On Monday’s Early Show on CBS, substitute news anchor Chris Wragge exaggerated Vice President Cheney’s business resume. Instead of merely being CEO of Halliburton (and its then-subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root), he was said to be the owner of the entire company:
A report to be released as early as today finds that dozen of U.S. troops in Iraq got sick from contaminated water. The water was supplied by the military contractor KBR, once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney. The report said soldiers experienced skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, foul-smelling water.
To show how CBS script writers might have exaggerated the facts, here’s the lead from the AP story on the same subject by Larry Margasak:
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
Halliburton let go of KBR last year. Even AP didn’t bother to list Cheney’s term of service or his title. He was board chairman and CEO from 1995 to July 2000, when he accepted the vice-presidential nod from George W. Bush.The only other AP sentence mentioning Cheney merely said:
Halliburton is the oil services conglomerate that Cheney once led. Congressional Democrats long have complained that KBR has benefited from its former ties to Cheney.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center
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This is an old story that
March 10, 2008 - 15:03 ET by rammingspeedThis is an old story that continues to get worse, and continues to grow. Public awarness of this corruption is also growing exponentially, and these cretins (the great majority of the MSM) are destroying themselves.
Lady Bird Johnson
March 10, 2008 - 15:13 ET by ricklailDidn't Lady Bird Johnson own Brown and Root at one time? Where did Kellogg come in?
If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.-Lewis Grizzard
She Was In Bed With Them
March 10, 2008 - 17:16 ET by Del DolemonteLady Bird (look for her given name, "Claudia Alta Taylor" when doing your research on this stuff) was at the very least on their Board of Directors until her death last year.
Her husband Lyndon of course had started a lucrative relationship with KBR in 1936, before the evil Dick Cheney was even born. I saw one cite that by the time he left the Presidency he had increased his net worth 25 times as a result of his ties to KBR and Halliburtonm giving them no-bid work during the Vietnam War.
relatively mild
March 10, 2008 - 15:18 ET by mom_roxminor gaffe, but what do you expect from a sportscaster-turned-news anchor? objectivity??
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw, 1944
It may be minor, but it is
March 10, 2008 - 15:44 ET by motherbeltIt may be minor, but it is indicative of the MSM's ingrained habit of juxtaposing the VP's name with anything untoward that involves Halliburton, just to make the connection in people's minds. Bad>Halliburton>Cheney.
It's a shameful tactic.
the cheney corollary
March 10, 2008 - 17:12 ET by mom_roxmb - true, but I was thinking of the semantics, rather than the Cheney Corollary to Bush Derangement Syndrome.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw, 1944
Speaking of KBR, Anybody
March 10, 2008 - 15:52 ET by LeonSpeaking of KBR,
Anybody round here looking into the Boston Globe story documenting KBR's systematic evasion of its social security and unemployment tax obligations?
I mean, it's not that big of a deal. America grants them a $16 billion no-bid contract and how do they repay us? By avoiding their duty to pay "hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in the Cayman Islands".
Worst part of the story: The Department of Defense has known about this for FOUR YEARS.
Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure this is against the law. KBR breaking the law? Screwing America? No way!
Hey, so long as they can make a buck, who cares!
"Take It Away, Leon, Take It Away!"
March 10, 2008 - 17:25 ET by Del Dolemonte(Bob Wills said that in 1936, about the same time Democrat Lyndon Johnson climbed into bed with KBR).
http://www.npr.org/t...
http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm
http://www.democracy...
"AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who Halliburton was, who is this company named after? A thumbnail sketch of Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR.
DAN BRIODY: You know it’s funny, both of the companies have been around since 1919. They were both started in Texas and Halliburton itself is essentially a very unromantic oilfield services company. Earl Halliburton, the name sake of the company, was a guy who was hard working, he intensely disliked politics, kept his company out of politics as much as possible. It’s the KBR subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, which until recently was just called Brown & Root, which was highly, highly political throughout its history. Herman and George Brown, the brothers in Texas, had a very close relationship with Lyndon Johnson. They contributed heavily to his campaigns and in return got very, very lucrative government contracts.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the relationship between the Browns and Lyndon Johnson, which does seem to be a model for what’s happening today?
DAN BRIODY: It is. And I think that the idea that politicians could build this company began even before that, when Brown & Root started getting local road building contracts in their county in Texas. But they sort of grew up when they met Lyndon Johnson and Lyndon Johnson became a congressman from the 10th district in Texas and they began contributing to his campaigns and in return, Lyndon Johnson really worked for these guys on Capitol Hill. He literally would push through task orders and change orders for contracts that they were working on to get more public funding for big dam projects, and then push them towards Navy ship building during WWII, got them contracts to build air bases, naval air bases, Corpus Christi, all the way up until the Johnson presidency when he was working for them to get space contracts. These guys built the Houston space center and also some strange contracts for the National Science Foundation. Goes on and on.
