The axe has fallen. Too bad it didn't hit the right necks or Rather, enough of them.

Interestingly enough, Andrew Heyward, the President of CBS News, was not asked to resign.

When a football team blows a season, the blame usually falls on the head coach. Instead of firing the head coach (Heyward), CBS chose the equivalent of firing a few position coaches and trading some players. As any football fan knows, when you leave a failing coach at the helm, he will continue to make the same bad decisions that led to the losing season, even if his coaching staff or personnel changes. Bad leadership leads to bad teams, in professional journalism as well as football. In this regard, we can expect a Heyward-led CBS News to soon revert to the slipshod, partisan journalism that has characterized his leadership. Heyward's head should roll along with his underlings.

The fact that the "general manager" of the Team CBS, CBS President Leslie Moonves did not fire Heyward makes me wonder if the CBS Board of Directors should consider not only sacking the head coach, but the general manager.

Until the senior management is changed, can expect "Rathergate" type inaccuracies to resurface again, despite the window dressing recommendations of the two-person CBS-appointed panel.


CBS News is in cover-up mode (still not admittign the documents wer forged or their reporters blindly partisan and politically-motivated), and has offered up a few underlings as a sacrifice to the American people, but it does not seem to be serious about making changes to the underlying organizational structure that allowed Rathergate to happen.

We will see another "Rathergate" at CBS News.

It is simply a matter of time.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The axe has fallen in the Rathergate investigation. Too bad it hasn't helped their ability to air accurate reports.

CBS News is now reporting (ed. note: link since changed, read update at bottom of page) that:

Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush's National Guard service.

The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with "rigid and blind" defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard's deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Betsy West. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I might be a day late in catching the 01/09/05 Instapundit reference to Buy Blue over the weekend, but as someone who is mostly conservative, I loved their "Blue Christmas" campaign.

It not only provided a list of "blue" companies, but a list of "red" companies as well(PDF), which came in very handy for making sure I bought Christmas presents from companies that still (apparently) believe in keeping Christ in Christmas as I mentioned earlier.

Sometimes, liberals are their own best enemies.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Call it torture.

As Alberto Gonzales is grilled for his role in formulating the policies of torture for insurgents, terrorist, and fundamentalists as he strives to become the first Mexican-American Attorney General, it is important we review a few basic facts.

A group of liberal-sympathizing religious fundamentalists was trapped and tortured, and stood by and Gonzales did nothing.

You don't remember this?

For 51 days they were kept in the dark, without heat or light. Even with no physical evidence, they were repeatedly accused of:

• abusing children;
• selling drugs;
• trafficking in weapons.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Blogging has been nonexistent for the last few days and will likely remain light for a few more while I finish a project for my day job and dive into one of my Christmas presents.

I should be back over the weekend, unless I'm not.

Also, I'm interested in getting visitor book recommendations for the Get This Book ad over to the right, so if you've read something more interesting than a travel guide lately, let me know.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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John Kerry looks back at why he lost.

But more importantly, is he going to finally share his plans now?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Help me understand something.

We (and here I mean "the world community") largely stood by when 138,000 were killed in the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, and did next to nothing as 800,000 were slaughtered in tribal warfare in Rwanda. There was also relatively little international concern or outcry of support when 30,000 died one year ago in the 12/26/03 Iranian earthquake that the world has largely forgotten.

As many as 300,000 have died in the on-going Darfur genocide as Arab "janjaweed" militias continue to rape and murder their way across the Sudan. An estimated 10,000 are dying there each month, and the world is largely indifferent as this preventable disaster continues unabated.

But you see, these disasters don't affect us.

All of the disasters I just mentioned involved dark-skinned people in developing countries, and therefore they've been largely ignored.

But when a natural disaster occurs in a favorite European tourist destination and a few thousand folks of the caucasian persuasion perish, the world is suddenly filled with empathy and compassion. Did anyone notice that in a disaster that killed 124,000+ in Southeast Asia, and thousands in Africa and India, that the most popular individual "face" put on the disaster by the MSM is that of a two year-old Swedish boy?

Nature happens, and we should of course help those affected by the Sumatran tsunami. That said, it is pathetic that we can't generate the same outpouring of support and empathy for the manmade disasters we can prevent, for reasons that largely appear to be tied to classism and bigotry.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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