before 1984 - backdated but still signed/initialed by Killian - and kept hidden for 20 years after Killian's death. These documents were provided by "a member of Killian's family (i.e. someone who had access to Killian's personal papers)" to Burkett "to preserve Killian's reputation". Marjorie Connell (Killian's widow) and Gary Killian (Killian's Son) then attack the authenticity of the documents publicly immediately after CBS airs them.

3. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos typed in 1972/3, signed/initialed by Killian's hand, and kept hidden somewhere for 30 years (20 years after Killian's death in 1984). These documents were then provided by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat to Burkett.

4. The Burkett docs are authentic copies of memos created after 1972/3 but before 1984 - backdated but still signed/initialed by Killian - and kept hidden for 20 years after Killian's death. These documents were then provided by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat to Burkett.

5. The Burkett docs were created by Burkett and he forged Killian's signature and initials.

6. The Burkett docs were created by a third-party pro-Kerry/Democrat who forged Killian's signature and provided the memos to Burkett.

7. The Burkett docs were created by a third-party pro-Bush/Republican who forged Killian's signature and provided the memos to Burkett.

Posted by: Tim at October 2, 2007 8:31 PM | Permalink

Tim. Ref 1-4. The docs would have to look like the authentic memos. They, according to many people, don't.

Let's separate 5-7 from 1-4. CBS bit on designedly badly forged docs (5-7). Why?

CBS bit on documents (1-4) which, although authentic, look fake. Why?

The idea that Killian's family wanted to protect his rep doesn't, imo, swing a lot of weight. The guy had been dead for some time. If he were, in fact, the guy who had let Bush off, it could be buried in paperwork of all kinds, including the missing kind. The only people who could make soup out of what would be actually available would be so obviously partisan that nobody would believe them. Since, in fact, there wouldn't be much there. If anything. In fact, there really isn't.
To make him the fall guy, you'd have to have faked paperwork going up the chain. Got any?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 9:58 PM | Permalink

you are forgetting that the entire chain of events is full of these types of startling lapses

No, scarcely that. The point is, forgers with different motives would make different estimates of the likelihood of the memos' being published. If the goal of the forgery was to discredit Bush, the many flaws in the documents can be explained by the forger's ignorance of TexANG in 1972, and the same ignorance would imply the forger believed that the memos were good enough to pass expert scrutiny, and therefore that journalists would be prepared to publish. If, however, the goal was to discredit Burkett, and whichever media outlet he went to, the forger couldn't have been ignorant of TexANG; the flaws were put in on purpose. That in turn implies the forger knew the documents wouldn't pass expert scrutiny, and therefore that journalists would have to be amazingly incompetent to publish them. And how likely is it that major media outlets are staffed by incompetents? (We know now, of course, that Rather was incompetent, and swayed the rest of CBS News into endorsing his folly. But we didn't know that before the broadcast ...) A forger on Kerry's side would have fooled himself first of all; one on Bush's side, couldn't have.

For other possible motives for the forger, I'm finding it hard to think of any. (Paul's suggestion that saving Killian's reputation was the goal is covered under "discrediting Burkett", and the objections above apply.) Maybe Burkett bought the memos, making the forger a common swindler with no political goal at all?

And Tim, any scenario in which the memos, as we have them, were signed by Killian before his death in 1984 is practically ruled out by the typographic evidence.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 2, 2007 10:08 PM | Permalink

Michael.

You presume that the forger was lucky to find such incompetence. Jay Rosen doesn't like my suggestion that such incompetence was manifest. He wouldn't.
Problem is, that's 'way too much dumb luck.

Who would have been interested in discrediting Burkett? If journos were what they were supposed to be, B brings the stuff in, the media outlet, whichever one it is, sends him on his way. I don't see them making a public spectacle over it. So, even if somebody had a vendetta against Burkett, this wouldn't be enough to discredit him.

The only way to plan to discredit the media outlet is to be pretty sure they'd run it before it blew up. In that case, however bad B looked, the foofaraw about the media outlet would greatly overshadow the reproach coming B's way. So how would the forger know they'd be likely to run it?

BTW. Has anybody looked at LGF's famed throbbing memo?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 2, 2007 11:10 PM | Permalink

This is like watching squirrels battling over nuts.

The night grows cool, and the shadows lenthgen across the greensward. But no one gives a shit except the squirrels.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at October 3, 2007 11:43 AM | Permalink

Sure, Steve.

Journalism got busted and we're being reproached for remembering,and, possibly, being less gullible next time journos get a hot idea.

