The CBS Report in So Many Words ...
Responsible bloggers will be up all night fisking their way through the mealy-mouthed prose of The Report of the Independent Review Panel on l'affaire CBS. Not me, though - far from fisking it, I lack the ambition even to link to it.
Since so many other capable people will be reducing the report's larger implications to finely-sliced headcheese, I decided to take a different approach by studying the number of times that certain key phrases appear in it:
“Mistake” – 11 occurrences. That in spite of the fact that the report claims to cover the entire period of the Memogate fiasco, not just the first 15 minutes.
“Sorry” – 7 occurrences. And in only five of them is it a CBS employee saying they’re sorry. The other two sorrys come from former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, who is indeed a sorry-ass individual.
“Regret” – 4 occurrences. But all four of them are “deeply regrets”. CBS has no shallow regrets.
“Responsibility” – 9 occurrences. Five of them refer to the irresponsible Mary Mapes, one to the sorry-ass Ben Barnes, and the rest just kind of float there, weightless.
“Bias” – 13 occurrences. There are 6 political biases, 1 liberal bias, and 1 anti-Bush bias. Two of them are prepositional biases (as in “appearance of bias”) which is a kind of optical illusion, like the tunnel vision you get from drinking a whole quart of Purple Passion. The other 11 biases, we are told, don’t exist at all except in the minds of crazy people.
“Stupid” – 1 occurrence. Only one, but to be fair, it’s an “incredibly stupid” stupid.
“Dishonest” – 0 occurrences.
“Lies” or “Lied” – 5 occurrences. Three of them refer to Bush as the liar, and two of them to the poor deluded Bill Burkett. Nobody else told any lies.
“Ashamed” – 5 occurrences. Who’s ashamed of themselves? Ben Barnes, all five times.
“Proud” or “Pride” – 3 occurrences. Who’s proud of themselves? Dan Rather and CBS News, all three times.
“IBM Selectric typewriter” – 7 occurrences. Hope springs eternal.
“Microsoft Word” – 3 occurrences. How unfair is that? If this were a report about Lee Harvey Oswald, you would expect the people who make Mannlicher-Carcano rifles to get a decent amount of publicity.
“Forgery” or “Forgeries” – 16 occurrences. Obviously a lot of documents were withheld from the investigators, or it would be like 157 or something.
“Blogosphere” – 2 occurrences. It is referred to as “the so-called blogosphere” by the so-called independent review panel that wrote this so-called report.
“Blog” or “Blogger” – 10 occurrences. Four bloggers are mentioned by name: John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson of Powerline, and Bush-haters Linda Starr and Paul Lukasiak. Charles Johnson is not mentioned by name, but LGF scores a link in the footnotes. The link is broken and accesses LGF's 404 page, which is known to have a "Videodrome" effect on the viewer. This explains the warped verbal imagery of the report, and the weird allusions to abnormal sex practices.
“Kerry” or “Kerry campaign” – 90 occurrences. How did that keep coming up?
“Dan Rather is a f---g idiot” – 0 occurrences. I suspect this so-called report to be a whitewash.
“Anal Electrocution” – 0 occurrences. Obviously CBS has no intention of taking appropriate disciplinary action.
“Fox News” – 0 occurrences. Obviously they’re not going to advise the public on how to avoid this kind of thing in the future.
Since so many other capable people will be reducing the report's larger implications to finely-sliced headcheese, I decided to take a different approach by studying the number of times that certain key phrases appear in it:
“Mistake” – 11 occurrences. That in spite of the fact that the report claims to cover the entire period of the Memogate fiasco, not just the first 15 minutes.
“Sorry” – 7 occurrences. And in only five of them is it a CBS employee saying they’re sorry. The other two sorrys come from former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, who is indeed a sorry-ass individual.
“Regret” – 4 occurrences. But all four of them are “deeply regrets”. CBS has no shallow regrets.
“Responsibility” – 9 occurrences. Five of them refer to the irresponsible Mary Mapes, one to the sorry-ass Ben Barnes, and the rest just kind of float there, weightless.
“Bias” – 13 occurrences. There are 6 political biases, 1 liberal bias, and 1 anti-Bush bias. Two of them are prepositional biases (as in “appearance of bias”) which is a kind of optical illusion, like the tunnel vision you get from drinking a whole quart of Purple Passion. The other 11 biases, we are told, don’t exist at all except in the minds of crazy people.
“Stupid” – 1 occurrence. Only one, but to be fair, it’s an “incredibly stupid” stupid.
“Dishonest” – 0 occurrences.
“Lies” or “Lied” – 5 occurrences. Three of them refer to Bush as the liar, and two of them to the poor deluded Bill Burkett. Nobody else told any lies.
“Ashamed” – 5 occurrences. Who’s ashamed of themselves? Ben Barnes, all five times.
“Proud” or “Pride” – 3 occurrences. Who’s proud of themselves? Dan Rather and CBS News, all three times.
“IBM Selectric typewriter” – 7 occurrences. Hope springs eternal.
“Microsoft Word” – 3 occurrences. How unfair is that? If this were a report about Lee Harvey Oswald, you would expect the people who make Mannlicher-Carcano rifles to get a decent amount of publicity.
“Forgery” or “Forgeries” – 16 occurrences. Obviously a lot of documents were withheld from the investigators, or it would be like 157 or something.
“Blogosphere” – 2 occurrences. It is referred to as “the so-called blogosphere” by the so-called independent review panel that wrote this so-called report.
“Blog” or “Blogger” – 10 occurrences. Four bloggers are mentioned by name: John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson of Powerline, and Bush-haters Linda Starr and Paul Lukasiak. Charles Johnson is not mentioned by name, but LGF scores a link in the footnotes. The link is broken and accesses LGF's 404 page, which is known to have a "Videodrome" effect on the viewer. This explains the warped verbal imagery of the report, and the weird allusions to abnormal sex practices.
“Kerry” or “Kerry campaign” – 90 occurrences. How did that keep coming up?
“Dan Rather is a f---g idiot” – 0 occurrences. I suspect this so-called report to be a whitewash.
“Anal Electrocution” – 0 occurrences. Obviously CBS has no intention of taking appropriate disciplinary action.
“Fox News” – 0 occurrences. Obviously they’re not going to advise the public on how to avoid this kind of thing in the future.
posted by Glen Wishard at 9:47 PM
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