Best of the Web Today - February 16, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Hell No, They Won't Go
The scandal over the fabricated "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's National Guard service isn't over after all. On Jan. 10, the network released the voluminous report of its investigative panel, headed by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, which found that "CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles." CBS CEO Les Moonves announced that the network was firing segment producer Mary Mapes and asking three midlevel executives to resign.
But it turns out the three were not willing to serve as fall guys. The New York Observer reports that 5 1/2 weeks after being told to quit, all three are still collecting CBS paychecks and have hired lawyers. At least one, Josh Howard, is making noises about suing CBS for breach of contract, and two lawyers who have no stated connection to the case tell the Observer the employees may also have a claim for defamation.
It's hard to see a graceful way out of all this. CBS continues to honor its contracts and pay the trio because it has a very strong incentive to avoid a lawsuit, as the Observer notes:
In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Mr. Moonves and [chief CBS spokesman Gil] Schwartz put under oath to talk about their own roles in the network's stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush's National Guard service.
Mr. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives. That might shed further light on what members of management were saying to each other on Friday, Sept. 10, two days after the segment aired--a day that Mr. Heyward and Mr. Schwartz were making important decisions about CBS's defense strategy.
Such a lawsuit sounds like a public-relations catastrophe for CBS. The Thornburgh-Boccardi report--the product of a friendly, or at least neutral, investigation--was quite damning. Imagine what an antagonistic lawyer--make that as many as three teams of antagonistic lawyers--would come up with.
So CBS needs to settle. But it can't very well give Howard what he wants, which is vindication:
Sources close to Mr. Howard said that before any resignation comes, the 23-year CBS News veteran is demanding that the network retract Mr. Moonves' remarks, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name.
This column does not know if the official story line is incorrect. But if it is, correcting it would be dangerous for CBS, for it would amount to an admission that the network disregarded the truth in atoning for its initial disregard for the truth. That is to say, CBS--or at least CBS's current management--is locked into the official story line.
If the network wants to back away from that story line, it could cashier its top managers, including Moonves, CBS News president Andrew Heyward and maybe Dan Rather, and bring in a new team to start fresh. But this would also imply an admission of wrongdoing, which would strengthen Howard & Co.'s legal claims against the company. Thus such a housecleaning would be tenable for CBS only after they have renounced their claims.
None in the lingering trio talked with the Observer for this story. That they are declining to wage war in public suggests they still think CBS will be willing to settle. Our guess is that the network will end up giving a pile of cash--amount unknown to anyone except the parties involved and the IRS--to each of the aggrieved employees, in exchange for their resignations and a strict nondisclosure agreement.
From a business standpoint, such a resolution is probably optimal for CBS. But from a journalistic standpoint it would be problematic to say the least. CBS claimed to be acting in a spirit of truth-seeking and openness when it impaneled Thornburgh and Boccardi. Our scenario of paying hush money to make a controversy go away certainly would run counter to that spirit.
What if CBS were to pay Howard and his colleagues to renounce all legal claims but not insist on a nondisclosure agreement, then bring in a new top management team, untainted by the original scandal and charged with really getting to the bottom of things? This would be a bold and risky approach, but perhaps it offers the best hope of saving CBS News.
The Whine Spectator
Car-bumper exhortations to support the troops have NPR commentator Bob Sommer bent out of shape:
That curious phrase, "support our troops," on those yellow ribbon magnets seems to accuse me of not doing my part. Then I realized that "support our troops" is a code! It requires parsing. Here's what I think it means: Those who presumably need to be admonished to support the troops are those who oppose the decisions of the administration. "Support our troops" means, then, that we should be supporting the war. I believe that most yellow-magnet bearers want support not just for the troops, but for the mission, the presence, the president. Maybe the magnets should say: "Shut up and support our troops."
You have to listen to the audio to get a full sense of Sommer's whiny, paranoid tone--which is odd, since he has a son in the military and he says that "my wife and I expended a lot of emotional energy as well as some financial resources supporting our son and his buddies in Iraq last year." So what in the world is he so defensive about?
Meanwhile, Stars and Stripes has a great quote from an Iraqi soldier, Staff Sgt. Alaa Akram:
Ultimately, there is only so much the Americans can do, Akram said. The difference between his men and U.S. soldiers is something far more abstract than weapons or training.
"It's heart," Akram said. He'll know the Iraqi army is ready to take control from the Americans when his fellow soldiers quit joining for a paycheck, he said.
"When we're like the American soldier," Akram said. "He never worries about money. He's worried about his country."
It nice to know that someone supports the troops.
