"Anchors Away" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Anchors Away

Did you see those hoity-toity anchormen? Anchors indeed as they have brought television news to such lows. They confabbed over the weekend in a show of support for the dirt in the memo-maligned CBS eye. Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw defended Dan Rather, who, like a guilty politician, wasn’t talking about the self-inflicted disaster to what was left of his reputation.

Ironically, the real crime -- just as it is with most political scandals -- was the cover-up. Okay, cover-up isn’t quite the right word. CBS tried to explain what they’d gotten wrong but couldn’t see the forest for the tree that fell over on them.

The truth is that the news media go on the air all the time with partially-substantiated stories. The good journalists have an instinct to steer them away from the wrong ones. If they’re not stoned-stupid trying to get a scoop, they generally shy away from making big mistakes. And in this case, they were actually right about the facts. Bush did get a break because he was a hot-shot’s son but he lacked the character to finish his national guard service.

Didn’t matter. CBS was so inept in handling the furor that instead of investigating the Bush story further, the once-great network pulled down their pants and hired former Attorney General and Republican Dick Thornburgh to see where they went wrong.

It’s all show and ridiculous and an extension of their stupidity. They don’t need to be investigated. They know how they got the memos and from whom and that they had gotten enough to corroboration to go with the story. Nothing to investigate, unless they think Karl Rove set them up and is going to confess.

But there they were, the anchors, crying curdled tears into their begging bowls, seemingly surprised at all the hubbub. The surprise comes, perhaps, because they make more every day than the average American family of four gets by with over a whole year. These guys haven’t been in touch with this country, or reality, for twenty years, and it shows.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.