President AWOL
The Rather lawsuit still has my front-brain in a firm clasp. Largely I guess this is cuz it can proceed regardless of whether our elected representatives are vertebrate (recent data very discouraging) or can pull their heads out of unseemly orifices (their own or those of others) (ditto).
Which is to say, Congress, I am extremely disappointed in you, putting it way over-kind as there may be children present. In general, your performance truly sucks. Eleven percent support is about right.
I already did one post on this topic not too long ago. But I'm thrilled to have other heavyweights of the "Tubes" (designation I believe coined by the senior, most-senile under-investigation-with-indicted-son Senator from the formerly great state of Alaska) continuing to keep this important topic moving. Truthfully I thought I had also passed on ref to Blumenthal, and, if so, this is dupe. No biggie.
I'm here to do the same dissemination-reminding of this critical topic of our president's absolute criminal history. You're the man, Dan (i.e., Rather!). Thank goodness you did not spend it as you got it, and consequently are I gather sufficiently well-endowed now to be able to fund this yourself and fend off the absurd objections and quibbles of others. It may sound like I am speaking through a long tube, but that is not my intent.
Hopefully I am just one of multitudes weighing in to say something along the lines of "good on you." If you can be bothered, by all means please tell those sleazy, backbiting, cannibalistic, and shamefully jealous lesser lights who are out there pretending to do journalism for the corporate (i.e. bush-sycophant) media to find an egg to suck on (raw, preferably). The frenzy of criticism directed at you and your lawsuit is all we need to know about those trash.
If the night were longer, I were younger, and The Wedding was not this week, I'd bust a nut to track down one of several posts I have seen in the last week that delineated the big-name journalists who in desperate tones slammed you (and pooped themselves) in hopes it would take this story down. They know their "news" organizations dropped the ball big-time on the TANG story back in the day, desperate to have a questionable memo deep-six the whole issue, and totally obsessed with sucking up to the fake cowboy-adult-president (oh for three). The truly pathetic aspect is that they still want to think we are blind to the reality of the total failure of virtually all of the corporate media, including CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, and the WP on the issue of the total cowardice of george bush on military service, and his being truly the prototypical AWOL draft-dodger. No way in the most insane fantasist's (Laura?) wildest dreams could such a candidate be qualified to run for president.
Obviously there are a horde of fellow-travelers there, whose known inability to even vaguely resemble news-orgs are well-established and documented (Fox, WSJ, WT, CNN, et al). Presumably we here already know that nothing from them can even vaguely be considered "news" or credible without at least a couple alternate verifying sources.
But it occurs to me now - he wasn't just away without leave then. He's been continuously in that state ever since he was not elected but instead appointed under very questionable circumstances. Actually I am coming to think that the AWOL think may be the defining character trait. The descriptions of ghb's pre-TANG career suggest he was rarely present then either, either through not being present or intoxication. We probably have the defining characteristic here. Not Available.
We need leaders who actually deal with the real world and accept that it can be fuzzy and equivocal. Sorry junior lazy, cheat-whenever-you-can, it ain't often going to fit into that simple gradeschool mode you demand, namely right-wrong, us-them, no contrarian questioners allowed in the audience and bullying and sneering nicknaming your big ruse. The world out there that you work so hard to shield yourself from, which most of us have to live in, is more complex than that.
No, come to think of it, not sorry either.
I was thrilled that Sidney Blumenthal made a point of taking on the Rather cause. Please pursue link, I am only excerpting start of great stuff from SB:
Dan Rather’s complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as “CBS Evening News” anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They’ve said that the former anchor is “sad,” “pathetic,” “a loser,” on an “ego” trip and engaged in a mad gesture “no sane person” would do, and that “no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true.”
If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather’s suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization’s intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.
In making his case, Rather will certainly establish beyond reasonable doubt that George W. Bush never completed his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. Moreover, Rather’s suit will seek to demonstrate that the documents used in his “60 Minutes II” piece were not inauthentic and that he and his producers acted responsibly in presenting them and the information they contained — and that that information is true. Indeed, no credible source has refuted the essential facts of the story.
Most cases of this sort are usually settled before discovery. But Rather has made plain that he is uninterested in a cash settlement. He has filed his suit precisely to be able to take depositions.
In his effort to demonstrate his mistreatment, Rather will detail how network executives curried favor with the administration, offering him up as a human sacrifice. The panel that CBS appointed and paid millions to in order to investigate Rather’s journalism will be exposed as a shoddy kangaroo court.
