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Lara Logan Came Clean—Now it’s Time for Dan Rather
Townhall.com ^ | November 15, 2013 | Humberto Fontova

Posted on 11/15/2013 4:57:59 PM PST by Kaslin

How often do outfits like The New York Times, Salon, Politco, HuffPo, NPR and Media Matters gang up on a fellow pinko like CBS?

Well, it’s happening big-time and was recently explained by disgraced and fired (during Rathergate) CBS producer Mary Mapes, "my concern is that the (Lara Logan’s 60 Minutes Benghazi) story was done very pointedly to appeal to a more conservative audience's beliefs about what happened at Benghazi."

In other words, if (like 99 per cent of 60 Minutes pieces) Logan’s story had been done to appeal to fellow pinkos, all would be cool.

Logan’s Benghazi story, as admitted by Logan herself, relied on a (now) discredited Defense contractor named Dylan Davies who (we now know) had been nowhere near the U.S. embassy in Benghazi at the time.

Dan Rather himself cannot contain his gloating. He calls upon his former CBS employers to "be completely transparent about it (Lara Logan’s 60 Minutes Benghazi story) and tell what happened, and why it happened."

Fine, Dan. Now be transparent about why (and how) you interviewed Elian Gonzalez’ father on an earlier 60 Minutes show.

On the April 6th 2000 edition of 60 Minutes, America saw a bewildered and heartsick father pleading to be allowed to have his motherless son accompany him back to Cuba, his cherished homeland. Dan Rather (who hailed Fidel Castro as “Cuba’s Elvis!”) was interviewing Elian’s “bereaved” father. How could anyone possibly oppose his heartfelt plea? How could simple decency and common sense possibly allow for anything else?

"Did you cry?" the pained and frowning Dan Rather asked the "bereaved" father during the 60 Minutes drama."A father never runs out of tears," Juan (actually, as we’ll see, the voice of Juan's drama school-trained translator) sniffled back to Dan. And the 60 Minutes prime-time audience could hardly contain their own sniffles.

Here's what America didn't see: "Juan Miguel Gonzalez was surrounded by Castro security agents the entire time he was in the studio with Rather." This is an eye-witness account from Pedro Porro, who served as Dan Rather's translator during the famous 60 Minutes interview. Dan Rather would ask the question in English into Porro's earpiece whereupon Porro would translate it into Spanish for Elian's heavily-guarded father.

"Juan Miguel was never completely alone," says Pedro Porro. "He never smiled. His eyes kept shifting back and forth. It was obvious to me that he was under heavy coercion. He was always surrounded by security agents from the Cuba Interest Section (i.e. Cuban embassy) in Washington D.C. When these agents left him alone for a few seconds, attorney Gregory Craig would hover over Juan Miguel.

"The questions Dan Rather was asking Elian's father during that 60 Minutes interview were being handed to him by attorney Gregory Craig," continues Pedro Porro. "It was obvious that Craig and Rather where on very friendly terms. They were joshing and bantering back and forth, as Juan Miguel sat there petrified. Craig was stage managing the whole thing - almost like a movie director. The taping would stop and he'd walk over to Dan, hand him a little slip of paper, say something into his ear. Then Rather would read the next question into my earpiece straight from the paper."

A reminder: officially (Bill Clinton and Dan Rather crony) Gregory Craig then served as attorney for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who worked as a hotel doorman in a nation where the average monthly salary is $16. The high-rolling Gregory Craig worked for Washington D.C.'s elite firm, Williams & Connolly, one of America's highest-priced law firms.

Upon accepting the case at the Clinton administrations’ behest, Gregory Craig had flown to Cuba for a meeting with Fidel Castro. Craig's remuneration, we learned shortly after his return, came from a "voluntary fund" set up by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society and "administered" by the National Council of Churches. The same reporters and pundits, who routinely erupted with snide snorts midway through any statement by a Republican press secretary, reported this item with a straight face.

Gregory Craig had led the Juan Miguel/Cuban-Security entourage into the studio, then presided over the interview as a movie director. "At one point Craig stopped the taping almost like a movie director yelling, 'Cut!' I was confused for a moment, says Porro, "until Greg Craig complained that Juan Miguel's answers were not coming across from his translator with "sufficient emotion." "So Dan Rather shut everything down for a while and some of the crew drove to a drama school in New York. They hired a dramatic actor to act as a translator, and brought him back!"

Okay roll 'em!

"I probably should have walked out," says Porro. "But I'd been hired by CBS in good faith and I didn't know exactly how the interview would be edited -- how it would come across on the screen. I mighta known, but you never know these things play out until you actually see it."

"Midway through watching that 60 minutes broadcast, I felt like throwing up," said Porro. "My stomach was in a knot." His worst fears were confirmed.

Lara Logan and her 60 minutes crew got snookered by a defense-contractor con-man. They were negligent and admit it. Dan Rather and crew volunteered to help a Stalinist con-man (Fidel Castro) stage a massive farce--a veritable show-trial complete with bogus confessions and coerced testimony. They knowingly snookered the American public.

Worse, most Americans fell for the farce. In their innocence (of Communist tactics) most Americans saw the Elian tragedy as a simple custody dispute, as happen hourly in places like Omaha, Atlanta and Peoria. That’s exactly what Castro, Craig and Rather wanted, expected and got.

Worse still, unlike Lara Logan, Dan Rather and crew never came clean, never admitted guilt as secret police and propaganda assets for the kidnapping of a six year old on behalf of a Stalinist Tyrant.

