Cal and Kalb on Memogate

Here’s Cal Thomas commenting on CBS’s Official Cover-up Report on Memogate:

In Section X (Page 211) and headlined “Whether There Was A Political Agenda Driving The September 8 Segment,” the report says this is “one of the most subjective, and most difficult (questions), that the Panel has sought to answer. The political agenda question was posed by the Panel directly to Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, who appear to have drawn the greatest attention in terms of possible agendas. Both strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment.”

I guess that settles it, then. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, but that didn’t stop Rather and CBS News from attempting to prove he was. How serious can one take a report that relies strictly on the testimony of the chief “suspects” that they had no political agenda?

I sent the above to Jim Kalb at Turnabout, who has been interested in Memogate and always has an insightful grasp of the workings of the managerial liberal mind. Here’s his reply:

The key point for me is that the panel wouldn’t even say whether the (blatantly forged) documents were authentic. They simply weren’t willing to come to conclusions that required an inference that some presumptively respectable person involved would contest, especially if those conclusions would involve accusing someone of something. They accumulated and laid out the facts that were there in black and white, drew the least adventurous and provocative conclusions possible, and left everything else unsettled.

To my mind that’s simply the way respectable establishment-type people operate. They’re cautious and very much concerned with maintaining institutional consensus, and they want to say things that fit smoothly into the practicalities of administering large institutions.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 12, 2005 10:24 AM | Send