Wednesday, September 15, 2004
The First Rathergate
Am I just lazy, or are people posting great stuff on LGF today? You decide. This one from the tirelessly vigilant Sarah. D
On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell...
The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
Rather interviewed one vet after another who gave accounts of atrocities they witnessed and committed. Some simple fact checking of their service records would have quickly shown how far the "facts" of this documentary were from the truth.
This makes me furious. As if Vietnam wasn't wasn't bad enough for the vets who served, the mainstream media has created a folklore about it that portrays them as monsters, babykillers. I'm trying to fathom how all this came about, how the vets became the scapegoats, while the leftists hijacked our culture and rode the baby boom into power and influence until their paragon, the supreme serial narcissist Bill Clinton held our highest office. But there are too many factors, too many bankrupt ideologies,(many to which I've been guilty of subcribing), too many misreported events...I can't do it justice between phone calls at work. Help me out people...
One thing that is crystal clear is that these men have committed the same offense against their brothers-in-arms as Kerry has. Like him, they have smeared honest vets to promote themselves. And Rather, then as now, is guilty at the least of wanting to believe the story so badly, that fact checking didn't even seem to be an option.
On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell...
The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
Rather interviewed one vet after another who gave accounts of atrocities they witnessed and committed. Some simple fact checking of their service records would have quickly shown how far the "facts" of this documentary were from the truth.
This makes me furious. As if Vietnam wasn't wasn't bad enough for the vets who served, the mainstream media has created a folklore about it that portrays them as monsters, babykillers. I'm trying to fathom how all this came about, how the vets became the scapegoats, while the leftists hijacked our culture and rode the baby boom into power and influence until their paragon, the supreme serial narcissist Bill Clinton held our highest office. But there are too many factors, too many bankrupt ideologies,(many to which I've been guilty of subcribing), too many misreported events...I can't do it justice between phone calls at work. Help me out people...
One thing that is crystal clear is that these men have committed the same offense against their brothers-in-arms as Kerry has. Like him, they have smeared honest vets to promote themselves. And Rather, then as now, is guilty at the least of wanting to believe the story so badly, that fact checking didn't even seem to be an option.
papijoe 12:54 PM
|