Sure, just forget it.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 3, 2007 12:14 PM | Permalink

And now for something completely different --

Dr. Rosen, have you been tracking France 2 Television's suit for defamation against Philippe Karsenty? Richard Landes has been discussing it at length.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 4, 2007 6:58 AM | Permalink

The al Dura tape issue is interesting, for, among other things, enlightening us as to French ideas of jurisprudence. And journalism.
The Israelis have officially declared the thing to have been a put-up job and are demanding the entire tape, so far successfully kept under wraps by France 2.
It's interesting that the court, up until now, has upheld the defamation complaint without either seeing the tape or demanding it be made public.
That's a system a journalist could love.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 8:13 AM | Permalink

Glenn Greenwald raises Jay's When We Try to Explain the Rout of the Press under George W. Bush as how he used to think about press and DC political class capitulation to the Bush regime. He doesn't think that account cuts it anymore:

The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism

But we are now way past the point where that excuse is plausible. Anyone paying even minimal attention is well aware of exactly how radical and corrupt and lawless this administration is. We all know what has happened to our standing in the world, to our national character and our core political values, as a result of the previously unthinkable policies the Bush administration has relentlessly pursued. Ignorance or incredulity can no longer explain our acquiescence. Accommodating and protecting the lawbreaking of high Bush officials is widely seen by our Beltway elite as a duty of bipartisanship, a hallmark of Seriousness.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 11:06 AM | Permalink

Jay,
I have long been curious about the tension between the picture you paint of David Broder in your book as a journalist fighting the good fight for civic journalism and Duncan Black and Glenn Greenwald's more recent portrayal of Broder as an iconic patsie who the right wing noise machine play like a fiddle. They see Broder as a man who pleads for bipartisanship as an end in itself, in defiance of any and all genuine political and policy difference, in defiance even of GOP rollback and the Bush administration's attempt to substitute friend/enemy relations for what used to be democratic political and policy debate.

From your perspective, is it David Broder or civic journalism that has failed here? The impression I get from your recent posts is that a civic journalism sincerely determined to make democracy work has little choice at this point but to stand up against the Bush-Cheney adminstration in defense of the democracy this regime seems determined to redefine as a privilege left only for those who agree with them. How do you survey this landscape?

Can you make head or tail of Broder's calls for Democratic temperance and bipartisanship in the face of the anti-constitutional extremism of the Bush administration? Do you agree with Black and Greenwald that Broder's work has become a virtual parody of thoughtful political analysis more concerned to defend the DC status quo and dismiss widespread popular concerns than anything else? Black says Broder is most concerned about defending the DC country club ethos, real policy differences be damned. Greenwald argues that Joe Lieberman has become the definition of political seriousness for blame-Democrats-first pundits like Broder and this ultimately means job number one for Broder is defending the broken status quo whether this is his conscious intention or not.

Do you think they are onto something even if you would put their points somewhat more diplomatically? If you share some of their concerns, do you see David Broder's recent work as more a failure of his personal imagination and judgment or as ultimately a failure of the cause of civic journalism itself in an era of anti-democratic extremism in which the rules under which civic journalism had a chance simply don't apply any more?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 11:40 AM | Permalink

Atrios, High Broderism

Glenn Greenwald, Answers for Joe Klein

Digby, Who Do They Think We Are?

Frank Rich, All the President's Press

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 12:10 PM | Permalink

Jay,
Digby describes David Broder as effectively arguing that people who disagree with him aren't real Americans. I would extend her point to suggest that Broder's position here is entirely continuous with Limbaugh's recent "phony soldiers" diatribe.

Mark Anderson, Broder's Real Americans

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 1:00 PM | Permalink

Mark Anderson;

Check your answering machine. The truth about Limbaugh and the phony soldiers remark is out. You weren't aware that everybody knows, so you might make yourself look silly.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 2:00 PM | Permalink

The GOP meets Purple Haze right here on Press Think!
Dig it!

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 2:36 PM | Permalink

Anderson to Rosen: I have long been curious about the tension between the picture you paint of David Broder in your book as a journalist fighting the good fight for civic journalism and Duncan Black and Glenn Greenwald's more recent portrayal of Broder as an iconic patsie who the right wing noise machine play like a fiddle. [...]From your perspective, is it David Broder or civic journalism that has failed here?

From my perspective, for what it's worth, neither have failed -- it's Duncan Black and Glenn Greenwald who have failed, and Broder should feel honored by their bad opinion of him. But then my opinion of Greenwald has been irreversibly stained by what Patterico and Jeff Goldstein say of him ...

Can you make head or tail of Broder's calls for Democratic temperance and bipartisanship in the face of the anti-constitutional extremism of the Bush administration?

