A Rather Controversial Ending (Dan Rather blaming the conspiratorial Right?)

Newsweek via MSNBC ^ | September 21, 2007 | By Johnnie L. Roberts

[LouAvul]

Dan Rather

[abb]

In the 1970’s they would have gotten away with it. It is chilling that a news organization, respected by too many, would use their reputation to decide that the President needed to be taken out, and would do what it took to achieve their goal.

It has already been done. Richard Nixon's resignation was, in my opinion, a Drive-By Media coup d'etat.

[flat]

BWHAAAHAH well the way his employers treated this TRUTH SEEKER was abominable ....wait that snowman story was next up in the dan the man expose line up....hell they had the snowman’s war record and every thing....and then THIS happened.....a promising newshound;s career sadly and suddenly cut short.....sacrificed on the alter of homage to the vast right wing conspiriati....
well i knew it would come to this once the sacred FAIRNESS doctrine was deep sixed by the likes of that nazi ronald reagan.....

bwahahaaahaahah

lett my peeepo go

[Congressman Billybob]

Rather did not "drop a bombshell" by filing his case. More accurately, he "laid a loaf." It is not the "right wing" that brought down Rather. It was the "truth."

Of course, this does say a lot about the bent of Rather and of CBS which kept him on premises way beyond his sell-by date. Rather sees "truth" as being "right wing." That's a back-handed acknowledgment that the "left wing" is based on dishonesty.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Dan Rather, CBS, Plus Duke"

[tanknetter]

>>>Dan Rather continues to stand by the story, and in subsequent interviews has articulated that he believes that the documents have never conclusively been proven to be forgeries — and that even if the documents are false, that the underlying story is true.<<<

Question: when running a news story isn't the burden on the reporter to make sure that source material is accurate and unimpeachable, rather than not demonstrably false?

[ErnBatavia]

Kerry got a six-month early discharge from the Navy. When you add up Kerry’s active duty time and compare it to Bush’s active duty time—OCS, flight training, summer activation—Kerry didn’t do much more time than Bush.

I was under the impression that Bush actually had more active duty time.

[CT]

You don’t finish bootcamp, you aint a Marine, bub!

[shankbear]

Dan is simply bat Sh*t nuts!!!! Fake but fake still won’t cut it you blathering idiot.

[tanknetter]

You don’t finish bootcamp, you aint a Marine, bub!

Wasn't Rather washed out of the Corps for bedwetting? IIRC there have been stories to that effect.

And by Rather's own standards the burden to prove them false ...

[crazydad]

As Samantha Sang says in the song “cry me a river” Dan.

[Archon of the East]

The last thing on earth the democrat party and CBS wants is for the discovery process of this litigation to open up to the light of day how CBS creates the news. All just around the time of the 2008 presidential election. $20 million is a bargain to shut Rather up.

Or how deeply connected they are with the DNC

[sig226]

I wonder if Dan Rather plans to ask Bernie Goldberg how it feels to get screwed by CBS.

Seriously, this is an asinine act on the part of Dan Rather. Dan Rather does not need the money. CBS will never admit wrongdoing, even if they did something wrong. They have attorneys and public relations departments to make themselves look blameless. The best he could hope for is a settlement and an agreement to keep silent on the issue, something CBS was doing, anyway.

That’s assuming that CBS decides to settle. They may not want to settle. They may prefer to drag Dan Rather through the mud for a while. They employed him for over forty years. I’m sure they know a few things about Dan Rather that would make him look worse. They could well make him look stupid for a while, then offer a settlement as if to say, “Had enough yet?” That might make Mark Cuban reconsider Dan Rather’s continued employment.

The possibility of countersuit is unlikely, but then again, CBS News’ reputation in in the toilet and it will take years to resurrect it. It’s easy to blame the whole thing on Dan Rather. Bernie Goldberg’s book, Bias, blamed much of the left wing bias at CBS directly on Dan Rather. Published accounts of malfeasance go a long way with juries.

Dan Rather’s contract no doubt had some flowery prose about due diligence and highest ethics of journalism in it. It’s easy to argue that he violated such terms, and his actions damaged the reputation of CBS News. Although we at Free Republic have noted the bias at CBS for years, the National Guard memos made the bias undeniable to the whole nation. CBS News is still reeling.

And if Dan Rather thinks he will somehow invoke feelings of loyalty at CBS News, or maybe intimidation, he should remember that when he got them in trouble, they threw him under the bus.

Get the popcorn. We’re going to need a lot of it.

[I still care]

Good analysis.

[JayNorth]

Or how deeply connected they are with the DNC

Indeed, let's get ALL the facts about Mapes eagerness to "affect the momentum of the election", the the curious sharing of information with the Kerry campaign, down to timing a Kerry advertising campaign named "Fortunate Son" to correspond with the SeeBS story.

[FormerACLUmember]

The last thing on earth the democrat party and CBS wants is for the discovery process of this litigation to open up to the light of day how CBS creates the news. All just around the time of the 2008 presidential election. $20 million is a bargain to shut Rather up. Or how deeply connected they are with the DNC.

It kills me that the lamestream media hires vast numbers of paid democrat party propagandists and third rate shills. Then it pretends to be objective. Think Stephanopoulos, Moyer, Matthews, Russert ad nauseum.

Earlier today Russert was tossing softballs to scam artist Hillary. I wanted to hurl.

[FormerACLUmember]

Indeed, let's get ALL the facts about Mapes eagerness to "affect the momentum of the election", the the curious sharing of information with the Kerry campaign, down to timing a Kerry advertising campaign named "Fortunate Son" to correspond with the SeeBS story.

Never gonna happen. Rather is crazy like a fox. He knows CBS will pay up big time rather than have this exposed in the discovery process.

[Archon of the East]

I honestly believe it goes deeper than that. There is no way after decades of obvious single-mindedness between democrats and the media one could believe in anything other than a employer-employee relationship at the highest levels leading the way to the hiring of fake but real journalists.

[FormerACLUmember]

I honestly believe it goes deeper than that. There is no way after decades of obvious single-mindedness between democrats and the media one could believe in anything other than a employer-employee relationship at the highest levels leading the way to the hiring of fake but real journalists

Interesting. You hypothesize direct money payments to media executives from the democrat party or its sham front groups to fake the news, as I read you.

You just raised a brilliant point. The democrats are all about bribes and money payoffs. Why not simply extrapolate from what we already know........

[Mr_Moonlight]

Question: when running a news story isn't the burden on the reporter to make sure that source material is accurate and unimpeachable, rather than not demonstrably false?

You, sir, are absolutely correct.

Had this hit piece been directed towards any other citizen other than the President, CBS/Rather et al could have been sued for liable and slander, and would have lost big time $$$$. It is only because the presidential seat carries with it a, shall we say, "responsibility" that it must endure being relentlessly attacked, rather [no pun intended] than being the attacker, that such a lawsuit never happened.

[Brad from Tennessee]

I’m sure you’re right. I know after Kerry returned from his four-month tour, one month of which was spent training at Cam Rahn, he was assigned to some admiral’s office where he had a lot of free time to get involved in the anti-war movement.

As a Vietnam veteran, it was painful for me to see this whole issue brought up. But, when Kerry rendered that Vaudevillian salute at the convention and said,”. . .Reporting for duty!” preceded by staged “combat” film clips, he left himself wide open.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Rather’s producer Mary Mapes was in contact with the Kerry campaign:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/09/22/lockhart_contacted_memo_scandal_figure/