The Truth will prevail, but only if we demand it from Congress!

9-11 Inside Job and Neocons Hacked 2004

SCROLL DOWN

Home ] 9-11 Inside Job ] Federal Reserve ] Hacking Elections ] Iraq War ] Fake War on Terror ] New World Order ] Media ] Peak Oil-Petro Euros ] Fascism in U.S. ] Editorials ] About Us ] Links ] Contact Us ]

 

Home
Up

MEDIA COMPLICITY ARTICLE 5

 

5. CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE

 

Network's Craven Back-Down on Bush Draft Dodge Report Sure to Get a

Standing Rove-ation at White House Tuesday, January 11, 2005 By Greg

Palast

 

"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/ulf/documents/draftdodgeblanked.jpg and a

clip from the BBC Television report at

http://www.gregpalast.com/images/TrailerClips.mov]

 

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(at)GregPalast.com