Unclear in Reuterville
"A crowd of Shiite Muslims marking a religious ceremony spotted a suspected suicide bomber amongst them and, fearing he might blow himself up, beat the man to death, Iraqi police said today," Reuters reports from Baghdad:
The incident occurred in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Bayaa, a largely Shiite district, where residents were celebrating Ashura, a religious ritual honouring the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
The police said the crowd spied a man mingling amongst them who appeared to be wearing a vest strapped with explosives, like those used in suicide bombings.
"They attacked him and beat the man to death," a police source said, adding that security forces had been powerless to prevent the mass onslaught. It was not clear if the man had actually been planning a suicide attack.
Not clear? Does Reuters think he was just making a fashion statement?
Hillary Buries the Hatchet
By a vote of 98-0, the Senate yesterday confirmed Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security. Contrary to our prediction last month, among the senators backing Chertoff's confirmation was New York's Hillary Clinton, who cast the lone "no" votes when President Bush appointed Chertoff to the Justice Department in 2001 and the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003--a futile protest against Chertoff's former position as counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. Putting aside this ancient grudge is smart politics on the part of Mrs. Clinton.
Kerry Runs in '08--or Is It '04?
Mickey Kaus publishes a letter from a savvy reader (capitalization corrected):
I went to a John and Teresa Kerry reception last night. He gave a good speech about how we are going to fight on to some applause and some muttering. I think the problem is that he is obviously running for President, not leading the Democrats. He does not even attempt to say that it is not about him. He is a visible US Senator who was almost elected President. If he led or contributed strongly the opposition from that perch, he would be valuable and filling a role that exists in most democracies, I think. It is the obvious personal agenda that makes the whole exercise (MTP, Imus, appearances all over, I assume) seem so ghoulish and misguided.
"MTP" stands for "Meet the Press," a reference to the Iraqi Election Day interview in which Kerry* pooh-poohed the vote, among other things. What's even odder about this is that Kerry, though presumably looking ahead to 2008, acts as if he's still running against President Bush, who is constitutionally ineligible for another term.
Kerry ran a reasonably good, though losing, race as the anti-Bush candidate, but it seems a huge strategic blunder to adopt such a strategy this far in advance of the 2008 election. Since Bush will be a lame duck three years from now, hatred of him is almost certain to have diminished by then. Depending on events, he may be wildly popular by the time his successor is elected (think Rudy Giuliani). Maybe not--maybe by 2008 the voters will be fed up with Bush and ready to elect his opposite. But in that case it won't be necessary to badmouth him.
* The haughty, French-phizzed Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
Toodle-oo, Tuvalu
"Islanders on tiny Tuvalu in the South Pacific last week saw the future of global warming and rising sea levels, as extreme high tides caused waves to crash over crumbling sea-walls and flood their homes," Reuters reports:
"Our island is sinking together with our hearts," wrote Silafaga Lalua in Tuvalu News. . . .
Tuvalu is a remote island nation consisting of a fringe of atolls covering just 10 sq miles, with the highest point no more than 17 ft above sea level, but most a mere 6.5 ft.
Global warming from greenhouse gas pollution is regarded as the main reason for higher sea levels, now rising about 2mm (0.08 in) a year, which could swamp low-lying nations such as Tuvalu and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean if temperatures keep rising.
For the sake of argument, let's assume this "global warming" stuff is true. If the sea continues rising at 0.08 inch a year, that means Tuvalu will be mostly submerged in 975 years, and will disappear entirely in 2,550 years. So in the year 4555 we can expect to read headlines like: "Tuvalu Disappears, Bush to Blame."
'Boolean Innuendo'
Yesterday's item on the New York Times and the Eason Jordan kerfuffle prompted an interesting observation from reader Robert Pattison:
I was interested in your discussion of the comment "Iraq has become one of the most dangerous places in the world from which to report, with enormous potential for journalists to be deliberately targeted by either side or caught in the crossfire" which you quote from the New York Times Web site.
I think that your question "Is there any evidence of such a thing?" misses the point. The sort of boolean innuendo pitched by the Times in this case is becoming more and more common in the media (not just by people I disagree with, I should add), and is extremely devious. Boolean logic is a tool used by computer programmers and spin doctors, and it works like this:
Let's assume that the odds of journalists being targeted by coalition forces is nil. Let's also say (for the sake of argument) that odds of journalists being targeted by insurgent forces is also nil, but that there is "enormous potential for journalists to be caught in the crossfire" (i.e., not targeted by either side, but in harm's way nonetheless)--which certainly seems to be the case.
In such a case, the statement in the Times quote is completely true, even though there is (in my example) zero chance of two of the options (including, most pertinently for the current discussion, targeting by U.S. forces) occurring. In other words, completely true, but completely misleading. Clever, in kind of a Michael Moore sort of way--and all too common these days.
