- "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 ."
-
- 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 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/and
a clip from the BBC Television report at http://www.gregpalast.com/]
-
- 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. 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@GregPalast.com
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