Posted on 01/25/2018 5:14:06 AM PST by markomalley
On Monday, January 25, 1988, 30 years ago tonight, Americans across the country saw with their own eyes an early example of the ugly liberal media attack machine. Dan Rather, the anchor of the CBS Evening News at the time, laid a trap and attempted to ambush then-Vice President George H.W. Bush on live TV. Of course, Rathers goal was to embarrass the leading Republican contender for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination.
The segment was supposed to be a candidates profile. Instead, Rather screamed at the Vice President over the Iran-Contra scandal, making it the sole topic discussed. Visibly angry, he berated the Vice President: Youve made us hypocrites in the face of the world!
But Bush didnt just sit back and take the bias. He zinged the journalist by mentioning a truly embarrassing moment for Rather. In 2008, Rich Noyes quoted from The Quest for the Presidency, recounting:
...a notorious incident several months earlier when Rather, on location in Miami, had got sore at having his newscast held up by a tennis match and had walked off his set to call New York to bitch about it.
The tennis match had ended in his absence, and CBS, with nothing else to put on the air, had gone to black an empty screen for six minutes. It was the ultimate embarrassment for a network...
So when an unhinged Rather yelled and berated Bush, the Republican retorted: Its not fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran. How would you like it if I judged your whole career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York? Bush lowered the boom: I have respect for you, but I dont have respect for what youre doing tonight!
How badly did Rathers botched effort to destroy Bush fail? Even his colleagues in the press were appalled. According to the February 1988 issue of the Media Research Center's MediaWatch, 60 Minutes co-host Mike Wallace chided, The style was wrong. Dan lost his cool. ABC's Sam Donaldson derided, Rather went too far.... I dont think we can get to a situation where we make on our own authority accusations.
The cover of the February 8, 1988 issue of Time labeled it the ambush that failed. Then-Time associate editor Richard Stengel (and future Obama official) criticized the CBS anchor, describing the scene as a powerful TV journalist hectoring the Vice President, who had been lured into the interview expecting that it would focus on his presidential campaign.
Times journalists even conducted a poll to see who won the battle. The results werent good for Rather. By a resounding margin, 42 percent to 27 percent, Bush came out ahead in the exchange. Was Rather rude? Fifty one percent said yes. Only 38 percent said no.
The February 8, 1988 Newsweek critiqued: Last weeks drama in the control room underscored the networks uneasiness about its evening-news star. Intense and driven, Rather has a reputation for volatility that at times approaches instability.
Rathers obsession with derailing Bush presidential campaigns didnt end in 1988. In 2004, he famously used phony documents in an effort to undermine George W. Bushs reelection bid. Ultimately, it led to his ouster as anchor of the CBS Evening News. (Rather has been reduced to appearing on an online show on The Young Turks channel.)
Three decades later, journalists are still doing their best to undermine conservatives and Republicans.
Fair enough...
Journalists know (If it bleeds, it leads) that they are negative. Thus, for a journalist to claim objectivity is tantamount to claiming that negativity is objectivity. There is one small problem with such a claim; the conceit that negativity is objectivity is quite workable as definition of cynicism.Journalism is cynical about society. But as Thomas Paine makes clear in the first paragraphs of Common Sense, government" is not a synonym for society. "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . Any criticism of society will function as an occasion for a there oughta be a law response. So skepticism about society is inversely proportional to skepticism about government.
An American conservative is skeptical enough about society to believe in the necessity of some government, but is skeptical about government as well, and wants it strictly limited. That is a middle ground, temperate position. Socialism, precisely as objective journalism, is cynical about society and naive about government.
Journalists have, however, lightened up on claiming objectivity since the advent of Donald Trump as a Republican leader. They are frothing at the mouth too much to maintain the imposture.
I noticed Jean S hasn’t posted since 2014. She is what got me banned in 2011, right after I moved to KY, using my phone for the first time to try to post.
Maybe JimRob gave him another screen name for his protection.
But the timing and Occam’s razor say you are correct.
It took Bernard Goldberg twenty years to realize Dan Rather was biased.
Well, you’re correct - nobody ever listens to me, LOL!
The RatherBiased.com website (doesn’t exist anymore except in the Wayback Machine...) used to be a treasure trove of all that is Gunga Dan.
Buckhead’s post made plausible the concept of “fake news.” Without a conclusively established example of institutional fabrication, “fake news” would be consigned by established media to the realm of tin-foil hat wearing nut jobs. The media still tries to do that, but they can’t say it never happens.
Could NOT care less, could NOT care less, could NOT care less.
We all cheered, and then the vile Bush betrayed Reagan’s legacy to his globalist masters.
I remember that broadcast. It was the last time I switched the channel to SeeBS News.
Thanks for the correction. It’s important the right soul gets credit for that fantastic act of discovering the truth.
Bush should have mentioned Rather wetting his bed to get out of the Marines.
Never had heard of that before and looked it up on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wItUjFU1i4M
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