January 21, 2005
 
THUMBS IX: Big Chiefs Safe, Braves Take Arrows; Bravo New Mexico
 
by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Bluefield News Network
 
Hinton (BNN) — This is the ninth installment of an occasional series expressing approval or disapproval of recent news events, commentaries, etc. Thumbs Up for approval; Thumbs Down for disapproval. I welcome contributions, which will be credited in the item. Contact me at davidkinchen@hotmail.com.
 
THUMBS DOWN – Way down! – to higher-ups who don’t take the blame for wrongful or illegal actions on their watch. I’m thinking of the colonels and generals walking around free, while Army Spl. Charles Graner Jr., 36, of Uniontown, Pa., gets 10 years in prison for his part in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. West Virginian Lynndie England and two others from the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, Md., will soon stand trial in what passes for justice in the military. Four soldiers have pleaded guilty in the case. Military justice is as much an oxymoron these days as “business ethics.” Also, Dan Rather of CBS News gets to retire in March while the people who did his grunt work on last year’s Bush National Guard documents foul-up are summarily fired.
 
Ron Rosenbaum of the New York Observer and his colleague Joe Hagan are chronicling the “60 Minutes Wednesday” snafu; Rosenbaum, in the weekly’s Jan. 19, 2005 issue, calls for Dan Rather to be a “stand-up star” and resign now, at the same time asking CBS News to reinstate the four producers sacked by the Big Eye.
 
“The way it looks now, you’ll be remembered as the craven boss who let all his underlings get fired because they went the extra mile to please you,” Rosenbaum writes. “You’ll be remembered as the Nixonian character who hid behind a screen of ‘My underlings made mistakes, not me; I wasn’t in on it.’
 
“You’ve always maintained that you’re a down-home Texas populist who stands up for the little guy against powerful and irresponsible corporate bosses. Admirable if true, and if it doesn’t turn out to be a pose. So why not go out taking a stand for the little guy?”
 
Hagan says in the same issue of the The Observer – a great publication, by the way, available online – that one of the producers, Mary Mapes, has “released a statement saying that she had done nothing wrong in preparing the Sept. 8, 2004, report or in the aftermath. And the three staffers who CBS asked to resign—executive producer Josh Howard, his top deputy Mary Murphy, and CBS News senior vice president Betsy West—have declined to actually tender their resignations.”
 
Hagan adds that Howard, Murphy and West aren’t talking but are “consulting with lawyers about the possibility of bringing legal action against CBS News.” There’s another big guy dodging the bullet, Hagan adds: CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who – so far, at least – has “survived the upheaval that took out his underlings.”
 
As I see it, the matter of Spl. Graner is just business as usual for the military, where the officers routinely get a pass, while the lower ranks get Leavenworth. This brings new meaning to the phrase an “Army of One.”
 
THUMBS UP to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and his beautiful state (some of my finest dining experiences have occurred in Corrales, Albuquerque and Santa Fe) for proposing that the state pay for $250,000 life insurance policies for members of the New Mexico National Guard. The state would pay premiums under a federal program that allows service members to buy life insurance though a federal payroll deduction plan. The basic premium of about $16 a month would cost New Mexico an estimated $800,000, according to an AP story from Albuquerque.
 
Since Richardson’s announcement earlier in January, lawmakers in Alabama, Iowa, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have made similar proposals. West Virginia should join this group of states that want to do something of value to help the men and women who serve to protect us.
 
The story said New Mexico, which has about the same number of residents (just over 1.8 million) as West Virginia, has about 400 members of the National Guard in Iraq. Rhode Island has more than 800 stationed overseas. The Alabama Guard has 13 units in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. Iowa and Pennsylvania each have more than 4,000 guardsmen on active federal duty, according to the AP story.
 
Thumbs Archives:
10/16/04 — Part I
11/10/04 — Part II
11/26/04 — Part III
12/15/04 — Part IV
12/24/04 — Part V
12/31/04 — Part VI
01/08/05 — Part VII
01/14/05 — Part VIII
01/21/05 — Part IX
02/04/05 — Part X
02/11/05 — Part XI
02/18/05 — Part XII
02/25/05 — Part XIII
02/28/05 — Part XIV
03/06/05 — Part XV
03/10/05 — Part XVI
03/18/05 — Part XVII
03/26/05 — Part XVIII
03/30/05 — Part XIX
04/09/05 — Part XX