Posted on 09/08/2004 8:05:24 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
The George Bush reelection team is bracing itself tonight as it prepares for another primetime assault by CBS News.
Five months after Dan Rather denounced the just-formed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as "an experienced and successful Republican operation made up of veterans attacking Vietnam war hero John Kerry," the 72-year-old anchor and avowed Democrat is set to unveil an extensive interview with Ben Barnes, a former Texas Democratic politician who claims he helped a young Bush avoid service in the Vietnam War by getting him into the Texas National Guard in 1968.
Tonight's Bush attack marks the latest broadside that Rather and his CBS colleagues have launched against the Bush family. Beginning with his infamous ambush of George H. W. Bush during the Republican primaries in 1988 (which CBS beforehand promised would be softball "candidate profile" interview), Dan Rather and his colleagues have had it in for the Bushes.
Later in the same year, on the eve of the Republicans' convention, Rather was the sole network anchor to report on a lone man who accused the then-veep of lying about his service in World War II.
Despite such efforts, Bush was elected but Rather and his colleagues continued to dog the president whose staff swore he would "never" allow the Texas Democrat to interview him. CBS, meanwhile, repeatedly rejected the administration's offers to allow other network correspondents to interview the president, insisting "only Dan Rather interviews the president."
After some time, CBS relented and sent Morning News anchors Harry Smith and Paula Zahn to the White House. Unbeknownst to the White House, however, Evening News producer Susan Zirinsky had tagged along.
Bush's press secretary at the time, Marlin Fitzwater recounted what followed in his memoirs:
"As the show was about to end, I discovered Susan Zirinsky, Rather's producer, crouched behind some Rose Garden hedges, shouting into her two-way radio: 'Ask him about Iran-Contra. Iran-Contra!' That confirmed everyone's feelings about the depth of Dan Rather's hatred for the president."
Rather's intense distrust of Bush continued unabated into the latter's 1992 reelection effort when a woman named Gennifer Flowers emerged claiming to have had a long affair with Bush's challenger, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. The CBS anchor was deeply skeptical of Flowers's allegations and was convinced that the Bush campaign had planted both her story as well as charges that Clinton had deliberately dodged the Vietnam War draft.
Former CBS News political director Martin Plissner told the story in his 1999 book, The Control Room:
"Dan Rather was convinced that Roger Ailes, who had no formal role in this year's Bush campaign, had in some way inspired the Gennifer Flowers story. When the draft story appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Rather wanted to break a story on how the Bush campaign had planted that."
The Clinton campaign maintained that the draft allegations away as negative campaigning. Rather was more than happy to oblige. Introducing CBS's a report (which focused more on Democratic accussations of foul play than on the actual charges against Clinton), happily repeated the Clinton spin.
"Bill Clinton says President Bush's 1989 Willie Horton crowd is smearing him with new campaign dirty tricks."
It was, as Plissner wrote, "a headline that absolutely no one else could" give. "Rather was not pleased by CBS's failure to scoop the world on this, or on Roger Ailes's supposed planting of the Gennifer Flowers story."
The Tradition Continues
When asked what it was like campaigning for president as the son of a former president, George W. Bush postulated that "I inherited half of my father's friends and all of his enemies." That prediction has certainly proven correct regarding his father's enemies at CBS News.
From the beginning of his primary campaign, Rather and company have consistently sided with the younger George Bush's opponents, cheering on the "white knight" campaign of liberal Republican John McCain and denouncing Bush's larger tax reduction proposals, as well as efforts by some Bush supporters to get McCain off the ballot in parts of New York (a tactic being employed by Democrats against independent candidate Ralph Nader this year which Rather has yet to decry).
After Bush defeated McCain and clinched the GOP nomination, Rather's Bush grudge simmered, finally boiling over during the controversy over Florida's electoral votes. Initially neutral in the debate, Rather fell in line on the very day that the Al Gore campaign launched (as chronicled by Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz) a media strategy to cast doubt upon the objectivity of Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris and to create the impression that Bush was being handed the presidency.
Rather was only too happy to oblige. He threw himself into the effort, pointing out Harris's Republican partisanship 27 times during the 35-day dispute. Eager to please his fellow Democrats (for whom he would later keynote a fund-raising event in 2001), the newsman applied a disparate standard to the courts deciding the matter, pointing out 9 times that Republicans had appointed a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court while only once doing the same for the unanimously Democratic high court of Florida.
Like many Democrats, Rather remained unconvinced of Bush's legitimacy. He expressed these doubts during a January 2001 appearance on David Letterman's show in which he hinted that Bush had been "selected president."
Aside from a brief period after September 11 when both parties maintained an uneasy truce, the veteran anchor's distrust has continued unabated. He and his colleagues have consistently opposed Bush's fiscal policies, repeatedly tried to associate the GOP with "special interests" despite the fact that Democrats benefit much more from such groups, and lobbied hard in favor of federal prescription drug subsidies.
CBS News has also heavily promoted the president's critics both within and without the Republican party, playing up discontent within the GOP congressional ranks while almost totally ignoring the complaints of Democrats upset with their leadership. The network has feted anti-Bush authors and filmmakers like Michael Moore, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson, Al Franken, and Paul O'Neill with adoring primetime interviews on shows like
60 Minutes and uncritical "news" reports on other programs at the same time it has ignored or smeared Democrat critics like Zell Miller, John O'Neill, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter.
