CBS considered Drudge, Coulter, Limbaugh as part of ‘independent’ panel to review Rather in 2004.
CBS considered Drudge, Coulter, Limbaugh as part of ‘independent’ panel to review Rather in 2004.
Four years ago Dan Rather notoriously reported false information on President Bush’s military service. On Sept. 22, 2004, CBS announced that it was forming an “independent review panel” to investigate the controversy, composed of former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former AP head Louis Boccardi. Newly public documents show that prior to choosing the two men, CBS had tossed around other possible panel candidates such as right-wing pundits such as Matt Drudge, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Bill Kristol. Below is CBS’s full list of these “others”:
* William Buckley
* Robert Novak
* Kate O’Beirne
* Nicholas Von Hoffman
* Tucker Carlson
* Pat Buchanan
* George Will
* Lou Dobbs
* Matt Drudge
* Robert Barkley
* Robert Kagan
* Fred Barnes
* William Kristol
* John Podhoretz
* David Brooks
* William Safire
* Bernard Goldberg
* Ann Coulter
* Andrew Sullivan
* Christopher Hitchens
* PJ O’Rourke
* Christopher Caldwell
* Elliot Abrams
* Charles Krauthammer
* William Bennett
* Rush Limbaugh
At the very bottom of the list, someone wrote in one more name. “Roger Ailes.”
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It would have been an independent panel alright.
Independent of ethics, morals, critical thinking, and anything that makes anyone a decent human being…
November 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pmWow! Talking about stacking the deck. I’m sure that ‘independent’ panel would have been ‘fair and balanced’…..NOT!
November 7th, 2008 at 12:47 pmSay, where is the Coultergeist anyway??
November 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pm….Ann Coulter? Really?
That woman is out of her mind.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pmThis sounds more like volunteers for firing squad duty. What bush-suck eunuch put this who’s who of right-wing bozos together?
CBS: Fair & Balanced…
November 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pmThey really wanted to get rid of Dan Rather…geez.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:51 pmHey, Rather didnt report false info — he reported inadequately sourced info — BIG difference…
November 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pmsounds like a set up to me.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pmSo who put this list together?
Karl Rove? Scooter Libby?
November 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pm26 reasons why America is not “center-right” nation.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pmCurlew Says: They really wanted to get rid of Dan Rather…geez.
And his multi-million salary. SAVING$$$! And the last(?) of the old-school anchors (Jennings, Brokaw, Rather).
November 7th, 2008 at 12:58 pmwolfz0rz Says: #4
That woMAN is out of it’s mind.
Sorry, had to correct that for you.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:58 pmWhat? Michael Savage was not available?
November 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pm.
So, if I wanted to examine how a misleading story grew legs I should compile a league of LIARS and PAID PROPAGANDISTS for a certain political ideology to do the job?
p.s.
Why is Coulter suddenly all the rage on the MSM again?
.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pmThe forged documents were planted by Rove and/or some other right wing operative.
Unfortunately it worked; it changed the whole narrative.
¶ AIO
November 7th, 2008 at 1:00 pmAs I recall, Rather’s material had been purposefully mis-sourced. Didn’t he read the list of the first 500 casualties in Iraq on the news? At any rate CBS obviously threw their top guy to the wolves. But hey, things are certainly looking up with what’s-her-face, huh?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pmWhy would they have to have an ‘independent’ panel to review anything? Couldn’t they just have had a meeting to discuss the pros and cons of Rather’s report like most other corporations?
Dan Rather got hosed, reamed and thrown under every bus CBS could find.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm#7 RWeSafer Says:
Sort of like Bush reported inadequately sourced info about Iraq, too…
… NO?
.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pmThe info in those documents was true. It’s just that the documents were a compilation and not the authenic originals.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pmI wonder how long it took for them to figure out that if they investigated themselves they had nothing to worry about.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pmMax-1 Says:
Why is Coulter suddenly all the rage on the MSM again?
___________
Dunno… mebbe folks are easily amused by the sight of an obvious transsexual who’s so stridently against gay rights.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:05 pm.
… I don’t recognize a single registered Independent on that list.
A few moderate CONservatives and a slew of (R)ight ideologues.
.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:06 pmmy gawd! is there an actual JOURNALIST on that list???
November 7th, 2008 at 1:06 pmWow. Now, *that’s* a Who’s Who of Wingnuts if I ever saw it!!
Yikes.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:07 pmCBS considered Drudge, Coulter, Limbaugh as part of ‘independent’ panel…
____________
Independent panel??? WTF??? More like a hit squad…
November 7th, 2008 at 1:07 pm.
That’s like the “INDEPENDENT” panel appointed up by the Governor of Alaska to investigate if the Governor of Alaska used her Office to improperly apply pressure on a State employee…
… And we all know how that ended.
