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The 1,868th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
9:35am EST, Wednesday November 24, 2004 (Vol. Nine; No. 231)

 
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1. Bozell Statement on Rather, Wash Post and NY Times Quote MRC
A statement from Media Research Center President Brent Bozell upon the announcement by Dan Rather that he is stepping down as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, though he will remain with 60 Minutes, plus how major newspapers on Wednesday featured quotes on Rather from Bozell and the MRC's Brent Baker.

2. Rather's Denials and Lashing Out at Critics Over Forged Memos
"Dan Rather in Crisis," a compilation section for the MRC's Web site of CyberAlert coverage of Dan Rather's denials and lashing out at critics over his use of forged documents in a political hit job meant to destroy President Bush. And remember, Rather has yet to concede his use of forgeries. The September 21 Chicago Tribune quoted him: "Do I think they're forged? No."

3. Record of Cheerleading and Softball Questions for Bill Clinton
Media Reality Checks by the MRC's Tim Graham from just before and after Dan Rather's June 60 Minutes session to promote Bill Clinton's book. "For Clinton, Dan Rather is Putty in His Hands: CBS Anchorman Has Long Track Record of Cheerleading and Softball Questions for President Clinton" and "Dan Rather Nods Through Clinton Whoppers: CBS Anchor Buys Hillary's Ignorance, Bill's Couch Sleeping, Outrage at Kroft; Glosses Over Buckraking."

4. Rather's History: Lecturing VP Bush to Calling Clinton Honest
Highlights from the MRC's compilation of Dan Rather's most outrageous bias from 1988 through early 2003, including his 2001 defense of Bill Clinton ("I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things"), his November 2001 "Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner -- as she sees it and she decrees it" line, his description of Hillary Clinton ("Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning"), how Republicans kill kids and the poor and Rather's 1988 showdown with then-Vice President Bush: "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world."

5. CBS Host Cracks Jokes Pegged to Rather's Lack of Credibility
Not even Dan Rather's CBS colleagues will cut him a break. Damien Fahey, the try-out host this week on CBS's Late Late Show, on Tuesday night cracked two jokes pegged to the forged memos and Rather's lack of credibility.


 

Bozell Statement on Rather, Wash Post
and NY Times Quote MRC

     A statement from Media Research Center President Brent Bozell upon the announcement by Dan Rather that he is stepping down as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, though he will remain with 60 Minutes, plus how major newspapers on Wednesday featured quotes on Rather from Bozell and the MRC's Brent Baker:

     -- Bozell's November 23 statement:

"Mr. Rather's stepping down from the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News is not going to correct the enormous credibility problems. We have always felt the liberal bias problem that permeates that network goes far beyond Mr. Rather.

"We have spent countless hours documenting and exposing an exhausting amount of bias by Mr. Rather and our analysis speaks for itself. Mr. Rather has many personal qualities we have found admirable, but he has, unfortunately, often misled the American people time and again with biased reporting on a wide variety of issues and subjects central to their daily lives. Time and again the issue of a liberal bias in his reporting has been raised, and time and again he has chosen to simply ignore the criticism or deny the evidence.

"We believe Mr. Rather's bias is part of an institutional problem throughout the national 'news' media -- identified by former long-time 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.

"We wish Mr. Rather well at the Wednesday edition of 60 Minutes, and we hope his reporting will be fair and balanced, which is what the American people deserve."

     END of Statement

     That's posted online at: www.mediaresearch.org

    
     -- From the November 24 Washington Post story by Howard Kurtz on Rather's decision to retire from the CBS Evening News anchor position: "Brent Bozell, who runs the conservative Media Research Center, attributed Rather's departure to 'the loss of credibility' over the National Guard story. 'What made it worse was the 10 days of denial by Dan Rather. He was starting to look bizarre toward the end.' While the anchor was flagrantly biased against conservatives, Bozell said, 'Dan Rather is a fierce patriot who loves his country, and no one can take that away from him.'"

     For Kurtz's story in full: www.washingtonpost.com

    
     -- From the November 24 New York Times story by Jim Rutenberg: "Mr. Rather's disputes with President Nixon and Vice President George H. W. Bush won him plaudits from peers and the continuing ire of conservatives. 'He came to symbolize the liberal media agenda that he was out front on,' said Brent Baker, vice president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group that monitors the news media for perceived liberal bias."

