The always original The Talking Dog has another original interview up — this time with the author of a popular new political book. Here’s his intro:
Eric Boehlert, a regular contributor to Salon and the Huffington Post, as well as to Rolling Stone, is the author of “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush”, an exigesis of documented instances in which the Mainstream Media (MSM) has defaulted on even the pretense of fairness and objectivity, as demonstrated most clearly by the contrast between the picayune obsessions with seemingly minor scandals of the Clinton Administration versus the extraordinary deference shown to the current Bush Administration under virtually any and all circumstances. On June 1, 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing Eric Boehlert, by telephone. What follows are my interview notes, as corrected where appropriate by Mr. Boehlert.
Once again TTD gives a meaty Q&A (part of it is because he is an attorney and always asks good questions) that touches on many different subjects. And, as usual, if we quote too much of it, we’ll take it out of context. So we’ll give you a single excerpt, then read it all by clicking on the link above. Here’s one section that is sure to be controversial:
The Talking Dog: Let me commend you on your discussion of President Bush’s National Guard service; despite viewing column inches, yards and miles on the subject, I had not before reached the critical issue you succinctly arrived at, to wit, the missing year (which we of blog-world all knew about) but your addition of the “make-up time” in Texas for that period Bush went missing from his service in Alabama (or “AWOL” as many bloggers would offer) was not authorized by military regulations, and almost without doubt, strings were pulled that were sui generis to then Lieutenant Bush to get him his sanitizing “honorable discharge”… My question is this… While the TANG story was outrageously under-covered in the critical 2000 Election cycle, by the time 2004 rolled around and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather decided this was a story again, the public had long since factored this in to their assessment of Bush (i.e. most people already assumed that like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush pulled everything he could to avoid service in Vietnam)… In short, while 60-Minutes was sitting on an Abu Ghraib story (and I’m told sat on a Guantanamo story as well), the “hard-hitting” story it chose instead was stale, irrelevant to most people, and frankly, nothing new (unlike your coverage). As such, in my view, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and the rest, at least those responsible for the decision to go with this story, anyway helped finish off Kerry by handing such an easy sideshow to the MSM (i.e. their own lack of professionalism in the course of an attempt at a Bush “hit-piece”). How would you comment on that? (I realize that you believe that given how the war was handled, Bush’s Guard service may have been more important in substance, but my point is that it was less important to the voters than the perception of “toughness”…)
Eric Boehlert: CBS botched the story. They couldn’t authenticate the memos. Dan Rather… lost his job for that story. Indeed, the entire 60-Minutes II program is now off the air… gone. There are unspoken rules out there: do a story critical of Bush, if things get tough and blow up, you may lose your job, and your show may be canceled. I submit that this was still big news in 2004. Iraq was invaded on the backs of National Guard members– many parents and even grandparents were sent to fight a war having been turned into full-time soldiers, really for the first time ever that such dependence on Guard troops was this big an element of a war. So, Bush’s own service in the Guard is highly relevant. Yes, people certainly thought this was old news, but of course, it had not been properly dealt with in 2000 when it first broke. In 2000, Walter Robinson had numerous on the record conversations about Bush’s service record and details, and the story ran in May 2000 in the Boston Globe; the New York Times didn’t acknowledge the story for five weeks… and this despite clear evidence that Bush didn’t show up to his Guard service for a full year. Rather, in the NY Times, Nicholas Kristof did a dozen lengthy profiles of Bush, never addressing how or why Bush walked out on his Guard duty… the matter was just dropped! The press seemed to miss the point on the CBS story… the Memos became the story, blowing up in CBS’s face… and the rest of the press ran from the story after that, as people saw their careers flash before their eyes.
There’s a lot more — all of it original reporting (whether you agree with it or not). Many blogs (including this one) are basically extended op-ed pages but TTD and a few others frequently offer their readers more. Read the post in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.