Was Viacom trying to get Bush?
Junk Yard blog - LURKING IN THE WEADS
There's something weird about the Doug Wead story. It's not just that he taped then-Governor George W. Bush without consent. It's the odd third player in the story. Here's the WaPo story on how Wead's tape ended up on the pages of the NY Times:
washingtonpost.com
Wead's newly published book is about the parents of presidents, not just Bush. He said that he had never intended the tapes to become public, but that his publisher, Simon & Schuster, asked to hear them for libel reasons. He said after he played them for his editors, he was contacted by the Times and agreed to play portions for a reporter.
So...why did S&S editors need to hear these tapes? They claimed "libel" but that doesn't make much sense since Wead's book doesn't appear to be negative toward Bush or to be potentially libelous. Libel is a tough standard to meet, especially for a public figure like the President of the United States. People have been running around for the past several years calling him "Hitler" without fear of any kind of libel exposure. S&S knows that. S&S has published probably half a dozen books alleging all sorts of misconduct on the president's part, so it is apparently not overly worried about libeling him.
Second, why did Wead's tape end up going from a meeting with his S&S editors to the NY Times? There is a story chain here that's intriguing--from S&S (book publisher) to the Times (news outlet), apparently without Wead's knowledge. How did that happen? Is this just a case of a publisher trying to generate buzz for an upcoming book that probably would otherwise produce only modest sales, or is there more to the story?
Is it worth noting at this point that S&S is a Viacom property, and that CBS is also a Viacom property, and both of these Viacom properties have been waging a media war against President Bush for about a year now?
nationalreview.com
Wead offers a telling detail--or is it preview?--in the Post story:
Asked whether Bush would view the actions as an act of treachery from a trusted friend, Wead said, "It depends on what else is on the tapes. . . . Ninety percent of the tapes have not been heard. He can see that my motive was not to try to hurt him.
"If I released all the tapes, it would be an act of betrayal," Wead said. "Most of them have never seen the light of day and never will."
Um-hm. Sure he won't release them. But Wead apparently played all of them for his S&S editors, including the ninety percent he didn't give to the Times. What's to say the S&S editors weren't secretly recording that? |
