[Media-watch] FW: [naspir] CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE

[David Miller]

----------
From: "philbc03" <phil.b-c at lycos.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:10:29 -0000
To: naspir at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [naspir] CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE




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?

Then there's Boccardi, not exactly a prince of
journalism. This is the gent who, as CEO of the
Associated Press, spiked his own wire service's
exposure of Oliver North and his traitorous
dealings with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Legendary
AP investigative reporters Robert Parry and Brian
Barger found their stories outing the Iran-Contra
scandal in 1986 stopped by their bosses. They did
not know that Boccardi was on those very days
deep in the midst of talks with North,
participating in the conspiracy.

Today I spoke with Parry at his home in Virginia.
He was sympathetic to Boccardi who at the time
was trying to spring AP reporter Terry Anderson
held hostage in Iran. But to do so, Boccardi
joined, unwittingly, in a criminal conspiracy to
trade guns for hostages. He then spiked his own
news agency's investigation of it. Parry later
discovered a 1986 email from North to John
Poindexter in which North notes that Boccardi "is
supportive of our terropism (sic) policy" and
wants to keep the story "quiet." Poindexter was
indicted, then pardoned. Boccardi was not, and
there is no indication he knew he was abetting a
crime. But the AP demoted journalist Barger and
forced him to quit for -- the offense of trying
to report the biggest story of the decade. This
hardly gives Mr. Spike the qualification to pass
judgment on working journalists.

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.

And what was the crime committed by Mapes and,
let's not forget, Dan Rather, whose career was
also toasted by the story?

CBS said, "The Panel found that Mapes ignored
information that cast doubt on the story she had
set out to report -- that President Bush had
received special treatment 30 years ago, getting
to the [Texas Air National] Guard ahead of many
other applicants &#133;."

Well, excuse me, but that story is stone cold
solid, irrefutable, backed-up, sourced, proven to
a fare-thee-well. I know, because I'm one of the
reporters who broke that story &#133; way back in
1999, for the Guardian papers of Britain. No one
has challenged the Guardian report, or my
follow-up for BBC Television, whatsoever, though
we've begged the White House for a response from
our self-proclaimed "war president."

CBS did not "break" this Chicken-Hawk George
story; it's just that Dan Rather, with Mapes'
encouragement, found his journalistic soul and
the cojones, finally, after 5 years delay, to
report it. Did Bush get special treatment to get
into the Guard? Baby Bush tested in the 25th
percentile out of 100. Yet, he leaped ahead of
thousands of other Vietnam evaders because the
then-Speaker of the Texas legislature sent a
message to General Craig Rose, head of the Guard,
to let in Little George and a few other sons of
well-placed politicos.

[See some of the documentation at
http://www.gregpalast.com/ulf/documents/draftdodgeblanked.jpg

and a clip from the BBC Television report at
http://www.gregpalast.com/images/TrailerClips.mov]

Mapes and Rather did make a mistake, citing a
memo which could not be authenticated. But let's
get serious folks: this "Killian" memo had not a
darn thing to do with the story-in-chief -- the
President's using his daddy's connections to duck
out of Vietnam. The Killian memo was a goofy
little addition to the story (not included in my
Guardian or BBC reports).

So CBS inquisitors took this minor error and used
it to discredit the story and ruin careers of
reporters who allowed themselves an unguarded
moment of courage. And, crucial to the network's
real agenda, this nonsensical distraction allowed
the White House to resurrect the fake reputation
of George Bush as Vietnam-era top gun.

CBS executives' model was clearly the hatchet job
done on BBC news last year by the so-called
"Hutton Report." In that case, some used-up
lordship viciously attacked the BBC's ballsy
uncovering of an official lie: that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Lord
Hutton seized on a minor error by one reporter to
attempt to discredit the entire BBC investigation
of governmental mendacity.

In Britain, the public stood with the "Beeb." But
in my own country, the American press itself,
notably the New York Times, has joined in the
lynch mob, repeating the allegations against the
investigative reporters without any independent
verification of the charges whatsoever.

I would note that neither CBS nor the New York
Times punished a single reporter for passing on,
as hard news, the Bush Administration fibs and
whoppers about Saddam Hussein's nuclear and
biological weapons programs. Shameful repetitions
of propaganda produced no resignations -- indeed,
picked up an Emmy or two.

Yes, I believe heads should roll at CBS: those of
the "news" chieftains who for five years ignored
the screaming evidence about George Bush's
dodging the draft during the war in Vietnam.

At the top of the network's craven and dead wrong
apology to the President is that cyclopsian CBS
eyeball. But I suspect that CBS itself has little
interest in eating its own flesh. This vile
spike-after-broadcast serves only its master, the
owner of CBS, Viacom Corporation.

"From a Viacom standpoint, the election of a
Republican administration is a better deal.
Because the Republican administration has stood
for many things we believe in, deregulation and
so on&#133;. I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and
I do believe that a Republican administration is
better for media companies than a Democratic one."

That more-than-revealing statement, made weeks
before the presidential election, by Sumner
Redstone, billionaire honcho of CBS' parent
company, wasn't reported on CBS. Why not? Someone
should investigate.

Viacom needs the White House to bless its
voracious and avaricious need to bust current
ownership and trade rules to add to its global
media monopoly. Placing the severed heads of
reporters who would question the Bush mythology
on the White House doorstep will certainly ease
the way for Viacom's ambitions.

At the least, at the upcoming inaugural parties,
CBS' ruler Redstone can expect that White House
occupants will give him a standing Rove-ation.

---
Greg Palast's report for BBC Television on the
President's evasion of the military draft can be
seen in the BBC documentary, "Bush Family
Fortunes," updated in a special US edition on
DVD. See a segment at
http://www.gregpalast.com/images/TrailerClips.mov.

Palast is the author of the New York Times
bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."
View his writings www.GregPalast.com For
interviews, contact media(at)GregPalast.com






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