Rather not

townhall.com ^ | 9/17/04 | Thomas Sowell

[kattracks]

CBS newscaster Dan Rather apparently thinks that the best defense is a good offense. After an ever-growing number of document experts have turned up an ever-growing number of discrepancies to indicate that the document he relied on to smear President Bush's National Guard service are forgeries, Rather now demands that the President "answer the questions" raised by his 60 Minutes broadcast.

Think about it. If this or any other President of the United States spent his time answering all charges made in the media, including charges based on forged documents, there would be no time left to do anything else. To say that Dan Rather has often shown poor judgment would be an understatement comparable to saying that hurricanes are windy. This is the same man who flew to Baghdad to interview Saddam Hussein on the eve of the 2003 invasion, providing the Iraqi dictator with a worldwide propaganda outlet in which to promote his murderous regime.

This is the same Dan Rather who once broadcast a pronouncement that a "startling number of American children are in danger of starving" because "one out of eight American children is going hungry tonight." This was based on another unreliable source -- and Rather's own hasty conclusions.

Some left-wing advocacy group had asked parents whether they had, at any time during the previous year, fed their children less, or less of a variety of foods, because they were short of money. In other words, did you ever feed the kids hot dogs, when you would like to have given them steak and potatoes and a salad and dessert?

Apparently one out of eight parents said that this had happened at some time or other during the previous year. From this Dan Rather concluded that one out of eight children was going to bed hungry each night -- and was in danger of starving!

It is amazing how little evidence is necessary for media liberals to believe things that fit their vision. Had Rather checked other sources, he might have discovered that there was no significant difference in the intake of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients from one income level to another, except that obesity -- not starvation -- was more common at low income levels.

In today's memorandum forgery controversy, Dan Rather says that he is not the issue, Bush is. This may be a clever tactic to deflect the growing criticism, but half of his statement is right. It is not just Rather or CBS News whose credibility has been damaged. This exposes media bias in general.

The one-sidedness of the media was demonstrated in a recent New York Times poll that showed Beltway journalists as being for Senator John Kerry by 12 to 1. Some may claim that, however they vote, this does not stop them from reporting the news straight. But there is too much evidence that it does.

Evan Thomas of Newsweek is a liberal, but he is also candid enough to admit that there is a liberal bias in the way news is reported. He estimates that this bias is worth 15 percentage points in the polls for Democrats.

If so, then Senator Kerry's poll numbers would be 15 points lower than they are -- which means he would be completely out of it -- if the media reported the news straight. But, with the liberal media spinning the news his way, Kerry is still in the running.

Maybe that is why CBS' "60 Minutes" has run story after story about what George W. Bush supposedly did or did not do in the National Guard more than 30 years ago -- and why they seem not to have been too finicky about their evidence.

The big question is how long the public will stand by the three big broadcast networks that used to have a virtual monopoly of television news and public affairs programs. Just last month, for the first time, a cable network -- Fox News -- had a larger audience for its broadcast of the Republican convention than any of the established big three broadcast networks had.

Fox News' motto -- "We report, you decide" -- is apparently attracting viewers who are wising up to the slanted reporting in the mainstream media. Talk radio and Internet blog sites are also claiming their share of the declining audience for news from CBS, ABC, and NBC.

 It's about time!

[Chummy]

Dan Rather, when did you stop beating your wife?

[beyond the sea]

Just thought I'd add this that I just found at:

http://www.madkane.com/wwwboard/messages/3286.html

“One report describes Robin Rather as an environmentalist and "a likely candidate for Austin Mayor in 2006." Another report states that she lives in the same congressional district as the former Texas lieutenant governor and heavyweight Democratic contributor Ben Barnes. He is the man behind most of the charges about President Bush's service record. Potential mayoral candidates and heavyweight campaign contributors tend to mingle. And according to that second report, Robin Rather and Barnes worked together on Democratic party fundraisers--perhaps including that March 2001 event described above.

Dan Rather refuses to disclose the provenance of the forgeries, and CBS claims that they came from Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's "personal" files, which his widow and son deny. So where did they come from? And why is Dan Rather stonewalling--despite the terrible risk both to himself and to CBS News?

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Did the documents come from Barnes? If so, how did they make their way to Dan Rather? Was Robin Rather the conduit, either for Barnes or for some unknown party? If so, then Dan Rather's seemingly inexplicable conduct suddenly makes sense. If the disclosure of certain facts could be expected to cause his daughter severe damage, what father would not risk everything he had to attempt to insulate her?

[ProudVet77]

Rather's logic is that I'm in a hole, so let me shovel out some more dirt. Yeah, that will fix the problem.
If Rather goes down, it will be closer to 02NOV04. The idea being that if W is in the lead, a shakeup will distract some voters.

