Free Republic

A Democrat campaigning for the White House must feel like a soldier advancing through a mine field. At any moment, he or she is one step away from being blown out of the contest. And the poor wretch is surrounded by a ravenous mob of media hounds, each of whom is eager to set off the fatal charge. Gotcha! Still worse, almost all the media volleys are fired toward the port side. If a Republican or (so-called) “conservative” makes a gaffe, as they do almost daily, their “misspeak” is usually politely ignored. Or if it is simply too awful to...

Dan Rather told The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz in a telephone interview that by filing his $70-million wrongful dismissal suit against CBS, he is fighting for "the red, beating heart of our democracy," journalism.Here’s how Kurtz describes Rather’s beef in a nutshell: [H]e was made a "scapegoat" for a discredited 2004 story about President Bush's National Guard record because CBS wanted to "pacify the White House."CBS management "coerced" the veteran news anchor "into publicly apologizing and taking personal blame for alleged journalistic errors in the broadcast," says the $70 million suit, which also names Sumner Redstone, chief executive of the...