Palast: CBS' COWARDICE AND CONFLICTS BEHIND PURGE

[Carolab]

NETWORK'S CRAVEN BACK-DOWN ON BUSH DRAFT DODGE REPORT SURE TO GET A STANDING ROVE-ATION AT WHITE HOUSE
Tuesday Jan 11, 2005

By Greg Palast
"Independent" my ass. CBS' cowardly purge of five journalists who exposed George Bush's dodging of the Vietnam War draft was done under cover of what the network laughably called an "Independent Review Panel."

The "panel" was just two guys as qualified for the job as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.

Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41 Administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as Bush's Attorney General was to whitewash the investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting the oil giant off the hook on big damages. Thornburgh's fat pay as counsel to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, the Washington law-and-lobbying outfit, is substantially due to his job as a Bush retainer. This is the kind of stinky conflict of interest that hardly suggests "independent." Why not just appoint Karl Rove as CBS' grand inquisitor and be done with it?

Then there's Boccardi, not exactly a prince of journalism. This is the gent who, as CEO of the Associated Press, spiked his own wire service's exposure of Oliver North and his traitorous dealings with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Legendary AP investigative reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger found their stories outing the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986 stopped by their bosses. They did not know that Boccardi was on those very days deep in the midst of talks with North, participating in the conspiracy.

(more) http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=407&row=0

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. More signs of Republican dirty tricks. Folks, these people are going

for the Dem's throats. If the Dems think that acting docile is going to make this go away, they might as well just pack their bags and go home because their party is going to become an extinct species.

[babylonsister]

2. So the panel and supposed inquiry were done

just for show. Why doesn't this suprise me? And took much needed attention off more deserving and important stories, like Armstong and this admin giving us all the collective shaft.

[candy331]

3. Why am I not surprised? CBS is on it's knees crawling but will

not be allowed to get back up, such a shame they don't know that no amount of sucking up will suffice.