Seeing as the incoherent rage and viciously partisan attacks on Bush which most Democrats have been displaying have, if anything, only justified Bush's methods of governing in the opinions of ordinary voters, Broder's calls for temperance and bipartisanship would be worth heeding, merely as a matter of political strategy. Broder's way is capable of bringing the powerful to account; Greenwald's way offers nothing but catharsis for the frustrations of the powerless.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 4, 2007 4:02 PM | Permalink

Michael:
Anger over the way Bush's "methods of governing" repeatedly and systematically betrayed the constitution makes these methods appear to be justified?

The more effectively political opposition per se is delegitimized, the more legitimate Bush's methods appear?

What are you talking about?

And can you really believe this?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 4:34 PM | Permalink

Mark.

Ordinarily, I would be inclined to let Michael respond, or not, but you hit one of my hot buttons.

You misstate what Michael said and then reproach him for saying (what you said he said,which he didn't).

What's the point? As I have said before about this, people who do it would certainly have no compunctions about lying about what others have said, to those who don't know and weren't there.

But in this case, what Micheal said is RIGHT THERE in front of us. The bullshit is useless.

How does that math work out? Or is it just a habit which has not been modified for 'net use where what the other party said is RIGHT THERE?

I really don't get it.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 5:00 PM | Permalink

Yes, it is right there, isn't it?
Funny how that doesn't settle a thing, isn't it?

Almost like the tape where Rush says "phony soldiers" in explicit reference to soldiers who disagree with him politically--yet you nevertheless insist he doesn't say what he says in spite of those of us who continue to believe our eyes and ears and know what we heard and precisely what Rush Limbaugh meant.

Why bother Richard? We've all heard and seen the tape and we all know what he said.

Unfortunately for your "catch,"

"Seeing as the incoherent rage and viciously partisan attacks on Bush which most Democrats have been displaying have, if anything, only justified Bush's methods of governing in the opinions of ordinary voters"

is precisely what Michael said.

Michael apparently believes Bush's "methods of governing" are peachy keen. I obvously don't. I think as a matter of fact Bush has violated his oath to uphold the constitution and enforce the laws twenty ways to Sunday and should have been impeached for it years ago.

In the world where I live and Bush has become the law-breaker in chief, the idea that the anger produced by what Bush does legitimates what he does is gibberish. When I translate that gibberish into the world I live in where Bush is a felon and a war criminal, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, the suggestion that anger at Bush legitimates his rule is an insistence that anger at Bush legitimates his crimes. It is certainly possible that you and Michael are referring to a very different, alternative universe where George W. Bush does everything in his power to enforce the laws as written. That is not my general impression. Your mileage may vary.

Alternative universe or not, that difference of opinion doesn't require lying, Richard. It does, however, require drawing a very different conclusion from the very same words.

That's called political debate, Richard. It's not so hard once you get used to it.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 6:08 PM | Permalink

Michael's statement that "partisan attacks" on Bush justify his methods in the minds of "ordinary voters" reiterates the ludicrous canard that only the Bush supporting dead-ender 30% are "ordinary voters." Only 30% of American voters still support Bush. There is no other group left to whom this description can logically apply.

I guess that makes the remaining 70% of us extraordinary voters.

Given how it leaves 70% of us unaccounted for, reflexively anti-Democratic "ordinary voters" as a term of art is almost indistinguishable from Broder's "real Americans" or Rush's "real soldiers."

Posted by: Mark Anderson at October 4, 2007 6:20 PM | Permalink

Mr. Anderson, it is of course the incoherence and viciousness of current Democratic rhetoric that makes it helpful to Bush. Broder, in calling for Democratic temperance, has put his finger on the virtue that party lacks and needs most to be an effective opponent, or to be trusted with government again. You ought to be thanking him for the advice, not dismissing him as a dupe.

I would suggest, if I thought it would help you, a more careful reading of Dr. Rosen's critiques of Bush and the press; looking not at the conclusions, but the structure of the arguments. Dr. Rosen, you see, took the trouble to make his critique coherent. You can actually recognize the real George Bush in Rosen's description of him, which is far above the level of "smirking chimp" and "Bush is Hitler" that DailyKos aspires to. Dr. Rosen controls his anger, and hits his target; your anger controls you, and you wound no one but yourself.

Richard: pity him. He doesn't do it deliberately.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 4, 2007 6:51 PM | Permalink

Mark.

Michael said the intemperate attacks tended to justify Bush's actions in the minds of ordinary voters. Right there.

You implied he said the actions were justified....period. IOW, he thought they were justified. Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't, but that wasn't what he said.

Which all of us can see.

BTW, heard the tape.

Limbaugh was referring to Jesse MacBeth and his ilk whom, I suppose, you regret got outed. But, not to worry. MacBeth's lies were fake but accurate.

That keeps not working.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 7:07 PM | Permalink

Somewhat separate but related to the matter of intemperance having an effect opposite from what was intended.