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And here is Eric Boehlert:
At first, I was wondering whose blood was boiling hotter last week when former CBS news anchor Dan Rather announced he had filed a $70 million lawsuit against his former employer in response to Rather's unceremonious CBS exit following the botched 60 Minutes II story about President Bush and his military service.
Was it executives at CBS News who now face the prospect of reliving one of the network's darkest chapters via endless depositions from a plaintiff who says he won't accept a cash settlement?
Or was it right-wing bloggers, some of whom likely punched their TV sets in frustration watching Rather go on national television and claim, correctly, that nobody has ever proven that the memos he used in his report were fake, and pointing out that the basic facts of the Texas Air National Guard story -- that Bush walked away from his military commitment during the Vietnam War for months at a time--are still not in dispute.
After all, for lots of Bush bloggers, two absolute truths that must never be questioned in public are that the CBS memos were proven forgeries (they weren't), and that the whole Bush-skipped-out-on-his-National-Guard-duty story was bogus (it wasn't).
Turns out, though, 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.
That's why last week we got muddled recaps about how "CBS made allegations about Bush's Air National Guard Service during the Vietnam War. Problem was, the report wasn't based on authenticated documents." And it's why the Los Angeles Times referred to "a wholly unsubstantiated '60 Minutes II' segment alleging that a young George W. Bush used family connections to obtain favorable treatment that allowed him to evade service in the Texas Air National Guard." [Emphasis added.]
The simple, yet apparently elusive, truth is that CBS' report on Bush and the National Guard could have (and should have) been broadcast without the controversial memos. And if it had been, the results would have been exactly the same. Meaning, the documents were irrelevant because they provided texture (the supposed frustration of Bush's commander), not new facts about Bush's service. Yet journalists pretend the memos are the National Guard story and that without them, questions about Bush's military dodge disappear. Why do they think that? Based on the coverage last week, it's clear that journalists who mocked Rather still don't have the slightest clue what the established facts of the Guard story are.
That's not so surprising considering they spent two entire presidential campaign cycles doing their best to avoid the Guard story. (The primary exception was Walter Robinson at The Boston Globe, who nailed the story in 2000, only to watch his mainstream colleagues collectively ignore it.) The CBS controversy in 2004 simply provided the cover journalists needed to walk away from the story, and it's the same cover they cling to today.
-clip-
Which is to say, Congress, I am extremely disappointed in you, putting it way over-kind as there may be children present. In general, your performance truly sucks. Eleven percent support is about right.
I already did one post on this topic not too long ago. But I'm thrilled to have other heavyweights of the "Tubes" (designation I believe coined by the senior, most-senile under-investigation-with-indicted-son Senator from the formerly great state of Alaska) continuing to keep this important topic moving. Truthfully I thought I had also passed on ref to Blumenthal, and, if so, this is dupe. No biggie.
I'm here to do the same dissemination-reminding of this critical topic of our president's absolute criminal history. You're the man, Dan (i.e., Rather!). Thank goodness you did not spend it as you got it, and consequently are I gather sufficiently well-endowed now to be able to fund this yourself and fend off the absurd objections and quibbles of others. It may sound like I am speaking through a long tube, but that is not my intent.
Hopefully I am just one of multitudes weighing in to say something along the lines of "good on you." If you can be bothered, by all means please tell those sleazy, backbiting, cannibalistic, and shamefully jealous lesser lights who are out there pretending to do journalism for the corporate (i.e. bush-sycophant) media to find an egg to suck on (raw, preferably). The frenzy of criticism directed at you and your lawsuit is all we need to know about those trash.
If the night were longer, I were younger, and The Wedding was not this week, I'd bust a nut to track down one of several posts I have seen in the last week that delineated the big-name journalists who in desperate tones slammed you (and pooped themselves) in hopes it would take this story down. They know their "news" organizations dropped the ball big-time on the TANG story back in the day, desperate to have a questionable memo deep-six the whole issue, and totally obsessed with sucking up to the fake cowboy-adult-president (oh for three). The truly pathetic aspect is that they still want to think we are blind to the reality of the total failure of virtually all of the corporate media, including CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, and the WP on the issue of the total cowardice of george bush on military service, and his being truly the prototypical AWOL draft-dodger. No way in the most insane fantasist's (Laura?) wildest dreams could such a candidate be qualified to run for president.
