The Thornburg Boccardi report seems to be a pretty thorough examination of the CBS forgeries scandal. Prepared by CBS appointees, working with a CBS appointed law firm it looks like a "modified limited hangout" in which blame is assigned and scapegoats sacrificed on the alter of accountability. This was done under the guise of an "indepedent investigation".
The result has been the 4 firings and a semi admission by Les Moonves that Rather was moved out of his anchor chair because of it. The investigation was also useful in pointing out that Dan Rather is a news reader, not a crusading, in charge newsman responsible for every insightful piece he fronts for.
Dan has read the report and assures us "I take it seriously, and I shall keep its lessons well in mind". I presume CBS hopes that the report and the Rather semi mea culpa will relegate this matter to the back burner of the hot stove of American politics. Some how I don't think so.
The fundamental question other than whether a crime has been committed by someone forging government documents and trying to alter the course of American history, is whether or not CBS exhibited bias against President Bush in running a fraudulent news story in the midst of a tightly contested campaign. The panel's conclusion is no. "The panel does not find a basis to accuse those who investigated, vetted or aired the segment of having a political bias".
It wasn't bias but something even more insidious. People within CBS acted like nothing less than direct operatives of the Democratic Party.
It appears as though the timing of the report was no accident. It was rushed to air because John Kerry's candidacy was falling apart at the seams. A very smooth Republican convention has just concluded with Democratic turncoat Senator Zell Miller eviscerating Kerry in a fiery convention speech. The Swiftvets had shifted gears from questioning Kerry's military record to now accusing him of being a quisling after returning from the war and visiting with the Viet Cong in Paris.
The Swiftvets were advertising in battleground states and it was obvious they were gaining strength from a grass roots, net driven string of donations.
Something was desperately needed to turn the tide for Kerry and shift attention away from the damage being done to him. CBS was apparently glad to fit the bill.
The evidence of direct pro Kerry political action is obvious in comparing the coverage of the military records of both candidates. Mary Mapes had admittedly been chasing the Bush guard story for five years with little to show for it. She apparently had information that refuted previous comments that Bush had been given preferential treatment in getting into the Texas Air National Guard. Never the less she continued a relentless effort to find anything that could go on air.
Compare those actions with the treatment of the Kerry military records. Forget all the other Swiftvet assertions regarding Kerry in "Unfit for Command", the one irrefutable fact was that Kerry had not signed his standard form 180 for the public release of his military records. In a piece for the Washington Post on August 21, Michael Dobbs wrote the following;
"Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on thier web site(with exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year, they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least 100 pages".
This was further reported in a Washington Times piece by Nat Hentoff entitled "The Opaque John Kerry". In addition Kerry's own biographer, Douglas Brinkley had denied that he controlled Kerry's records and called for him to release them. CBS had to be aware of this yet chose to completely ignore it.
The bottom line is that the Kerry story was a better story with more corroboration and more detail to be examined, yet it was ignored by CBS simply because it was detrimental to him. Shelving the story is what any good political operative would have done.
