I accept full responsibility, but not the blame
Watched the CBS evening news for the second time in ten years today. The first time was last week. I think that Rather's performance can be summed up thusly:
I accept full responsibility, but not the blame.
The good faith bit at the end seems really out of place considering the complete lack of thoroughness or even common sense CBS displayed. Even cutting them maximum slack, you have to assume that they thought this story was so sexy for its potential to damage Bush that they ignored all the warts, VD, and surplus-to-requirements facial hair. Call it the partisan journalistic analog of beergoggles. They ran with it in spite of all their friends telling them, "hey, that chick's really fat!" And now, the inexorable logic of beer goggling leads them to the coyote ugly moment. But Rather is still trying to pass it off, "No dude, she is hot."
While I was watching, I snorted my Diet Dr. Pepper when I heard the Dan say that they went to Burkett. Oh really? Then the big question is of course, if you went to Burkett, who told you to go there? Who is the unimpeachable source that you are protecting? Why are you protecting anyone? Not that any sort of journalistic ethics (even the rather thin and underfed ethics CBS has exhibited so far) would prevent you from turning on a source that rolled you.
The fact that two high level Kerry aides have now admitted to speaking with Burkett before the 60 minutes piece suggests some stinky going on. A lot of evidence is pointing in the direction that at least some in the Kerry campaign knew of the material that ended up in the 60 minutes report before CBS did. The timing of the "Fortunate Son" campaign that even used footage from 60 minutes suggests foreknowledge. If memogate gets connected to the Kerry campaign, he's really, really toast.
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Diet Dr. Pepper is the least
Diet Dr. Pepper is the least bad diet soda. Years ago, as I was transitioning from slacker to born again college student, I spent a few months living with Mom. She drinks diet soda, so perforce I drank diet soda. I got used to it, and now regular soda tastes sickly sweet. Diet DP, with Diet Coke a close second, is the most palatable of the diet drinks.
Sadly, diet drinks do not make good mixers. If I plan on having mixed drinks, I must go out and buy regular soda. And then, I must consume enough mixed drinks to get rid of all the soda, so that it doesn't take up space in the fridge for months.
That would be bad. Using
That would be bad. Using "Fortunate Son," a song specifically about Vietnam, was just moronic.
But (as I updated my post below to ask), would that be worse, or just different, than telling the voters in West Virginia that the Liberals, who are apparently the true backers of John Kerry, are dead set on banning the Bible?
I answered that question in
I answered that question in the comments to that post.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Wait a minute, wait a minute..."Diet Dr. Pepper"?
I hope you were using it to drop shotglasses of flaming rum into.
Otherwise, blugh.