Mini-fisking the Boss

I'll get it out of the way upfront: I likes me some Boss. I've bought many of his albums and spent serious dosh to see him in concert; Tunnel of Love is easily in my top 10 albums of all time. Having said that I don't necessarily agree with him politically, especially during the current silly season.

Apparently, he's given an interview to Jann Wenner over at Rolling Stone, talking politics and the "Vote for Change" tour he's participating in. Editor and Publisher has a write-up, focusing on his take on the media.

Most of his criticism, however, is aimed at TV coverage, and he reveals that as "a dedicated" New York Times reader he has gained "enormous sustenance" from columnists Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman.

Translation: I consume the media that most aligns with my own world-view...

"Real news is the news we need to protect our freedoms. You get tabloid news, you get blood-and-guts news, you get news shot through with a self-glorifying façade of patriotism, but people have to sift too much for the news that we need to protect our freedoms....The loss of some of the soberness and seriousness of those institutions has had a devastating effect upon people's ability to respond to the events of the day."

Translation: ... but it really cheeses me off when others who I don't agree with do the same.

Tom Shales: Insane

Tonight on Hardball Chris Matthews did two or three segments on the Rather/CBS News bru-ha-ha with David Gergen, Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ and Tom Shales, the Washington Post's TV critic. Long story short: Tom Shales is a moonbat. A quick summary of some of the things he said:

• Rather is not a liar (but Bush is)
• This was probably a Republican black bag job anyway ("a gift to Bush")
• The risk Rather/CBS News took with the story was not reckless

Basically, Shales seems to feel that Rather was on to something and is being persecuted.

Ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum (who was on the next segment) summed Shales up perfectly when Matthews ask him to comment on Shales' theory it was the Republicans who set the whole thing up.

"No, I think it was the Masons. That would be a better response to Tom. What a stupid thing to say."

Hopefully MSNBC posts the transcript.

UPDATE: Here's the transcript. The money exchange:

MATTHEWS: Tom, why did Dan Rather pay such a big chance with such low stakes? Had he gotten the story, had he scooped everybody with this document, it wouldn‘t have been a—this isn‘t a trophy, this. Is it worth the risk he took?

SHALES: Yes, I think so.

And I still don‘t think he was reckless. I don‘t think we should rule out the booby trap theory that Dorothy seemed to be floating.

MATTHEWS: OK. Who set the trap?

SHALES: The one that Republicans typed up these

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No, her theory is the Democrats

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Your theory is the Republicans did it.

SHALES: My theory, they could very well have put the little “th” with the wrong thing knowing exactly which mistakes would be found, slip to some guy who is a little unhinged anyway, and there to CBS.

MATTHEWS: Right.

SHALES: Because it is like such a gift to the Republican Party and to

George W. Bush. I mean, it is like Christmas

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But here, again, there‘s a risk factor. If they were caught putting this little—setting up this sting operation that Dan fell · that first Burkett and then Dan fell victim to, that would have been a much more colossal story.

(LAUGHTER)

SHALES: Well, but somebody has got to break it. Somebody has got to prove it.

MATTHEWS: I mean, Nixon was trying to prove that Howard Hughes was paying off Larry O‘Brien. Nobody cares what he was trying to prove. They just care he broke in to do it, or his people did.

SHALES: Nixon didn‘t get caught until after he was reelected. Maybe Bush won‘t get caught until after he is reelected either.

Obscure Photoshop

"Sure I framed him, but he was guilty."

Who at Viacom wants this?

Okay, I'm going to continue my tin foil hat riff I started a few months back and ask just what the hell is going on over at Viacom?

Since the whole world by now knows about CBS's 60 Minutes II Bush TexANG fiasco I waste too much time covering well tread ground. (If you have been living under a rock over the last week go visit AllahPundit, PowerlineBlog, INDCJournal and RatherBiased for all the info you'll need). What I do find completely perplexing is just why CBS/Viacom has allowed Rather/CBS News to get this far without getting involved. Regardless of what whether or not Viacom brass think Dan Rather has the goods or not, its pretty apparent that the world at large have lost faith in CBS's version of the story.

Now, Viacom is a publicly traded company, and CBS contributes a large wad of cash towards Viacom's bottom line. Journalistic integrity is something that takes a long time to build up, but only one real screw-up to greatly damage, if not destroy. And a news business is built on just that integrity. Without a certain level of trust people aren't going to want to watch your product, and the fewer eyeballs watching your product, the less you can sell your advertising time for. Even if Viacom was full of Bush-hating, Kerry-loving partisans simple economics dictate that they nip this credibility problem in the bud as soon as possible. If the consensus at Viacom is that they had the wrong end of the stick, then they get their mea culpas out and stop digging the hole they've found themselves in ASAP. If, on the other hand, the Viacom brass believes 60 Minutes II's evidence is rock solid they still have to win back a skeptical public which means they gather independent experts and allow an investigation that is open and public. The problem is Viacom have apparently decided to go down the worst path they could go down, namely stubbornly insist they are correct, but continue to obscure the process and evidence they used to come to their conclusion. This will do nothing but continue to erode the public's confidence in their objectivity, which will have a demonstrable effect on their bottom line.