So who’s the major fraud? Logan or Rather?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: benghazi; danrather; laralogan; liberalmedia
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1 posted on 11/15/2013 4:57:59 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Anyone paying attention to Lara Logan knows there is a vast difference in integrity between her and Dan Rather. Lara is a very good reporter who made a mistake, and now owned up to the mistake.


2 posted on 11/15/2013 5:08:28 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Kaslin

I actually, once upon a time, liked Rather. Maybe he was always a total jerk. But truthfully, I think most of the older newscasters had an agenda. They just didn’t get called on the carpet and exposed because there was no alternate media.

I do wonder why 60 Minutes didn’t vet this contractor better. It makes no sense to me.


3 posted on 11/15/2013 5:08:33 PM PST by berdie
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To: Kaslin

“my concern is that the (Lara Logan’s 60 Minutes Benghazi) story was done very pointedly to appeal to a more conservative audience’s beliefs about what happened at Benghazi.”

Or maybe it is trying to appeal to people who prefer the truth as opposed to fairy-tales, make-believe, political spin, etc.

There was a time when journalists reported the news. Then there was the time when journalists made the news. Now is the time when journalists make up the news.

They have become so smitten with their own self-importance they no longer feel whether something is true or not has any relevance. Their saying it makes it true (in their minds).


4 posted on 11/15/2013 5:15:59 PM PST by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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To: Kaslin
Laura Logan's Benghazi story was a sophisticated disinformation piece meant to inoculate Hillary and discredit any further exploration of what happened there.

Mission accomplished!

5 posted on 11/15/2013 5:17:14 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Who knew that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional journalism?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Great tagline! I’m gonna watch Friday Night Smackdown now, more and more it seems pro wrestling imitates the LSM and politics in general, doesn’t it?


6 posted on 11/15/2013 5:24:50 PM PST by Impala64ssa (You call me an islamophobe like it's a bad thing.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Dan will swear to his grave the Bush National Guard memos were real.


7 posted on 11/15/2013 5:27:15 PM PST by Col Frank Slade
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To: Vince Ferrer

I loved watching Lara’s reports from Iraq during the war.


8 posted on 11/15/2013 5:34:45 PM PST by Right Wing Assault (What happened to my tagline??)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Right on target.


9 posted on 11/15/2013 5:53:40 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (An Administration of communists, incompetents, and the corrupt ...reminds one of FDR's brain trust.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The episode changed absolutely nothing.


10 posted on 11/15/2013 5:59:08 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Right Wing Assault

I’d love to sympathize with the lady, but I really can’t recall the last time I voluntarily watched ANY network “news” program, precisely because of their absolute bias and total lack of integrity.

When all you work with is sh**, sh**’s all you’re going to produce.


11 posted on 11/15/2013 5:59:14 PM PST by Unrepentant VN Vet (For why should my Freedom be judged by anothers conscience? 1 Cor 10:29)
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To: berdie

I think they want hype up for November or what ever sweep was that that bottom line they want that story ASAP

So they rush rush didn’t check out the facts

I got give old girl Lara props here

Least she mention she mess up


12 posted on 11/15/2013 6:05:02 PM PST by SevenofNine (We are Freepers, all your media bases belong to us ,resistance is futile)
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To: Kaslin

Big difference between Logan’s “we were misled and wrong” and Rather’s “fake but accurate”.


13 posted on 11/15/2013 6:39:09 PM PST by Domandred (Fdisk, format, and reinstall the entire .gov system.)
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To: Kaslin

THis chick is no more a reporter than Dan Rather, who as his final defense in the story that ended so badly for him, admitted, don’t you remember, that he just reads what he’s given, which is true of all those pretty faces with lots of hair and confident manner you see on the idiot box. Something to remember..


14 posted on 11/15/2013 6:45:46 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Kaslin

And there are STILL some despicable idiots on FR that defend and justify the abduction of Elian back to Cuba.


15 posted on 11/15/2013 6:47:26 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Not only that. I think she learned after she was molested/surrounded by the mooslum animals in Egypt (where she later took a long absence after the incident) that she cannot take anything for granted.

I still remember she imbedded during the Iraq War with a tank battalion and I thought this was gonna be another anti-war propaganda piece for CBS but surprisingly, it was fair.


16 posted on 11/15/2013 7:04:22 PM PST by max americana (fired liberals in our company last election, and I laughed while they cried (true story))
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I Agree!


17 posted on 11/15/2013 7:21:21 PM PST by blaveda
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To: Kaslin
to appeal to a more conservative audience's beliefs about what happened at Benghazi."

Truth and accuracy are what appeal to conservative audiences. Mapes isn't a fan of the truth, eh?

18 posted on 11/15/2013 7:33:51 PM PST by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN)
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To: max americana
She has very strong opinions about muslims and the war on terror since she was assaulted, and I certainly don't blame her for having them. Yet she goes back to muslim countries all the time. I would be surprised if she didn't have issues coming from that assault. I don't remember Dan Rather being sexually assaulted, ever.

Part 1/2 - CBS's Lara Logan: The Obama Administration Is Lying

19 posted on 11/15/2013 9:07:17 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: unlearner

Davies exists for one reason, to discredit the truth. The story was done as reverse spin. It’s psyops, so that anyone referencing a near truth can be called out on it and blamed for believing Davies story.

Fidel told Clinton that he’d open his prisons and flood America. Clinton would rather a little boy be sacrificed than a Clinton Presidency. So, Rather and Craig were working for Fidel and the Clinton Presidency.

Note that I didn’t say Bill Clinton. He and Hillary are joined by their black hearts. They’re scum and nothing is beneath them.


20 posted on 11/16/2013 6:40:11 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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