BigBadBrian
01-12-2005, 01:43 PM
Not Finding Bias, or Ducks
Jay Bryant
January 12, 2005
The Thornburgh Independent Review Panel report on the September 8, 2004 Bush-Air National Guard story on 60 Minutes II didn't find any evidence of political bias at CBS.
This is not surprising, since they didn't look for any.
Dick Thornburgh thereby joins the growing fraternity of establishment Republican report writers who have proven themselves unwilling to rake any real muck, call a spade a spade, a liberal a liberal or a bucket of hogwash a bucket of hogwash.
Other notables in this group include Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission and John Danforth, author of the official report on the Branch Dravidian disaster. Frankly, Ken Starr belongs in the wimp club, too, and I don't care what it says in Bill Clinton's library.
It's like all these guys had mothers who told them if they couldn't say something nice not to say anything at all.
Yet another initiate stands waiting in the wings; Paul Volcker's preliminary report on the United Nations Oil-For-Food scandal is due at the end of this month, and the final report is scheduled in June. The former Federal Reserve chief has already released a series of audits that show lousy management practices at the UN, but contain no "flaming red flags" according to Volcker, who has also indicated Saddam may "only" have skimmed off about $2 billion from the program – not the $15 to $20 billion others have estimated. Maybe he's right, but $2 billion is still enough to fill a lot of suitcases back at Ye Olde Presidential Palace, and it sure sounds to me like Volcker's planning a Thornburgh-like finale.
The Washington Times calls the CBS report "meticulously researched," but that is true only in those areas Thornburgh, retired Associated Press honcho Louis Boccardi and their team chose to research. In the two-paragraph Section II (H), entitled "Political Agenda," the second paragraph begins, "Given that the Panel does not believe that political motivations drove the September 8 Segment," and then goes on to offer an alternative explanation as to why the previously described "massive breakdowns" in journalistic standards occurred.
The conclusion is that Dan Rather and segment producer Mary Mapes were a "formidable force" at 60 Minutes II, and were given "vast deference."
That begs a critical question: what was the motivation of Mapes and Rather? "Deference" may explain the behavior of everyone else at CBS, but it doesn't explain the behavior of those being deferred to.
In Section II (H) Paragraph 1, the report acknowledges that "some have ascribed political motivations" to the story. Moreover, "The Panel reviewed this issue and found certain actions that could support such charges." Nonetheless it "cannot conclude" that the charges are true.
I mean really, how wimpy can you get?
Don't take seriously any of the claims you may read about how "tough", "devastating", and "condemnatory" the Thornburgh document is. The network got exactly – exactly – what it wanted out of the report. It didn't want a complete whitewash; that would have not been credible and would have caused far more problems than it solved. So it needed a report that could be accepted as tough by the mainstream media, but was not so devastating and condemnatory as to require the firing of CBS News President Andrew Heyward or Managing Editor Dan Rather, who having retired as CBS Evening News anchorman continues at the scene of the crime, 60 Minutes II. So Mapes and three others got scapegoated, and won't it be interesting to see where she lands?
The network also wanted no definitive statement that the Bill Burkett documents were phony and, most important of all, no finding of political bias in the preparation of the story.
They got both. In neither case did the Thornburgh panel investigate leads that might have answered those questions. So it is patently clear they didn't want to know the answer. Don't ask, don't tell.
In the Wimp Republican Investigative Fraternity, if someone like Mapes or Rather tell you it is "absolutely, unequivocally untrue" that they have a political agenda, then the only decent, good-hearted, remember-what-your-mother-taught-you thing to do is drop the issue right there and offer everyone some cookies.
And if document fence Bill Burkett says a woman named Lucy Ramirez gave him the stuff, but won't cooperate with the investigation, well what can we do? Try to find Lucy on our own? Who do you think we are, Woodward and Bernstein?
