Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Dan Rather blinks [Cal Thomas nails it!]
Townhall.com ^ | November 25, 2004 | Cal Thomas

Posted on 11/26/2004 1:46:41 AM PST by Quilla

Dan Rather, who has announced his "retirement" next March from the anchor desk he has held for 24 years, is a dinosaur. After the last of the old news anchors leaves his chair (Peter Jennings will be the final one sitting), Rather, Tom Brokaw and Jennings will be fossils. There will not be their like again.

Rather earned his stripes and paid his dues during a career that has spanned four decades at CBS and as a wire-service reporter before that. He is a man who loves his country. Recall his emotional breakdown on the "Late Show With David Letterman" following 9/11. Rather said he would go and fight the terrorists if the president asked him. Some thought his performance strange, even grandstanding. I thought he meant it.

While Rather is 73 and could have been expected to retire soon (his predecessor, Walter Cronkite, was forced out at age 65), the controversy over faked National Guard documents purporting to show George W. Bush failed to fulfill his military obligations appeared to give CBS management the excuse it needed to make a change. Rather, who helped bring down Richard Nixon, was himself brought down by a gross inaccuracy and a type of stonewalling reminiscent of the president he tormented.

It doesn't matter who replaces Rather. Everyone at that level of broadcast journalism has been ideologically vetted. No one who is a conservative is allowed to ascend to the top of major news organizations. If you disagree, try naming one. Despite plummeting ratings and numerous surveys that have shown large numbers of people believe the major networks approach the things conservatives care about with a bias, even hostility, network executives refuse to acknowledge those feelings and continue to present the news through the filter of their leftist ideological worldview.

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center and a frequent critic of Rather, observed: "Mr. Rather's bias is part of an institutional problem throughout the national 'news' media - identified by former longtime CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg - which is the arrogant notion that their point of view is always accurate and always relevant to any story in which they choose to inject it."

More proof that nothing changes at the networks is the appointment of Jonathan Klein as president of CNN. Klein was executive vice president of CBS News. He praised the "60 Minutes" producer, Mary Mapes, who received and vouched for the forged National Guard documents from a well-known Bush-hater. Klein called Mapes "absolutely peerless . . . in the profession. She is a crack journalist."

Klein also blasted Internet bloggers for exposing the forged documents and CBS's error in standing behind them. He stereotyped a blogger as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks." The bloggers did a better job than CBS news anchors and producers, who sit around in their expensive suits telling us what they think. Klein carries his biases from CBS to CNN.

The "60 Minutes" curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, has been making a bigger fool of himself lately by calling conservative Christians uneducated and ignorant. When the sports commentator Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder disparaged blacks in 1988, Dan Rather aired video of the remarks, which led to Snyder's firing by CBS management. That Rooney still holds his job after stereotyping and disparaging Christians sends a message of bias, even bigotry, to a substantial audience that CBS has mostly lost and obviously does not care if it wins back.

CBS's eye logo is an appropriate metaphor for what ails the network. "There is none so blind as they that won't see," wrote Jonathan Swift. Notice he didn't say "can't see," but "won't see."

CBS is not blind, but it deliberately closes its eyes to the institutional bias that substantial numbers of Americans can see quite clearly. Unlike the period during which anchors dominated the national news stage, people now have choices. They are choosing cable, especially Fox News Channel, in growing numbers.

If CBS continues in denial - and it will - its evening news ratings, which have been in third place for several years, will suffer further decline. It didn't have to be this way for Dan Rather or for the once great CBS. He should have learned from Richard Nixon that cover-up and stonewalling can come back to haunt you


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: calthomas; cbs; cbsnews; mediabias; pc; politicalcorrectness; rather
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-134 next last
To: chainsaw

Rather has hated the Bush family since before 1972, and has been holding a grudge against them for some unknown reason.

Texas politics?


41 posted on 11/26/2004 6:48:57 AM PST by oldbrowser (You lost the election.....................Get over it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: NickRails

Thank you.


42 posted on 11/26/2004 6:49:22 AM PST by em2vn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Enterprise
"...She is a crack journalist."

A journalist on crack...perhaps.

43 posted on 11/26/2004 6:49:44 AM PST by DCPatriot (I don't do politically correct very well either.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: pkok

Print out the picture of Dan then put a little black mustache on him and swing his hair down over his forehead and then who does he look like?


44 posted on 11/26/2004 7:02:21 AM PST by fish hawk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary

That picture - blechh! I'd like to flick them all.


