Lying Liars

“There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.” Scott Pelley

I have to admit to have been following the Bari Weiss soap opera with some regularity, not to mention glee. Or should I say, sad amusement?

Because 60 minutes is now dead and cooked and we got to see who broke it, right before our own eyes.

Talk about deepsixing a beloved American institution at lightspeed. Sorry to see that Stahl and the other two lone survivors didn't also take their leave and tell Weiss to pound sand.

Weiss is eminently unqualified to be in her position, she was brought in to kiss Trump's ass so that the Paramount deal would go through. She started up on the Nicaraugua expose, always preaching fair and balanced but never taking a swing at problems on the other side of the plate, only towing the Trump/Netanyahu line.

And if you look real closely you will see David Ellison's hand right behind her, pulling every puppet string.  

He orchestrated the slaughter of sixty minutes.

But what is most interesting is that Scott Pelley finally delivered receipts of the hanging:

In an interview with the New York Times published on Sunday, the 68-year-old Pelley accused Weiss of injecting "falsehoods and bias" into programming.

Pelley told the outlet: "Two of the things in the email include, 'Can we make the protesters look more violent?' Now, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good's car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer."

Pelley maintained that was the direction contained in the email even though video of Good's shooting did not support such a conclusion.

A CBS News spokesperson told the Times in response to Pelley's statements that Weiss had made four points in an email exchange on the segment that had "no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible".

"Not everything she raised made it into the final piece," the statement added.

I love the last sentence, read: it could have been worse. We only did two of them.

Now we are used to this sort of partisan tailoring at Fox and Newsmax but come on. Make the protesters seem more violent? And how about we say she was driving into the officers even though the videos show that she was not?

This is disgusting, right out of Wag the Dog. You think Larry Ellison and his snot nose kid are going to deliver something rooted in truth and reality, something that will help protect the american people from his ilk, let me sell you a bridge.

How or why do they elevate people with as little news experience as Weiss and Bilton into these sorts of towering positions?

Very simple. Because they are guaranteed to tow the company and corporate line. As well as the MAGA line and Ellison needs the President to make more money. He thinks that we are that stupid. Is he right?

Of course, the right wing blogosphere just looks at this as another successful battle in the culture war, the casualty of truth mere collateral damage. But we have really lost something valuable here.

More on the story here at Techdirt.