I recall Piere Sallinger (sp?), JFK's press sec., buying into an internet hoax regarding the downing of TWA flight 800 many years ago. I believe he was the first high profile person caught out.

Now we have Dan "debunked again" Rather being tripped up by previously discredited emails in yet another fine example of CBS' vaunted research abilities coming up short.

A bit of introspection is called for by Dan-o.

This is journalism at its worst. Failure to rely on primary source documentation for a story is tantamount to National Enquirer standard story writing. Schlesinger and Rather are guilty of scare tactics in the first degree. Punishment is working on next year's psychic predictions for the World Weekly News!

I fired off an email to my local affiliate again. The station manager has been a good guy about the whole thing, but I just had to tell him that I can't watch anything on CBS while they run this tabloid crap. I think it's time to get that going again.

Someone needs to tip off Gunga Dan that the Post Office is planning to start taxing e-mails at 5 cents a pop. There's a bill (602P) sponsored by Rep. Tony Schnell that would authorize this. Dan needs to set up a face-to-face interview with Mr. Schnell. That would be a scoop that would solve all his problems.

You need your patented - "just when you think it can't get worse..."

They didn't really do this did they?

It must a hoax. CBS can't be THAT clueless can they?

I'm just shaking my head. If scrappleface had posted this item, I'd spike it. Needs to has a modicum of plausibilty to be funny.

Beverly Cocco a Republican?

Or, a contact for a chapter of an advocacy group called People Against the Draft?

http://www.nodraft.info/contact.html

Philadelphia Lancaster/Bucks County affiliate: Parents Against the Draft Contact Beverly Cocco, babby61754@comcast.net

CBS really did this. I had the crazy impulse to record CBS Evening News last night (partially to see if any anti-Rather ads ran during breaks), and I was completely blown away. CBS can argue that they didn't know better with Memogate, but there's simply no way to do this report "accidentally." Not only is this a textbook example of biased reporting, but it's practically an insult to journalism itself. Make sure everyone you know hears about this, no matter what their politics. CBS must think we're all vegetables. This is not aggressive journalism; instead, it's regressive journalism.

The fact that CBS based an evening-news story on a "hoax email" is significant far beyond the obvious indicator of gross bias.

Specifically, it shows that the network--far from learning the obvious lesson from Rathergate--has made the *opposite* decision: they feel they can continue running stories that are grossly biased, if not downright deceitful.

Anyone who felt that CBS might change after the roasting the network got for using the forged memos should find their "draft" story very sobering.

Ace--

If you need a nice, handy fact-based argument why a draft is not only not going to happen, but is also unnecessary, see my posting from a few weeks back:

http://garfieldridge.blogspot.com/2004/09/edwards-no-military-draft-if-dems-win.html

Bottom line: if we need more troops, we'll just spend more money to recruit more troops.

The volunteer military before 1991 was significantly larger than it is today; there's no logical reason why we can't recruit more troops today (sure, at the micro-level some people wouldn't look twice at enlisting during a wartime situation-- but they're also the same people you wouldn't want to have serve anyways, in either a volunteer or a draft-based military.

A concerted national appeal to patriotism, combined with gobs of cash, will get us a better military than forced conscription would, and do so in the same amount of time.

Cheers,
Dave
Garfield Ridge

I refuse to believe that CBS could actually stoop this low. It's time to show them what the Blogosphere does to liars once again!

What's next? An in-depth exposé the cruelty (possibly by known Republicans!) of the "Bonsai Kitten" craze? Or of corruption in African nations related to the multimillion dollar estates left behind by deceased dictators and oil ministers?

"And CBS has learned that e-mail correspondence has been sent from Mr. Claudio Kabila, the second son of the late Laurent Kabila Former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C) whose sudden death occurred in January 2001, to nearly every prominent member of Bush's inner circle!"

Nice to see al-jazeerah has picked this up.

CBS, the anti-Snopes

You ain't seen nothing yet: What will happen when CBS, in order to "get the story out", fabricates their own internet hoax? (And will they remember to spoof the return address in the email, or just leave it dan@cbs.com?)

Tonight, on the CBS Evening News, the story the drug companies don't want you to see...

DISC0UNTZ 0N SUPER VIAG@RA! P3NIS ENLARG3MENT PILLZ!

Dammit, Sean, warn a guy will ya? I was lucky to not have a beverage in my mouth when I read that!

Forget about the original email... go about 3 or 4 replies deep, and check out that one guy's ASCII signature with phone number and stuff... it's awesome!

James Woolley of Newshouse News Service already debunked this story a week ago:

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/woolley092704.html

My favorite section is that even the anti-war activists are sick of this crap:

"That e-mail doesn't die. It's got a lot of inaccuracies in it," said Bill Galvin, a counseling coordinator with the Center on Conscience and War, a conscientious objectors organization in Washington. "We're getting so tired of answering questions about the stupid thing."

At 2:43 EST, access to Ratherbiased is now "Forbidden." Anyone else get this?

Ratherbiased's servers are down, but Rathergate is hosting them until they get back up, so try there for news. I mean, not that you would visit any site but this one. (Ace, please don't tell Mr. Tranh!)

This is worse than the faked memos!

Rathergate is now CBSgate.

Viacom (CBS' parent) CEO Sumner Redstone must move NOW to fire Les Moonves, Andy Heyward, Mary Mapes, Jim Schlessenger, the producers involved in this latest piece, other people implicated in this scandal, and Dan Rather.

Once Mr. Redstone does that, he should resign, followed by the Viacom board of directors submitting their resignations.

This is CBS...the Columbia Bull***t System!

Why not tell the truth to begin with .
lies always surface, The Lord sees to that.
Thank goodness we have Him on our side against Liars like CBS and others.