I haven’t commented on the whole CBS report/Armstrong Williams affair because, well, I haven’t commented on anything in a few days. My positions:
Williams- Stupid all the way around. Stupid for Williams to accept the money, stupid for the administration to offer the money. And probably illegal. This doesn’t outrage me that much, because I don’t think the money influenced Williams’s position- he has always been in favor of school vouchers. However, when the administration screws up such simple things like this- something that is so blatantly wrong, it makes me worry about how they really are handling the more important issues of the day. Like, say, Iraq.
Kimmitt
You know why Jack Bauer shot one guy and not another? Because it was in the fricking script.
That was his point. That the script was sucky. Geez.
jeff
Actually, i think his point was to try and relate it to real events, which made it stupid.
And your comment is to the wrong post, although I’m responding to a comment in the wrong post, which makes me just as bad.
Kimmitt
Gloriously postmodern, though.
S.W. Anderson
A stab at commenting on the right post here.
John wrote: “CBS- Why can’t they just admit it was political bias motivating this jiahd? And why did Rather get off with no punishment?
Whose political bias? Mapes’? Rather’s? Everyone at CBS? I don’t know for sure and neither do you, although you feel you do.
The extensive report co-written by a former Republican governor and U.S. attorney general said there was no political motivation. But hey, what does he know? He only did a lot of face-to-face interviews, fact-checking and follow-ups at CBS.
Rather wasn’t made the fall guy. Check around and you’ll find that there’s no managing editor, I don’t care how conscientious, who reads and doublechecks everything everyone on his staff produces
S.W. Anderson
John wrote: “when the administration screws up such simple things like this- something that is so blatantly wrong, it makes me worry about how they really are handling the more important issues of the day. Like, say, Iraq.”
Funny you should mention that. I just posted an item at Oh!pinion that should resolve your uncertainty.
Josh
Let’s stop talking about memogate and get back to blaming Bush for things that irritate us.
There’s a ton of bugs in my bathroom thanks to Bush yano. I think they started showing up when I had Karl Rove over for Thanksgiving.
Terry
Don Hewitt, the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes until May of last year, certainly appears to acknowledhe the existence of “bias,” as from this Hardball quote: “Does anybody really think there wouldn’t have been more scrutiny if this had been about John Kerry?”
HH
The deep digging the investigators did on bias seemed to consist entirely of asking Rather and Mapes if they were biased, then accepting their responses without question.
Kinda like how their own expert ONCE AGAIN pointed out the docs were forgeries and they chose not to trust him.
Slartibartfast
That doesn’t PROVE bias, HH, any more than Mapes’ emails waxing enthusiastic over the possibility of a news story damaging to the President do.
I could live without an admission of bias, provided we got an admission of spectacular ineptitude, along with (and this has, as far as I’ve seen, not happened) a retraction of the story combined with an apology to President Bush for going with a news report that was in effect a personal attack editorial dressed up as news. They might as well have let Atrios take command of 60 Minutes.