Finally. From CNN:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Four CBS employees were fired Monday following the release of an independent investigation into a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story about President Bush's military service that relied on forged documents.

The network fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report; Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday" and his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West.

Dan Rather, the anchor of the "CBS Evening News" who served as the story's correspondent, announced in November he would be stepping down from his anchor position in March. Rather did not mention the controversy when he made his announcement.

According to a CBS statement, an independent panel appointed by the network concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in putting together the piece, which aired September 8. That failure was compounded with a "rigid and blind" defense of the report, the statement continued.

This blog is proud to have been among the first four websites to help expose these obvious forgeries, and the only blog to offer a highly-publicized $50,000+ challenge to anyone who could reasonably recreate the documents from a typewriter available in 1972. (No one could.) I was flattered and shocked at the amount of national publicity this blog received, and was happy to retain tens of thousands of these new readers through the election.

It's nice to notice that even the Associated Press and all major news outlets are now definitively calling the documents "forgeries", not "alleged forgeries" or even "probable forgeries". (The report itself says one can never be 100% certain, but does prove in detail that the documents were not made in the early 70s, so the lack of a stated "100%" proof appears to be a legal, lawsuit-saving hedge, since their conclusion is clear.) It's also nice to see a criticism of the "rigid and blind" defense of the documents long after 99% of experts in the country had debunked them; the sheer arrogance that CBS displayed, the "we are Big Media and you will believe anything we tell you" crap, is really what did them in. After all, as we've seen so many times, Americans can forgive a mistake -- not a cover-up.

Many bloggers are furious at this "slap on the wrist" from the panel, notably Hugh Hewitt and others who were convinced the matter stemmed from intentional political bias and a desire to discredit the president before an election. I've always been one camp below that, believing that political bias is what led them to blindly accept anything that was anti-Bush (and blindly reject anything anti-Kerry), and that this qualified. More simply stated, some believe CBS knew the documents were fakes but thought they could get away with running them anyway (and hurt the President), whereas I tend to believe that they assumed they were genuine and just didn't bother checking them, because again they supported their pre-existing bias against the President. Either way is unforgiveable, of course, and those who were fired were fired deservedly. Did anyone really think the panel was going to implicate CBS in a massive conspiracy? Come on, now. I think this is a pretty positive move for CBS News, and a final (though waaaaay-overdue) public admission that a hell of a lot of people really, really messed up.

The full 234-page (!) report (in .pdf form) is here; exhibits and examples can be found here.

I can't imagine anyone out there is still reading this, since I haven't posted since the election, but just in case: thanks again for making this short-lived (thankfully) blog a success, and I'm happy to have played a part in making media more accountable.

John

In honor of the occasion, I'm happy to repost my original Killian memos comic below. Enjoy!

I haven't written anything for this blog in weeks, but am still getting 100 or so visitors a day. Who are you, and are you mad at me for not writing one final post / comic / goodbye :) ?

(I still co-author the http://ludicrosity.com/ blog, if you want a new site to bookmark!)

Well, this is interesting, regarding Kerry's well-known lengthy and desperate pleading to McCain to be his Vice President (before settling on Edwards):

"To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer," Newsweek's Thomas reports. "If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, 'You're out of your mind. I don't even know if it's constitutional, and it certainly wouldn't sell.'" Kerry was thwarted and furious. "Why the f--- didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him...'"

So, does this confirm that Kerry would say or do anything, take any position, to win power? Or, will some out there read this as "ah ha, see, Kerry did try to move to the center -- he tried to put a religious, pro-life conservative a heartbeat away from the Presidency."

Personally, I think the thought of Kerry "furious" (instead of disappointed) over McCain's reaction supports the former over the latter. I'm torn between being intrigued at what a Kerry-McCain administration might have been like, and furious/terrified/relieved that a man without ideals or conviction almost became the leader of the world.

Right now, every Democratic strategist in the nation is going over mounds of polling data, trying to figure out how in the hell they lost so badly. Senator Charles Schumer was on the Daily Show tonight, summing up his party's frustration:

When people say the country's moving in the wrong direction, they think the Iraq war is a mess, the economy isn't good, and we still lose...?