.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pmReporting false info? REALLY!!?? You mean like the Bush Administration and the Pentagon’s media propaganda campaign that CBS was more than happy to feed to the American public?
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/103345/private_military_contractors_writing_the_news_the_pentagon’s_propaganda_at_its_worst/
That list of panel candidates should be hanging in every Post Office across the Nation. A melange of neocons, fascists, loonatics and PNAC signatories(of whom I count at least seven on that list) who all deserve to be rounded up and shipped off to a dark dank place.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:16 pmHUH?!?!?!?!? WTF?!?!?!?
What are they smoking????
Cheers,
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pmStands to reason, actually.
The basic imperative of modern ‘journalism’ is “Don’t make the viewers send nastygrams to publishers, Corporate, or advertisers.”
The Wingnuts have a well-trained and well-oiled nastygram generating machine, which they will spin up as soon as reality intrudes into their radar, so the intelligent media manager/executive tries very hard NOT to bring the right wing into inadvertent contact with reality, and reacts immediately to apologize and placate them when it happens.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pmIn the past, Mr. Rather has criticized CBS’s choice of panel members, alleging that Mr. Thornburgh’s association with the Bush family (President George H. W. Bush appointed Mr. Thornburgh to his position as U.S. Attorney General) undermined the panel’s objectivity.
“Discovery to date reveals far more,” Mr. Rather’s legal team wrote this week. “Only conservative lawyers were considered for the Panel; their names were vetted by Viacom’s Washington lobbyists (as well as with unnamed ‘GOP folks’).”
In a response to the judge dated November 3, here’s how CBS lawyers countered:
[A]s is clear from the deposition testimony, because of the perception that CBS News and Dan Rather had a liberal bias, CBS purposefully chose a Republican lawyer, not for any nefarious purpose, but to open itself up to its harshest conservative critics and to ensure that the Panel’s findings would be found credible.
Well, my perception is that CBS (and their owner Viacom of course) were sniviling cowards for whom the truth meant nothing.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pmThat list of panel candidates should be hanging across the Nation
Fixed it for you.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pmDid Rather report false information about Bush’s National Guard career? Or was it correct information backed up by fabricated documents?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pmI guess CBS was trying to prove how “fair and balanced” they were in their efforts to screw Dan Rather who had the story but whose source apparently “reconstructed” the damning evidence of Junior’s military history. To this day I have to wonder whether it was some kind of set-up or just another fock-up…
====
November 7th, 2008 at 1:26 pmHow in the world did they go from some of the biggest hate mongers and Kool-Aid drinkers in the country to Dick Thornburgh? Oh..didn’t they have Glenn Beck’s number?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:32 pmCan anyone say “lynch mob”?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:32 pmWho does CBS think they are kidding and did they believe thefacts would not come out?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pmWhat a farce!
S.D. Says:
Say, where is the Coultergeist anyway??
‘She’ has been in hiding since ‘her’ estrogen injections have been wearing off and ‘her’ 5 o’clock shadow became a Grizzly Adams’ full beard.
But not to worry, ’she’ had some new treatments and ‘her’ facial hair and Adams Apple are shrinking once again.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pmSince when was it proven that Dan Rather, a former U.S. Marine and southern Texas Oil Patch American “notoriously reported false information”? The Thornberg investigation never proved the memos were forgeries. And even though the Killian memos were never proven beyond doubt one way or another, the substance of Rather’s report was essentially true: he was given preferential treatment to avoid service in Vietnam. However the Niger yellow-cake uranium documents WERE PROVEN forgeries but the U.S. media seemed unwilling to emphasize that littel fact.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:20 pmThat is BUSH was given preferential treatment to avoid service in Vietnam!
November 7th, 2008 at 3:21 pmWow. I knew Rather got royally screwed but that’s outrageous.
CBS considering these wingers for their Rather “independent review panel” is sorta like Frank Perdue announcing plans to have foxes guard his hen house. Funny how the Grand Poobah himself, lifelong Dem Sumner Redstone, flipped Republican two days later.
-AF
November 7th, 2008 at 5:48 pmAndrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
To be fair, Ann Coulter is quite independent. From reality, I mean.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:08 pmIt’s unfortunate to see Nicholas von Hoffman and Robert Barkley get lumped in with this murderer’s row of neo-cons.
-AF
November 7th, 2008 at 6:45 pmMy understanding is the story was true and that the story did not hinge on those documents alone. The deal with documents was that they could not be proven OR disproven as authentic.
Everyone, please subscribe to RepresentativePress on YouTube. Unlike every other channel on YouTube, I don’t get listed as a partner. I am getting marginalized which is a shame since some of hte most important things I report don’t get heard in nearly all media outlets INCLUDING most Internet media outlets.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:46 pmCBS was identified as a Zionist-Nazi controlled organization some years ago. That explains the list.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:32 am