CBS Report Holes, as Reported By Power Line
Hindrocket at Power Line not only read all 243 pages of the CBS report on the investigation into Rathergate, but he has posted a detailed analysis of the report.
In general, the Thornburgh report is better than I expected. It criticizes 60 Minutes harshly, and is a treasure trove of factual information.
However, he doesn't think it criticizes enough in some areas. He funds the denial of political bias “unpersuasive” and directs most of his baleful eye at Mary Mapes. Just a taste:
The Thornburgh report does an excellent job of analyzing the content of the fake documents, and showing that they are, in many respects, at odds with reality as we know it from other sources. And the report discloses for the first time that, during the course of her “investigation,” Mary Mapes was told that no influence was used to get President Bush into the National Guard, that there was no waiting list for pilots, and that Bush actually volunteered to go to Vietnam.
He also doubts the lack of bias claims based on other finding in the report:
The report, often in harsh and condemnatory language, specifically finds that the program misrepresented what CBS had been told by document examiners. It says, with respect to the interview with Robert Strong, that “virtually every excerpt used from the Lieutenant Strong interview was either inaccurate or misleading.” And it concludes that the Ben Barnes interview excerpts were “misleading.” These characterizations are at odds with the report's assurance that the problems with the report were due only to haste and competitive pressure.
He also digs into faint admissions of collaboration between Mary Mapes and the Kerry campaign:
In addition to Mapes's famous phone call to Joe Lockhart, asking him to talk to Bill Burkett, she had several conversations with Chad Clanton, who also worked for the Kerry campaign. Clanton told the panel that Mapes asked him what information the Kerry campaign had gotten from other reporters about the National Guard story, and also told him about the story she was working on for 60 Minutes.
And digs deeper…
First, it notes that early in the summer of 2004, Mapes wrote in an email that the program would air in September—a time usually devoted to reruns. At that time, the story had not yet coalesced; how could Mapes state with such assurance when it would run? Then, the program was moved at the last minute from late September to September 8. The Thornburgh panel attributes the haste with which the show was put together to this schedule change, but never asks why the change was made.
Since the DNC “Fortunate Son” campaign pitch started the day after the story was run, it's a little bit too coincidental for Hindrocket.
Read the whole thing…
Josh Poulson
Posted Monday, Jan 10 2005 04:10 PM
![[Feed]](http://pun.org/oslo/feed_blue_32.png){kind=small}
