The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Rathergate, the timeline
: Ernie Miller just created an incredibly detailed timeline of CBS’ response to Rathergate. (This is what I mean when I say it’s hard to catch up on this story.) Just saw PowerLineBlog on FoxNews and now former CBS correspondent Liz Trotta is on the channel saying she’s “salivating at the thought of Dan Rather giving a Richard Nixon Checkers speech.”
Whoa! That’s one impressive summary of Rathergate.
I like that Mr. Miller wants to hold big media as a group accountable for not raising more of a stink about this. But the end result is just letting CBS News have more rope to hang themselves with.
Actually, the summary missed many of the current/former military folks who blog about the content of the document and how it does not conform to military standard.
On the other hand, instead of a Checkers speech, Rather could suffer a complete meltdown and come out with something along the lines of “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!” to all the weblogggers out there who contributed to his current jounalistic pickle.
gotten away with what exactly?
rather’s piece accused Bush of disobeying orders and not going to his annual medical exam, which eventually got him grounded. it claimed that he was given special help to get into the guard and got special treatment in leaving the guard.
if anyone got away with anything it would be the president, certainly not rather.
Personally, I hope for a five minute lunatic screeching followed by an indignant resignation, blaming Rush Limbaugh, George W Bush, and Kenneth.
The allusions to Watergate of RatherGate are just too numerous and too ironic: The very powerful hopelessly stonewalling a third rate crime (forgery, not burglary), tripped up by technology (blogs, not tapes), besieged by the media (led by the new this time). Pathos. The list goes on. Somewhere an ex-President is smiling.
gotten away with what exactly?
Er, how about trying to pass off forged documents as real and then refusing to admit you were wrong in the face of overwhelming opinion by document experts of their illegitamacy, Tony. Not to mention the secretary who says she didn’t type them (yes, she says that’s the way Killian though about Bush and she may be right, but I believe the legal term for that is “heresay”), and ABC News is now reporting the officer who reportedly was putting pressure on Killian, Col. Walter Staudt, is denying all the claims made in the newly-discovered memo.
Other than that, this is one of the most fantastic piece of invetigative journalism ever, right up there with Woodward and Bernstein, Upton Sinclar’s exposes of the meat packing indusrty, and the New York Times’ series of stories vis Frank Serpico on New York City police corruption.
As Shaggy would say, Zoiks! (and Dan has to be smoking whatever Shaggy’s been on for all these years to think his defense is fooling anyone paying the slightest bit of attention right now).
ever?
your sarcasm is hilarious.
so you believe a secretary who says that she clearly remembers not typing something 30 years ago, but you don’t pay much attention to the fact that she says that the contents are true?
that is even more hilarious.
Tony – John is not contradicting himself.
Do you understand logic? The evidence is false. OK? How about, if it doesn’t fit you must acquit? This is HEARSAY. It does not hold up to scrutiny. UNSUBSTANTIATED C-L-A-I-M-S. This is no more substantial than the claims about Kerry’s purple hearts.
I can believe you are the Easter Bunny. I can say I remember people saying you were the Easter Bunny and they hated you for it.
LMFAO @ Catherine. So, at the DNC the ridiculously giddy Kerry girls only had fond memories of their dad. Geez, as a daughter, with sisters, we now fondly recall times when we pissed our dad off and we remember him being Satan at the time. Recollection-Shemcollection: This was precisely what the media needed. An example screaming to the American ppl: Believe only what you hear, believe only what you see, NEVER believe anything you don’t hear and see. CBS’s credibility is finally revealed.
Catherine: from tony’s other postings I can see that at the very least he does not understand military procedure. Bush’s “failure” to get a medical exam wasn’t anything particularly serious — he already had garnered more than enough points to satisfy his obligations. Far from being considered a jerk and a layabout (or whatever horrid thing he was supposed to be) by his superiors, Bush seemed instead to be held in rather high regard by them — including by Lt. Col. Killian, who allegedly wrote this memo.
Anyway, no links because you all know how to use Google. And honest, you won’t get cooties from reading websites whose authors seem to like Bush, or at least not actively hate him.