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Politics : The American Spirit Vs. The Rightwing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (1161)	9/28/2004 10:35:51 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1904

You are reading too much rightwing Bushie propaganda. Kerry is one of the top senators on these issues. His colleagues on both sides of the aisle have the highest respect for him, which is why McCain has come to his defense against rightwing lies many times. You know it's really sad that Bushies have to stoop to trying to paint the OPPOSITE picture of Kerry than reality, the same way Bush-Cheney are painting the opposite picture as the reality in Iraq and on the economy. You will see on Thursday that Kerry is a genius on foreign policy. Runs circles around Bush no problem.

To: mph who wrote (1161)	9/29/2004 12:13:07 AM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1904

CBS chickens out on story exposing more Bush lies about Iraq (some liberal bias) The Cowardly Broadcasting System CBS cravenly killed a "60 Minutes" segment about Bush's deceptive case for invading Iraq. What did it contain that was too much for voters to see? - - - - - - - - - - - - By Mary Jacoby Sept. 29, 2004 \| By relying on documents that could not be absolutely authenticated from a blind source to make the otherwise irrefutable case that George W. Bush shirked his National Guard duties in the early 1970s, CBS anchor Dan Rather dealt the credibility of journalism a "body blow," according to Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler. But just how damaging was that blow? One measure of the debacle is a "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment that millions of viewers now will now not see: a hard-hitting report making a powerful case that in trying to build support for the Iraq war, the Bush administration either knowingly deceived the American people about Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities or was grossly credulous. CBS news president Andrew Heyward spiked the story this week, saying it would be "inappropriate" during the election campaign. The importance that CBS placed on the report was evident by its unusual length: It was slated to run a full half hour, double the usual 15 minutes of a single segment. Although months of reporting went into the production, CBS abruptly decided that it would be "inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election," in the words of a statement that network spokeswoman Kelli Edwards gave the New York Times. The real reason, of course, was that because of CBS's sloppy reporting on the Bush National Guard story, the network's news executives believed they could no longer report credibly on the heart of the Iraq nuclear issue, involving another set of completely forged documents: those purporting to show that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from the African country Niger. Salon was given the videotape by CBS News on the condition that we report on it only shortly before it was to air. But after the network effectively spiked its own story (which was reported by Newsweek online and by the New York Times), we sent an e-mail late last week to CBS stating that we believed that the embargo no longer applied. We received no reply and therefore feel free to report. How the fake Niger documents surfaced was at the heart of the "60 Minutes" report by veteran correspondent Ed Bradley. Originally set to air Oct. 8, but now postponed indefinitely, Bradley's report was bumped by Rather's "scoop" on the memos allegedly written by the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who had been Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander in Texas. Rather producer Mary Mapes had rushed the records onto the air, convinced they offered proof that Bush had been allowed to duck his duties because of political connections. By the time Rather conceded that he had felt he was uncertain about the veracity of the documents, the network's once-proud news division was in full, head-hanging retreat. The network appointed former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, a Republican, and retired Associated Press executive Louis D. Boccardi to conduct an independent review of its reporting procedures. Had Bradley's piece aired, millions Americans would have seen it in the heat of the presidential campaign. The Nielsen ratings put the Wednesday version of "60 Minutes" regularly in its top 20 most popular shows. A source close to CBS said Bradley was furious with the decision to spike the report and angry that the reputation of the "60 Minutes" Sunday program has suffered because of the missteps of the Wednesday version of the show. Bradley did not return phone calls seeking comment. On Tuesday, his assistant said the correspondent was "swamped" after returning from a trip to the Middle East. The report contains little new information, but it is powerfully, coherently and credibly reported. It features the first on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who received the fake Niger documents in 2002 and passed them on to the U.S. embassy in Rome. Burba tells how she traveled to Niger and concluded that Iraq could not have purchased uranium from the tightly controlled French-run mines in Niger and that therefore the documents must have been faked. According to Newsweek, CBS also interviewed Burba's source for the documents, a shadowy Roman businessman named Rocco Martino with reputed connections to European intelligence agencies, especially Sismi, the Italian intelligence service. The producers flew Martino to New York for an on-camera interview, but footage of the interview was not included in the final version of the report. It is unclear why Martino was cut; perhaps it was because, as Burba told Newsweek, Martino had lied to her in the past and was not someone she considered reliable.