45 posted on 11/26/2004 7:04:03 AM PST by Lijahsbubbe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: B4Ranch
First she says "our political leadership" then she says, after an intervening statement, "I mean both parties". She caught herself displaying bias and heroically tried to cover it. You know and I know she was referring the the President when she began her statement. As for "churning", that has been the purview of the MSM for the last 25 years, at least. These people are just too far gone.
46 posted on 11/26/2004 7:25:43 AM PST by pepperdog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Enterprise
LOL. (post #2)

Thanks for pointing that out, I missed it.

47 posted on 11/26/2004 7:31:45 AM PST by TruthWillWin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: risk
Brokaw, Jennings, Lehrer, Rather, Woodruff

Enemies of freedom, everyone of them. IMHO.

48 posted on 11/26/2004 7:32:37 AM PST by Rider on the Rain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Quilla

BTTT


49 posted on 11/26/2004 7:34:28 AM PST by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: peyton randolph; Quilla
He is a man who loves his country.

A man who truly loves his country does not try to take down a sitting president with a smear campaign knowingly based on forged documents. Rather's hatred of Republicans will be his legacy...his dress stain if you will.

Agree. A man who slanders and take down the Commander in Chief of men and women who are fighting to keep him safe and free, not only does't love his country, but is a fool.

Maybe Rather used to love America, but he sure doesn't now. His hatred of George W. Bush has rid him of whatever might have been left of his patriotism.

50 posted on 11/26/2004 7:39:41 AM PST by ohioWfan (W.........STILL the President!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: ohioWfan

A man who slanders and TRIES TO take down....... duhhhhh......


51 posted on 11/26/2004 7:40:33 AM PST by ohioWfan (W.........STILL the President!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Quilla; thegreatbeast; Tall_Texan; risk; ModernDayHeroes.com; Enterprise; SkyPilot; ...

.

NEVER FORGET


...And yet one who should know better,

...and DID know better for 4 decades,

...continues to try and confuse us all about DAN RATHER =


...Long time Los Angeles Times Media Critic...


DAVID SHAW: DAN RATHER's work 'Shoddy, Slipshod' not LIBERAL..?

http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1227809/posts


NOTE:

If we returning Vietam Vets had had Freerepublic.com to fight CBS News and other Liberal Journalists' lying Media Coverage of the Vietnam War with ...

...South Vietnam would still be Free today..!!!




Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm

http://www.ModernDayHeroes.com/aloha



NEVER FORGET

.


52 posted on 11/26/2004 7:44:21 AM PST by ALOHA RONNIE ("ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer/Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.lzxray.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 7.62 x 51mm
Spot on article, IMO. I'm joyous over watching cBS & Co slowly go down the dumper. And I'm hoping the others will follow, in due time, when the rest of America finally wakes-up and realizes that they've been lied to for the past 40+ years.

This would be nice but, as part of what Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all the time."

53 posted on 11/26/2004 7:46:31 AM PST by OldPossum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Quilla
Dan Rather is NOT a man who loves his country, as others here have pointed out. No one who loves his country would even contemplate smearing a sitting President with phony documents. NO ONE. This statement of Cal ruins an otherwise good article. Cal T. comes close but is still not quite on our wavelength.

az

54 posted on 11/26/2004 7:49:06 AM PST by Arizona
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: risk
Shorenstein Center

FNC had somebody from there trying to defend Rather on the day his "leaving announcement" was announced.

I generally don't believe anybody from the "Kennedy School of Mis Government", aka "Camelot High" to
begin with, but trying to spin Rather is almost indefensible.

55 posted on 11/26/2004 8:00:04 AM PST by Calvin Locke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Quilla; thegreatbeast; All

Great post thanks; agreed; great comments bump!


56 posted on 11/26/2004 8:03:36 AM PST by PGalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Quilla

57 posted on 11/26/2004 8:07:51 AM PST by pandemoniumreigns
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Quilla

BMP


58 posted on 11/26/2004 8:13:41 AM PST by shield (The Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God!!!! by Dr. H. Ross, Astrophysicist)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TomGuy
Socks????...When did we get so formal?

LOL! HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!... THIS IS A GREAT THREAD.

59 posted on 11/26/2004 8:20:46 AM PST by skinkinthegrass (Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you :)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Enterprise
Your self control is notable.
60 posted on 11/26/2004 8:38:28 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-134 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson