Eutrusca
29-09-2004, 15:16
CBS Does It Again
Network Uses Phony Documents to Promote Draft Conspiracy
September 28, 2004 20:41:03 EDT
Daniel Irvin Rather must be a masochist. You'd think that in the midst of the
terrible publicity he is currently getting for working closely with a partisan
Democrat bent on bringing down President Bush that Dan Rather would have the
good sense to lay off the liberal bias for a while. But common sense seems to
be in short supply at CBS News these days.
Three weeks after he denounced the internet as being "filled with rumors," the
embattled CBS anchor ran a story on his Tuesday "Evening News" program hoping
to stir up fear of an impending military draft.
In a story that was a textbook example of slipshod reporting, CBS reporter
Richard Schlesinger used debunked internet hoax emails and an unlabeled
interest group member to scare elderly "Evening" viewers into believing that
the U.S. government is poised to resume the draft.
At the center of Schlesinger's piece was a woman named Beverly Cocco, a
Philadelphia woman who is "sick to my stomach" that her two sons might be
drafted. In his report, Schlesinger claimed that Cocco was a Republican and
portrayed her as an apolitical (even Republican) mom worried about the future.
Schlesinger did not disclose that Cocco is a chapter president of an advocacy
group called People Against the Draft (PAD) which, in addition to opposing any
federal proscription, seeks to establish a "peaceful, rational foreign policy"
by bringing all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Like Schlesinger's Cocco, the group
portrays itself as "nonpartisan"although its leadership seems to be entirely
bereft of any Republicans.
The group's domain is registered to a man named Jacob Levich, a left-wing
activist who in a 2001 essay compared the Bush Administration to the
totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's 1984.
PAD also lists Anita Dutt, a Green Party activist who is also a member of an
anti-war group called Bronx Action for Justice and Peace. In a March 3, 2003
New York Times profile of the group reprinted on the organization's web site,
Heidi Hynes, one of its leaders, said of her fellow members that "none of us
are Republicans."
Also left out of the CBS story was the fact that while there are two bills in
Congress that are seeking to reestablish the draft, both of them (S-89 and
HR-163) are sponsored exclusively by Democrats and have been pronounced DOA by
the Republican leadership.
Network Uses Phony Documents to Promote Draft Conspiracy
September 28, 2004 20:41:03 EDT
Daniel Irvin Rather must be a masochist. You'd think that in the midst of the
terrible publicity he is currently getting for working closely with a partisan
Democrat bent on bringing down President Bush that Dan Rather would have the
good sense to lay off the liberal bias for a while. But common sense seems to
be in short supply at CBS News these days.
Three weeks after he denounced the internet as being "filled with rumors," the
embattled CBS anchor ran a story on his Tuesday "Evening News" program hoping
to stir up fear of an impending military draft.
In a story that was a textbook example of slipshod reporting, CBS reporter
Richard Schlesinger used debunked internet hoax emails and an unlabeled
interest group member to scare elderly "Evening" viewers into believing that
the U.S. government is poised to resume the draft.
At the center of Schlesinger's piece was a woman named Beverly Cocco, a
Philadelphia woman who is "sick to my stomach" that her two sons might be
drafted. In his report, Schlesinger claimed that Cocco was a Republican and
portrayed her as an apolitical (even Republican) mom worried about the future.
Schlesinger did not disclose that Cocco is a chapter president of an advocacy
group called People Against the Draft (PAD) which, in addition to opposing any
federal proscription, seeks to establish a "peaceful, rational foreign policy"
by bringing all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Like Schlesinger's Cocco, the group
portrays itself as "nonpartisan"although its leadership seems to be entirely
bereft of any Republicans.
The group's domain is registered to a man named Jacob Levich, a left-wing
activist who in a 2001 essay compared the Bush Administration to the
totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's 1984.
PAD also lists Anita Dutt, a Green Party activist who is also a member of an
anti-war group called Bronx Action for Justice and Peace. In a March 3, 2003
New York Times profile of the group reprinted on the organization's web site,
Heidi Hynes, one of its leaders, said of her fellow members that "none of us
are Republicans."
Also left out of the CBS story was the fact that while there are two bills in
Congress that are seeking to reestablish the draft, both of them (S-89 and
HR-163) are sponsored exclusively by Democrats and have been pronounced DOA by
the Republican leadership.