CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE, By Greg Palast

[Al-CIAda]

CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE
Network's Craven Back-Down on Bush Draft Dodge Report Sure to Get a Standing Rove-ation at White House

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

By Greg Palast

"Independent" my ass. CBS' cowardly purge of five journalists who exposed George Bush's dodging of the Vietnam War draft was done under cover of what the network laughably called an "Independent Review Panel."
The "panel" was just two guys as qualified for the job as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.

Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41 Administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as Bush's Attorney General was to whitewash the investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting the oil giant off the hook on big damages. Thornburgh's fat pay as counsel to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, the Washington law-and-lobbying outfit, is substantially due to his job as a Bush retainer. This is the kind of stinky conflict of interest that hardly suggests "independent." Why not just appoint Karl Rove as CBS' grand inquisitor and be done with it?
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And who are the journalists whom CBS has burned at the corporate stake? The first lined up for career execution is '60 Minutes' producer Mary Mapes. Besides the Bush draft dodge story, Mapes produced the exposé of the torture at Abu Ghraib when other networks had the same material and buried it.

I admit to a soft spot for Mapes. Four years ago, BBC Television London broadcast my report that Jeb Bush had wrongly purged thousands of African-Americans from the voter rolls, thereby fixing the election for his big brother. CBS Evening News ran away scared from the story, as did ABC and other US networks. This year, when Bush tried to repeat the trick, Mapes wanted to put it on '60 Minutes.' However, after the draft dodge story hullabaloo, that was not going to happen.

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http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=407&row=0

[tngledwebb]

1. CBS complicit, if more proof was needed.

Thornburgh??? Crikey.

[Ninga]

2. My depression rides on the ebb and flow of such articles.

I continue to shake my head in disbelief.....

The power of the INTERNET, cell phones and Lexus Nexus has failed at getting the "big" story a la Watergate.

Somewhere, someplace, sometime this has got to come to a screeching halt......

The work of such dedicated journalist such as Palast can not continue to be buried... or can it.....

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tngledwebb]

4. Fabrication of which?

The AWOL story, the iffy memo, what do you mean?

[Volynteero]

5. The memo.

You can't use a forged document. Rather needed to work harder to verify the memos.

[Ripley]

7. You mean like how Smirky used forged documents about

Nigerian yellowcake uranium in his State of the Union address?

He should be fired too, according to your logic.

[Al-CIAda]

9. Indeed

Forged documents over uranium,
Phony 'evidence' of "Office of Special Plans",
Chalabi bullshit,
etc., etc...

ALL overt and intended deceptions and lies to the American people.

[tngledwebb]

8. He was set-up, perhaps?

But are you not missing the point of the original post?

[RuleofLaw]

12. Can you prove the memos where forged?

Didn't think so, cause no one can. If you read the report you will see that the finding is that they can neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the Killian memo, which, as Palast points out, is wholly irrelevant to the story.

[wicket]

14. do you believe Bush completed his duty in the National Guard?

[Ripley]

6. Head of Viacom blatantly admitting he votes Republican

because of deregulation. Geeze, why doesn't THAT make front page news? Oops, I forgot ALL media is the same.

Who'd of thought Pravda could be so pretty and sparkly and sexy? And in HDTV so I can see every botoxed powdered pore!! :nuke:

[gratuitous]

10. And the (dark) humorous thing

Is that, notwithstanding the veracity of the actual documents CBS used, the substance of its report was true: George W. Bush received preferential treatment and was allowed to duck his National Guard commitment because of his family and political connections.

And THAT underreported part of the story has never seemed to resonate with the so-called liberal media.

[Bampa]

11. Gee, will anyone investigate and fire those that used Williams?

Many modes of media, newspapers TV and radio used Armstrong Williams as a commentator or reference. Will any "Independent Review Panel" do the same for all of those media outlets?

[PurityOfEssence]

13. Dear Greg: you're very wrong on one major thing

Bear in mind, you're one of my heroes, and the chat we had when we met was a cherished moment, but you're way off on this: this isn't going to help Viacom. Redstone THINKS it will, but he doesn't know these people. The Bushies are vicious, vindictive, mediocre monarchists. They and their more talented minions will push more and more on Viacom for more concessions and debasing proofs of fealty, and when the company's been gutted of anything resembling independence or dissent, they'll destroy them. They'll destroy them utterly.

Bushworld is black-and-white because its circuitry is incapable of understanding anything else. Jeb is relatively intelligent, but the rest of them are truly embarrassing; the only claim they have on power is the sanctification of position: it's monarchy, and nothing less.