E-mail CNN about O'Neil smear of Kerry's heroic service!!

Please, DUers, if we won't defend Kerry, who will? This is getting seriously out of hand. O'Neil was just on Wolf Blitzer's show with a new, disgusting charge. Now he's saying that Kerry turned and ran in the face of enemy fire. No proof, nothing. He also claimed to be non-partisan. Wolf let him get away with it, of course.

I know some of you think people are not listening to this. They are. The time to do something about it is now. We should not wait until these lies are so embedded in the average viewers' mind that we can't undo them. E-mail wolf at wolf@cnn.com.

Some ideas: Tell him that O'Neil is not non-partisan as he claims. Ask him why he won't do a story of equal length about *'s AWOL status. I really hit him on that one. It shows the complete hypocrisy and bias of CNN that they won't touch the AWOL story. Many of you are much more informed about this topic than I am. Please e-mail CNN and let them know that some of us can see through their blatant efforts to elect the little chimp to another term.:argh:

with scumbag O'Neil...

I wrote to them, but do not think it will do any good

I e-mailed MSNBC too. Please e-mail CNN as well. It doesn't have to be a long e-mail. Just get your point across, and make the subject line clear. I know it's easy to give up, but this story is freeper created, AND THEY NEVER GIVE UP. We need to fight back.

"Wolf...

You're not doing your rapidly diminishing journalistic reputation any favors by putting a slime-ball like John O'Neill on the air. This guy is a GOP right-wing "dirty tricks" guy going back to the days of the White House "plumbers" who worked for Nixon.

Only one of the Swift Boat veterans that O'Neill has trotted out served with Kerry. How would any of them know how Kerry was wounded, how he conducted himself under combat conditions, and how he won his medals for heroism? At the very least, Kerry was actually in combat as opposed to our current "leader" who spent his time in the Texas Air National Guard getting high and being AWOL.

In my opinion, O'Neill is running an operation against John Kerry exactly like the "Arkansas Project" was run against Bill Clinton.

Give it up, Wolf...nobody's buying this tale except those who are too ignorant to do their own homework."

You made a very clear case. I'm sure your well written letter will stand up well against the many illiterate freeper e-mails they'll get. Thanks.:D

Here it is:

Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:37:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: "XXXX XXXXXX" <XXX.XXXXXXXX@sbcglobal.net>

Subject: Once again: you have failed to live up to your responsibilities as a journalist ....
To: wolf@cnn.com


You DO understand that you ARE responsible for checking and reporting the facts surrounding various charges and claims made by both sides ... right ?

John O'Neil is the epitome of a political operative: yet you allowed him to say he was non-partisan. Why ? ...

Furthermore: You did not question the honesty, nor demand any evidentiary proof, of the claims asserted by O'Neil regarding Kerry and his days as a Swiftboat skipper.

Why ? ...

Why would you allow, as a responsible journalist, such specious claims to go unchallenged without some sort of decent evidence to support those assertions ?

Are anecdotes from individuals who were not present at such events enough 'evidence' for you to establish a 'fact' ? You aren't doing your job, Leslie, plain and simple.

Your sycophancy to the ruling party is so transparent. You really aren't fooling anyone.

CNN has turned so hard right, it may be unrecoverable in it's present form.

Better luck finding a fact next time, eh ?

Right ....

XXXXXXXX

I hope Leslie reads, understands, and acts on your advice. Thanks.:-)

*O'Neill was recruited by the Nixon White House (by the eventually imprisoned Charles Colson, no less) to counter Kerry. You can find the articles if you do a Google search.

*The book "Unfit for Command" is published by Regnery Publishing, which is hardly a scholarly source. Generally speaking, it puts out all these paranoid, right-wing rants that claim any prominent Democrat (the Clintons, for example) is a traitor and/or felon.

*I think O'Neill's law firm has ties to the Bush family.

*Are we really supposed to believe that a book that comes out right after the Democratic Convention, in a month without direct Kerry advertising, is simply an earnest, scholarly work by nonpartisan patriots? Robert Novak, Blitzer's colleague, wrote a column trying to persuade us that this is so. He'd have better luck convincing me that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are real.

Wolf a Google tutorial. I don't think he or his many research assistants have ever heard of it. Great post!:-)

Subject: John O'Neil

I can't imagine why you would give this man (and I use the word loosely) a forum on international television.
Admiral Crowe did his best to refute the vile attacks of this slug, but he is obviously not too media savvy.
Would you give equal time to those in the internet media who have done a comprehensive and exhaustive job of uncovering Bush's whereabouts during the last two years of his Air National Guard commitment?
No, I guess not. Old news.
I wish Ted were back.

Massey Lambard
Foley, AL

the AWOL story. It's something they'll never be able to answer: why son't they do a similar story on the AWOL chimp? Let's keep pounding on that one! Thanks!B-)

Used some of your points, especially the one about AWOL bush. I also told him that if a simple working stiff like myself can find out info about O'Neill, then he certainly should be able to.

Wolf be able to find out the facts, he has a multitude of research assistants to help him. Thanks for calling him on his willful ignorance and bias!:-)

Is that bad manners?

