Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 181

'60 Minutes' Retracts Segment With Star Benghazi "Witness"

Friday Update:  CBS and Lara Logan apologize.  Just a mistake, they claim.  No word on any firings, which must follow.  Looks like they want it just over and done with, or "moving forward," as Logan puts it. 

Gross journalist malfeasance, but many media writers seem okay with apology--just want more details and full explanation, and chance to interview Logan and her team.  Remember, Logan boasted about her intimate involvement with the story for a full year.  Unlike, say, Dan Rather, who got called in on project and was more of a host, not chief reporter.   Mary Mapes, the Rather producer who got canned, suggests "60 Minutes" this time bent over backward for rightwing "obsession" with Benghazi.

And this report last year had Morgan Jones/Dylan Davies not even at the compound then.

And let us all recall Logan trashing Michael Hastings' reporting.

Erik Wemple at Wash Post is one of those who seems to think Lara Logan and CBS apology is enough. Far from it.

Media Matters suggests Mary Matalin and S&S put its Jones/Davies book on the fiction shelf, if anywhere.   S&S is pulling it now but still on sale at Amazon. 



UPDATE:  The "60 Minutes" web site just removed all the links to its Benghazi segment including the Morgan Jones interview. Will Mary Matalin, publisher of the Jones book at her S&S imprint, now stop shipping to stores and retract?  Simon & Schuster just announced: "We will review the book and take appropriate action with regard to its publication status."

Earlier:  After days of criticism, and its stout defense yesterday, tonight comes word that CBS and '60 Minutes' now have doubts about their star witness in the recent Benghazi report.  "We are currently looking into this serious matter to determine if he misled us," CBS relates.  Politico's Mike Allen tweeted: "SIREN: '60 MINUTES has learned of new information that undercuts the account...by Morgan Jones of his actions' on night of Benghazi attack."

The NYT had just reported that contrary to Morgan Jones' claims, he gave the FBI the same story he gave his boss after the Benghazi attack--which directly contradicts what CBS fell for and what he wrote in the book he is flacking.  Lara Logan just yesterday backed his claim that he gave the FBI and her the same chain of events.  Wrong.  We predicted all this days ago.  Logan and producer must go, if the implosion occurs.

Media Matters responds. 

It's worth noting that the story started to come about after the first scoop not from Media Matters but from the Wash Post.  More soon.

Jeep Tricks for Dylan

I'd noticed the new Jeep Cherokee commercial on Sunday--with the Dylan, vintage 1962 blues soundtrack, wailing, oddly, about motherless children--during the Jets game and was kinda amazed.  The tunes they are a-changin?  Now Barbara Lippert has done a fine dissection.   The spot:

A Fiennes Dickens

As a late-coming Dickens freak, I am looking forward to upcoming flick directed by Ralph Fiennes, who also stars as Sir Charles, as he (based on true life) courts a young actress.  Trailer below.  Also, a new Great Expectations coming this week,with Fiennes also.

Rich 'Hicks' Hit Obamacare

Charles Pierce with a takedown of mockery of Obamacare on the CMA country music awards show last night in Tenn.   Pierce then links to real country, e.g. Townes, Steve Earle, Loretta, Guy Clark.

Not Polite to Talk With Your Mouth Full!

But this porcupine ignores that plea.

Kid Killed...After Dispute Over Cigs

Earlier this week we covered the case of the shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old in a truck that sped on to a college campus in Ames, Iowa.   Bad enough but the details even worse.  The youth's dad wouldn't give him a pack of cigarettes so the kid took off in the father's truck.  Just to teach the kid a lesson, dad called the cops.  They chased him, he went into panic, and a cop plugged him with six bullets.  All over a pack of cigarettes.  Dad and local paper asking questions.  Audio tape reveals cop told to "back off."

Fat Chance?

This week's TIME cover on Chris Christie, I guess, can be read two (or more) ways...

See You Tomorrow

About to take a hint from Zoe.

Traffic Stop in New Mexico Leads to...a Colonoscopy

Surely the most disgusting, on so many levels, story of the month.  A fellow early this year was pulled over by cops and, since he was gripping his ass in some discomfort, they suspected he was hiding drugs.  They got a search warrant to allow an anal search, but a doctor at an ER refused to do it.  So he went elsewhere, where this ensued (we now know this thanks to a lawsuit).

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.  
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines.  No narcotics were found.  

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures. 

Flash Mobbing Beethoven

Over the past year, I've chronicled here the global phenomenon of flash mob musicians (and often singers) performing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," to wild reactions in, for example, Spain, Lithuania, and Hartford, CT.   Now I've found possibly the best of all, so far, in Hong Kong, under the banner of "Ode to Change."  All of this, of course, closely tied to our new film, Following the Ninth, which continue to screen in NY through Thursday night, then opening in L.A. on November 22.