CBS Fires Batiste For Anti-Bush Advocacy, Hires Bush Aide To Engage In Pro-Bush Advocacy
In a recent VoteVets ad, Gen. John Batiste says, "I left the Army in protest in order to speak out." Now, CBS has punished him for speaking out. Last night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann reported, "General John Batiste loses his CBS job after appearing in an advertisement critical of the president."
See the ad here.
CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius spoke to ThinkProgress this morning and confirmed that Batiste's consulting contract has been canceled due to his participation in the VoteVets ad. Genelius said Batiste "inadvertently violated our standards" and therefore "we and the General mutually agreed to end his consultants' arrangement with CBS News."
While CBS claims it will not tolerate consultants engaging in outside advocacy, it apparently has no problem paying a former White House communications director to engage in the Bush administration's advocacy on air. While being billed as CBS News' "political consultant," Nicolle Wallace has propagated talking points advanced by her old colleagues in the White House communications office. [...]
It's apparently only advocacy when you're opposing Bush. Americans United notes that it took two weeks for CBS to fire Don Imus for racial slurs, but two days to fire Batiste for speaking up on Iraq.
General Batiste appears to be a fine man, who resigned from the Army in order to speak out. He's not a flaming lefty, even though it might seem so to CBS. He told the truth about Bush putting us in peril with his criminal war and occupation, and the truth has a decidedly liberal bias. He did sorta call Bush a liar, and rightly so, but his main point was to exhort Congress to "act now to protect our fighting men and women".
Apparently, you can't speak out while in the uniform of CBS either. I guess the exercise of free speech in the suggestion of "protecting our fighting men and women" while drawing attention to Bush's failed strategery is not corporate policy.
Or did Turdblossom have a casual little chat with Chairman Redstone about SEC and IRS audits and 'suggest' Batiste's replacement?
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