It’s said that old soldiers never die, they just fade away. Maybe old reporters never die either, they just go on hiatus until they return. Dan Rather was back on CBS Sunday, the first time he has been there since he left 18 years ago. He left with a bit of acrimony. A story about George W. Bush’s military service was not properly vetted. The Wrap:
Rather’s 2005 departure followed a botched investigation into then-President George W. Bush’s military record. Rather’s report relied on documents that could not be verified, and though he was not the person who introduced the documents that questioned Bush’s Vietnam-era involvement in the military, he was the anchor who led the investigation to air.
Rather stood by his reporting again in 2005. The story alleged that Bush avoided service in Vietnam by being accepted into a special unit of the Air National Guard, and the anchor said the facts of the story were correct.
“They couldn’t attack us on the facts so they changed the subject very successfully from the truth of the story to how we got to the story,” he told CNN’s Brian Stelter.
Rather was forced to apologize on air in September 2004. In the segment, he first had a confrontation with former national guardsmen and Bush critic Bill Burkett, who had originally provided the documents in question. Burkett denied forging the documents, but did admit he lied about where he got them from.
The anchor then apologized to the audience directly. “This was an error made in good faith as we tried to carry the CBS News tradition of asking tough questions and investigative reporting,” he explained. “But it was a mistake.”
Rather wasn’t the only representative of CBS involved in the investigation. It was later revealed that the network producer who worked on the report connected a senior advisor to John F. Kerry, Bush’s rival for the presidency in 2004, to Burkett. Joe Lockhart, who worked as a senior advisor for Kerry’s campaign, denied any involvement with the report.
Those names certainly take you back to a different era. Here’s the clip of the interview, around eight minutes.
There were a few other iffy incidents at CBS. Rather was instrumental in Connie Chung leaving the network, also with some acrimony. Chung had reported on location on the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. Chung’s breezy infotainment style was on display that day and legend has it that Rather lost it. He offered Chung a weekend anchor position and substitute anchor and she asked to be let out of her contract (as Rather’s co-anchor) instead.
The wild wooly, and wealthy, world of television news.
……meanwhile, the shitstains over at Faux Noose lie continually with impunity.
If anyone was to fact-check those idiots at, “Faux Noose”, they would need gas mask’s and Haz-Mat suits to prevent contamination in their, “Noose Room”, …
I always felt Rather was set up in that whole debacle. He was a strong voice in pointing out the problems with the Bush regime, so the response was to undermine his integrity. A raw deal.