He's right -- even in the exit polls, on many of the big topics we've been talking about, voters narrowly agreed with Kerry. But the top "most important issue" was "values" -- and of the voters who listed values as their primary concern, Bush won 80%-18%. (By "values", of course, the voters seem to mean Christian values, since Bush won churchgoers by 61%-39%, and lost non-churchgoers 36%-62%.)

As we know, all 11 state proposals banning gay marriage not only passed, but by dramatic margins. I'm not quite sure I agree that those initiatives were completely responsible for Bush's victory, since the bans were mostly in solid pro-Bush territory, and passed overwhelmingly even in states Kerry won handily like Oregon and Michigan. But in Ohio, which voted for the most severe ban of them all (banning not only gay marriage but also gay civil unions and anything intending "to approximate" a marriage benefit), those concerned Christians could have made all the difference. (The irony is that Kerry didn't even support gay marriage -- but remember it's not that voters thought he did, but that the issue itself lured more conservatives to the polls in the first place.)

I also don't agree that Bush supporters are necessarily anti-gay. Of people who support gay civil unions, for example, the public was evenly divided between Bush and Kerry. And, even after supporting a constitutional ban on gay marriage this time around, Bush's support among gay Americans stayed the same, at about 25%.

On sensitive issues, you have to take the time to convince people, not just ram new ideas down their throats. It took decades for interracial marriages to become legal and accepted -- you can't just flip an entire country's viewpoint on gay marriage in a couple of years, no matter how high Will and Grace's Nielsens are. We're not ready yet. Bush is in the mainstream on this one -- start with civil unions, let the states decide their own laws, and we'll ease into it. It's not about what's "right" if fighting for it all at once sets you back instead of forward. State after state is now banning not only gay marriage, but even unions like marriage or allowing any benefits of marriage. Imagine if there was a major national push to legalize all illegal drugs, even the hard stuff, and maybe a state or two had actually done it. The anti-drugs majority might get panicked, and respond with a sweeping bill that increased drug possession fines and mandatory jailtime, which would pass overwhelmingly. Rather than helping their cause, the activists hurt it deeply, because they tried to force the extreme of a minority position on people before they were ready. Again, it's not about whether gay marriage should be legal (I strongly support it myself). This is a Democracy -- you don't get to skip over the "winning minds" part.

But it's more than just "the gay thing". Bush won on values because the Democratic party in recent years has moved far to the left, while the American people have stayed relatively the same. For example, according to Gallup, year after year a full 50% of this country is pro-life, and yet the Democratic party now literally refuses to support any pro-life Democrats. They've publicly ridiculed pro-God and pro-gun people as a small, backward portion of the electorate, oblivious to the fact that they're insulting the vast majority of the electorate. This is what Zell Miller warned about in "A National Party No More", and this election might just force the Dems into taking his arguments a little more seriously. (Hey, he might be nuts, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.)

If everyone you surround yourself with believes a certain thing, it becomes self-reinforcing. By kicking out all dissenting opinion in their ranks, the Dems started believing they represented the mainstream. How many times did you hear this election that Bush was "ultra-conservative", or even "the most right-wing President ever"? Think about how ludicrous that is: Bush is demonstrably more moderate than his father, and way more moderate than Reagan or Nixon -- to say nothing of Republicans like Hastert and Delay. Hell, popular conservative commentators such as Limbaugh and Hannity and Savage complain daily and in detail that Bush is far too liberal. But the Democrats didn't see this. They were in their bubble where everyone believes as they do, and so those who disagree must be in the minority. The Republicans had this problem a little after Newt's "Republican Revolution", when they took it as a mandate to shift rightward. But after Dole's defeat, they moved centrist, and now they're the only "big tent" left. Some of the nation's most popular Republicans such as Giuliani, Powell and Schwarzenegger would have stood out as exceptions only a decade ago; now they're the public mainstream face of the party. Think about it -- any of us could easy rattle off 10-20 popular moderate Republicans, but how many moderate Democrats could you name? 1? 2?

