To Marshall, the right wing spinster.  A quote from a CBS executive in Wikipedia that CBS “could not authenticate” the documents is a far cry from proof that even a single documentwas a “forgery”.  Your Wikipedia reference merely confirms that the authenticity of the documents was challenged by numerous blogs shortly after the program aired.  This underscores what Mary Mapes said on Democracy Now! 

Ms. Mapes said she personally went back to the Texas National Guard archives and that her research revealed that these critiques were “totally and completely wrong.”

Typical of hard-right assaults, however, Mapes academic research was lost within the forrest of false accusations.  The hard-right assault on the Rather expose was a well-orchestrated campaign—the same type of campaign the hard-right engaged in when, as revealed by David Brock’s insider account in “Blinded by the Right,” the hard-right sought to smear the Clintons by launching the “Arkansas Project.”

Brock’s candid confessions expose the pseudo-scholarship that lies at the core of hard-right presentations.  For example, while he was at the “Washington Times” Brock was asked to do a favorable piece on Agosto Pinochet, something that required that he shut himself off from issues like torture and murder.  “I proved myself capable of papering over monstrous moral wrongs in the perceived morality of my cause.”

Your effort to equate this nation’s finest journalist and most outstanding news program (Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!) with nut-job, right wing propagandists (Russ Limbaugh and Ann Coulter aka “America’s Eva Braun”) is so palpably absurd as to be scarsely deserving of mention,  It only serves to underscore the level of your intellectual dishonesty.  As observed by Brock in “Blinded by the Right,” Limbaugh is an “old fashioned demagogue, staking a claim of moral superiority for those on ‘the right side’...instructing his listeners not to bother reading the papers:  ‘I will do all your reading, and tell you what to think about.’”  How can anyone compare that to the hard-hitting, fact-based, investigative journalism presented by Democracy Now!

Bad enough you have unjustifiably smeared Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, now you have to add Amy Goodman and Democracy Now?  When I place many of your deceptive posts within the context of “Blinded by the Right,” I can only observe that the level of your dishonesty is a “monstrous moral wrong.”

#88939 by Ernest Canning on 7/23 at 5:12 pm

Ernest - I have a general rule that I don’t except links from private “news” sites like moveon.org and democracynow.org.  In return, I promise never to post links to rushlimbaugh.com or Ann Coulter.  I think that’s a fair rule.

But in response to your post as informed by democracynow.org, I would urge you to read the wikipiedia entry on the Killian documents.  After reading this, if you still believe the affair was a right wing conspiracy, then we’ll leave it at that.  But it would be difficult for me to imagine a clear thinking person who still stands by the credibility of Killian (you should read his history) and by the authenticity of his documents.  I’m not going to list the many facts of the case - I’ll leave that to the wikipedia entry if you’ll take the time to read it.  But I suspect you won’t.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate

Marshall and BDA are both wrong.  There is not a scintilla of evidence that shows that even a single documents use by Rather about Bush’s AWOL status in the Texas Air Guard was a “forgery.” 

Rather’s CBS presentation was grounded upon two basic elements—a candid concession by former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes that he had pulled strings to get young George into the National Guard—an assignment that permitted George W. to avoid service in Vietnam, and a series of documents that support the claim that George W. had failed to fulfill his service obligations.  To this day, Mary Mapes, the producer of Rather’s CBS expose insists that the documents CBS obtained from former Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett were valid—documents which she vetted with multiple experts, some with thirty years experience, who opined they were valid though the experts could not state this with certainty because they were copies.

Per Mapes, by noon the following day “all hell broke loose….Everyone from the Drudge Report to websites I never heard of, like FreeRepublic.com, LittleGreenFootballs, all kinds of conservative sites attacked the story, all of them claiming that the documents were not authentic, that they had been forged, and they were citing really obscure type-face issues….They were also, by the way, totally and completely wrong.”  Mapes says she later researched National Guard archives in Texas, finding all of the proportional spacing and type-face in place.  She also noted that the secretary to Bush’s commander, though quoted in the wake of the broadcast as having stated that she did not personally prepare the memos, also stated that the memos accurately reflected what had been taking place at the time.

No matter, the “swift-boated” Mapes and Rather were fired over the story.  CBS claims this was because of faulty reporting.  Mapes contends she was fired because the CEO of Viacom, the CBS parent company, feared regulatory retaliation by the Bush administration.  When asked about the impact, Mapes noted:  “Oh, I think the lesson is clear.  Keep your head down and do celebrity interviews as often as possible; don’t rock the boat.”

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/09/163259

I believe it was Mark Twain who said a lie will make it half-way ‘round the world before the truth can slip its pants on.  This incident provides a classic example of how easy it is for the right wing to smear anyone who would dare speak truth to power, and of utter lack of intellectual integrity on the part of our resident, hard-right poster.  Shame on you Marshall!

Some of the documents were forged, but no one ever disputed the facts.  There was sufficient evidence that W did not fulfill his obligations to either the Texas or Alabama National Guard.  Isn’t it strange that a story like the Swift boat veterans smear campaign against Kerry could go on and on despite everyone who was actually there verified his accounts, but when attention was drawn to Bush’s lack of service, we get that it’s a witch hunt complete with forged documents?  I agree that CBS News and Dan Rather were completely in the wrong to use that as “evidence.”  Maybe that would have taken more work and they wanted to be first.  But as the Bushies have shown, discrediting the messenger does not change the underlying truth.

Dan Rather used obviously forged documents to make public accusations against Bush and continued to defend them even after it became obvious they were forgeries - how exactly is that “truth to power”?

No, Marshall, I am saying that the scope of acceptable discourse is broader when it is only comedy.  When ordinary commentators like Dan Rather speak truth to power, as occurred when he exposed the strings pulled to get George H.W.‘s “fortunate son” into a coveted position in the Texas Air National Guard and his going AWOL the corrupt corporate media comes down hard.

Oh so you think that Colbert has pulled the wool over the eyes of the medias corporate owners and is slipping in real “truth” right under their noses?

The brilliance of Colbert is that he can talk “as if” he is actually defending the degree to which news has degenerated into a corrupt capitalist system in which news is “owned” by a station’s sponsors, when, in fact, he is delivering a devastating blow.

It appears that comedic relief is one of the few avenues still left open within the conglomerated corporate media for those who would speak truth to power.