Media Update
Powerline blog
It's a little late to point this out, but I did a segment with Brit Hume on Fox News at around 5:15 CST, and was also on CBS News, very briefly. I haven't seen the CBS program, so I don't know what portion of the interview they used. The Fox interview was good, however, and long enough to get into some substance instead of a sound byte or two.
Brit seemingly hadn't been aware of the Mapes emails, and thought they were big news. They certainly are one of the significant stories to come out of the Thornburgh report.
The other thing I'd really like to know, though, is why CBS moved the 60 Minutes program up from the end of September to September 8. The Thornburgh report talks about this change, and blames it for the fact that the show was put together in too much of a hurry.
But why? Someone made the decision to move the program up; the report doesn't tell us who. I'll give you a hypothesis as to why it happened: the Kerry campaign was dying because of the Swift Boat Vets' attacks, and CBS was desperate--with or without explicit communication with the DNC and the Kerry campaign--to do something to stem the tide. To "change the momentum of an election," as Michael Smith emailed to Mary Mapes.
If that hypothesis isn't right, can someone give us another one?
I'll be on another Fox show at around 9:00 CST tomorrow morning; I'm not sure who the host is.
And I was on the Hugh Hewitt show tonight, as were a number of other bloggers, talking about the report. As always, you get the best discussion of the issues on Hugh's show.
Posted by Hindrocket
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