Posted on 09/21/2007 1:08:18 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
Dan Rather has been out of the anchor chair at The CBS Evening News for more than two years. There is wide agreement that the story which led to his departure, a report on George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service, was based on fraudulent, or at least unverifiable, documents. CBS commissioned an extensive investigation into the matter, Rather left the network, and the affair seemed over.
Until now. Yesterday Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against his old employers, and it is based on a set of astonishing allegations that are sure to bring what became known as “Rathergate” back into the news.
In the suit, Rather alleges that he was forced to apologize for the Bush story as part of a conspiracy by top CBS management to ensure that no further damaging revelations about the president’s time in the Texas Air National Guard would become public. Rather also alleges that CBS hired a private investigator to re-report the original story — after Rather threatened to hire his own private eye to do the same thing — and that the investigator found the story to be accurate, only to have his findings suppressed by CBS as part of an effort to curry favor with the Bush White House. Finally, Rather alleges that CBS fired him over the story the day after Bush was reelected, despite his later claims that his departure was separate from the Bush story.
First, the apology. On Monday, September 20, 2004, nearly two weeks after the Bush story originally aired, Rather told viewers, “The failure of CBS News to…properly, fully scrutinize the documents and their source led to our airing the documents when we should not have done so. It was a mistake. CBS News deeply regrets it. Also, I want to say personally and directly, I’m sorry.” However genuine his words might have sounded, Rather now claims he was speaking under duress. “CBS management coerced Mr. Rather into publicly apologizing and taking personal blame for alleged journalistic errors in the broadcast,” the lawsuit says. CBS News chief Andrew Heyward “instructed Mr. Rather to read a public apology, written by [CBS management], for both Mr. Rather’s and CBS’s handling of the story. Despite his own personal feelings that no apology from him was warranted, Mr. Rather read the apology as instructed.” Moreover, Rather alleges, “as defendants well know, even if any aspect of the broadcast had not been accurate, which has never been established, Mr. Rather was not responsible for any such errors.”..."
So, Dan, you're admitting you lied on the air?
And for the millionth time, what is the *(&%$((?!! FREQUENCY!!!!
Hey, did any FReepers watch Gunga Dan on Larry King Live Thursday night? I ask because I glanced at it (without the sound on, I was at the gym) and there seemed to be a conservative-themed ad that ran during the segment that dissed MoveOn.org and their “Gen. Betray Us” ad. I am wondering if any FReepers know who is running such an ad. Thanks.
“even if any aspect of the broadcast had not been accurate, which has never been established, Mr. Rather was not responsible for any such errors.”...”
Apparently Mr. Rather missed the class in journalism school when they teach that anything that goes out under your byline is your responsibility. Interesting that someone who’s so intensely proud of his 40-odd year career would have not learned this basic tenet.
I hope CBS unleashes its lawyers on him. He needs to go down hard for continuing this charade.
I've always thought he seemed a little not-right in the head.
He just wanted it to be true too much.
“Dan really must be as dumb as a door stop to believe those “documents” were real.”
Don’t forget that his daughter, in Texas, is thought to have been complicit in the forgery.
1) the ‘documents’ were false, anyone with a brain who remembers the age of typewriters would see this instantly.
2) Bush might have received some preferential treatment, assignment, or not. As I understand it, his father was not a sitting congressman at the time he went in, but it isn’t something I have looked into at all.
I have great faith that the DoD treats sitting congressmen’s children differently than those of the tax sheep in a draft/war enviroment, since, after all, those same congressmen control their budget. Perhaps some Freepers prefer to think otherwise.
3) Rather’s behavior seems to be indicative of either early dementia or extreme egomania, or both. Whatever the case with Bush’s time in ANG, who can defend those bogus docs?
4) Rather has a very long history of apparently animosity towards the Bush family.
The most annoying thing about this is that Dan will probably win. He may not win the entire 70 million but I really doubt that CBS is going to want to go through the entire discovery process and have the issue about how they tried to throw an election come up again and again in open court. It’s probable that some sort of “settlement” will occur and then Dan will be out there crowing about his “courage”. Ugh, I need a shower.
Looks like Dan has become a Truther .. only he knows the truth and the rest of the world is brainwashed .. hehe
There was a brief clip of his Vietnam-era reporting on History or Discovery channel not too long on ago, on one of their many Vietnam documentaries.
