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Sept. 17, 2004 Well, he finally did it. For a couple of decades now, it's become patently obvious that Dan Rather is little more than a mouthpiece for liberalism in all of its various permutations. He's never really been a "journalist" in the strictest sense of the word (although I suppose he'd dispute that and self-describe as a true "journalist.) He's really been a news reader--which is not the same thing. He was fairly popular, for a time, but his popularity has been waning for some time now as more and more people have begun to realize that what he's been feeding them nightly has mostly been lies, half-truths and ideologically slanted, to boot. It was Rather, remember, who tried his damnedest to trash General William Westmoreland in the early 80's--an attempt that got him and CBS sued for their back teeth for slander. CBS paid up though we don't know if Rather paid HIS share since the terms of the payment settlement remain "confidential." It was also Rather whose obsequeousness towards the Ayatollah Khomeni and Saddam Hussein was literally sickening to watch after he secured interviews with them. Like any true leftist, anything that's critical of the United States passes without much challenge and all Rather's interviews did was give these two criminal madmen a world-wide platform from which to trash the U.S....without even the HINT of an objection on Rather's part. Many on the left literally HATE the space programs. Rather is no exception. The left in the U.S. seem to believe that the millions we spend exploring the solar system is welfare money that's wasted. One liberal of my acquaintance complained that we'd left that multi-million-dollar LEM on the moon-- therefore "wasting" millions of dollars. I suppose it never occurred to either her OR Dan Rather that the cost of the LEM was paid right HERE in the good ol' U.S.A. to those who designed, built and transported it to Cape Kennedy for launch. The readers may recall that the Challenger mission was postponed several times for technical reasons. There are many who believe that Dan Rather's derisive tone in describing those delays contributed, in part, to the decision to go ahead in cold weather that resulted in the disaster with which we're all familiar. Now Rather has committed fraud--publically and on the air. Last week's "60 Minutes II" story, critical of President Bush's Texas Air National Guard Service revolved mostly around two elements--the testimony of the former Texas Speaker of the House and "documents" which purported to show that President Bush's commanders were critical of his service and accusing him of deliberately disobeying a direct order. The former, one Ben Barnes, is a well- known Democrat who's basically left Texas politics in disgrace. His own DAUGHTER has said that his comments about helping George W. Bush get preferential treatment and into the TANG ahead of others is in direct contradiction to what he'd told her in 2000 and that he was an "opportunist" who has a book coming out and needed the publicity. Apparently her father is FURIOUS that she's told the world that he lied to Dan Rather--without any challenge BY Rather, by the way. The man Barnes claims approached him to "help" get George W. Bush into the TANG has denied he did any such thing. However, the WORST thing about this sorry episode is a series of obviously-forged documents that Rather presented. The odd thing is that even a 4th-grader could tell some of the documents were done on Microsoft Word--which didn't even exist in the early '70's--and not on a typewriter. CBS spent a lot of time and effort claiming that IBM typewriters of that day COULD do "superscripts" and "kerning." Unfortunately, such typewriters in 1973 were prohibitively expensive and it's virtually CERTAIN that no such typewriters were in the TANG headquarters OR in the private possession of Bush's commander, Colonel Jerry Killian, who supposedly signed the memos and who, by the way, couldn't TYPE, according to his ex-wife AND son. When that ploy didn't work, CBS was reduced to claiming that, while the documents may be forged, "the information they contain is 'accurate.'" One is left to wonder if CBS's news department really believes that Americans are THAT stupid or are they so tied to the former popularity of Dan Rather that they're willing to drink Jonestown Kool-aid rather than admit that they screwed up....BIG time. It's pretty easy to see Dan Rather literally salivating over this story since he's been among the Bush-haters ever since the first President Bush made him look like an idiot on his own "news" program during an interview back during the 1992 campaign. The only honorable thing for Dan Rather, now 72, to do would be for him to resign and quietly disappear into well-deserved obscurity. It would be the honorable thing, so don't bank on it happening. ------------ About the author: David A. Jared is a news junkie, semi-retired and an avid golfer who's been writing his first book, "4000 years of chopsticks" for the last 20 years. Email: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net |
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