In a softball interview on Monday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer teed up liberal actor Robert Redford to push propaganda about his latest role as disgraced CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather: Redford dismissed the scandal: “The whole thing unraveled over what was a small technicality at that time that was blown into major thing. And the bigger story was of course the story that Dan and Mary Mapes were working on about the Air National Guard. And suddenly that got pushed away in favor of this small glitch that became the scandal.”
60 Minutes
By Tim Graham | October 3, 2015 | 2:02 PM EDT
Adjectives matter in politics. The latest release of Hillary Clinton e-mails produced a little embarrassment for CBS News. State Department public-relations chief P.J. Crowley assured Secretary of State Clinton in 2011 that they successfully “planted” questions and suggestions for experts to "balance" a 60 Minutes interview segment by Steve Kroft with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2015 | 11:59 PM EDT
Apparently, the establishment press is waiting for its marching orders on how to handle what an Investor's Business Daily editorial has already called a "scandal."
This one's a joint effort involving Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, a recently deceased former CIA operative named Tyler Drumheller who worked with Blumenthal — and CBS News. As Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday afternoon (i.e., now approaching two overnight news cycles ago), "Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service in Europe who was working directly with Blumenthal as a member of Clinton’s spy network, was concurrently working as a consultant to CBS News and its venerable news program 60 Minutes." IBD's question, reacting to Hemingway's report: "Who is more corrupt, Clinton or the mainstream media?"
By P.J. Gladnick | September 24, 2015 | 2:54 PM EDT
"You Can't Handle the Truth!!!" ---A Few Good Men.
Apparently former CBS producer Mary Mapes can't handle the truth at least according to her portrayal by actress Cate Blanchett in the newly released movie trailer for the upcoming fictional movie "Truth." I say fictional because Mapes in the film somehow maintains the truth of her story about George W. Bush getting favorable treatment in the Texas Air National Guard based on documents that were proven to be forgeries.
By Curtis Houck | September 22, 2015 | 9:07 PM EDT
In a CBS Evening News preview clip of an interview set to air on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, anchor Scott Pelley spared with 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over his failure to correct a man who attended a Trump rally and accused the President of being Muslim. Pelley lectured Trump that “[i]t was a testing moment” for him which he failed: “You let that pass, and I wonder what that tells us about you.”
By P.J. Gladnick | July 21, 2015 | 3:34 PM EDT
Fake and not a bit accurate. What part of that does Dan Rather after all these years and many investigations later not understand about why his September 2004 report produced at 60 Minutes by Mary Mapes was a complete fraud? Certainly no expert has come forward to claim that the six supposed Texas Air National Guard documents showing special treatment for George W. Bush were authentic instead of the obvious fakes they turned out to be.
And yet Rather continues to cling to the fiction that the documents were real and that he was unfairly removed from CBS News the following year. Perhaps he might have been able to retain his anchor job had he admitted the easily provable obvious: that the documents were fake and, as a result, his documentary based on those fake documents was equally fraudulent. Instead Rather went into a complete denial of reality which he maintains to this day as you can see in his quotes in a Page Six Cindy Adams column about the soon to be released movie about that scandal with the laughable title of "Truth."
By Brent Baker | July 11, 2015 | 11:46 PM EDT
A barren week for fresh humor with all but one late night show dark the past week and half off the week before too, so I’ve dug back to a clip from September of last year which stands the test of time. HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver put together a self-explanatory compilation of clips titled: “60 Minutes Anchors Prompting People to Deliver the Exact Soundbite They Need.”
By Jack Coleman | May 28, 2015 | 6:15 PM EDT
Granted, it was done ever so obliquely and without mentioning Dear Leader by name. But when President Obama can no longer count on the venerable television newsmagazine that's been fawning in its coverage of his stint in office, the bloom is off the rose.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, 60 Minutes aired a program titled "War Stories" and first out of the gate was a report by correspondent Lara Logan on American efforts to train Afghan security forces in preparation for the eventual U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
By Kristine Marsh | May 19, 2015 | 1:48 PM EDT
How does liberal Hollywood spin a scandal which disgraced a veteran journalist and an award-winning producer? Use a discredited liberal journalist’s take on it, of course.
The Wrap reported this morning that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the U.S. right to the film Truth, an adaption of the memoir of ex-Dan Rather producer Mary Mapes defending “Rathergate.” Mapes and Rather’s 60 Minutes report based on forged memos about President Bush’s military record got both her and Rather dismissed from CBS.
By Brent Baker | May 16, 2015 | 10:24 PM EDT
“There’s three things I tell people that the Russians were afraid of: AIDS, Jewish people and Ronald Reagan.”Question: “In that order?” Reply: “I think Ronald Reagan took the top spot. They thought he would push the button.” One more reason to love Reagan.
By Dan Gainor | April 24, 2015 | 8:43 AM EDT
Many historians call the Armenian Holocaust the first holocaust of the 20th Century, a dress rehearsal for the Nazi nightmare that followed. This April 24 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of roughly 1.5 million Armenian Christians at the hands of Turkish Muslims. That mass slaughter has gone virtually unreported by the broadcast networks.
By P.J. Gladnick | April 11, 2015 | 7:58 PM EDT
"How do you live with yourself?"
Probably about as well as those many 60 Minutes reporters over the years who conducted numerous ambush interviews. What 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft didn't like was that he was on the receiving end of an interview on the fly by a New York Post reporter. Call it karmatic kickback but it all started back in January when it was revealed that Steve Kroft had been having an affair with a mistress notable for the way he slurped champagne. For some background let us review some of the highlights (or lowlights) of the scandal which broke in January before we take a look at Kroft's extreme anger at being treated the way mere mortals often are on 60 Minutes: