Rather Impeachable
I am not sure that all the people around the country understand the gravity of this situation with Dan Rather and the National Guard memos. It seems that many people are overlooking the seriousness of this “mistake.” In a sense, I don’t blame people for losing perspective because this race has been so hotly contested and there has been so much mud-slinging between Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Swift Boat Captains and MoveOn.org. It is enough to make you turn your brain off to this stuff. You can read the paper with a general anesthesia to all of the trash.
I would say that this is one time when we need to snap back to reality. This isn’t like any of those other people that I just named. This is Dan Rather, CBS news and 60 Minutes. This is someone who considers himself a real live journalist and he has sullied his name and CBS’ name. Dan Rather has never been considered a propagandist like the others, but this looks like a case where he (or one of his producers) was playing a partisan role in an election that is about as close as close can be.
He called his source “unimpeachable” when it turns out that this guy, Burkett, is well known for bumping up against Republicans, specifically GW Bush. This guy apparently lied about the source of the documents. Is that any surprise to any of you sitting here now knowing who this guy is? Would you trust the owner of a McDonald’s to give an honest report about the quality of the Whopper sandwich from Burger King? And Rather called this guy “unimpeachable?”
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a story in there somewhere about Bush being a bad member of the Texas Air National Guard. I am quite confident that he was not a very good soldier. I am quite confident he had special connections to get him into the guard. I don’t think there are many people out there who are defending Bush’s military service. Yet, it seemed important enough for Dan Rather to go out on a limb with this “big time exclusive” type of a story to risk his reputation as a journalist? And the producers of 60 Minutes and CBS news were willing to risk their reputations over all of this too?
This just screams of partisanship. Someone at CBS decided to forego truth and probability in the name of their personal beliefs at worst and sensationalism at best. How else do explain this level of risk over a story and a source that was so suspect?
The bottom line is that we can’t gloss over this. Dan Rather can’t be let off the hook. It isn’t even all that important to the election as far as I am concerned. It is the greater necessity of having our news programs not be this suspect. We know about opinion mongers like Bill O’Reilly and Al Franken. We know about liars/propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore. Just as we know about these impeachable sources of information, we must also be confident about our news sources like 60 Minutes, which are supposed to dwell in the realm of factual news reporting.
Dan Rather and CBS have struck a blow to that and that shouldn’t be so easily forgivable.
Blogcritics Said,
September 21, 2004 @ 10:12 am
Rather Impeachable
I am not sure that all the people around the country understand the gravity of this situation with Dan Rather…
Chris Said,
September 21, 2004 @ 11:44 am
I agree what happened is an actionable offense in a news organization. It’s also weird as hell. Surely they knew how thin their stuff was and that it would be challenged immediately.
kiddicus electicus Said,
September 21, 2004 @ 3:38 pm
i’m just surprised that they didn’t do a better job forging the document. i mean c’mon… who used superscript and subscript on something that was supposed to be from the seventies? were they stupid? that’s like the kid who signs his name on the parent spot on his report card and tries to turn it into the teacher. or scanning a $20 bill on your PC and printing it up on computer paper. c’mon people… if you’re going to bullsh*t at least do it with some conviction. This was more of a blow to forgers than it was Dan Rather, 60 minutes or CBS.
Justin Said,
September 22, 2004 @ 9:41 pm
I think you’re being a little tough on Rather & Co. This shit happens. In hindsight, we can call him a bonehead. But in the moment, he did what anyone would have done: he tried to verify them as quickly as possible so he could get it on the air first.
To call the source “unimpeachable” just means that the guy’s never done this shit before. No one in news expects the source to be neutral. You don’t get news from neutral parties. You get news from disgruntled former employees, people who’ve been passed over for promotions, and other people with axes to grind. Who do you think leaks the leaked news stories we read every day? It’s not neutral parties.
Now that he’s led a newscaster astray, he’s not unimpeachable anymore. He’s worthless. No one will ever believe him again. But you can’t blame Rather for believing him to begin with.
If Rather has two sources telling him these letters are legit and one expert saying they’re legit, his job is done. He can take a nap.
Especially in this day and age where almost everything seems to break on the internet, the networks are especially hard pressed to produce “breaking” news. Rather tried and he got burned. Happens to everyone. Even the NY Times runs corrections. They print “The Times regrets the error” the next day and everyone acknowledges that these things happen. I don’t know why it would be necessary to rake Rather over the coals.
FilteringCraig Said,
September 22, 2004 @ 10:32 pm
You don’t see a difference between this sensationalistic disasterpiece in the heart of election season? Especially when we have so much controversy over swift boat ads, etc. He slung mud in a very close race and used exhibits A through C even though he didn’t need them. I would say that is a big deal.
Justin Said,
September 23, 2004 @ 8:44 am
I think it’s crazy to accuse Rather of mudslinging.
Is he guilty of being gullible in his hurried attempt to break a story: definitely. But now the CBS news people are as bad as the Swift Boat guys? I’m no huge fan of CBS News or Dan Rather, but these guys are pros. Dan Rather’s been doing this for fifty years. He’s not going to go on TV and lie to sway the election.
I am usually first in line with a sinister conspiracy theory. But this seems like a boner.
I hope, for everyone’s sake, that if CBS were to invent some news, it’d be more convincing than this.
What’s the frequency, Kenneth?