Speaking of whom, now there was an investigation! What fun it would be if the Republicans had someone like Sam Ervin, who would surely say of Mapes' and Rather's partisanship, "If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
Jay Bryant
January 12, 2005
The Thornburgh Independent Review Panel report on the September 8, 2004 Bush-Air National Guard story on 60 Minutes II didn't find any evidence of political bias at CBS.
This is not surprising, since they didn't look for any.
Dick Thornburgh thereby joins the growing fraternity of establishment Republican report writers who have proven themselves unwilling to rake any real muck, call a spade a spade, a liberal a liberal or a bucket of hogwash a bucket of hogwash.
Other notables in this group include Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission and John Danforth, author of the official report on the Branch Dravidian disaster. Frankly, Ken Starr belongs in the wimp club, too, and I don't care what it says in Bill Clinton's library.
It's like all these guys had mothers who told them if they couldn't say something nice not to say anything at all.
Yet another initiate stands waiting in the wings; Paul Volcker's preliminary report on the United Nations Oil-For-Food scandal is due at the end of this month, and the final report is scheduled in June. The former Federal Reserve chief has already released a series of audits that show lousy management practices at the UN, but contain no "flaming red flags" according to Volcker, who has also indicated Saddam may "only" have skimmed off about $2 billion from the program – not the $15 to $20 billion others have estimated. Maybe he's right, but $2 billion is still enough to fill a lot of suitcases back at Ye Olde Presidential Palace, and it sure sounds to me like Volcker's planning a Thornburgh-like finale.
The Washington Times calls the CBS report "meticulously researched," but that is true only in those areas Thornburgh, retired Associated Press honcho Louis Boccardi and their team chose to research. In the two-paragraph Section II (H), entitled "Political Agenda," the second paragraph begins, "Given that the Panel does not believe that political motivations drove the September 8 Segment," and then goes on to offer an alternative explanation as to why the previously described "massive breakdowns" in journalistic standards occurred.
The conclusion is that Dan Rather and segment producer Mary Mapes were a "formidable force" at 60 Minutes II, and were given "vast deference."
That begs a critical question: what was the motivation of Mapes and Rather? "Deference" may explain the behavior of everyone else at CBS, but it doesn't explain the behavior of those being deferred to.
In Section II (H) Paragraph 1, the report acknowledges that "some have ascribed political motivations" to the story. Moreover, "The Panel reviewed this issue and found certain actions that could support such charges." Nonetheless it "cannot conclude" that the charges are true.
I mean really, how wimpy can you get?
Don't take seriously any of the claims you may read about how "tough", "devastating", and "condemnatory" the Thornburgh document is. The network got exactly – exactly – what it wanted out of the report. It didn't want a complete whitewash; that would have not been credible and would have caused far more problems than it solved. So it needed a report that could be accepted as tough by the mainstream media, but was not so devastating and condemnatory as to require the firing of CBS News President Andrew Heyward or Managing Editor Dan Rather, who having retired as CBS Evening News anchorman continues at the scene of the crime, 60 Minutes II. So Mapes and three others got scapegoated, and won't it be interesting to see where she lands?
The network also wanted no definitive statement that the Bill Burkett documents were phony and, most important of all, no finding of political bias in the preparation of the story.
They got both. In neither case did the Thornburgh panel investigate leads that might have answered those questions. So it is patently clear they didn't want to know the answer. Don't ask, don't tell.
In the Wimp Republican Investigative Fraternity, if someone like Mapes or Rather tell you it is "absolutely, unequivocally untrue" that they have a political agenda, then the only decent, good-hearted, remember-what-your-mother-taught-you thing to do is drop the issue right there and offer everyone some cookies.
And if document fence Bill Burkett says a woman named Lucy Ramirez gave him the stuff, but won't cooperate with the investigation, well what can we do? Try to find Lucy on our own? Who do you think we are, Woodward and Bernstein?
Speaking of whom, now there was an investigation! What fun it would be if the Republicans had someone like Sam Ervin, who would surely say of Mapes' and Rather's partisanship, "If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck."