Dan Blather said:
"I think at core
[Bill Clinton]'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."
man, oh man, oh man.!! Does this prove that "liberals" and
normal people are from two different planets?!
There MUST be something in the water in New York. You can't get this dumbed down
from just drinking normal water.
This sicko should not only be BANNED from ever working for a "news agency".
He needs to be made into a masthead on the USS Madagascar.
Dan Rather Tops Dishonor Awards
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Jan. 19, 2002
WASHINGTON – To approving hoots, hollers and thunderous applause, hundreds of activists Thursday night rated CBS anchorman Dan Rather the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporter for 2001.
Of the six Dishonors Awards bestowed at Media Research Center's annual banquet, Rather won hands down in two categories: The Flakiest Comment of the Year and the Sore Losers Award (for Refusing to Concede Bush’s Victory in Florida).
The Sore Losers Award, presented by syndicated columnist David Limbaugh, spotlighted Rather’s coverage of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ formal declaration that George W. Bush had indeed carried Florida.
Dan Can't Handle the Truth
The news clips showed the anchorman repeatedly telling his viewers that "Republican" Harris was making a finding "as she sees it” or "as the secretary of state sees it,” the clear implication being that this was a partisan decision that bore no reality to facts. Unofficial recounts over the following year, by liberal media outlets and others, have certified that yes, Bush was the legitimate winner of Florida’s electoral votes.
Harris herself appeared at the banquet Thursday and "congratulated” Rather for winning the award. The Florida secretary of state, who is running for a seat in Congress this year, said she merely followed the law and based her declaration on the fact that the law "said what it said not what others wanted it to say.”
And as to the future, added Harris, well, as Dan would say, "Courage!” That was a takeoff on Rather’s condescending, widely mocked signoff of his newscast at a time of well-publicized turmoil at CBS.
In announcing the award, Limbaugh said the judges’ nomination of Rather was based on merit "as we see it.”
Toobin in a Tizzy
Among the "sore losers” who lost out to Rather was lawyer Jeffrey Toobin who, after writing a book claiming "the wrong man was inaugurated” last year, still refused to concede that Bush was a legitimate president because thousands "meant to” vote for Gore and that "democracy" (though the U.S. is, of course, a constitutional republic, not a democracy) is all about voters’ "intent."
Earlier in the program, attendees at the banquet clapped and hollered "Dan! Dan! Dan!” as presenter Kate O’Beirne, National Review Washington editor, was opening the envelope after showing news clips of the competitors for Flakiest Comment of the Year Award.
And to wild applause, the CBS multimillionaire walked off with that Dishonor, as well. The term "walked off” is used advisedly. Of course, none of the award recipients was "able to make it” to the banquet.
The clip that impressed the judges featured Rather answering Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly’s question, "Do you think Bill Clinton is an honest man?”
An Honest Liar
Rather’s answer was, "I do.” But the flaky comment that really caught the judges’ attention was his follow-up sentence that it is possible for a man to "be honest and lie about any number of things.”
The other winners included the following:
We’re All going to Die And It’s Bush’s Fault Award (for Doomsday Environmental Reporting): CNN’s Margaret Carlson for saying that Bush was "allowing harmful ingredients in nearly everything we eat and drink.”
 | Bring Back Bubba Award (for Best Journalistic Lewinsky): Former UPI reporter Helen Thomas for saying she missed President Clinton because "he gave us hope.” Honorable mention, or "dishonorable mention” where Thomas was concerned, was her out-of-the-blue question as to whether President Bush was planning to invade Spain. This particular quote was mentioned by award presenter John Fund of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. |
| Peter Arnett Award (for Hopelessly Foolish Wartime Reporting): ABC News President David Westin who said that, as a journalist, he had no opinion one way or another whether the Pentagon was a legitimate target for terrorists. |
| Damn Every Conservative We Can Think of to Hell Award: CBS’s Bryant Gumbel for
asking an obviously loaded question of an opponent of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s
nomination. The question was so biased as to leave one wondering if there was anything
left for the interviewee to say. It would have been interesting to see him stumble for an
answer beyond "Yes, you’re right, Bryant. Now, back to you.” Watch Out, Dan: Rush Is Back Limbaugh drew cheers when he announced that earlier in the day he had talked by phone to his famous radio talk show host brother, Rush, "and he could hear me.” Rush Limbaugh, in recent months, has been coping with going deaf. Doctors reportedly are pleased that an implantation appears to be a success. Ending the evening’s proceedings, Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell III thanked Rather for supplying so much ammunition for the award judges. Notwithstanding the fact that the mainstream liberal media have hurled vile name-calling at MRC for its awards, said Bozell, "We’re pretty damned proud of what we’re doing tonight.” Bozell also said that even though the liberal media establishment deserves "a slap up one side of the head and down the other,” the networks are to be commended for sacrificing hundreds of millions in advertising to provide wall-to-wall coverage of Sept. 11. |
| http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/1/18/140030.shtml |
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-graham052101.shtml
Dan Rather, American Nightmare
He seems to love Bill Clinton so much that white is black.
