It would be great to see CBS lose for what they did to him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/busine...er.html?hp
(The case, for those who forget, is about the records about Bush's military service... never showing up while probably being on drugs, etc... the records were declared a "forgery" and Rather "discredited", but I've always been sure that the records were either real or copies of real documents. They fit in too perfectly with everything we know about that period of George W. Bush's life for them to be anything else... but the Republican attack machine managed to get Dan Rather fired over telling the truth, because it was inconvenient for Bush's re-election chances. It really was amazing how the press turned on a dime and all started talking about the "forgery" and "how did the story get on the air at all", while no serious, nonpartisan effort was really made to prove the validity of the documents in question... for anyone who really needs any more proof, it was some absolute proof that the so-called "liberal media" doesn't exist.
Anyway, Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS for having a partisan inquiry about how the documents got on the air (it was run by a partisan Republican, and CBS had evidently wanted such a person to run it... hmm, I wonder why?) and for damaging his character is evidently progressing along fairly well. Good, and I hope he wins in the end. :)
Quote:They fit in too perfectly with everything we know about that period of George W. Bush's life for them to be anything else...
lol
What, as if there's some evidence somewhere that at that time he was anything OTHER than a druggie skipping out on his responsibilities?
I don't think so...
As I said there, the Republican attack machine somehow managed to distract the press and the people away from the report as if it was fake, WITHOUT EVER ACTUALLY DISPROVING A WORD IN IT. Very clever... but it didn't fool me, or many other liberals. It was very frustrating to see the press give in like that to the right's lies and deceptions... :(
As I said there, Dan Rather's lawsuit is both a well-deserved response to how CBS handled the situation and something that shows that some reporters, at least, still have integrity. :)
I made *ahem* found a document stating that ABF is stupid and dumb. Since it hasn't been disproven, and it fits in with everything I know, then that makes it true by default!
ABF, I'm sorry but GR's right on here. Saying "it fits in with what I know about him" is not evidence in any way that the documents are real. Maybe they are, and we might find out, but taking a default position of "it's true until someone falsifies it" is the very essence of anti-science.
And the credo of our judicial system.
Only if you're not rich and white.
Trust me one doesn't cut it!
Quote:I made *ahem* found a document stating that ABF is stupid and dumb. Since it hasn't been disproven, and it fits in with everything I know, then that makes it true by default!
Oh come on, that's a ridiculous comparison. There's a big difference between something that obviously has no basis in fact and something that perfectly fits the facts, it just isn't conclusively proven to be true, though there was also backup evidence of people who were at that base(in Alabama mostly, but also perhaps in Texas) at the time (including military officers) he was supposedly supposed to be there and couldn't remember ever seeing him... or that, again from other evidence, that we know that during this period W. was an at least occasional crack cocaine user (and drunk, too)... yeah, there's no reason at ALL to believe that he just didn't show up for the minimal time his national guard requirement required!
It is amazing how much he turned his life around by becoming an evangelical Christian and abandoing drugs and alcohol... he went from being a drunk who failed at just about everything he wasn't given to a sober person who failed at everything he wasn't given (Baseball, business, politics...).
... It'd be amusing if the results weren't so horrifyingly tragic.
I'm not saying that it may not have been true considering the other evidence, I'm saying that you can't just assume that document is true because it fits with what you already know. By that standard, I could just write a speech by Abraham Lincoln about human rights and standing for them and all that noise and you'd say it fits with what we know about him so it must be real.
Quote:By that standard, I could just write a speech by Abraham Lincoln about human rights and standing for them and all that noise and you'd say it fits with what we know about him so it must be real.
Not necessarily, we know that he didn't exactly say that he thought black people were equal to whites (no person would ever have gotten elected back then if they'd said that), just that they shouldn't be enslaved...
And there'd need to be actual evidence (in this case from the text and beyond), like there is here, not something that's obviously just a faked document.
A text file can never prove itself to be true. That's silly. "Beyond" is the ONLY acceptable evidence.
"it's true until someone falsifies it"
"Innocent until proven guilty"
Lightbulb now you.
Innocent until proven guilty is closer to "it's false until someone truthifies it".
Innocense is basically the "null" claim, the default of the vast majority of people. False is the default state of pretty much all claims that don't have evidence.
Explain. How is "guilt" the default claim? Most people did NOT commit the crime in question, therefor innocense is the default null claim. The other must be established.
By saying that this document must be true until shown otherwise, you are saying it's "guilty" until proven "innocent". That's just not how science works. Science can't work from a framework of thinking every single claim is simultaneously true until something's falsified. In fact how could you falsify things in that sort of framework? No, they come up with a hypothesis and then attempt to find evidence to support it. An absence of evidence, where one would expect to find said evidence, IS evidence of absence.
Quote:A text file can never prove itself to be true. That's silly. "Beyond" is the ONLY acceptable evidence.
Well, I did also mention other corroborating facts, of course... so either you're ignoring that or you don't think that's enough, but you should at least address them.