Given CBS's patently obvious record of liberal and Democratic bias (which even News Division president Andrew Heyward has acknowledged) and Dan Rather's personal grudge against the Bush family, we are not holding out much hope that tonight's 60 Minutes episode questioning President Bush's Vietnam record will be a fair program or that 60 will even bother mentioning the allegations of hundreds of men who doubt the wartime honesty of Bush's opponent John Kerry, especially considering that it has not shown any interest in interviewing them during primetime.
"CBS has never contacted any of our members for an interview." Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spokesman John O'Neill tells RatherBiased.com. "There's not a chance of it."
It's nasty enough to gag a buzzard.
This is a perfect reason why Fox News in eight years has eclipsed CBS - and all the old big boys - in terms of revenue, profit, viewers and viewer loyalty.
As my 27 year old dental assistant said as she was cleaning my teeth, 'Fox rocks!' But then again, I live in Texas.
Did Rather serve?
I think Karl Rove can take care of SeeBS.
Dan Rather, at 72 it's time to retire and stew in your juices without bothering the rest of us. Sometimes I think CBS only employs bitter old men.
No. He tried out for the Marines but was rejected. The official line is because he'd had rheumatic fever as a child.
Looking forward to checking in on CBS on election night just to see Dan Rather get the "buckwheats" when the Bush electoral totals roll over the top.
Dont think for a minute that Don Hewitt has 'retired' as executive producer of 60 Minutes..
Where oh where is that article when DanRathernot claimed that he was attacked by thugs that called him Herbert? It couldn't be substantiated and it was very similar to the faked attack on Morton Downey jr.
I though they called him Kenneth.
Gunga Dan can't be Gunga done a moment too soon for me.
This can't be true.... I heard with my very own ears a commercial on SeeBS saying that if I really wanted fair and balanced reporting, I MUST tune in and watch Dan Rather...
Seriously, this is a new commercial on SeeBS ----- fair and balanced ?? ROFLMAOGFB
Just another reflection on the media today. From a Constitutional perspective, America deserves an objective, unbiased and truthful press -- one of the things we continue to fight and die for...the very freedom that lets these horribly biased politicos continue to pass themselves off as credible.
We are not surprised by "Rotten" Can Blather's biasness. That's been known for years that he's a liberal demoncRAT leftist communist.
Oops! You are right, they did call him Kenneth.
You MUST get this information to Rush, Hewitt, Prager, Medved, and Hannity TODAY. There must be a counterattack that goes straight to the credibility of SeeBS. Don't forget SeeBS was the network that created the hatchet movie about the Reagans that they were later forced to withdraw after public outcry. Its hatred goes beyon the Bush family to the entire Republican Party, and it must be called early and often on its total lack of objectivity. We need to get Bernard Goldberg back on some of the talk shows as well. he knows better than anyone how Rather and co. operate.
They would be credible if they ONLY admitted their bias. I have no problem with news bias as long as they openly admit it so the sheeple understand that they are hearing partisan "news".
I called and emailed my local CBS Affiliate. I told them I have blocked their channel from my remote.
The local affiliate has actually been running a news promo with the slogan "fair and balanced".
Brokaw will be retiring after this election even though he is younger than Rather.
Dan will be staying on in the hopes that he can finally finish better than second place in the ratings with Brokaw out of the picture.
Untill old farts at Communist Broadcast News are no longer on the air, I refuse to watch their propaganda or tune in to their stations.
Dan Rather was a big supporter of LBJ. Even gives him partial credit for his career. Ben Barnes was an LBJ protege at the same time. Bet you won't hear this during the interview.
Thanks for the link and the correction. :)
Licorice: "Depends what you mean by serve.".
Yes Dan give your buddy airtime. Your pathetic hatred of Republicans is getting bolder and bolder.
Isn't it time for Rather return to Iraq to again inerview Saddam Hussein?
It's personal for Rather.
I've heard Rather refer to himself as "this old Marine" on the Imus show.
Yeah he's REEEAAAAly po'd about that.
"Where does this hatred for President Bush come from, they sound like there on the terrorist side,"
Bottom lne, liberals hate the Bushes all. They bitterly resent the very existence of a family of men and women who are their moral superiors.
Evryday that GW serves, with integrity and honor, is a shaming personal rebuke to the morally bankrupt and dissolute narcissists of the Left. And as we know, a common defense against shame is rage.
Why can't FOX or some other respected outfit expose CBS and Rather as the Democrat liars they are. Have we hounded CBS to put on the Swift Vets for Truth to balance all their anti-Bush propaganda?
This is not right to have CBS always shilling for the leftists.
Back when Imus still had him on. Rather has fallen out with Imus since he started stating the obvious truth about Rather's rank partisan behavior.
"CBS is Rather Biased"...and Ben Barnes is a worthless piece of liberal human debris...and that's straight from an Austin, Texas Freeper!!!
Otherwise the we'd all be getting our news from Biased news readers like Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite!
Anyone with Rush's 24-7 email is more than welcome to pass this article his way.
MEGA DITTOS TO THAT STATEMENT! See my reply #16 to this thread earlier today.
'Texans for Truth' [Moveon.org 527] Ad Buy Challenges Bush on Texas National Guard Service
You sure nailed Dan-o; gotta give
ya credit. As a Texan, I cringe.
Yep! Just turn them off and read the Freeper's posts....
No Kidding! Who would have thunk!
P.S. Can you bitch-slap Robert Jensen for me if you ever cross paths!
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