The recent release of Clarence Thomas' book has brought up discussions of his confirmation hearings.

One item which some have not forgotten is Howard Metzenbaum's vicious attack on a character witness. He introduced unsworn, uncorroborated testimony to impeach the witness, or possibly pressure him to shut up altogether. The guy told him to stuff it. It was a great scene in the sense of Mr. Smith in DC.

Point is, the logical conclusion in the minds of the ordinary voters is that, if you choose to lie, it's because you have surveyed the truth available to you and decided it won't get you where you want to go. The extension of that is that a lie is not merely something to get caught at. It's a demonstration that the opposite is clearly true.

The same principle is at work in the matter of intemperance. If they had something, we'd hear it. Since we don't, they don't. Clear as glass.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 7:13 PM | Permalink

"the incoherence and viciousness of current Democratic rhetoric that makes it helpful to Bush."

Jeebus, You certainly live on the Planet Delusional.

Posted by: bmaz at October 4, 2007 7:18 PM | Permalink

ShrinkWrapped, The Psychology of the Politics of Rage

When one's ideas are rejected, especially when those ideas form an important part of one's self-image, it is a personal injury. People respond to personal injury with pain and anger. When the anger is internalized, the risk of depression and despair becomes significant. Many find it more tolerable to eject the anger, ie defense known as projection, and are then drawn into all the psychological problems that flow from that. One's opponents then become evil, rather than wrong, misguided or simply in disagreement, and every reverse simply fuels the rage burning inside. Such a cycle would appear as follows: Anger -> Projection -> Attribution of unacceptable impulses to the "enemy" -> Fear of the projected/disowned anger being returned (retaliation) -> Overt paranoia -> Further rejection -> Intensified anger. Under the influence of such rage, encapsulated by the feeling that one is manifestly correct and no other possible interpretations of others' behavior are tenable, reason is lost.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at October 4, 2007 7:21 PM | Permalink

Mark Anderson:

The more effectively political opposition per se is delegitimized,

Do you mean like:

I think as a matter of fact Bush has violated his oath to uphold the constitution and enforce the laws twenty ways to Sunday and should have been impeached for it years ago.

When I translate that gibberish into the world I live in where Bush is a felon and a war criminal, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,

Anger over the way Bush's "methods of governing" repeatedly and systematically betrayed the constitution makes these methods appear to be justified

Can you make head or tail of Broder's calls for Democratic temperance and bipartisanship in the face of the anti-constitutional extremism of the Bush administration

Also add in whatever you picked up on Rush Limbaugh from Media Matters

Does that make liberals methods more legitimate?

Are you not also talking about this?

Do you believe this?

I think you are the next contestant on Culture War Theater.

More on topic I think the whole Rather mess makes more sense when it is viewed as a political act similar to the Swift Boat Vets adds.

I see Rathergate and the Swift Boat Vets as two sides of the same coin in political activism. Both groups believed in the Truth of their message, and were willing to overlook facts which did not support their vision of the Truth. I won’t go so far as to call Rather the lowest of the low, but given the amount of buzz about Bush’s Nat Guard service at that particular point in time from supposedly independent sources, political hack sounds about right. Either that or a civic journalist.

Civic Journalism sounds a lot like reporters with a social conscience.

Posted by: abad man at October 4, 2007 7:29 PM | Permalink

Michael Brazier - That is amazingly introspective and honest of you to admit about your right wing of the spectrum. I salute you.

Posted by: bmaz at October 4, 2007 7:50 PM | Permalink

bmaz.

Boy, that got him good. Pretty soon you'll conquer, "I know you are, but what am I." I see some real victories in your future.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at October 4, 2007 7:57 PM | Permalink

Yes. I am really straining myself to keep up with you two.....

Posted by: bmaz at October 4, 2007 8:17 PM | Permalink

Squirrels.

Nuts.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at October 4, 2007 9:20 PM | Permalink

Thanks to all participants. Thread now closed. And in closing an except from something I wrote about Rather in January of 2004. It was my commentary on his interview with Saddam:

It was the work of a man who did not know what he was ultimately for, or why he was taken in blindfold to the Palace that day. He did know, however, that no one else in the press had succeeded in landing an interview with Saddam since his inclusion in the American President’s “axis of evil.” No one had done it, so Rather did.

And in the room where his encounter with evil (so declared) took place, Dan Rather, it seemed to me, had come armed with nothing stronger than “ask the questions, when necessary ask the tough questions” of Saddam Hussein— the mass murderer and tyrant who ruled in terror over a closed society, a republic of dense fear, where question-asking got you killed. “I’m here for my interview.”

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 4, 2007 9:46 PM | Permalink