But anyway, I don't agree with this at all, written evidence is the most important kind. Other things can support written evidence, but nothing else is as important, or as insightful...
Of course you cannot always trust that something is accurate, but when enough things suggest that it is for you to believe it, there's nothing wrong in doing so.
In the field of history, studying and analyzing written evidence is the core of what the study of history is about, not other kinds. History doesn't begin until things start getting written down...
I'm not really taking the side of or against this document. My part in this argument is simply about what constitutes proof. If you've got more corroborating evidence to support the document is true, fine, I'll agree to it. I have no real interest in it, I'm already convinced GW Bush has been a terrible president. I just jump in when I see what I think is a poor argument.
The fact is, anyone can write anything down. It's a lot more important for the sun to actually BE the gravitational center of the solar system than for someone to simply say it is so, and for that to happen, measurements must occur, so no, a bunch of papers are not evidence of anything other than the opinion of the writer. And, if you can't verify that something actually was written by someone, it doesn't really matter if it "is totally what that guy would have said".
Surely historians do full background checks of whatever document they are examining to determine if it actually originated from the era in question? Surely they do fact checks to make sure that the things stated in it were actually true and not merely the ravings of a lunatic? Surely it amounts to more than simply checking to see if the nature of the text matches what the author usually writes?
Anyway, to make it clear, I know you can't expect absolute proof, but rather evidence. If you have established that a book actually is from a specific era and written by a specific author using a good chunk of it, then the remaining pages need not be assumed to be fake, it's a good bet the entirety of it is also from that era, until something about the handwriting or the paper suggests otherwise. However, if you haven't established any of that, and all you can say is this long lost Shakespear play sure sounds a lot like his normal style, then that's hardly convincing evidence at all.
First, this -- did you read the NYTimes article I linked?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec...wsuit-bush
Laugh all you want now, but I expect that once this goes to trial as it is going to, you'll see that that report, and me, were right all along. Here's the latest news on it...
This wasn't just made up, the story was never refuted, and it was true. It's amazing how well the right-wing spin machine conned people into believing that a true story was "false and made up"...
Quote:CBS newsman's $70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow
As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, at least one unpleasant episode from his unpopular presidency is threatening to follow him into retirement.
A $70m lawsuit filed by Dan Rather, the veteran former newsreader for CBS Evening News, against his old network is reopening the debate over alleged favourable treatment that Bush received when he served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Bush had hoped that this controversy had been dealt with once and for all during the 2004 election.
Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.
He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true - "What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him," he says - but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired. He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush's second term.
Among those CBS considered for the panel to investigate Rather's report were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
"CBS broke with long-standing tradition at CBS News and elsewhere of standing up to political pressure," says Rather. "And, there's no joy in saying it, they caved ... in an effort to placate their regulators in Washington."
Rather's lawsuit makes other serious allegations about CBS succumbing to political pressure in an attempt to suppress important news stories. In particular, he says that his bosses at CBS tried to stop him reporting evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Rather's lawsuit, "for weeks they refused to grant permission to air the story" and "continued to raise the goalposts, insisting on additional substantiation". Rather also claims that General Richard Meyers, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military official in the US, called him at home and asked him not to broadcast the story, saying that it would "endanger national security".
Rather says that CBS only agreed to allow him to broadcast the story when it found out that Seymour Hersh would be writing about it in the New Yorker magazine. Even then, Rather claims, CBS tried to bury it. "CBS imposed the unusual restrictions that the story would be aired only once, that it would not be preceded by on-air promotion, and that it would not be referenced on the CBS Evening News," he says.
The charges outlined in Rather's lawsuit will cast a further shadow over the Bush legacy. He recently expressed regret for the "failed intelligence" which led to the invasion of Iraq and has received heavy criticism over the scale and depth of the economic downturn in the United States.
Quote:Laugh all you want now, but I expect that once this goes to trial as it is going to, you'll see that that report, and me, were right all along.
lol
Given that there's absolutely no evidence to support any other position, unless the Bush Administration suppresses it somehow (like how they managed to keep Dick Cheney from being charged with leaking Valerie Plame's name to the press, an illegal act he most certainly ordered or did), it's the only logical outcome.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:ABF, I'm sorry but GR's right on here. Saying "it fits in with what I know about him" is not evidence in any way that the documents are real. Maybe they are, and we might find out, but taking a default position of "it's true until someone falsifies it" is the very essence of anti-science.
How about we try this again...
If that were true, Bush would have simply denied the charges. Instead, he used a narrower excuse, that the documents had been faked. He didn't say "it's not true", he said "those aren't real documents"... and then failed to either provide any evidence that the charges weren't true or prove that the documents were faked. And yet everyone believed them anyway. Huh?
Why anyone at all would believe the Bush Administration on this is beyond me, that's for sure.
And in addition, Dan Rather, one of the great television journalists of recent decades, wouldn't be spending millions of dollars on this if he thought his report wasn't accurate. But the first point is a stronger one, I think.