     For the entirety of Rutenberg's profile of Rather: www.nytimes.com

 

Rather's Denials and Lashing Out at Critics
Over Forged Memos

     "Dan Rather in Crisis," a compilation section for the MRC's Web site of CyberAlert coverage of Dan Rather's denials and lashing out at critics over his use of forged documents in a political hit job meant to destroy President Bush. And remember, Rather has yet to concede his use of forgeries. The September 21 Chicago Tribune quoted him: "Do I think they're forged? No."

     The MRC's Rich Noyes put together this package. For links to the full CyberAlert items, see the posted version: www.mediaresearch.org

On September 8, 2004, Dan Rather cited "exclusive information, including documents" to justify major CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes stories alleging that George W. Bush shirked his duties when he was in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s. Within a few hours of those documents being posted on CBS News's Web site, however, typography experts voiced skepticism that the documents had actually originated with their alleged author and Bush's former commanding officer, the late Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian. As the evidence mounted, Rather stubbornly clung to the idea that his story was bulletproof, and he derided critics as partisans and Internet rumormongers. When he "apologized" on September 20, Rather would not concede that the documents were forgeries, only that he and CBS could "no longer vouch for their authenticity."

# CBS's Revolving (Democratic) Door:
Josh Howard, the top producer for the Wednesday edition of 60 Minutes -- the CBS program that used forged documents to attack George W. Bush's National Guard service -- previously worked for two liberal New York Democrats, then-Congressman Stephen Solarz and now-Senator Charles Schumer back when he was in the New York state assembly. And, after he started working at CBS, Howard made large contributions to the Solarz campaign, Bob Novak revealed in his September 25 column.
(CyberAlert, September 28, 2004)

# The Pot Calling the Kettle Black:
Two-and-a-half weeks after running its hit job on Bush using forged documents, CBS News decided that it would be "inappropriate" to air so close to the presidential election a 60 Minutes story about how the Bush administration relied on forged documents to justify the Iraq war, the Associated Press reported September 25. That and viewers would laugh at CBS's chutzpah.
(CyberAlert, September 27, 2004)

# CBS's Dan Rather vs. Republican Thornburgh:
On the September 22 CBS Evening News, Dan Rather continued to refuse to describe those memos as forgeries, merely as "documents CBS News has not been able to authenticate," as if validation might be just around the corner. The New York Times revealed Rather was angry that a Republican, former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, was one of the men appointed to independently investigate the forged memo scandal: "Mr. Rather considers Mr. Thornburgh a confounding choice in part because he served two Republican Presidents, Mr. Bush's father and Richard M. Nixon, with whom Mr. Rather publicly clashed."
(CyberAlert, September 23, 2004)

# CBS Producer Mary Mapes, Liberal Matchmaker:
On the September 21 CBS Evening News, Dan Rather again failed to apologize to President Bush for his bogus 60 Minutes story based on forged documents, but the Evening News did acknowledge that Rather's producer, Mary Mapes, put the Kerry campaign in touch with CBS's untrustworthy source, Bill Burkett. Reporter Bill Plante read from CBS's official statement forbidding bias: "It is obviously against CBS News standards to be associated with any political agenda." Meanwhile, Rather told the Chicago Tribune that he still thinks the memos are real: "Do I think they're forged? No."
(CyberAlert, September 22, 2004)

# The Slime Before the "Apology":
Before Dan Rather admitted his own errors in pushing a fraudulent anti-Bush story based on partisan sources and forged documents, he and his network chose to point fingers at others, falsely suggesting that CBS was promoting "truth" in the face of "partisan political ideological forces." Of course, the "ideological forces" condemning CBS's sloppy journalism were correct.
(Worst Of The Week, September 21, 2004)

# Dan Rather's Sorry Apology:
While he did acknowledge it was "a mistake" to have used forged memos in his attack on George W. Bush, Rather on the September 20 Evening News refused to describe the memos as forgeries, offered no apology for impugning critics -- who turned out to be accurate -- as "partisan political operatives" and "partisan political ideological forces," and he conceded CBS approached Bill Burkett despite Burkett's well-known Bush-hating animosity. And the father of CBS producer Mary Mapes, who engineered the flawed 60 Minutes hit piece, told a Seattle radio station: "I'm really ashamed what my daughter has become. She's a typical liberal."
(CyberAlert, September 21, 2004)

