Juxtaposition

The proudest and happiest moments in my media career were spent at CBS in the late sixties. Coming from a Motion Picture Studio where my company was not known for it's ethical behavior, I found myself at 51 West 52nd Street, in New York, in a building referred to lovingly as "Black Rock" A class building for what a believed to be a class Company. My management inculcated me that at CBS; we "did the right thing" not just some of the time but all of the time, what an interesting notion.

My duties at CBS included selling and servicing the "news" output of the News division, to off shore stations and Networks. I also sold the documentaries that the News Division produced. Some of the news people were a "difficult" and brought a new meaning to arrogance, but most were hard working journalists, and I was proud of my company, and proud to be working with the News Division.

It must have been about 2 years ago that Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the United Nations and made a thorough presentation to them with all the "proof" of Iraq control of large amounts of "weapons of mass destruction" that were poised to do harm to all of mankind. The best case that can be made for Powell was that the people at the CIA and others were misleading him. And since that time it is interesting that he did not return to the UN and say, "Sorry guys, we were wrong"

Thousands of innocents have lost their lives in the ensuing battles along with tens of thousands wounded. It is hard to imagine a national error of this magnitude. We went to war because of a series of mistakes?

It was less then 2 weeks ago that CBS anchor Dan Rather used fake documents to make a point about the Presidents Air National Guard Service. Was he willingly distorting the "truth"? Probably not, but he was and is responsible for the "mistake concerning the documents. The Republicans are crying "foul", and even members of congress are calling for an investigation of Rather and CBS News. Journalists are on around the clock duty on cable news networks complaining about the behavior of CBS news.

As I was watching our President speaking to the United Nations I thought about the similarity of the events. Secretary Powell lying to the UN (and Bush lying to the country), which took us to war, and Rather "Lying" to the Country about the authenticity of some documents. Is there a reason that Rather is attacked for his mistake, while Bush/Cheney/Powell who took our country into a big time war seem to have gotten a proverbial "pass" The more I think about it, the more astounded I am over the issue.

But then again, what's new about this? Nothing.

Weird.

Norman Horowitz.

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