By Tim Graham, White House correspondent for World magazine & former
director of media analysis at Media Research Center May 21, 2001 11:10
a.m.
What was Dan Rather thinking when he decided to go on Fox's O'Reilly
Factor?
Was he so desperate to sell a few more copies of his idealistic $25 book
on
The American Dream that he was willing to lower himself to suggesting
that
honesty is an ideal that doesn't really mean anything to him?
Rather's unforgettable "Notable Quotable" spilled out when Bill O'Reilly
asked him point blank if he thought Bill Clinton was an honest man. This
is
roughly comparable to asking if hippos are skinny, or if hurricanes build
houses, or to descend into Ratherisms, if that Zesto stand in Huntsville,
Texas makes a mean creme brulee. This is not a tough question. But Rather
seems to love Bill Clinton so much that white is black: "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."
This could be the perfect summation for historians of the liberal media's
attitude of the Clinton years, on several levels. First, the media
decided
they could be as brazen as their baby-boomer idol. There is no way to
read
Rather's statement except as an a) mysterious drug-addled episode of
incoherence or b) a cynical judgment that all that really matters in
politics is perception, not reality, and whatever the Potentates of
Perception declare to be true is as good as true.
Part of that shtick came in Rather's false generosity - "I know that you
consider it astonishing anybody would say so." That sounds a little like
the Clinton White House line, that always suggested that yes, there was
another, well, loopy point of view that insists on a ridiculously rigid
standard of honesty, but they are merely obsessed haters out to destroy
anyone who could make America great after the country was ravaged by
Reagan
and Gingrich.
Rather also suggested this line when O'Reilly brought Juanita Broaddrick
into the conversation. The most relevant line on this story to Rather
wasn't whether Broaddrick's claims of rape were true, but the conspiracy
behind her:
What you've got is you have the Republicans trying to bring down Bill
Clinton. I think it was an organized campaign. And unfortunately for Bill
Clinton and the country some of it turned out to be true. Now, in that
environment we're going to be careful. We're going to be very, very
careful.. My attitude is always, show me, you bring me documented
evidence,
you bring me some eyewitness testimony and by the way I'll be out there
trying to find some on my own if it's a serious charge. We'll be sending
our reporters out trying to find it. But I'm not going to be party to
reporting the news the way somebody with a special political or
ideological
pleading wants it to be reported.
The only problem with Rather's argument is what really happened at CBS on
the Broaddrick story. He seems to think investigating it or sending out
reporters is pandering to Republican pressure groups. (It's easily said
that Rather had no resistance to pressure groups when the accuser was
Anita
Hill.) Broaddrick's story of sexual assault was merely a skunk in the
middle of the road to be driven around and ignored. When her interview
surfaced on Dateline in 1999, Rather publicly declared that he didn't
like
the story and hoped it would vanish.
But the key Rather sentence is "unfortunately for Bill Clinton and the
country, some of it turned out to be true." The truth of his dishonesty
was
not only unfortunate for Clinton, but also unfortunate for the country to
which he was apparently indispensable. In that environment of serious
sexual charges, Rather was "careful" only about the anti-Clinton
accusations, not with Clinton's crumbling credibility in denying any
affair
with a woman, voluntary or involuntary. Rather's silence and inaction is
in
stark contrast to the Walter Cronkite notion of reporting the news and
letting the chips fall where they may.
But Rather was slow or silent on stories of a less sexual nature as well,
which even he now will admit. When O'Reilly began by pointing out how
apathetic Rather and his fellow anchormen were on uncovering Clinton
donations from Indonesia and China, that no network clamored to interview
Charles LaBella or Johnny Chung, Rather conceded, "the criticism of,
okay,
you weren't tough enough on Clinton, didn't do enough investigative
reporting, I accept that criticism. I think it's overstated. What I don't
accept is that there's a left bias, a liberal bias. I know you disagree
with that." O'Reilly insisted, "No, I don't. No, I said, I think it is an
exclusionary bias, rather than an ideological bias." Rather replied:
"Alright, I appreciate that." Rather was comfortable suggesting that the
networks failed to explain coherently how the Democrats had taken money
from a foreign power because the news is so corporate now, and the news
budget is so tight. He wouldn't accept that the reason was liberal bias.