And they wonder why they keep losing elections.

Bush won more votes than any candidate in American history on Tuesday, and by a decisive margin of 4 million votes (3.5%) over his opponent. Not a "landslide", of course, but consider that Clinton's "landslide" in 1992 was only by 5.5 million votes (5.5%) over Bush's father. And what's particularly striking about today's polling is that only 38% of Americans say they were upset with Kerry's defeat! Talk about weak support -- more than a quarter of Kerry's own voters are kinda glad it didn't go their way? Wow.

The bottom line: the Democratic Party needs to move back to the center if they want to reconnect with the American voter. They have to stop scaring away conservative Democrats to the Republican side. They have to allow pro-life Democrats again. They have to fund candidates who agree with the majority of Democratic ideals, even if they happen to be pro-Jesus or pro-gun. As crazy old Zell would say, they have to go back to being a "national party"; they can't just keep writing off the South.

I happen to believe the Democrats are right on a hell of a lot of progressive issues. But they'll never get to do anything about them if they keep losing power. Moving back to the center will let them win elections again, and then be in a position to, in time, win over the minds of the public and change the country for the better. Right now, they're setting their own ideals back by decades, and without the ability for balanced dialog and debate, we all lose.

(also posted to ludicrosity.com)

The networks STILL haven't called New Mexico and Iowa for Bush (as of 10:30pm EST), with 100% reporting Bush ahead by 12,000+ votes in each. They had no problem calling Wisconsin or New Hampshire for Kerry, with leads of around 10,000 in each state. Think it's caution, coincidence, or an attempt at downplaying Bush's victory? (I'm not sure myself; just think it's odd.)

If you want a great laugh, check out The Onion today. My favorite mock headline: "Poll: Youth Totally Meant To Vote In Record Numbers"

My final thoughts will be posted later, but consider these points for now:

- Bush's victory margin was greater than any of the pollsters predicted, a full 51%-48% (the first president to win more than 50% of the vote since 1988) by nearly 4 million people

- Youth turnout was high (though not disproportionately) -- but they didn't vote nearly as overwhelmingly for Kerry as anticipated (54%-45%)

- The Senate went from a marginal 51-seat majority to a more decisive 55-seat majority (one race still too close to call), including the first ouster of a party leader (Daschle) in 50 years

- The House increased its majority from 227 members to 233

Therefore, this was not just about Bush v. Kerry. It's indicative of a nation moving, at least a bit, more to the right. The Democrats have to move to the center if they want national power.

(Sorry there were a couple errors in this post originally!)

On July 28th, 2004, I launched this blog with the following post:

Greetings readers! Or at least theoretical readers. After all, this is a brand new blog with little to no advertising, launched less than 100 days before the 2004 Presidential election -- and which, hopefully, whose title be obsolete after November. This presents unique challenges, because there's very little time for the blog to build an audience before the election which will end it. Ironically, the only reason I would have to keep this site running after November is if the site's message is a failure, and John Kerry and John Edwards actually win -- in which case the blog title could have at least four more years of relevance.

So although what's good for this site's existence is the opposite of its message and intent, I believe strongly in its cause, and encourage anyone who stumbles upon it to share the blog with family and friends. At the very least, it would be nice to develop a small following over the next three months before Bush's hopeful reelection.

As for your humble host, what do I have against John and John? It's certainly not the name (I'm a John, too.) And it's certainly not because I'm a conservative Republican in love with the Bush administration -- I'd consider myself more of a right-leaning independent who has voted for nearly as many Democrats as Republicans. I'm adamantly in support of gay rights (and gay marriage), oppose the death penalty, want tax loopholes for the wealthy closed, want dramatic increases in government funding for the arts and music (particularly in public schools), and don't believe Jesus Christ was the son of God (or even, truth be told, that there is a God at all.) But I cannot and will not support individuals without integrity (Kerry) or without experience (Edwards) for our nation's highest office. We are in a dangerous time in our world's history, one in which consistent leadership is of incalculable importance, and we can't afford to gamble with shady and untrustworthy figures. I intend on laying out my case from now until November that Bush and Cheney, though imperfect, represent the most justifiable and informed choice to lead our nation through 2008.