[flashbunny]

fox really needs to have a national nightly news broadcast on their affilliates. Simply run the first half hour of brit hume's show!

[rocklobster11]

[Bonaparte]

What's the provenance, Kenneth?

[Lexinom]

Evan Thomas of Newsweek is a liberal, but he is also candid enough to admit that there is a liberal bias in the way news is reported. He estimates that this bias is worth 15 percentage points in the polls for Democrats.

If so, then Senator Kerry's poll numbers would be 15 points lower than they are -- which means he would be completely out of it -- if the media reported the news straight. But, with the liberal media spinning the news his way, Kerry is still in the running.

[grey_whiskers]

[Full rack of Sarcasm torpedoes ARMED. FIRE!]
What if I have a grainy wrinkled fax of a Photoshop
picture of RatherStupid(TM) giving a Lewinski
to a llama?

And then claim all of the tin-foil hobos I
interviewed ("what's the frequency, Kenneth")
authenticated the picture?

And then--oops--other people are able to
recreate the picture on Photoshop, but I claim
that the photo could have been taken with
the (notoriously authenticatable--just ask UFO nuts)
Polaroid?

And I don't have the originals?

And I won't name my source?

And then impugn the motives of those questioning
these faxes, saying I won't succumb to pressure from
well-financed partisans?

And then--gasp--it turns out that every person
I asked about the story who disagreed, I didn't
use? Or that I lied to them about what they
were verifying? Mis-describing the pictures over
the phone, pretending they were eyewitness notes
instead of a fax of a Photoshop document?

And then--shudder--it turns out that those I DID
quote from, back off from their claims, except for
one 86 year old woman who used to be Rather's
typist tell me she heard other journalists
saying he sucked Donkey D*cks? And she still
says my photo is fake, because I used a Llama,
and not a Donkey, in the picture? But she
knows "these kind of thoughts went around" the
newsroom, and did I know that he was a knee-jerk
liberal, too?

And after all this comes out, I then bleat that
since RatherLazy(TM) is not answering the charges
it only makes them more likely to be true?

Will, say, PETA buy into it? No? Aren't they interested
in ANIMAL RIGHTS?

How close-minded are YOU, anyway?


THE ABOVE IS A FAIRLY 'ACCURATE' 'coroboration' of
the rigorous logic and analysis of RatherDumb(TM) and CBS.

[grey_whiskers]

[Full rack of Sarcasm torpedoes ARMED. FIRE!]
What if I have a grainy wrinkled fax of a Photoshop
picture of RatherStupid(TM) giving a Lewinski
to a llama?

And then claim all of the tin-foil hobos I
interviewed ("what's the frequency, Kenneth")
authenticated the picture?

And then--oops--other people are able to
recreate the picture on Photoshop, but I claim
that the photo could have been taken with
the (notoriously authenticatable--just ask UFO nuts)
Polaroid?

And I don't have the originals?

And I won't name my source?

And then impugn the motives of those questioning
these faxes, saying I won't succumb to pressure from
well-financed partisans?

And then--gasp--it turns out that every person
I asked about the story who disagreed, I didn't
use? Or that I lied to them about what they
were verifying? Mis-describing the pictures over
the phone, pretending they were eyewitness notes
instead of a fax of a Photoshop document?

And then--shudder--it turns out that those I DID
quote from, back off from their claims, except for
one 86 year old woman who used to be Rather's
typist tell me she heard other journalists
saying he sucked Donkey D*cks? And she still
says my photo is fake, because I used a Llama,
and not a Donkey, in the picture? But she
knows "these kind of thoughts went around" the
newsroom, and did I know that he was a knee-jerk
liberal, too?

And after all this comes out, I then bleat that
since RatherLazy(TM) is not answering the charges
it only makes them more likely to be true?

Will, say, PETA buy into it? No? Aren't they interested
in ANIMAL RIGHTS?

How close-minded are YOU, anyway?


THE ABOVE IS A FAIRLY 'ACCURATE' 'coroboration' of
the rigorous logic and analysis of RatherDumb(TM) and CBS.

[Rome2000]

Lets hope his pic isn't hanging in Baghdad one day too.

Photograph of John Kerry meeting with Comrade Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in Vietnam, July 15-18, 1993. Photo taken in the War Remnants Museum (formerly the "War Crimes Museum") in Saigon in May 2004.

Boy, Kerry sure likes meeting with Communists!

I'm starting to suspect the Democrats are running a COM-SYMP for President, but that's just me.

Look, there's Tom Harkin and Kerry with their Sandinista buddy Ortega.

What were they doing meeting with that communist SOB anyway?.

They sure look HAPPY to see him!.

Birds of a feather

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Susan Estrich ought to figure into the right side of that org chart somewhere. She referenced "new explosive documents" about Bush and the National Guard last week and hasn't been heard from since.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Love it!!!!!!