Admitting that Clinton coverage wasn't exactly complete is a positive
step.
It doesn't really matter whether the blame is assigned to calculating
newsroom ideologues or corporate distaste for Washington news at the
expense of pandering "news about you." (The correct answer is both.)
What does matter is that our national media revere the ideal of honesty,
even if it seems like a difficult ideal to find in the heat of dueling
spins and perception policing. As a whole, the media put that ideal in a
box for Bill Clinton, sharing his passion for compartmentalization.
Honesty
was saved for a compartment titled "Won't Go There." For all his usual
talk-show bluster of Mr. Breaks In When the News Breaks Out, Dan Rather
has
been revealed as a man who believes honesty is overrated, and that he was
willing to sit on any story that might show that the truth is
"unfortunate
for Clinton and the country."
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=97&contentid=380 http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=97&contentid=380&page=2 by EXTRA Despite mainstream journalists' claim of strict objectivity in covering the news, they make exceptions: some stories are covered without even the pretense of neutrality. Dan Rather and CBS News, for example, adopted a cause throughout the 1980's--that of the Afghan mujahedeen. Sloppiness in the advocacy of that cause created a recent scandal for the network. Beginning September 27th, a series of articles by Janet Wilson in the New York Post charged that Dan Rather's CBS newscasts had repeatedly "aired fake battle footage and false news accounts" of the Afghan War. Among the charges: Fakery; CBS presented staged "action-packed commando" footage in which Afghan mujahedeen performed as actors in sequences purporting to show rebel advances, such as blowing up electric lines leading to Kabul. Scenes of mujahedeen stalking enemy positions and blowing up a mine were acted out and filmed in the safety of a Pakistani training camp. A Pakistani Air Force jet on a training mission was presented as "a Soviet jet bombing Afghan villages. Invention; CBS News aired a segment in 1987 showing a bomb made to look like a toy allegedly planted by Soviet soldiers to injure Afghan children. The Post cited an unnamed BBC producer claiming the bomb-toy had been created for the CBS cameraman. Distortion; On August 11, 1987, Dan Rather presented combat footage purporting to show what he described as "the biggest one-day defeat for Soviet forces since World War II," killing 800 Soviet troops. In reality, the battle was small and didn't involve Soviet forces. The Post articles centered around Mike Hoover, a freelance cameraman responsible for much of CBS's suspect footage. Hoover, a self-proclaimed mujahedeen partisan, saw himself more as a filmmaker than a neutral newsman (L.A. Times, 7/29/87). According to the Post, Hoover orchestrated war scenes and encouraged mujahedeen to exaggerate their victories. The Post found no evidence that CBS News knowingly aired false or fake news. FAIR, which had long criticized CBS Afghan coverage, issued a statement attributing CBS's sloppy reporting (which consistently overstated rebel strength) to the network's pro-mujahedeen sympathies: "CBS coverage often resembled partisan war propaganda more than reporting. Rather's role appeared to be more that of a cheerleader than a journalist. Issues behind the conflict (such as Islamic fundamentalism and the role of woman) were secondary to the 'shoot-em-up' war footage. Was CBS so hungry for footage of mujahedeen battle successes that it failed to closely scrutinize it? Did CBS make itself a tool of the guerrillas' propaganda?" Given the brutality of the Soviet occupation, it's understandable that journalists might sympathize with those resisting occupation. But the TV networks profess to be neutral. FAIR questioned how long journalists would last at CBS--whether cameraman or anchor--if their coverage tilted towards insurgencies opposed by US policy: the PLO, the FMLN in El Salvador, or even South Africa's ANC guerrillas. Of all the guerrilla movements in the world, it's not surprising that the CBS anchorman became "obsessed" only with one receiving the unwaivering support of the US government. "Afghanistan was Rather's obsession," remarked Richard Cohen, a former senior foreign news producer at CBS. (A Congressional Research Service report found CBS devoted far more coverage to Afghanistan than the other networks: 1986--CBS 55.2 minutes, NBC 28.8, ABC 19.7). In covering the "CBS Afghaniscam" story, most TV beat reporters treated CBS and reverentially, avoided obvious issues of bias and partisanship, and focused instead on narrow issues like Mike Hoover's ethics or whether TV networks can trust freelance cameramen