Little did I know that this site would be a major player in the CBS forgeries scandals, or anticipate hundreds of thousands of unique individuals stopping by to praise or condemn me. I wasn't expecting the calls, the interviews, the impact. I only hoped to share my opinions -- I never dreamed I'd have emails from people who said that I alone changed their mind on who to support this Tuesday.

I'm not suggesting I necessarily "made a difference" -- for all I know, I may have personally caused just as many people to vote against President Bush. But the fact that I developed any readership at all during a three month existence is humbling and flattering in ways I can't describe. For all who donated to the site, who bought t-shirts and bumper stickers and thongs (!), who pledged monetary support during the CBS scandals, or just anyone who stopped by to say hello, I thank you, deeply and sincerely. It's made the ride worthwhile.

It seems pretty silly of me to make a formal endorsement for President at this time, since I doubt anyone who's visiting a site entitled "defeatjohnjohn" thinks I'd be endorsing Kerry-Edwards. Besides, other websites and newspapers have made far more beautiful and intelligent endorsements for President than I could -- specifically, I'd recommend British historian Paul Johnson's endorsement for Bush, Andrew Sullivan's inspiring endorsement for Kerry, or Linda Addis' three-part Time to Decide series, containing some of the most heartfelt and genuine election thoughts I've read all year. (Yes, I may be biased on the last one, but it doesn't make it less worth your time.) This is an important election in which everyone must make up their own mind, and if my "side" loses, it will not because the country is filled with morons, but because Democracy works. We value the opinions of millions over those of any one individual, and I will respect the collective consciousness as greater than my own position. If Kerry wins, I will stand behind him. He will not just be the leader of those who support him. He will be my President too. And I will wish for his success, not hope for his failure.

I only hope those who opppose Bush will feel the same, should his reelection occur.

In 1960, Nixon famously vowed not to challenge the disputed razor-thin fraud-filled Kennedy victory, for doing so would "tear the country apart." In 2000, Al Gore could have taken the high road as well, helping the nation to heal. He did not. The past four years have therefore been the most vitriolic and hate-filled in memory, with half the country despising the Commander in Chief to the point of fanaticism. It didn't have to be like this. Those who continue to claim Bush "stole" the election are as ridiculous as those who claim he won with a clear mandate. It was essentially a tie, but Bush won by the rules. That's it. For half the nation to regard the President as illegitmate for four years is pathetic, and desperate. Hey, it sucks when you're playing Texas Hold'em and have a full house Queens over Aces, and someone wins with a full house Kings over deuces, but them's the rules. You agree on them beforehand, and accept the consequences, regardless of whether they "seem fair" in the end. Lately, there's been a lot of talk about Bush winning the popular vote this time but losing the electoral college. And it may very well happen -- to be honest, I love irony and would love the poetic justice of that. But them's the rules. You don't bitch and moan for four years. You accept it, and move on.

Whoever wins on Tuesday (assuming, please please please, we know who the winner is on Tuesday) will have a nation to repair. Bush's reputation as "a uniter, not a divider" was wasted in Washington, partly because of the contentious election he rode in on. Had Bush won 40 states, he'd have been able to get a hell of a lot more accomplished across the aisle. But he didn't. In many ways, I'd rather Kerry win decisively than Bush win on another technicality -- we need a leader both sides can work with, regardless of party. It's how we get things done.

