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Why it's important to remember Rathergate
American Thinker ^ | October 5, 2020 | David Lanza

Posted on 09/08/2024 5:18:03 AM PDT by T Ruth

An important anniversary [is today]. This anniversary carries implications for how we receive news, how political campaigns are conducted, and the credibility of almost everything we see or hear from the media.

On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme. CBS thus provided the “news” upon which the Democrat candidate based his attack ads. The CBS story was quickly disproven and eventually forced CBS into personnel changes and investigations. Dan Rather was forced into retirement a few months later. But CBS did not give up before a lengthy battle in which bloggers demonstrated that the font and other features in the forged documents did not exist in 1972 (the date placed on the forgeries).

The battle over the truth became a story in itself. The truth about the font spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the internet, quickly picking up steam. ...

The result was a victory for the truth and a blow to the establishment media. CBS was proven to have lied to influence a presidential election. ...

Why is a 2004 scandal at CBS still relevant [twenty] years later? Even without Dan Rather, the network has not truly changed. The other networks are just as bad – if not worse. Rathergate serves as one example of what the establishment media do. They lie. They lie regularly, and they lie during election years to help elect Democrats. ...

***

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 60minutes; billburkett; buckhead; bush; cbs; cbssedition; danblather; danrather; drivebymedia; electioninterference; fakebutaccurate; font; forgery; freerepublic; harrymacdougald; marymapes; media; mediahoaxes; msm; pajamabloggers; rather; ratherbiased; rathergate; theylie; wearebuckhead
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September 8 is Rathergate Remembrance Day.

... and FR played a prominent role in exposing CBS's lies.

1 posted on 09/08/2024 5:18:03 AM PDT by T Ruth
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To: T Ruth; Buckhead

Buckhead!


2 posted on 09/08/2024 5:24:08 AM PDT by jurroppi1 (The Left doesn't have ideas, it has cliches. H/T Flick Lives)
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To: T Ruth

It was the beginning of the end of Dan Rather on the national big stage.

But he was succeeded by Lyan Williams eventually. So I guess there’s no end to the stuff we have to deal with.


3 posted on 09/08/2024 5:26:31 AM PDT by Oscar in Batangas (An Honors Graduate from the Don Rickles School of Personal Verbal Intercourse)
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To: T Ruth

Smells like election interference. When is Dan’s court date?


4 posted on 09/08/2024 5:26:32 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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To: T Ruth
"Online commenters almost immediately took issue with the authenticity of the documents. Writing under the pseudonym Buckhead on the Free Republic site, Atlanta attorney Harry MacDougald first alleged that the documents appeared to be fabrications ..." Rather Shameful
5 posted on 09/08/2024 5:27:27 AM PDT by T Ruth (Mohammedanism shall be destroyed.)
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To: T Ruth

What was the journalist scandal when it was discovered that 100s of them were sharing/cooperating and sometimes conniving with private email communications?


6 posted on 09/08/2024 5:29:08 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: ansel12

Journolist


7 posted on 09/08/2024 5:31:02 AM PDT by MortMan (Charter member of AAAAA - American Association Against Alliteration Abuse)
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To: jurroppi1

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-sep-12-na-blog12-story.html


8 posted on 09/08/2024 5:34:05 AM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> --- )
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To: jurroppi1

I was here!


9 posted on 09/08/2024 5:34:58 AM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: T Ruth

I remember. I was a lurker at the time, but I remember how members here showed off their investigative prowess in proving that CBS and Dan Rather lied.
It was very impressive.


10 posted on 09/08/2024 5:40:56 AM PDT by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: T Ruth

They not only lie, they do so in many deceptive forms that the average American fails to see and os influenced by.
Omission of facts
Lack of full disclosure
Failure to give opposing narratives equal unedited air time
Use of got you phrases to lable things, (the accused),
The much abused paralipsis, deferring us to the mind set of what they want whether it is what they say the accepted is our an expert groups plurality comes up with.
And the drum beat of perpetual FAKE news.

I personally don’t watch (subject myself to it) fake news, but if I did I would watch OAN.
OAN was dropped by delect TV then I summarily drop kicked them and all satellite tv out of my house.
The red pill is out there, talk is really being stifled.
Good Sunday to you all.


11 posted on 09/08/2024 5:40:58 AM PDT by Recompennation (Don’t blame me my vote didn’t count)
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To: T Ruth

Fake but accurate.


12 posted on 09/08/2024 5:41:51 AM PDT by Trump_Triumphant (“They recognized Him in the breaking of the Bread”)
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To: jurroppi1; Buckhead

Here’s a thread from that night. Buckhead comment at #47.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/posts


13 posted on 09/08/2024 5:43:38 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie ("Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here I am! Send me." )
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To: Uncle Miltie

To: Howlin

Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.

In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.

The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90’s. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn’t used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80’s used monospaced fonts.

I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.

This should be pursued aggressively.

47 posted on 9/9/2004, 6:59:43 AM by Buckhead


14 posted on 09/08/2024 5:44:26 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie ("Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here I am! Send me." )
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To: MortMan

That scandal never got the coverage and the permanent place in media history that it deserves, just like Rathergate and its place in history of the media and presidential politics.


15 posted on 09/08/2024 5:44:45 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: T Ruth

I remember that.
Those of us with military experience recognized some of the irregular writing of those docs


16 posted on 09/08/2024 5:48:09 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz)
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To: telescope115

“””I remember. I was a lurker at the time”””

That night was when I realized that I wasn’t a member, I had used that typewriter and wanted to make a post on the thread and realized that for so long I had only been reading and had never signed up, as it was, the moment passed and I still didn’t sign up.


17 posted on 09/08/2024 5:49:07 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: T Ruth

It was a Freeper who first noticed that the numeral designation of George Bush’s unit didn’t look right.

The the “137th” or which ever number it was had a “superscript ‘th’” ... meaning the the was half way up the 137 and not “on-line.”

Superscripts came with MicroSoft Word in the mid-’90s?


18 posted on 09/08/2024 5:51:10 AM PDT by Joe Marine 76 ("Honor is a gift a man gives to himself." - Rob Roy MacGregor)
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To: T Ruth; Buckhead

HOORAY Buckhead!

Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask, by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Citizen journalist BUMP!


19 posted on 09/08/2024 5:55:49 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: T Ruth

I remember reading that Buckhead post and thinking ‘This has the Ring Of Truth’.


20 posted on 09/08/2024 5:56:00 AM PDT by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.)
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