CBS lurching rightward?
February 23, 2009 5:21 pm ET by Jamison Foser
Last fall, we learned that CBS considered adding Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or Bob Novak to the panel investigating Dan Rather's news report about George W. Bush's failure to show up for National Guard duty. CBS ultimately chose Republican Richard Thornburgh, who served as Attorney General under Bush's father, for the panel. CBS president Andrew Heyward later defended his decision to hand the panel over to a Republican.
Now we find out that CBS News' new Senior Vice President of Communications, Jeff Ballabon, is a Republican activist who said last year that "Obama is extremely dangerous." And, according to National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira Forman, Ballabon once said during a debate between the two men that "Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people."
It should be remembered, too, that that panel dismissed all of the original right-wing contentions about the memos-- the impossibility of superscripts, typefaces, allegedly proportional fonts, the works.
In fact, these charges were the core of the right-wing attack on Rather-- and they were proven false. There was no evidence the memos were faked. CBS just could not establish their provenance. That was their mistake.
Yes...that...
...and the fact that the other 95% of Rather's report was accurate and fully vetted.
Rather got shafted.