But, yes, I hope Kerry is defeated. As you all know by now, I do my best to read and research everything I can get my hands on, from all perspectives, from all countries. What I've uncovered in the past year has revealed two essential truths: 1) Bush is, at best, a mediocre President, and 2) Kerry would be worse. It's not just about Kerry's incompetency, or his cringe-inducing positions on health care and other domestic issues, or his hypocritical failure to release his military records, or his being on the wrong side of every military decision in two decades, or any other reasons this blog has highlighted in the past three months. Ultimately, it's about the fact that our enemies would cheer over Bush's defeat. They would celebrate in the streets. They would know that their tactics of murder and torture and unrest were successful. Remember: in Spain, the pro-war party was going to win by a landslide until Al Qaeda bombed civilian trains right before the election. The Spanish citizens were spooked, and voted for the anti-war party instead, causing Spain to pull out from Afghanistan and Iraq. This empowered and emboldened the terrorists, who now knew for a fact that they could alter public policy through the murder of innocents. This time around, Osama himself has gone on international television delivering a lengthy address to the American voter, urging us not to reelect the President. Can we honestly say with a straight face that the enemy would not be empowered by a Bush defeat on Tuesday? Can we honestly claim they wouldn't see it as a victory, as confirmation that their techniques of murdering innocent civilians were working, and that they should keep it up to get whatever they desire?

On Tuesday, I will be casting my vote for George W. Bush. It's not because I think he's a perfect guy. It's not because I think he has all the best ideas. It's because I believe he has the greatest chance of success in the defining issue of our time, and because a Bush defeat would send the strongest possible message to the tens of thousands trying to destroy us. Yes, half of us will be heartbroken on November 2nd, but by November 3rd we sure as hell better stand by our President, and wish him the same degree of success we'd wish for our ideal. That's how our game works, and we're all just lucky to get to play a hand.

May you all have a safe drive to the polls,

John Addis
defeatjohnjohn.com

I was criticized for not linking to the Osama transcript in my last post, so here it is:

http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=312

Curiously I still can't find a transcript of the entire 18-minute Osama video, which apparently contains a lot more complaining about Democracy in Aghanistan (chastizing al Qaeda for letting that happen without more violence), complaining that his organization has been hurt by the U.S. killing all his operatives on the Afghan-Pakistani border, and additional tirades over Bush and his father. If anyone has found a complete translation of the full 18-minute tape online, please share!

Particularly striking is Osama's chilling statement that "any U.S. state that does not belittle our security automatically guarantees its own security," which many (though I'm not quite sure I'm sold on this yet) have interpretted to mean "if your state votes for Kerry, you're safe, but if your state votes for Bush, watch out."

Gives a chilling new twist on the "red state" concept, doesn't it?

Update: We now have the full transcript from the Osama video.

Okay. Let's work through this.

Mass-murdering terror mastermind Osama bin Laden has released his first tape in over a year, addressed directly to the American people, just days before our Presidential election. (For the sake of this discussion, let's assume it's not a hoax, and that the video will be authenticated.)

Why would he do this? There are three possibilities. 1) Osama, as he claims, genuinely doesn't care who's in office, and is just trying to scare us before Halloween. 2) Osama is hoping to sway the election to help Bush. 3) Osama is hoping to sway the election to help Kerry.

The first possibility is the easiest to discount, due to the timing of the broadcast. You wouldn't choose your first message in over thirteen months to be days before the election, with a topic about the election, addressed directly to the American people, if you weren't trying to sway the outcome. Period.

The second possibility is laughable to all but the most maniacal conspiracy buffs. Although he claims it wouldn't matter if Kerry or Bush proves the victor, the tape looks like it was scripted by Michael Moore. From the transcript:

"It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone. It appeared to him that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God."

There is no way, with passages like that, that this could be some kind of bizarre Karl Rove conspiracy to scare people into voting for Bush. If Osama or a fake Osama wanted Bush to remain in office, they'd simply say "we're going to attack you soon" (or, attack us). Instead, Osama quotes from Farhenheit 9/11? No rational person can view this tape and deduce it's meant to help the President.

So, we can conclude with certainty that Osama bin Laden is trying to sway the election for Kerry. Any other interpretation is illogical.

Why would he do this? Well, I suppose I can insert the typical "because they know he'll be soft on terror" talking points, but really, I don't know. And, at least when it comes to making a decision on election day, I don't care. Osama bin Laden just got on international television and told us two things: 1) There will be more attacks on your country no matter who's elected, and 2) I'd really really really like it if you elected John Kerry.

Gee, I wonder which way we should vote.