Rather's Ruin (FreeRepublic Credited)

Seldom in the course of a Presidential campaign does a media drama upstage the election itself, but for a short while in September, Americans tuned out politics and tuned in to "The Decline and Fall of Dan Rather."

The drama began when CBS posted forged National Guard documents on its Web site and, that same evening, an attentive "Freeper" (a regular at the conservative FreeRepublic.com Internet site) named Buckhead raised suspicions of fraud.

From there, intrepid bloggers Powerlineblog.com and Little Green Footballs, the Woodward and Bernstein of Rathergate, began to document the mounting signs of forgery.

By the next afternoon, the country was abuzz. Rather and his supporters denounced those who questioned the credibility of the anti-Bush memos as "partisan political ideological forces." Former CBS News executive Jonathan Klein infamously dismissed the truth-telling bloggers as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks." But thanks to the cyber sleuths, it was soon obvious that the memos were phony.

Rather then found himself under siege from the most unlikely of sources--other members of the mainstream media. ABC News and the Washington Post catalogued the anchor's duplicity: CBS had ignored warnings from its own experts, failed to interview relevant sources, and discarded any evidence that contradicted its preconceived anti-Bush version of events.

At one point, CBS attempted an our-evidence-is-false-but-our-attack-is-accurate defense. Rather suggested it was not he, but the President, who should answer tough questions. Eventually, CBS offered a half-hearted apology. But the damage was done. Rather's credibility was destroyed.

None of this would have happened just a few years earlier. As Glenn Reynolds, blogging host of Instapundit.com and law professor at the University of Tennessee, told one reporter, "CBS would have flashed the documents on TV for a few seconds and no one would have seen them again. Even the people with doubts would have assumed that CBS had done its legwork, as we did for years."

In the days when the establishment media had an iron grip on public discourse, it was almost impossible to challenge their biases. Dan Rather and company insisted they were simply objective observers, exemplary public servants untainted by political agenda or shoddy research. Now the public knows otherwise.

Are many bloggers politically motivated? Of course. But, unlike CBS, they are honest about it. And they must defend their opinions in a fiercely competitive marketplace of ideas.

That was rarely the case with the elite media, a closed and intellectually homogeneous priesthood whose members came to believe their opinions were Gospel truth.

This was not a complicated case: Within hours of CBS's airing of the story, some gifted amateurs in Middle-western suburbs had proven that the documents could not be genuine. CBS had enthusiastically embraced the flimsy claims that Bush had failed to live up to his National Guard duties simply because most everyone in the elite-media circle wanted to believe them.

Or, as the Los Angeles Times' editorial page pontificated: "CBS's real error was trying to prove a point that didn't need to be proved."

But as "The Decline and Fall of Dan Rather" showed, reporters who derive evidence from their political conclusions, instead of the other way around, won't have free rein anymore. Thanks to blogs and other "new" media, the prejudices of the old media princes will no longer go unquestioned.

From Sept. 14 ---

MIDI - AMERICAN PIE

A long, long time ago...when the TV news biz started
They knew not where it would go
They hoped it would last forever...no matter how they did their jobs
But there were things that they just couldn't know
The public trust they were abusing...they thought that they would catch us snoozing
They sneaked in their bias...pretending to be pious
Talk Radio, cable, and internet...showed them all that their match they met
In his Depends Cronkite wet and Old Media had died

So bye, bye to Old Media, bye
It was quite a run but you are done and now it won't fly
New Media's here, so be a big girl, don't cry
We were laughing as Old Media died...laughing as Old Media died

It was Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather who each night put out all that blather
They determined what was news
They pretended that they were real journalists...the more we heard, the more we're p*ssed
We grew so weary of their slanted views
Every chance they'd knock the GOP...it was obvious, the blind could see
While they put out their leftist prattle...we were getting set for the battle
Well, there came a guy named JimRob who had quite enough
It was time our side proved that it had the right stuff...he took charge and showed them it wasn't a bluff
Old Media would die

We were singing, bye, bye to Old Media, bye
It was quite a run but you are done and now it won't fly
New Media's here, so be a big girl, don't cry
We were laughing as Old Media died...laughing as Old Media died

For years the game they had been winning 'cause they were really good at spinning
It was easy as could be
Entertainment they sometimes threw in for fun...they came down hard on those with guns
Oh my, there's Katie's colonoscopy
There was shock when they examined her..."That's her brain" each one would soon concur
Then the nurses all started screaming...when they realized they're not dreaming
We heard some shout, "Here is a chance we cannot let pass...we will say we're sorry if we're being too crass
Everyone knew Katie's head was in her *ss"
Old Media would die

Their cheerleading really was shameless...for what RATS did they're always blameless
No one had been too surprised
To the whole world they'd proven that they were whores...they kissed the feet of Michael Moore
Can I please have that pizza supersized?
He ballooned up to a half a ton...he could cause an eclipse of the sun
To the anchors he was a hero...while things burned they're playing like Nero
There was no chance they would show both sides of anything...propaganda they had been determined to bring
One day they were foiled by the vast right wing
Old Media would die

Would they do what's right? They're saying, "NO, never"...they thought they were just so very clever
They thought they'd get away with it
Docs were found down in Sandy Berger's pants...and Dan Rather thought he'd take a chance
With those forgeries now George Bush he would get
Dan used them and he was elated...but Bush is misunderestimated
Thanks to a group of sleepers...pajama-wearing FReepers
So Dan Rather's plan would fail...Ken's frequency was now in a jail
A happy ending to this tale
Old Media would die

We were singing, bye, bye to Old Media, bye
It was quite a run but you are done and now it won't fly
New Media's here, so be a big girl, don't cry
We were laughing as Old Media died

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