overseas. Few asked whether Rather's pro-mujahedeen bias gave a green light to Hoover and others in the field, and caused a suspension of journalistic skepticism when the footage arrived. Most reporters did little digging of their own, content to play it as a "New York Post Alleges/CBS Denies It" story. Several dailies, most notably the New York Times, layered teflon on CBS by repeatedly publishing the substanceless denials of unnamed network employees during the week CBS was supposedly not commenting on the matter. One of the Times' CBS sources (9/29/89) linked the charges to a Soviet "disinformation campaign" against Rather. Initially, unnamed CBS executives had promised the Times (9/29/89) and other journalists a "point by point" refutation of the Post charges as soon as their investigation was completed. Instead, CBS ended up issuing nothing more than a bland 87-word statement affirming the "integrity" of its coverage of "that distant war back then." It admitted only the "unintentional use of a misidentified aircraft"--the Pakistani traning jet standing in for a Soviet bombing jet. CBS made Mike Hoover available to reporters to deny some of the charges of staging, but most specifics--like the alleged toy-bomb and the misreporting of the "biggest one-day" Soviet defeat--were never addressed at all. Case closed. When FAIR asked CBS spokesman Tom Goodman what had happened to the point by point refutation, he denied that such was ever promised, implying that the Times and other reporters had invented or misreported the promise. CBS's cover-up was made possible by the lack of follow-up by the same reporters who'd relied on unnamed CBS sources in the first place. Curious reporters would be pursuing the following areas: CBS Knowledge of Hoover's Dubious Reliability: After the 1985 article in Outside magazine discussed Hoover's faking of scenes in adventure films, then CBS News President Ed Joyce and Dan Rather exchanged memos about the cameraman, with Rather vouching for Hoover's integrity. The memos were published by columnist Frank Swertlow in the L.A. Daily News (9/29/89). Swertlow reported (10-2-89) that a rival TV Network refused to hire Hoover after he admitted staging Afghan battle footage. In 1987, CBS was notified that it had aired a Hoover story containing footage shot by an Afghan rebel as part of a USIA-sponsored project at Bosotn University. It's illegal to air USIA footage in the US (BU Daily Free Press 9/30/87; Boston Globe 10/30/87). Pattern of Inflating Mujahedeen: When Rather inflated a small battle into "the biggest one-day defeat for Soviet forces since World War II" (8/11/87), Boston University Communications Dean Joachim Maitre, a militant pro-mujahedeen partisan, pointed out that the skirmish didn't even involve Soviet troops. Asked how CBS could have made such an error, Maitre told Extra!: "Perhaps wishful thinking was determining their interpretation." The pattern continued post-Hoover with the 4-part series, "Afghanistan: The Soviet Failure" (CBS Evening News 12/5-8/88), which suggested, as Rather put it, that it was "the beginning of the end" for the Kabul government. Partisans with cameras: Hoover was not the only partisan covering Afghanistan on retainer for CBS. Another was cameraman/journalist/rightwing activist Kurt Lohbeck, who when not dispatching stories to CBS, was testifying (2/25/85) before Congress, using his video footage to plead for more military aid to the "freedom fighters." He set up news conferences for the mujahedeen leaders and introduced them to members of Congress. A declassified 1986 State Department memo orchestrating media appearances for an Afghan rebel leader visiting the US referred to Lohbeck as "CBS Afghanistan specialist" and to Hoover as the person "who will contact Dan Rather." A Wall Street Journal article by Mary Williams Walsh casting a critical eye on CBS reliance on Lohbeck and Hoover was squashed by Journal editors. One CBS report now called into question is the documentary, "The Battle for Afghanistan" (7/29/87), narrated by Dan Rather. CBS listed Mike Hoover as the "director/cinematographer." TV critics were almost unanimous in marveling at the documentary's "spectacular," "unreal," "movie-like" combat footage, while complaining about the fuzziness of the narration. Arthur Unger drew this conclusion for the Christian Science Monitor: "The documentary tends to gloss over the fact that, if victorious, this holy war could result in another revolutionary fundamentalist Islamic state, perhaps even aligned with Iran...The strength of the documentary lies in the 'entertainment value' of its unique guerrilla battle footage rather than any insightful analysis. Extra!, October/November, 1989 Print Media Protect Rather Biased Afghan Coverage At CBS |