So, the $64,000 question is: why exactly is Viacom allowing CBS News to continue to self distruct? Some folks in the blogosphere think that the memos originated from either the DNC or the Kerry campaign and Rather/CBS News is digging in to protect Kerry's presidential bid from the blow-back this revelation would cause. I have my doubts about this, at least the idea that its Rather/CBS News is behind the strategy simply because of the economic argument I discussed above. Rather, et al may not have a problem mortgaging their reputations to keep a dog in this fight, but the bean counters above them most certainly would. And although news departments traditionally are kept at arms length from the "money" side of things (in order to enhance the appearance that they are as independent from even the appearance of outside influence as possbile) you would expect once the damage really started to pile up Viacom brass would swoop in and, behind closed doors, lay some wood down and let Rather and Co know what's what. After all, at a point its cold hard cash that's on the line and they have a feudatory duty to Viacom shareholders.

So, if CBS is to continue this line of attack it is only because someone very high up at Viacom is allowing it to. As I mentioned before I've written about the appearance of partisanship at Viacom's Infinity Radio division and AllahPundit is reporting that CBS's support comes from way up high. So who at Viacom is willing to bet the livelihood of the company on John Kerry? Redstone? Moonves? Whoever it is, its one hell of a bet to make, and one it looks likely they'll lose. The question is at what cost.

ABC News notes CBS's linguistic backtracking

Although CBS has come out swinging against those throwing doubt on the authenticity of their newly uncovered TexANG memos the Note over at ABC News highlights the fact that CBS has quietly been changing some of the wording of their defense:

CBS's "Early Show" did a tell this morning on the document story.

An anchor read: "The authenticity of those documents is now being questions. Family members doubt that Killian would have written an unsigned memo . . . "

And "there are questions about the typography, which some experts say appear to have been done on a computer."

"CBS News says it stands by the story."

And then they quoted from the second CBS statement (not the third) that said that CBS was "convinced" the documents were authentic.

That conviction was dropped from a third CBS statement, which they asked ABC News to use instead of the second.

Compare two sequential statements released by CBS News last night:

New: "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 MINUTES report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts. As importantly, 60 MINUTES also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."

Old: "As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on 60 MINUTES was thoroughly investigated by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity. In addition to analysis of the documents themselves, CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written."

So, not only did CBS soften their defense, but they've also asked other news outlets to bury the older, stronger language.

Paging Walter Cronkite

Remember just last month when old Walt was in the news:

The newsman said he values the Internet as a research tool, but he finds some stories published on the Web -- scandals especially -- play too fast and loose with the facts.

"I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet. I expect that to develop in the fairly near future," he said.

Hey Walt, here's a quiz:

Q: Who just played fast and loose with the facts (and quite possibly libelous)?

a) Those wacky bloggers

b) your old stomping ground: CBS News

Someone should give Ed Wasserman the same quiz.

More fun with Photoshop

Unless you've been living under a rock today you would have probably run across the whole CBS TANG Memo bru-ha-ha that's been ping-ponging its way across the blogasphere. As far as I can tell the timeline goes something like this

Some posters over at the FreeRepublic website first noticed something they thought was fishy with the memos. Then this morning the guys over at PowerLineBlog grabbed the ball and started running with the story. This was followed by Charles at LGF cranking out a Word document that looked suspiciously like one of the memos in question. Pacetown followed with a post of his own. This brought about a rebuttal from The Talent Show entitled Grasping at Straws. So who's right?

Well, I've got Office. I've got Photoshop. Ain't no evidence like the type you investigate yourself. So, I grabbed the original pdf file from here. I then fired up Word X for the Mac and typed this (TNR font, 12 pts. No mucking with the margins or anything). From these two files I produced two screenshots (click on image to download large tiff files)

Original PDF:


My Document:


Dumped them into Photoshop, killed the background on my version, coloured it Red and overlaid it on the original, which was coloured blue. Five minutes of rotating and stretching and this is what we get:


(Click on image for large png of the file).

If you're curious you can also look at the psd file I created to do this. And all of this was done with a 10 lb baby in my left arm.

The result? Well, The Talent Show's Photoshop skills leave something to be desired. Its wasn't all that hard to get a better fit between the original and a freshly typed Word document. As for the match, well it ain't perfect, but its not convincingly all that different either. Line spacing is essentially the same, as are the word breaks. There's some divergence around the text in the first line of each bulleted paragraph, but how much faxing and/or copying could cause the difference I have no idea. This little exercise certainly doesn't prove to me conclusively that the document is a fake, but iI find it pretty compelling. What are the odds that a document produced over 30 years ago on a typewriter would match that closely to something banged out on Word in less than five minutes? I'll leave that as an exercise for you readers.