Dan Rather is a Symptom, Not the Disease
Don Feder, FrontPageMagazine.com
November 30, 2004
(Excerpt)
"The story is true. The story is true. I appreciate the sources who took risks to authenticate our story. So, one, there is no internal investigation. Two, somebody may be shell-shocked, but it is not I, and it is not anybody at CBS News. Now, you can tell who is shell-shocked by the ferocity of the people who are spreading these rumors."
– a shell-shocked Dan Rather desperately trying to defend his use of fraudulent documents to misrepresent George Bush’s National Guard service (September 10, 2004).
In the midst of an internal investigation, Dan Rather announced that next March he will step down as the anchor of "CBS Evening News," after 24 years of lies, distortions, fabrication, misrepresentation, partisan pleading, slanted coverage and blatant bias.
But, don’t pop those champagne corks just yet, my friends. Like a herpes sore, Dan is a symptom, rather than the disease. He’s a reflection of an entrenched media mindset. Rest assured there is a legion of Rathers – every bit as delusional, just as willing to twist the news to promote a political agenda – waiting to take his exalted place.
It was Memogate that finally did Dan in – four documents purporting to be from Bush’s CO in the Texas National Guard, about efforts to get preferential treatment for the future president, and dereliction of duty.
The man who supposedly wrote the memos, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, was dead. The dubious documents came from a veteran Democratic operative and Bush-hater in Texas. Experts pointed out that given the equipment on which the memos were composed, they couldn’t possibly have been written in the early 1970s, as alleged.
No matter. CBS and Dan Rather believed the fraudulent documents because CBS and Dan Rather wanted to believe the fraudulent documents, because – once again – in the past presidential campaign, the establishment media operated as an adjunct of the Democratic Party.
In this regard, Rather is notorious.
There was his legendary 1988 campaign interview with Bush, Sr., regarding Iran-Contra. ("You’ve made us hypocrites in the face of the world! How could you sign on to such a policy?")
Or the Big-Wet-One he planted on Bill Clinton in 1993, after the perjurer-in-chief complimented his media valet for his on-air partnership with Connie Chung: "Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If we could be one-one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners." SMACK!
Or, consider Rather’s July 22nd interview with his then-idol, Sen. John Kerry. "Speaking of angry, have you ever had any anger about President Bush – who spent his time in the National Guard – running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?"
Translation: Doesn’t it bother you that a combat-dodger like Bush has the audacity to question your valor in the face of enemy fire – you, big, brave, long-suffering, war hero, you!
Rather is the CEO of Double Standards 'R' Us. For instance, in 1991, the CBS anchor was intensely interested in whether future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had told Anita Hill smutty jokes and pestered her for a date. “The affair was indicative of the indignities women suffer in the workplace at the hands of strict-constructionists, Dan declared.
In 1999, Rather was distinctly uninterested about whether, as Arkansas Attorney General, his hero Bill Clinton had brutally raped Juanita Broaddrick. ("Even if it…turns out to be true. It happened a long time ago.") And, she was probably asking for it anyway – right, Dan?
The most wonderful thing about being Dan, is that after all of partisan pleading (ripping Republicans, slobbering over Democrats), he can still say, with a perfectly straight face: "Anybody who knows me, knows that I am not politically motivated, not politically active for Democrats or Republicans, and that I’m independent." Rather the way Mussolini was independent in WWII.
You don’t have to be part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to doubt Dan’s professions of being disinterested. In 2002, his CBS colleague Andy Rooney told Larry King, " I think Dan is transparently liberal."
While it’s still the fashion for media liberals to deny their liberalism, or to pretend that it doesn’t color coverage, occasionally there’s a glimmering of candor from behind the Iron Curtain, as when New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent confessed in a column headlined "Is The New York Times a Liberal Paper?" (July 25, 2004). "These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think the Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed."
Okrent also observed that "devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans" are treated by The Times "as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide."
Among other examples of unrestrained advocacy cited in the piece, Okent wrote, "It’s disappointing to see The Times present the social and cultural aspects of same-sex marriage in a tone that approaches cheerleading."
Equally revealing was a comment from ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin, in a staff memo dated February 10, 2004, "The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race."
Confirmation of this comes from a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, which examined coverage that either praised or criticized the presidential candidates on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news between September 7 and October 22 – a total of 828 sound bites.
Kerry received 58 percent positive evaluations (42 percent negative) from Rather and his colleagues. Bush’s positives were 36 percent, his negatives 64 percent. All that was missing was Dan telling the Democratic nominee, "If we could be one one-hundredth as great as you and Teresa…."
The establishment media has a perspective shared by very few Americans – outside of the Socialist Workers Party.
<snip>
Dan Rather is the face of Big Media. As long as the establishment media remain intellectually homogenous, that will continue to be the case. What’s particularly maddening is how few mediatoids see the need for even a semblance of balance. |