Just to be on the safe side...:hi:

mediawhore, just to be clear. But then, I'm a prissy schoolteacher. I admire others with more direct language skills. Thanks for writing!:-)

It isn't a nasty (what's wrong with him) Wolfe or any of the others. Michael Moore has said (and posted here last night) of how a big anchor on morning talk shows was interviewing him and then on break told him he was right because the network got blasted from Cheney about "their attitude" and this anchor was ordered to clean up his act. You can write to Wolfe until you face falls off. They are on a mission. A mission we all knew they would be on. They are on the "elect Bush" mission for their masters. You mean shit to them--save your breath. Ohhhh, you are all upset about the bashing Kerry's military record, are you?? Then take a pill 'cause it's all down hill from here. You ain't seen nothing yet. Come November Kerry will be a scotch lower than Scott Peterson. That's why some of us dumb have suggested that Kerry may want to ATTACK.........and another election disappears down the royal crapper...........

:hi: Hope you found time to e-mail CNN about this. They need to hear from all of us!

Me, I choose to fight...

RL

Mr. Blitzer...there was once a time when one could consider your network and YOU as coming down somewhere down the middle of reported stories, giving context and asking the hard questions of both sides of a dispute. Well, after your disappointing "interview" with former Swift Boater John O'Neill, I suppose I (and many others) could say with little fear that that "down the middle" time is sadly long gone.

News is not what it once was—something that often aspired to an altruistic, objective presentation of the facts—profits and perks be damned. The days of a Murrow's "Harvest of Shame" or a presenting of the Watergate hearings raw and devoid of spin are past. Now your industry and again YOU, seem driven by the fortnightly posting of ratings on the execrable Matt Drudge's site. FOX seems to outdraw you most nights. So, what do you (and CNN) do? Easy! Try to out-fox, Fox. (emphasis and cinematic pun intended) Only a person in a sensory deprivation tank since 9/10/01 wouldn't notice the rightward shuffle you and the network have taken. This shuffle has been especially noticeable in your rather biased (to the right) coverage of Campaign '04 and in particular your handling of the scurrilous charges levied by the "Swiftees".

Imagine a couple of old comrades of the President's coming forward with wild and outrageous charges about his carrying on during his "wilderness" years. Wild charges—saying he inadvertently struck someone with his car while drunk and drove off, or made vicious racial slurs and beat up minorities—imagine if these things were said. And to compound things, imagine if this was said by people who were known to have long hated and been at loggerheads with the President—maybe they are from a different poitical party. Say they wrote a book about his wild days and were publishing it now. Would YOU put them on your NEWS show and publicize it, knowing the jaundiced viewpoint of these accusers? What if in addition to ALL the baggage they carried, they were being backed by say...a Barbra Streisand, an avowed liberal? Would so poisonous a tome even merit a show, much less a mention?
Very likely not. Yet, you did exactly this thing when you legitimized John O'Neill (his very well-documented and supremely bigoted co-author was nowhere to be found—did you ask why?) with his appearence on your show. Big, tough, Gulf War Wolf didn't really challenge the clear bias in O'Neill's writings and wild statements. You basically looked the other way when he blurted out "Kerry ran from a firefight". How is it that in O'Neills' book, Kerry is both recklessly crazed and fecklessly craven at the same time. Did you point out this dichotomy? Did you call him on his "served with" Kerry claim? Did you dare question his motivation in light of the exposure of his pro-Bush backers and his past as a Nixon "dirty tirckster"?

No. No. And no. And that's shameful.

You're not alone in your "Foxification" at CNN. Your co-horts Ms. Crowley and Ms. Woodruff are also practitioners of Pro-Bush-ism. Is it the fear of being dusted by Fox? The fear of loss of inside contacts with the administration should they win in November? Or are you simply and sadly on the take (as is beholden due to pending FCC legislation the network wants to be favorable)?

My guess (and that of many Americans)? A bit of all of the above.

Can I change your (and CNN's ) mind about this lopsided coverage? Probably not. But I am not alone. And I'm pretty sure my letter isn't the only one on this you'll receive. What that means simply is that CNN's shift has been "peeped" as the kids like to say—and peeped by many. And judging from your verrry uncomfortable appearance on The Jon Stewart Show (and your fellow "old-media" if I may paraphrase Rumsfeld—comrade Ted Koppel's disdain of that show), I think you realize that as a news source, there is a vast swath of America that is no longer beholden to you. People are informed on issues of the day there. And you were laughed at there. Laughed at hard. But believe it or not, you can feel some comfort in that—because it was only laughter— instead of the silence of being ignored and uninvited because one makes oneself irrelevant.

With interviews like the one you had today, that day of silence and irrelevance gets closer and closer on the calendar, Mr. Blitzer. You can choose to be the tick-bird on the Fox Hippopotamus' back and continue to ape their tactics, spout their talking points and be a watery substitute for the strong Kool-Aid their their target audience guzzles nightly.

Or you can choose to be a journalist (again) and actually use your skills to objectively present the news. You report, and we'll decide. It won't hurt to try.

by your letter, and the effort it took to write it. I'm talking about emotional effort too, which I find to be a block to my composing letters of this length to the mediawhores. You get this "what's the use?" feeling about half way through. Thanks for not giving into that. Any objective person would be influenced by what you wrote.:toast:

I don't write 'em often, but when I do, I try to make 'em impactfuland yes...filled with the emotion I feel about the issue. It ain't hard—any one of us can do it and SHOULD! It's just about writing factually and communicating what you feel. As Wolf, Candy and Punch-Drunk Judy can't hear me scream in a letter or e-mail, I have to use the language to the best of my ability to get across my emotions. I can only hope this letter and the scores (I hope hundreds) of others make this fraud blink, pause and consider his actions and what they mean.

Besides...my original idea of sending him a dead fish would've never gotten through the CNN mailroom! :)

Well, you could give it a try....B-)

Please e-mail CNN with that suggestion if you haven't already.