# So Much for Dan's Thrust:
Dan Rather's notion that "the thrust" of his report was unchallenged was destroyed September 17 when ABC News interviewed retired Brigadier General Walter Staudt, the man whom the memos claimed was "pushing to sugar coat" George W. Bush's National Guard performance record. Staudt told ABC he did not give Bush any favored treatment. But in the next morning's Los Angeles Times, 60 Minutes executive producer Josh Howard tried to blame the White House for CBS's sloppy reporting, and the September 19 Washington Post exposed the new "experts" CBS touted as bolstering their case. "I'm not an expert and I don't pretend to be," former typewriter repairman Bill Glennon confessed.
(CyberAlert, September 20, 2004)

# More Erosion:
Dan Rather did not talk about the forged memo scandal on the September 16 CBS Evening News, but his case looked ever weaker. FNC's Jim Angle interviewed Texas Air National Guard veterans who contradicted claims made by Rather and ex-secretary Marian Carr Knox on 60 Minutes the night before, and "none of the experts used by CBS are accredited by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners," CNN's Jeanne Meserve reported on NewsNight. Meanwhile, CBS News veteran Andy Rooney told the New York Daily News he thinks the memos are fakes, adding: "I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong."
(CyberAlert, September 17, 2004)

# Fake but Accurate:
On the September 15 60 Minutes, Dan Rather offered a sleazy new standard for journalists: Using phoney evidence is okay if "the major thrust" of the story might be true. Rather trumpeted how while the 86-year-old ex-secretary of Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian said CBS's memos were not authentic, "she told us she believes what the documents actually say is exactly as we reported." Later that night, Rather ludicrously boasted to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz: "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story."
(CyberAlert, September 16, 2004)

# CBS Disregarded Experts, Challenged Laura Bush:
ABC's Brian Ross reported on the September 14 World News Tonight that "two experts hired by CBS News say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast about the disputed National Guard records." But over on CBS, reporter John Roberts wondered why President Bush wasn't taking those memos seriously: "The President has yet to weigh in on new documents about his National Guard record made public last week by 60 Minutes." Roberts also chastised First Lady Laura Bush for doubting CBS's memos were authentic: "Laura Bush offered no evidence to back up her claim, and CBS News continues to stand by its reporting."
(CyberAlert, September 15, 2004)

# Even CBS's Expert Jumps Ship:
Just days after Dan Rather cited handwriting expert Marcel Matley as confirming the authenticity of those memos, Matley told the Washington Post that he could not vouch for CBS's memos. A September 14 article by Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz quoted Matley undermining Rather: "There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them." On the September 13 Evening News, however, Rather highlighted a typewriter repairman as evidence "that the documents could have been created in the '70s," although he did not establish whether the Texas Air National Guard possessed the expensive equipment required to do so.
(CyberAlert, September 14, 2004)

# More Evidence Contradicts CBS:
On the September 11 Good Morning America, ABC's George Stephanopoulos relayed that retired Major General Bobby Hodges, "who CBS described as their 'trump card,' now says that he thinks the documents are not authentic and he does not believe the CBS story is true." The Dallas Morning News reported that retired General Walter Staudt, "the man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to 'sugar coat' President Bush's military record, left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows." And the Washington Times on September 12 quoted the reaction of Earl Lively, the director of Texas Air National Guard operations during Bush's years of service: "They're forged as hell."
(CyberAlert, September 13, 2004)

# Sticking By His Smear:
On September 10, Dan Rather responded to charges the memos he cited as proving Bush's dereliction were forged, telling his CBS Evening News audience that the memos were genuine and attacking any doubters as partisan rumor-mongers. "Today, on the Internet and elsewhere, some people, including many who are partisan political operatives, concentrated not on the key questions of the overall story, but on the documents that were part of the support of the story," Rather castigated. But his lame defense ignored key challenges to the documents' typography and content, and the doubts voiced by the widow and son of the supposed author, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Instead, Rather chose to repeat his indictment of President Bush's National Guard service. Rather arrogantly concluded: "If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it. So far there is none."
(CyberAlert, September 11, 2004)