To put the point more simply, a statement of the form "X or Y" is true if X is a truism, even if Y is an outrageous falsehood. "The sun rose this morning or President Bush is a Nazi."
Keeping America Safe From Leporine Threats
"Navy to Commission Attack Submarine Jimmy Carter"--headline, Defense Department press release, Feb. 15
Who Pays?
A column by Jeff Jacoby on Social Security prompts a Boston Globe letter to the editor from Al Keith of New Hampton, N.H.:
It is Jacoby's main point that truly obscures the reality. That 12.4 percent of every paycheck up to $90,000 is in reality 6.21 percent. For all but those who are self-employed, half of the payroll tax is paid by the employer and does not come out of the paycheck at all.
Does Keith think paychecks grow on trees?
Zero-Tolerance Watch
"A prank turned against a Berks County high school student Tuesday when his rooftop appearance in a gorilla mask and sheepskin shawl triggered a major emergency response that included the FBI and a bomb squad," reports the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.:
Police officers took senior Matthew W. Pattison off the roof of Oley Valley High School at gunpoint as students remained locked in their classrooms with blinds drawn.
Officials said such a response is standard after the Columbine massacre and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But Pattison's mother said he never meant to draw the attention of dozens of police officers, bomb-sniffing dogs, packs of reporters and at least three helicopters that hovered over the rural school in Oley Township.
''He put on a Halloween costume as a senior prank,'' Barbara Pattison said after her son went to the county prison under $300,000 bail on reckless endangerment and other charges. ''He absolutely had no negative intentions at all.'' . . .
Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Zackon said seniors have been known to pull pranks, but they usually occur at the end of the school year. Past pranks also were more apparent as such, he said.
''Pranks are pranks,'' Zackon said. ''I don't consider this a senior prank.''
If the gorilla mask wasn't enough to tip him off that this was a prank, Zackon may have a big future in airport security.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Increase contract with Carlson Communications in the amount of $5,000 for event planning and media publicity for the Portland/Multnomah County 10 year plan to end homelessness."--Item No. 98 from the Portland (Ore.) City Council Agenda, Feb. 16, 2005
Bottom Story of the Day
"Three Laid-Off Americans Struggle to Find Work"--front-page headline, USA Today, Feb. 16
There Was a Hockey Season?
"Hockey Season Canceled"--headline, KPIX-TV Web site (San Francisco), Feb. 16
It's Really Heavy, Dude
"Mendocino County Weighs Organic Pot"--headline, San Mateo (Calif.) Daily Journal, Feb. 15
That Pretty Much Covers the Bases
"A Hedge Fund May Try to Buy Circuit City, but It May Not"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 16
Count Chocula Imitates 'Saturday Night Live'
"Count Chocula Silver: Count Chocula (Jimmy Fallon) changes marketing approach to address seniors."--description of a sketch that appeared on "Saturday Night Live," May 3, 2003
"General Mills has 52 cereals in its stable and 28 of them contain the same level of fiber they had previously. Eleven varieties, including Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp and Count Chocula, moved up from zero grams fiber to 1 gram."--Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette (second item), Feb. 16, 2005
That'll Keep People Away
"Unsafe Crosswalk to Get Flasher"--headline, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Feb. 15
Bank Robery
"Suit-Plagued Arab Bank to Shut N.Y. Branch"--headline, The Jewish Week, Feb. 11
None of Us Are Getting Any Younger
"Oldest Humans Now Seen Even Older"--headline, MSNBC.com, Feb. 16
Gulling the Gifted
From the Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts Amherst:
Last year, thousands of college students across the country were invited to join the Outstanding Student Honor Society and the organization promised academic, career and scholarship assistance to those in excellent academic standing, however, the society proved to have no affiliation with the universities; in fact, it never existed.
Invitations were sent via e-mail to thousands of students at institutions in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, and Louisiana. The only requirements were a GPA of 3.0 or above, and a one-time membership fee of $32.
Joanna Krawiecki, a UMass Nursing junior, fell victim to the scam. She received an invitation through her student e-mail account to join the society on Feb. 12, 2004. The lengthy e-mail was personally addressed to Krawiecki, and contained bogus background information about the organization. It stated that OSHS was credited by the Outstanding Student Consortium, which allegedly offered services such as career development resources and shopping discounts, and even scholarships.
As a student in good standing and member of the Lambda Delta National Honor Society, Krawiecki decided this was a worthwhile opportunity and enrolled. She never questioned the authenticity of the organization and wanted to take advantage of the scholarships offered.
Imagine how much money they could scam if they targeted students who aren't exceptionally bright. |
