From the WSJ Opinion Archives
All
the News That's Fake but Accurate
Today's New York Times has an update on the scandal over Dan Rather's use of
fraudulent documents in last week's hit piece on President Bush. Oddly, the
Times piece lacks a byline, but it has what may be the greatest headline ever:
"Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says."
Fake but accurate! If this is the New York Times' new standard of journalism, does it apply to all stories, or only the ones that seek to make President Bush look bad?
Mr.
Monkeyfisher Weighs In
Mike Kinsley must have a certain amount of sympathy for Dan Rather. After all,
Kinsley went through something similar three years ago, when this column exposed
how Kinsley, then editor of Slate, had fallen for an obvious
hoax. Kinsley first stonewalled,
Rather-style, then apologized,
but only after a New
York Times investigation proved the story was not only fake but inaccurate.
Anyway, Kinsley recently landed a new job as editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, and today--in an editorial we're willing to bet Kinsley himself wrote--the paper weighs in on the "60 Minutes" scandal. The editorial begins by acknowledging that "CBS News was had," but then goes on to make the following curious statement:
Whatever the truth, CBS' real error was trying to prove a point that didn't need to be proved. It doesn't take documents for anyone to realize that Bush pulled strings to get into the National Guard.
Whoa there, Mike. CBS's "real error" was "trying to prove a point that didn't need to be proved"? Here we thought CBS's real error was publishing false information! If Kinsley doesn't think that was a "real error," we begin to understand how the monkeyfishing article got published back in 2001.
Clueless
in Reuterville
In a dispatch discussing the Rather scandal, Reuters "reports":
First lady Laura Bush, in an interview with Radio Iowa, said the documents in question were "probably" forgeries. "I think that's terrible, really," she said. She did not explain why she thought they were forgeries.
Uh, maybe because everyone but CBS says they are?
Scam Spam
Our item
yesterday on CBS prompted numerous readers to send us copies of e-mails
they had submitted to scams@cbsnews.com.
Our favorite comes from Matthias Shapiro:
I was watching the television the other day and there was this older guy trying to pawn off some antiques. They looked genuine at first glance, but then I talked to some friends who know something about this kind of antique. They said that it could be reproduced quite easily with modern equipment. When I checked back with the old television guy, he assured me that it was genuine. I didn't know what to do!
Finally, someone pointed me to a Web site where I could see a side-by-side comparison of a cheaply reproduced product (made in only a few minutes!) with the antique being pawned. Identical matches. I'm glad I wasn't scammed, but there may be thousands who didn't see this comparison and might think that the fake antiques are real! If you could look into it, I think you'll save a lot of people from making a terrible mistake.
The television station was channel 46 in Atlanta, and I think the old guy's name was Ran Dather, or some such nonsense. I appreciate the work you do, keeping the public informed of those treacherous scams out there!
Meanwhile, reader William Girardot elaborates on one of the conspiracy theories floating around:
Jeez, I haven't tuned into the "CBS Evening News" for nearly 20 years, and now I can't wait to get home to find out what bizarro argument Kenneth (uh, I mean Dan) will assert tonight in defense of his memos! His ratings are probably going through the roof as conservatives line up to hang on his every utterance!
Is this part of some oh-so clever scheme cooked up by both Kenneth and Karl Rove?
We're not sure. You'd think if the network were doing this for a ratings boost, it'd wait till sweeps month. Another theory that's occurred to us is that the Clintons are behind it, hoping to sabotage the Kerry campaign so as to clear the deck for Hillary in 2008. But why would the Clintons need to sabotage the Kerry campaign? That would be redundant.
Tailgunner
Dan
The Hysterical Left loves to shout "McCarthyism!"--and hey, maybe
they're on to something without realizing it. Click on the link above and you'll
see a 1954 Herblock cartoon that suddenly seems fresh again. It shows Dan Rather--sorry,
Joe McCarthy--standing at a desk saying, "I have here in my hand . . ."
In his hands are two documents, one marked "doctored photo" the other
"faked letter." (That Herblock was subtle!)
Of course, even Joe McCarthy would have known better than to use Microsoft Word.
Dan
Rather, Call Your Boss!
"We have to accept that there is a broad array of news, pseudo-news, ersatz
news, metanews. And one of our roles over time is going to be to sort through
all those things and actually say, 'What are the facts?' I can actually see
a more powerful role for network news growing out of this cacophony of different
sources where we say, 'You know what? If you knew that when you came to CBS
you would absolutely get something that we could verify and prove and present
with backup and credibly say that we have no agenda whatsoever,' that would
actually be--not to sound crass about it--not only valuable to the public but
very marketable."--CBS News president Andrew Heyward, quoted in the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, Sept. 14
What
Would CBS Do Without Experts?