# Double-Standard Dan:
After weeks of ignoring or denigrating anti-Kerry charges voiced by fellow Vietnam veterans, CBS's Dan Rather led the September 8 Evening News with supposed new proof that George W. Bush had shirked his duties as a Texas Air National Guardsman 30 years earlier: "There are new questions tonight about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in the late 1960s and early '70s and about his insistence that he met his military service obligations. CBS News has exclusive information, including documents, that now sheds new light on the President's service record. 60 Minutes has obtained government documents that indicate Mr. Bush may have received preferential treatment in the Guard after not fulfilling his commitments."
(CyberAlert, September 9, 2004)

# A Question or a Threat?
During an interview with First Lady Laura Bush on the September 2 CBS Evening News (the last day of the Republican convention), Rather seemed to couch a threat in the form of a question: "Now that friends and supporters of the President have raised the issue of John Kerry's combat record in Vietnam, do you or do you not think it's fair now for the Kerry people to come back and dig anew into your husband's military service record?" That was less than a week before Rather used forged memos as evidence in stories attacking Bush's National Guard Service.
(CyberAlert, September 3, 2004)

     END of Web compilation

     Again, for links to the full CyberAlerts with all the details: www.mediaresearch.org

 

Record of Cheerleading and Softball Questions
for Bill Clinton

     Media Reality Checks by the MRC's Tim Graham from just before and after Dan Rather's June 60 Minutes session to promote Bill Clinton's book. "For Clinton, Dan Rather is Putty in His Hands: CBS Anchorman Has Long Track Record of Cheerleading and Softball Questions for President Clinton" and "Dan Rather Nods Through Clinton Whoppers: CBS Anchor Buys Hillary's Ignorance, Bill's Couch Sleeping, Outrage at Kroft; Glosses Over Buckraking."


     -- For the posted version of the June 17 edition, which includes three historical RealPlayer video clips of Rather: www.mediaresearch.org

     Now, the text of the June 17 Media Reality Check with, [in brackets], added links to CyberAlert articles with more extensive Rather quotes from the cited interviews:

For Clinton, Dan Rather is Putty in His Hands CBS Anchorman Has Long Track Record of Cheerleading and Softball Questions for President Clinton

Why would Bill Clinton choose Dan Rather to be the first TV interviewer -- in effect the master of ceremonies -- for his book unveiling? Because Clinton knows that for him, Dan Rather is a soft touch, a powder puff, an apple polisher, a lapdog.

Look no further than Rather's thumbs-up book review in the New York Observer, "As presidential memoirs go, on a five-star scale, I give it five." Rather had the interview in the can, and he's still plugging Clinton's book.

Or recall how Rather greeted Clinton's well-wishing about his new pairing with co-anchor Connie Chung at a CBS affiliates meeting on May 27, 1993: "If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, we'd take it right now and walk away winners."

# Rather isn't always this easy. On January 25, 1988, Rather talked over and yelled at Vice President Bush over the Iran-Contra scandal: "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world!" By contrast, note Rather's record of softball sit-downs with Clinton:

# December 19, 2000: On 60 Minutes II, Rather asked about Clinton's excellent record: "The country's still in the midst of an almost eight-year boom. The country's at peace. You've had by many measurements, if not most, a reasonably successful presidency. Why are we having a Republican President come in behind you?" And he pounded the Democratic line: "To those who are absolutely convinced that the Supreme Court had a Republican majority and wanted a Republican President and voted politics not the law, as an attorney, and as our President, you say what?" Rather asked about "personal failures" and Monicagate, but most questions were brief and open-ended.

     [For a full rundown of the above interview, see the December 20, 2000 CyberAlert, which features a RealPlayer clip: www.mrc.org ]


# March 30, 1999: In the first TV interview granted after Clinton's impeachment, Rather tip-toed into a question on family healing instead of Clinton's lying under oath: "Mr. President, you know Americans like to know that the First Family is okay, that they're doing all right. Given the year plus what you and our First Family have been through, tell us what you can about how the three of you are doing." Rather's next toughie: "How about yourself? We're here in a room with pictures of Lincoln, Washington, Continental Congress. When you look back over this year plus, what's the moral of it? Does it have a moral?"

