To: JDN who wrote (163264 ) 7/22/2001 7:15:21 AM From: jimpit Respond to of 769667 Blather had NO choice! __________________________________________________________NewsMax.com America's News Page newsmax.com Rather Had No Choice Christopher Ruddy Thursday, July 19, 2001 NewsMax readers scored a huge victory today over the arrogance and elitism of Dan Rather and company at "CBS Evening News." After months of ignoring one of the nation’s most sensational news stories, Dan Rather and his news program reported on the Condit-Levy scandal yesterday. They had little choice. Because NewsMax was on sentry duty and caught the liberally biased anchor red-handed in one of the worst examples of political censorship in modern times. Let's walk through some recent history. Though Rather had not covered this story for months, his censorship received little press attention until Brent Bozell's Media Research Center pointed out Rather's blatant effort at bias. This past Saturday, the New York Post first reported that Dan Rather was hard at work protecting Democratic congressman Gary Condit. Interestingly, the story on Condit was not posted on the Post's Web site. But NewsMax staff, who research all major media outlets both online and offline, took notice of the story. On Sunday night, we led our Monday page with guns blazing, headlining at the top of NewsMax: "Out-and Out Censorship: Rather, CBS Refuse to Cover Condit-Levy Story." My column, calling on Rather to be fired, also appeared on Sunday night. The NewsMax story (Biased Rather Refuses to Report Condit-Levy Story) was quickly picked up by major radio hosts across the country. Imus started talking about it. Bill O'Reilly featured the story. Dan Rather was cornered. Rather had to report the story. The suggestion he made last night on his broadcast, that this case is nothing more than a missing persons case, of which thousands go unreported, is nonsense. This missing persons case involves a ranking U.S. congressman. It involves a U.S. congressman who has lied to the police and, it is now alleged, actively asked other pertinent witnesses to lie to police investigators. This is serious stuff. Unless, of course, you are on a different frequency, like Dan and his imaginary friend "Kenneth." (Dan once claimed a New York taxi driver took him on a joy ride around Manhattan, screaming at him, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?") If CBS wants to regain its credibility and leave its joke status behind, it can do so easily and cleanly - by replacing Rather. CBS executives probably don't want to do anything rash, and that's understandable. But in standing by Rather and letting him get a pass on this, they are only weakening their position. It used to be that the big networks like CBS could call all of the shots and disregard what ordinary people like you and me thought. Dan Rather doesn't realize it yet, but those days are over. NewsMax proved that this week.All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com __________________________________________________________________newsmax.com