Obviously there are a horde of fellow-travelers there, whose known inability to even vaguely resemble news-orgs are well-established and documented (Fox, WSJ, WT, CNN, et al). Presumably we here already know that nothing from them can even vaguely be considered "news" or credible without at least a couple alternate verifying sources.
But it occurs to me now - he wasn't just away without leave then. He's been continuously in that state ever since he was not elected but instead appointed under very questionable circumstances. Actually I am coming to think that the AWOL think may be the defining character trait. The descriptions of ghb's pre-TANG career suggest he was rarely present then either, either through not being present or intoxication. We probably have the defining characteristic here. Not Available.
We need leaders who actually deal with the real world and accept that it can be fuzzy and equivocal. Sorry junior lazy, cheat-whenever-you-can, it ain't often going to fit into that simple gradeschool mode you demand, namely right-wrong, us-them, no contrarian questioners allowed in the audience and bullying and sneering nicknaming your big ruse. The world out there that you work so hard to shield yourself from, which most of us have to live in, is more complex than that.
No, come to think of it, not sorry either.
I was thrilled that Sidney Blumenthal made a point of taking on the Rather cause. Please pursue link, I am only excerpting start of great stuff from SB:
Dan Rather’s complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as “CBS Evening News” anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They’ve said that the former anchor is “sad,” “pathetic,” “a loser,” on an “ego” trip and engaged in a mad gesture “no sane person” would do, and that “no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true.”
If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather’s suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization’s intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.
In making his case, Rather will certainly establish beyond reasonable doubt that George W. Bush never completed his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. Moreover, Rather’s suit will seek to demonstrate that the documents used in his “60 Minutes II” piece were not inauthentic and that he and his producers acted responsibly in presenting them and the information they contained — and that that information is true. Indeed, no credible source has refuted the essential facts of the story.
Most cases of this sort are usually settled before discovery. But Rather has made plain that he is uninterested in a cash settlement. He has filed his suit precisely to be able to take depositions.
In his effort to demonstrate his mistreatment, Rather will detail how network executives curried favor with the administration, offering him up as a human sacrifice. The panel that CBS appointed and paid millions to in order to investigate Rather’s journalism will be exposed as a shoddy kangaroo court.
-clip-
And here is Eric Boehlert:
At first, I was wondering whose blood was boiling hotter last week when former CBS news anchor Dan Rather announced he had filed a $70 million lawsuit against his former employer in response to Rather's unceremonious CBS exit following the botched 60 Minutes II story about President Bush and his military service.
Was it executives at CBS News who now face the prospect of reliving one of the network's darkest chapters via endless depositions from a plaintiff who says he won't accept a cash settlement?
Or was it right-wing bloggers, some of whom likely punched their TV sets in frustration watching Rather go on national television and claim, correctly, that nobody has ever proven that the memos he used in his report were fake, and pointing out that the basic facts of the Texas Air National Guard story -- that Bush walked away from his military commitment during the Vietnam War for months at a time--are still not in dispute.
After all, for lots of Bush bloggers, two absolute truths that must never be questioned in public are that the CBS memos were proven forgeries (they weren't), and that the whole Bush-skipped-out-on-his-National-Guard-duty story was bogus (it wasn't).
Turns out, though, 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.
That's why last week we got muddled recaps about how "CBS made allegations about Bush's Air National Guard Service during the Vietnam War. Problem was, the report wasn't based on authenticated documents." And it's why the Los Angeles Times referred to "a wholly unsubstantiated '60 Minutes II' segment alleging that a young George W. Bush used family connections to obtain favorable treatment that allowed him to evade service in the Texas Air National Guard." [Emphasis added.]
The simple, yet apparently elusive, truth is that CBS' report on Bush and the National Guard could have (and should have) been broadcast without the controversial memos. And if it had been, the results would have been exactly the same. Meaning, the documents were irrelevant because they provided texture (the supposed frustration of Bush's commander), not new facts about Bush's service. Yet journalists pretend the memos are the National Guard story and that without them, questions about Bush's military dodge disappear. Why do they think that? Based on the coverage last week, it's clear that journalists who mocked Rather still don't have the slightest clue what the established facts of the Guard story are.
That's not so surprising considering they spent two entire presidential campaign cycles doing their best to avoid the Guard story. (The primary exception was Walter Robinson at The Boston Globe, who nailed the story in 2000, only to watch his mainstream colleagues collectively ignore it.) The CBS controversy in 2004 simply provided the cover journalists needed to walk away from the story, and it's the same cover they cling to today.
-clip-
posted by Sir Gumbo at 8:53 PM
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