And in this short moment it struck me that Rather was just as seditious and stuffed with liberal opinion then, as he is today.
Rather's core problem is that he has ALWAYS seen his biased and opinionated reporting (which is no crime in itself) as "objective reporting" which occasionally demands shaping of "the facts" in service of "the truth".
Clearly it's an awesome and almost omniscient responsibility for one man, but Rather sincerely believes it has been his unique destiny and mission to properly shape and shepard "the trruth."
For this mission and destiny, one must have...
"Courage".
That was Limbaugh's take yesterday, and it seems likely.
But let's leave open the minor, 10 percent chance that CBS will present conclusive evidence that Rather knew the documents were fake, and actively supported using them despite their provenance.
Maybe he wants to get revenge by embarrasing CBS executives in depositions.
I think that Al Gore's journalism career in Vietnam may be a fine example of the phenomenon you postutlate. However, Bush volunteered for fighter pilot training, and flew old fighters for the TANG. If an old plane plays you false in the wrong way at the wrong time, you are just as dead if you are a Congressman's son as if you are a Tuskegee Airman. It is also the case that pilots who train for the National Guard do so intensively - that is, you don't ever learn to fly "single engine" just on weekends; getting up to speed initially is a full-time job.The salient fact about Bush's dropping off of flight status is that he allowed it to happen when the Air Force was dramatically reducing its presence in Southeast Asia, and therefore had a sudden glut of senior pilots who wanted to serve in the Air National Guard. Consequently Lt. Bush wasn't gonna be able to get enough flight hours to remain current unless he got favoritism.
I’ve always thought he seemed a little not-right in the head.
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I always thought he seemed LEFT in the head but with NOT MUCH left in his head.
It’s probable that some sort of “settlement” will occur and then Dan will be out there crowing about his “courage”.
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Dan should be careful, he may be given an offer he can’t refuse.
Keep hope alive!
So now Rather is saying he had no backbone to stand up to CBS management but instead joined a conspiracy to help elect Pres. Bush. Riiiiight.
I can see Rather playing with metal balls and talking about strawberrys.
I think he must be a neighbor of algore on this special pretend planet.
Must be.
Hardeehar... Dan thinks he’s the victim of a conspiracy among conservatives running CBS.
I guess a ‘conservative’ to Dan is anybody who doesn’t believe that Karl Marx rose from the grave after three days?
Delusional Dan. I wonder how many people he had run out of CBS over the years for ideological non-compliance. It must be a great many, I’m sure. He is the kind of journalist who writes the script before he does the interview.
Wonder if Dan will reveal who shot Kennedy.
And bringing bigfoot to court in an Area 51 flying saucer would be icing on the cake for me.
I heard an ad on Fox............AWESOME AD!
Dan is opening pandora’s box. If someone who lies to the country can file a lawsuit, think of the possibilities.
1. Sue the ACLU
2. Sue the environmental lobby
3. Sue the gay lobby
4. Sue Moveon and other communist front groups
5. Sue the MSM
Sue them all for billions. Go to a COnservative friendly court and file. These groups lied to the American people and we want to file a class action lawsuit.
Reagan knew how to put communism out of business. You go after their finances. We need to do the same.
Let me see if I understand the situation: We have a senile old fool suing the news bureau of the least watched network in the country, over fraudulent documents generated four years ago about an incident that happened two decades ago, about a president soon to leave office. This is too good to be true. Get lots of popcorn, and be prepared to watch with glee!
That is about it.
It must REALLy suck to be someone like Dan Rather.
Can you tell me anything about the ad or who ran it? I'd like to look it up and watch it on line. Thanks.
Ahh, but the documents that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a proportional font typewriter DID exist, and I'd have produced that typewriter if they hadn't of pulled the CBS Evening News out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect Pres. Bush...
” I think that Al Gore’s journalism career in Vietnam may be a fine example of the phenomenon you postutlate. “
I was thinking of gore specifically when I wrote that, in fact.
I do think that if a flag officer’s or congressman’s son insists (I am thinking of McCain, whose father IIRC was an admiral at the time he was captured, though I could be in error) and presumably some level of consultation with the important parent takes place, they will send such VIP children into dangerous areas, though.
Obviously I don’t know how the mechanism works, but to assume the military is blind to the importance of not putting VIP’s children into the meat grinder blindly is implausible...
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