     [For a full rundown of the above Oval Office session, and a Real Player clip of it, see the April 1, 1999 CyberAlert: www.mrc.org ]


# August 19, 1996: On the Evening News, Rather asked Clinton about Whitewater, without noting the felony convictions of his business partners, the McDougals: "Now, we have in the papers this man James McDougal. He is helping the special prosecutor. Are you worried about that? Is he a truth-teller? Tell me how you feel about that?" He then turned to how liberals felt Clinton was too conservative: "This is their point, if you're going to preside like a Republican, why not have a Republican President, a real Republican?"

# March 24, 1993: On 48 Hours, Rather whimsically asked: "Mr. President, it's my unfortunate duty now to ask the tough questions you don't want to hear. Number one: do you have a favorite in the Oscar race for the Academy Awards? Have you seen these movies? Which one do you favor?" The next day, Rather raved to CBS This Morning host Harry Smith: "He's a very good historian....any viewer-listener who had been in that room would have been impressed with the breadth of his knowledge."

     END Reprint of June 17 Media Reality Check


     -- For the posted version of the June 21 Media Reality Check: www.mediaresearch.org

     Before getting to the text, the pull-out quotes in the middle of the faxed page:

New York Times Rebuts Rather
"But while Dan Rather...has already compared the book to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, arguably the most richly satisfying autobiography by an American President, My Life has little of that classic's unsparing candor or historical perspective."
-- New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani on Sunday.

"I'm not a book reviewer and I yield to their superior insights."
-- Dan Rather responding this morning on The Early Show.

     Now, the text of the June 21 Media Reality Check:

Dan Rather Nods Through Clinton Whoppers
CBS Anchor Buys Hillary's Ignorance, Bill's Couch Sleeping, Outrage at Kroft; Glosses Over Buckraking

No one really expected Dan Rather to play Tim Russert on 60 Minutes last night, and probe Clinton on his every factual inconsistency. But Rather sat idly through a series of Clinton whoppers and forwarded them without objection to the audience at home. To avoid rehashing every scandal and policy dispute of the Clinton era, here are a few items on Clinton's personal behavior that could have used less gullibility from Rather:

# Hillary's Months of Ignorance. The least plausible story in the autobiographies of both Clintons is the idea that Hillary reacted to the outbreak of Monicagate by believing her husband totally, and that he told her he was lying in August, and she was "gulping for air" in disbelief.

Rather bought that whole incredible story: "Not only had Hillary believed the lie the President told the country, Mrs. Clinton had gone out on a limb to defend her husband in public." After showing Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy" clip, Rather suggested: "Before the ultimate facts came out, Mrs. Clinton, then the First Lady, went on television, and she was a tigress defending you." But last year, a USA Today poll found 56 percent didn't believe Hillary's claim of ignorance.

# Sleeping on the Couch. Underlining the doghouse story, Rather relayed Clinton's account of an upset family on the August vacation just after his public admission: "She and Chelsea barely talked to him. And he spent months, he said, sleeping on the couch." This contradicted the memoir of Clinton staffer Sidney Blumenthal, who claimed he could hear Bill and Hillary chatting amiably during that vacation. And are we to believe that in the White House, with many bedrooms, the President had to sleep on a couch?

# Outrageous Steve Kroft. Rather recalled Clinton's first scandal, when Gennifer Flowers said they had an affair in 1992: "In an effort to salvage his campaign, he took the risky step of doing an interview on 60 Minutes in front of a huge audience right after the 1992 Super Bowl....Even though the interview rejuvenated his campaign, he writes in his book that he was so furious at Kroft for prying into his personal life that he wanted to, quote, 'slug him.'"

Rather related this, and then moved on to asking how Bill convinced Hillary to do the interview. But as an employee of CBS, doing an interview for 60 Minutes, couldn't Rather have noted that it's a bit odd for Clinton to resent Kroft for asking questions about Flowers when Clinton booked the interview (at least in part) to address the scandal?

# The "Money Machine." Within minutes of Ronald Reagan's death on June 5, CBS was airing a Jerry Bowen story highlighting "the nagging perception" that "the Reagans were cashing in on" the presidency. But last night, Rather was not critical: "Since he left the White House, President Clinton has, among other things, become a money machine, writing his book, giving speeches and paying off his legal bills. Now he wants to slow down, do more public service, like his work to fight AIDS in Africa."