AMY GOODMAN: And what did Johnson get in return?
DAN BRIODY: Johnson got a phenomenal amount of financial backing for his campaigns, much of it was illegal contributions. If you’ve read any of the Robert Carroll biographies of Lyndon Johnson, you have a good idea of how business was done back then. The Brown brothers were incredible contributors to Lyndon Johnson’s campaigns; bags of cash passed around, hundreds of thousands of dollars funding campaigns the likes of which the nation had never seen at that time. A lot of this came under investigation by the IRS and things of that nature, but many of the investigations were scuttled and Brown & Root got away with a slap on the wrist."
Del, I fail to see what
March 10, 2008 - 17:32 ET by LeonDel,
I fail to see what Lyndon Johson has to do with KBR's current, rampant corruption.
Leon, so what's your take
March 10, 2008 - 17:36 ET by MrShyLeon, so what's your take on the NYTimes not placing "Democrat" anywhere in it's story (or, first doing it only on the third paragraph, and now removing it entirely, from the main story?
And also AP, not labeling (D) anywhere in it's story? Oh, AND, using the word "Republican" twice. So, a major scandal involving a Democrat Governer, and the article's score is: (R) = 2, (D) = 0 ??
* * * SOCKS THE CAT '08 * * *
For REAL Change
MrShy, Not sure what
March 10, 2008 - 17:43 ET by LeonMrShy,
Not sure what you're talking about, but we're talking about KBR.
Not Spitzer.
Wrong thread.
As a general rule of thumb, you should read what you're respoding to, prior to posting.
All that begging for friends on MySpace has got you confused.
Note to troops...
March 10, 2008 - 17:37 ET by RackieListen up. This is your DI speaking. "Don't use discolored, foul-smelling water".
EvilCon555 Chris Wragge
March 10, 2008 - 18:54 ET by EvilCon555EvilCon555
Chris Wragge was the "sports reader" for WMUR in the 80's. WMUR is New Hampshire's local, podunk TV station. Even today they kinda, sorta suck....anywho...it comes as NO surprise to me that he would make this error. And speaks to all journalists who "make it"...they are nothing more than pretty faces who eventually are in the right place at the right time (though Fox reporter, Carl Cameron came from WMUR - but he is the exception that PROVES the rule). While the rest of us in the professional world need to keep our credentials polished, it seems to me that the Chris Wragges, Sam Champions, and Katie Courics only need good hair. Once the hair and the looks are gone, ala Dan Rather, then they hopefully will all reap what they sow...
I for one think I might finally respect a lawyer who can sue for journalistic malpractice...anyone know if this has ever been done? I see a new field of law coming on.....and of course no one to report about it...unless it is for tort reform!
I am thinking that Cheney meant for that water to go towards waterboarding...since he had a direct hand in the distribution and all.
"All great change in America begins at the dinner table" Ronald Reagan, Jan 21, 1981
Asleep at the switch
March 10, 2008 - 21:16 ET by nkviking75Imagine how many people at AP and CBS had to be asleep at the switch to let this error through. Especially CBS, with its producers, scriptwriters, and anchor all failing to catch a glaring error, and none of the other anchors noticing and correcting the mistake. How can the ones who are supposed to inform us be so uninformed?
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.
The Biggest "Mistake"
March 11, 2008 - 10:56 ET by CobraManThe biggest "mistake" (read: lie!) by the MSM is continuing to report that the water "was supplied" by KBR when, in fact, the water was merely discharge from a waste treatment facility that the military used as a non-potable (meaning: not for human consumption) source. It was the military that failed to apply it's own sanitary procedures to the water it used and that is why people got sick. The MSM likes to blame KBR for this problem but KBR went as far as to supply the military with reverse-osmosis filters, yet the military failed to even assemble them, let alone use them.
Here's a quote from the AP article which first raised the question of KBR (and supplied the link to Cheney.)
"the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's reverse osmosis units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities"
Link
This was a mistake by the military in how it treated the water it used. That water may have come from KBR wastewater treatment facilities, but all non-bottled water is supposed to be tested and treated by the military prior to its use. So, who’s to blame? Here’s a hint: it isn’t KBR, Halliburton, and/or V.P. Cheney!