Posted on 09/24/2004 1:25:30 AM PDT by kattracks
Courage, Dan. Courage. That word, once used by Dan Rather as a signoff, perfectly describes what he needs now. He has made mistakes. He has not handled himself well. He probably prejudged the story, maybe working backward from the conclusion, and for too long put up his dukes and got into a defensive crouch. Still, the fact remains that he and CBS are guilty of making a mistake. It can happen - bloggers and others, take note - when you commit journalism.Mistakes are what happen to aggressive new organizations. It is no coincidence that scandals being recollected at the moment are all associated with first-class newspapers or TV networks. It is a yearning to break the story, to make news, to bang the pot and change something for the better.
Rather did not concoct the apparently phony documents showing that President Bush was something less than a punctilious member of the Air National Guard. Someone else did. Rather was not trying to put something over on CBS or the public. He was the first one snookered.
Yet on the Internet and in the right-wing press, calls shrill with false indignation have been issued for Rather's scalp. It is alleged, it is insinuated that Rather is some sort of liberal apparatchik or personally in cahoots with the Kerry campaign - and he should retire instantly. It beggars belief that some of this is coming from the Murdoch media empire - the New York Post and Fox News - which, really, reports everything but the weather with a slant, and even then I wonder.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Snicker, snort.
Wrong........ it was a conscious crime by the hateful socialist left........plain and simple.
Look at the media now as they continually try to color this any way they can but what it really was and is......... a crime, a most serious crime.God, I hate these lying b*stards.
Piffle,Cohen...We know the facts on this one and the drunken acceptance of Burkett as a source smells like more than a mistake, it smells like trying to influence the election to me....
When you reject anyone who likes Bush as a source but accept Barnes and a dem player, Bush hater *out there"tale spinner like Burkett as a source and connect the source with Kerry ,dem operative Lockhart...I keel over from the stench.
This goofy looking and demented sycophant, Richard Cohen, is going to go down on Rather after this sick article!
That's just a little bit more than (I) can allow--to paraphrase the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme song. Does he really think that anyone will buy this?
In order for Dan Rather to make this hefty error in judgement (commit a crime), he had to have permission from the top. All programming at c-BS 60 Minutes goes through an approval process before its aired.
Sumner Redstone and/or Tom Freston must had approved this BS.
This is the old Clinton strategy when they got caught with the FBI files on Republicans who were not in office and had no chance or interest in serving in Clinton's administration. Clinton's defense was that "we're incompetent not duplicitous." What a crock.
Nobody knows (officially) who created these phony documents. So how does the author KNOW that Dan Rather didn't do it? These people must have special powers that normal people don't have. That's what makes them better than us.
Nothing more!
It's A LOT more!
Dear Lord. Spare me this CBS butt-kissing hickeyfest. This isn't just pathetic, it's lame.
If Liberals had any integrity, they'd treat this for what it is: conscious and willful fraud intended to sway an election less than 50 days away.
If Fox News had run the same sort of fraudulent documents against Kerry, you and I and every other American know that the Big Three would be running 24-hour-a-day coverage of the scandal and it wouldn't end until at least 5 people at Fox News got fired, the first being the guy in front of the camera who "broke" the story.
But when the Liberal media pulls this sort of fraudulent nonsense, we're supposed to forgive and forget. I don't frickin' THINK so!
You're gonna need a LOT more than "courage," Mr. Rather. You're going to need a zircon-encrusted reinforced carbon-carbon thermal shield on your ass...'cause baby, you've got one big-time bullseye on it and we're just warming up the flamethrowers.
Cohen conveniently leaves out any mention of Joe Lockhart's phone call(s) and McAuliffe's and Harkin's suspiciously timely attacks. Nice try but it doesn't fly, Cohen.
But when the Liberal media pulls this sort of fraudulent nonsense, we're supposed to forgive and forget. I don't frickin' THINK so!
You're gonna need a LOT more than "courage," Mr. Rather. You're going to need a zircon-encrusted reinforced carbon-carbon thermal shield on your ass...'cause baby, you've got one big-time bullseye on it and we're just warming up the flamethrowers.
Beautiful. I've waited decades for the left media to be exposed. This is just a beginning.
"Only the Beginning" --- C.T.A. (great song), btw.
Courage, Dan. Courage. No Dan.........it's Truth, Dan, Truth.
Distraction and minimizing will not work.
There will be no rest for you, until you finally spit out the TRUTH.
"Albany is the capital of Pennsylvania." That's a mistake. What we have here is a crime.
Hard to believe this isn't satire.
I don't know about an approval process, but Sumner Redstone saying that a vote for Bush would be good for Viacom (that's not exactly a whole hearted endorsement), indicates that he is running very scared that his liberal agenda will come back to haunt him and Viacom.
Hey, maybe if we can tie Redstone to Rathergate, the stockholders can sue him.
Zacaly.
And I'm sure if the swiftboat vets had approached rather with a newly discovered memo that some now dead naval officer had allegedly written about Kerry, Rather would have been just as quick to get it on the air.
Yeah Right.
(Go to Ratherbiased.com)
Peggy Noonan had that scenario about Kerry posed to her by Colmes..No way she said..not in the CBS enclave of liberals and leftists..
She called the scandalous,agenda driven, criminal behavior of Rather et al "mission intoxication" and declared the mission was to get Bush and influence the election...and she likes Rather, he was her boss at one time!
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