Dan Rather’s Revenge and the Battle for Free Speech

PJ Media ^ | October 17, 2014 | Scott Swett

[Interesting Times]

NEW YORK – Robert Redford will play Dan Rather in a film about the former CBS anchor’s disputed report about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service.

The film, titled Truth, will be adapted from the memoir Truth And Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power by former CBS producer Mary Mapes, said the production company, Mythology Entertainment. Cate Blanchett is signed on to play Mapes.

If you followed the 2004 presidential campaign, you probably recall the “disputed” 60 Minutes report claiming that George W. Bush shirked his duties and failed to follow orders as a young Texas Air National Guard officer. The segment was discredited when the “military memos” on which it was based were exposed online as forgeries. CBS News received a well-deserved black eye, and long-time anchor Dan Rather, producer Mary Mapes and several others lost their jobs.

There is no need to review the technical evidence about the memos, except to note that 1970s-era typewriters lacked word processing features such as superscripts, kerning (adjusting the spaces between letters to improve readability), proportional spacing and mathematically centered titles. A detailed account of the scandal, which became famous as “RatherGate,” can be found here.

To many, the debunking of the 60 Minutes segment For the Record was a brilliantly effective exercise in free speech that prevented a slanted hit piece from influencing a national election. But to Mapes and Rather, it was a profound injustice that should never be allowed to happen again.

[Delta Dawn]

If we are lucky, John Kerry will make a cameo appearance to explain how it was that he served in Vietnam...

[Pelham]

If the Right had anyone willing to make movies we would have our own movies celebrating the Left being exposed as liars and fools. Instead we produce nothing and the Left continues to have a monopoly on shaping the public ‘memory’.

[Interesting Times]

If the Right had anyone willing to make movies we would have our own movies celebrating the Left being exposed as liars and fools. Instead we produce nothing and the Left continues to have a monopoly on shaping the public ‘memory’.

Sad but true. If you know any well-heeled conservatives who would like to address this problem, I'll be happy to provide a script.

[Interesting Times]

Let me put it this way:

Voldemort. Voooooldemort! Voldyvoldyvoldymooort!!

[morphing libertarian]

Truth? Obviously fiction

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Mears]

Yep,Clint was Rowdy Yates.

Handsome guy.

.

[devolve]

.

- Bleech Hussein Ebola (junior) has refined Dan Rather’s pathetic crapola . . .

[yorkie]

That graphic makes me crazy! LOL!

[editor-surveyor]

What????

Do you just lurk here like a peeping tom?

Silently spying on us?

Who dragged you to this thread?

. . :o)

[PhilDragoo]

In '72 I had a 1923 Woodstock not a computer software program.

Buckhead's breakthrough on Free Republic: priceless.

The irony is that Bush was authentic TANG while Rather was typical lying MSM.

Using Word 2003 Times New Roman it's rather easy to retrace the work of Dan Kinko ink-stained retching loser.

My text in red; original fake in black overlaid with top properties at 50%.

[potlatch]

{Those were the days, my FRiend}

♫ We thought they'd never end.. ♫
La la la.... hehe

[potlatch]

Lol, I think he’s doing a ‘self lobotomy’!!
Little did he know he had already ‘lost it’, haha.

[potlatch]

Good, informative post Phil!

[MEG33]

Thanks, Phil... There are new posters out there that don’t know how new these fake memos were.

[Interesting Times]

Here's an update on the first weekend for "Truth" nationwide.

Hollywood whiffed again over the Halloween weekend as four new movies went largely ignored in favor of trick-or-treating. The "60 Minutes II" scandal drama "Truth," with Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford, expanding nationwide, and the horror comedy "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" added to a plague of empty theaters.

-----

Sony Pictures Classics "Truth," which recounts CBS' reporting on President George W. Bush's military service, expanded to 1,120 theaters, but couldn't even crack $1 million. It earned just $901,000.

[mware]

Pajama patrol took care of that one.

[mware]

Could be wrong but I think I read that CBS will not even allow the trailer to be shown on their channel because of the license they took with the film.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

CBS announced they would not sell time to “Truth.”

[MayflowerMadam]

I think it would be hilarious if all the movie ads had the last two letters of TRUTH in superscript.