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Times Watch for
September 22, 2004
No "Surprise" Here:
Times Plays Up Bush Guard Story
Wednesday's editorial on the state of the campaign is a bit disingenuous: "It was sad that Mr. Kerry's commendable war record was clouded by the more outrageous of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attacks, and it was somewhat surprising that Mr. Bush's National Guard service again became a big topic of debate."
The Times shouldn't have been all that surprised, considering it's been trying its best to keep Bush's service record a big topic, putting it on the front page twice in the last two weeks while relegating stories about CBS's collapsed forged documents "scoop" to its back pages.
The editorial also (finally) weighs in on the documents: "An unexpected casualty in the past few weeks' strangeness was CBS News, which broadcast an exposé on Mr. Bush's National Guard service that turned out to be based on inadequately vetted documents from a highly questionable source."
Yet that "highly questionable" source, Bill (Bush-is-Hitler) Burkett, has yet to be adequately questioned in the news pages of the Times.
For the full editorial, click here.
• Bill Burkett | George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | CBS | Editorial | Forged Documents | Sen. John Kerry | Dan Rather | Swift Boat Veterans | Vietnam
Mary, Mary, Best be Wary
After CBS's credibility meltdown over forged memos, is the network throwing veteran producer Mary Mapes overboard?
Wednesday's article by Jim Rutenberg and Bill Carter, "CBS Says Producer Violated Policy by Putting Source In Touch With Kerry Aide" makes a case for that view, with CBS honchos portraying producer Mapes as hunting for Bush's service record with Ahab-style intensity: "Mr. Rather and CBS executives said Mr. Bush's Guard records had been intensely important to her, a subject she had been chasing with Mr. Rather off and on for five years. Several people at the news division, who insisted on anonymity because they had been told not to talk to reporters, said one important line of inquiry in the internal inquiry would be whether Ms. Mapes's zeal clouded her judgment."
The Times notes accusations of liberal bias from former colleagues of Mapes: "Some colleagues and associates questioned whether her politics could have interfered. John Carlson, a colleague of Ms. Mapes at KIRO-TV in Seattle in the 1980's who is now the host of a conservative radio talk show there, said she was 'ardently liberal.' 'When I heard about this story,'' Mr. Carlson said, 'I said, 'I wonder if that's Mary, because she was someone who, like many advocacy journalists, went into journalism to try to change society. She believed in what she was doing, and I think that she and other people at CBS would not have made the same mistakes had this story been about John Kerry.'"
For more about Mapes and memogate, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Bill Carter | CBS | Forged Documents | Liberal Bias | Mary Mapes | Dan Rather | Jim Rutenberg | Vietnam
"Compelling" Anti-Bush Charges vs.
"Unsubstantiated" Swifties
Nicholas Kristof's Wednesday column, "Washing Away the Mud," is the latest in a series on the Vietnam-era controversies surrounding Bush and Kerry in which he purportedly intends to separate truth from fact. Yet Kristof seems more interested in polishing Kerry's medals.
Kristof finds accusations about the president's National Guard service quite credible. In a September 8 column he called Bob Mintz, a former Alabama Air National Guardsman featured in an anti-Bush ad campaign from Texans for Truth, "a compelling witness." He then finds "another particularly credible witness…Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base." Kristof concluded: Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh."
In his most recent column, Kristof turns his nose up at the 200-plus Vietnam Veterans who comprise the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: "Even though the Swift Boat Veterans' accusations are unsubstantiated, wealthy Bush supporters have turned them into campaign ads--and the press has often covered the result like a sporting event, rather than trying to find the truth….That's not a problem just for Mr. Kerry, but for the integrity of our political process. As I wrote in my last column, a careful look at Mr. Kerry's war record suggests that he stretched the truth here and there, but he served with immense courage--and he deserved all his medals."
For the rest of Kristof's column, click here.
• George W. Bush | Columnists | Sen. John Kerry | Nicholas Kristof | Swift Boat Veterans | Vietnam
Al Sharpton, Barry Goldwater, Same Thing
Metro editor Peter Applebome's Wednesday story about a chapter of the John Birch society in New Jersey (!), headlined "Far-Right Group Now Seems Not So Far," lumps the racially inflammatory Al Sharpton in with the late Sen. Barry Goldwater and paleo-conservative commentator Pat Buchanan: "There's a theory on political life that everyone--think Barry Goldwater, Al Sharpton, or Patrick J. Buchanan--can go from far-out firebrand to mainstream insider given enough passing time. Maybe it's too much to expect for the John Birch Society, which in its heyday in the 1960's was viewed as the most powerful far-right organization in the country."
For more on the John Birch society in New Jersey, click here.
• Peter Applebome | John Birch Society | Pat Buchanan | Barry Goldwater | Al Sharpton
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org