Rather didn't mention Clinton's speech fee (averaging over $150,000), or even the reported $10 to $12 million book advance. He asked: "Do you have a sense of the lightness of being now that you're out of the presidency?" He certainly had a sense of the lightness of Dan Rather.

     END Reprint of June 21 Media Reality Check

 

Rather's History: Lecturing VP Bush to
Calling Clinton Honest

     Highlights from the MRC's compilation of Dan Rather's most outrageous bias from 1988 through early 2003, including his 2001 defense of Bill Clinton ("I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things"), his November 2001 "Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner -- as she sees it and she decrees it" line, his description of Hillary Clinton ("Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning"), how Republicans kill kids and the poor and Rather's 1988 showdown with then-Vice President Bush: "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world."

     For all of these incidents, plus many more: www.mediaresearch.org

     -- Exchange on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor, May 15, 2001. Posted with RealPlayer video: www.mediaresearch.org

     Bill O'Reilly: "I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton's an honest man?"
     Dan Rather: "Yes, I think he's an honest man."
     O'Reilly: "Do you, really?"
     Rather: "I do."
     O'Reilly: "Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer's face about the Lewinsky case?"
     Rather: "Who among us has not lied about something?"
     O'Reilly: "Well, I didn't lie to anybody's face on national television. I don't think you have, have you?"
     Rather: "I don't think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it's one thing-"
     O'Reilly: "How can you say he's an honest guy then?"
     Rather: "Well, because I think he is. I think at core he's an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."

     -- November 21, 2000, Florida Secretary of State has no legal authority:
     "Florida's Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner -- as she sees it and she decrees it -- of the state's potentially decisive 25 electoral votes."
     "The believed certification -- as the Republican Secretary of State sees it."
     "She will certify -- as she sees it -- who gets Florida's 25 electoral votes."
     "The certification -- as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it -- is being signed."

     -- December 13, 2000, George W. Bush didn't really win: "Good evening. Texas Governor George Bush tonight will assume the mantle and the honor of President-elect. This comes 24 hours after a sharply split and, some say, politically and ideologically motivated Supreme Court ended Vice President Gore's contest of the Florida election and, in effect, handed the presidency to Bush."

     -- May 26, 1999 60 Minutes II, Hillary Clinton fantastic: "Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning. A crowd pleaser and first-class fundraiser, a person under enormous pressure to step into the arena, this time on her own."

     Amongst the comments and "questions" uttered by Rather:
     # "For whom do you root, the Mets or the Yankees?"
     # "First Lady Hillary Clinton is a political superstar."
     # "Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning."
     # "It's hard to know what keeps her going through marital problems made public, political fights turned ugly, through triumphs, disasters and always the demands of her work."
     # "The agenda she lays out seems downright old-fashioned. She sees her work as focusing on children and families..."
     # "What are the possibilities that one day, some day you'll run for President?"
     # "Of all the allegations, accusations, charges made what do you consider to be the most unfair attack?"

     For full details: www.mediaresearch.org


     -- March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News, Republicans kill kids and the poor: "The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor."

     -- Clinton Scandal vs. VP Bush Scandal: View a video comparison of how Dan Rather treated President Clinton in a March 31, 1999 interview in which Rather avoided the Chinese espionage and fundraising scandals and Rather's infamous interview of Vice President Bush on January 25, 1988 interview on Iran-Contra scandal in which Rather told the President, "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world." Go to: www.mediaresearch.org

     -- Plus, a bunch of denials from Rather that he displays any liberal bias: www.mediaresearch.org

 

CBS Host Cracks Jokes Pegged to Rather's
Lack of Credibility

     Not even Dan Rather's CBS colleagues will cut him a break. Damien Fahey, the try-out host this week on CBS's Late Late Show, on Tuesday night cracked two jokes pegged to the forged memos and Rather's lack of credibility:

     -- "Did you guys hear the big news today? Read the papers, maybe heard it on the radio on the drive over here? It is being reported Dan Rather is quitting. It may not be true: It was also reported by Dan Rather."

     -- "And CBS said they want to replace Dan Rather with someone who has more journalistic credibility. They're going with Geraldo."


     Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

-- Brent Baker

 


 


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