Well, actually we guess we've had an answer to that over the past week. Now
ABC News reports that CBS News, in preparing its phony story on President Bush,
ignored the advice of experts it consulted who expressed doubts about the "memos":
Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said. . . .
"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News.
A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. . . . "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."
A third examiner hired by CBS for its story, Marcel Matley, appeared on CBS Evening News last Friday and was described as saying the document was real.
Matley later said he vouched only for the signature, not the Microsoft Word-generated text. The Washington Post also has interviews with Will and James.
The New York Sun reports that USA Today, which also fell for the scam, is conducting an internal investigation, which "may set off a feeding frenzy on CBS News if it turns out the documents were faked." Wow, if this isn't a feeding frenzy, we can't wait to see what one looks like.
Anarchy
Rules
During the Republican Convention, we tried to get some of the Bush-hating anarchist
"protesters" in the streets of New York to explain to us why we should
vote for John Kerry. None of them had an answer. Well, here's one: To
judge by the state of the Kerry campaign, the candidate himself is an anarchist.
As CBS News, another organization in disarray, reports:
Longtime Democratic insider Tony Coelho lashed out at the John Kerry presidential campaign, characterizing it as a campaign in chaos. With yet another appointment of a former Clinton administration staffer to Kerry's team on Tuesday, Coelho argues the problem is worsening.
"There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other," says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign.
Here's a truly bizarre Coehlo comment: "Our problem here is a national message," Coelho says. "What is it that we [Democrats] are? If you go to Kerry, that's a disaster because the candidate should not be involved in solving disputes or the creation of his message." Yeah, what does the candidate have to do with the message?
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Massachusetts' Sen. Ted Kennedy "is launching a seven-week election drive" on Kerry's behalf. As if Kerry needs help running his campaign off a bridge.
What's
This Green Stuff in My Pocket?
From Robert Kuttner's column in today's Boston Globe:
John Kerry is in trouble because the Bush campaign has seized control of what psychologists call the "frame" of this year's presidential contest. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and company have framed the election starkly: Bush will keep us safe in a time of terror. He will put money in people's pockets by cutting our taxes, and somehow that will also be good for the economy.
Yeah, how could money in people's pockets possibly be good for the economy?
The
Road to Damascus
"Syria tested chemical weapons on civilians in Sudan's troubled western
Darfur region in June and killed dozens of people," Agence France-Presse
reports:
The German daily Die Welt newspaper, in an advance release of its Wednesday edition, citing unnamed western security sources, said that injuries apparently caused by chemical arms were found on the bodies of the victims. . . .
Syrian officers were reported to have met in May with Sudanese military leaders in a Khartoum suburb to discuss the possibility of improving cooperation between their armies.
But given that the rebels were involved in peace talks, the newspaper continued, the Sudanese government proposed testing the arms on people in Darfur.
Regime change, anyone? Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the U.N. Security Council is considering a resolution "that threatens to consider sanctions on Sudan's oil industry." And if that doesn't work, they'll consider threatening to consider another sanction-consideration-threatening resolution.
Infidels,
Keep Out
This announcement appears on the Islamic-Paths.org Web site:
Insha Allah, on September 17, 2004, the New Jersey theme park, Six Flags Great Adventure, is set to be transformed as "The Great Muslim Adventure Day," an event organized by ICNA. This event is designed to provide entertainment for the entire family! Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for Muslims only!
Wow, Six Flags Great Adventure is a regular Mecca of fun! But isn't it illegal for an amusement park to refuse to admit people who aren't of a certain religion?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Aaron Dickey, Dan Friedman, Terry Denzer, Jeffrey Shapiro, Barak Moore, Paul Dyck, Stephen Henry, David Brown, Christian Peck, Scott Hill, Edward Friedman, Bob Glover, Patrick Frey, Michael Zukerman, Thomas Dillon, Blake Haider, Ed Lasky, Heidi Huettner, Mark Van Der Molen, Jeffrey Parker, Ethel Fenig, Allen O'Donnell, Chuck Lipsig, Gershon Dubin, Rosanne Klass, M. Gilbertson, Louise Hellyer, Ron Wright, S.E. Brenner, Howard Weiser, David Bookless, William Specht, Dave Holman, Ned Barnett, Hampton Stevens and William Wheeler. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- John Kerry: A new CEO in Washington would be good for American business.
- Brendan Miniter: The Democrats are no longer the majority party. Is this the year they'll finally admit it?
- William Tucker: Kerry's "energy independence" is no more than romantic isolationism.
