Miscellaneous

Celebrity deaths are supposed to come in threes, not in dozens, as has been the case this past summer.
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CBS was out of luck today in the Dan Rather lawsuit.
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Looking for young pussy, a cat is being blamed for downloading kitty porn, in a case which has created a boatload of bad jokes, including from yours truly.
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Media

More power to Dan Rather if he should prevail against CBS and the awful Leslie Moonves in his lawsuit.

By the way, just because some organized group of freepers "discredited" the TANG report doesn't mean they debunked it. I have maintained all the time the Killian memos were genuine and typed by the man himself.

Media Follies

It is no surprise at all there was GOP involvement in CBS's dispute with Dan Rather over the Killian memos.

So far, Mr. Rather has spent more than $2 million of his own money on the suit. And according to documents filed recently in court, he may be getting something for his money.

Using tools unavailable to him as a reporter — including the power of subpoena and the threat of punishment against witnesses who lie under oath — he has unearthed evidence that would seem to support his assertion that CBS intended its investigation, at least in part, to quell Republican criticism of the network.

Among the materials that money has shaken free for Mr. Rather are internal CBS memorandums turned over to his lawyers, showing that network executives used Republican operatives to vet the names of potential members of a panel that had been billed as independent and charged with investigating the “60 Minutes” segment.

It was all a big disinformation campaign by the GOP and its bloggers to try and discredit, but not disprove, the authenticity of the memos in order to cast suspicion on the entire TANG report.

And THESE memos are far more interesting than the Killian ones:

Some of the documents unearthed by his investigation include notes taken at the time by Linda Mason, a vice president of CBS News. According to her notes, one potential panel member, Warren Rudman, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, was deemed a less-than-ideal candidate over fears by some that he would not “mollify the right.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Thornburgh, who served as attorney general for both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, was named a panelist by CBS, but only after a CBS lobbyist “did some other testing,” in which she was told, according to Ms. Mason’s notes, “T comes back with high marks from G.O.P.”

Another memorandum turned over to Mr. Rather’s lawyers by CBS was a long typed list of conservative commentators apparently receiving some preliminary consideration as panel members, including Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan. At the bottom of that list, someone had scribbled “Roger Ailes,” the founder of Fox News.

As the World Turns.

A fugitive on the lam for 27 years was finally tracked down and caught.
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Dan Rather stands up for himself regarding CBS's treatment during the Killian memos flap:

Q: The documents were authentic?

Rather: "The documents were a part of the story. But the story was about what is known, and questions unanswered, about President Bush's service, and what we reported was true. This lawsuit is directed at Viacom, CBS, its ownership and its management. It has two parts: a contract with me that they broke, and the second part has to deal with fraud and how they handled the story. Basically, (it's) the undue influence of the corporatization and the politicization of news coverage, some of which I didn't know was happening at the time. Some goes back to our breaking the story of Abu Ghraib."

Q: But were the National Guard documents authentic?

Rather: "I believe they are authentic. I believed it at the time, I believe it now."

Q: So all the people who have pointed out, for example, that the particular font on the documents didn't even exist back then, they are wrong?

Rather: "I'm glad you asked about that because, unfortunately, there has been a lot written and said about it, saying they were bogus, they were forgeries, none of which has stood up. But I do want to come back to the documents being just part of the story. The core of the story -- what a journalist tries to do -- is get the truth, or as close to the truth as possible. We did that. Our story was true."

Anybody who was a typist back then knows the original source documents (CBS had faxed and copied versions) were genuine and probably typed by Killian himself.
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Darren Mack has hired a new lawyer to help him try to get off.
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Chelsy and Harry might not be over yet.
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No comment about this whatsoever.
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Eric Boehlert

is right about Dan Rather and the Killian Memos flap.

Sidney Blumenthal has even more about the Rather suit and the bogus "forgery" story:

Rather believed that the panel would conduct a fair-minded inquiry. But he learned that neither he nor Mapes would be allowed to cross-examine witnesses. They heard from some researchers on the "60 Minutes II" staff that before they had been questioned, a CBS executive had told them that they should feel free to pin all blame on Rather and Mapes. CBS had told Rather to cease investigating the story and had even hired a private investigator of its own, Erik Rigler. Rather and Mapes discovered that Rigler's investigation had uncovered corroboration for their story. Rather's complaint states that "after following all the leads given to him by Ms. Mapes, he [Rigler] was of the opinion that the Killian Documents were most likely authentic, and that the underlying story was certainly accurate." But rather than probing Rigler on his findings, the panel, to the extent its lawyers questioned him in a single telephone call, "appeared more interested whether Mr. Rigler had uncovered derogatory information concerning Mr. Rather or Ms. Mapes, as to which he had no information," according to the Rather complaint. Rigler's report was suppressed, never presented to the panel, and remains suppressed by CBS. Nor did the panel fully question James Pierce, the handwriting expert consulted by "60 Minutes" who insisted that the signature on the documents was surely Killian's.

When Mapes appeared before the panel, she was harshly questioned at length about her use of the word "horseshit." On the issue of the special privileges granted to those sons of wealth in the "Champagne Unit," Thornburgh asked her, "Mary, don't you think it's possible that all these fine young men got in on their own merits?"

When it came to the merits of the facts the panel elided them. It never addressed the facts at all. Instead it criticized the "60 Minutes" team for failing to "obtain clear authentication" of the Killian documents, among other "errors," though it admitted it could not prove one way or another whether they were inauthentic. Mapes and three other producers were dismissed. "60 Minutes II" was abolished. And on the day after Bush's reelection, Rather was unceremoniously fired. His contract had called for him to continue as anchor for an additional year and then to serve as a correspondent for "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II," but that promise was not honored. CBS believed that by severing its link with Rather it could put the whole incident behind it and begin a new happy relationship with the ascendant Republicans.

It's great Rather is NOT interested in settling for money. He wants the whole ugly episode exposed. If he succeeds, he will do the American people a great service.

And still more.