Reading the New York Times report that Dan Rather saw George Clooney's wonderful movie about Edward R. Murrow five times, laced with an undertone of sadness, I could only think: some people are in for a big surprise. They still don't get it. But soon they will.
I predict: Dan Rather, a ten star professional of enormous and lasting achievement, may or may not know it, but he has begun what could well be the greatest of his lifetime achievements, the transformation of the Ed Murrow legacy of excellence and honor and courage in reporting to its natural home here, with us, unpolluted by the whims and bias of the moment, uncorrupted by the shallowness
and greed that has turned much of the insider media into the bulletin board of a status quo, rejected by strong majorities of the American people.
Welcome to the fight, Dan. We are now in respectable company, and you are now among your truest friends.
A relevant digression: we have just witnessed the latest demeaning of our democracy in the U.S. House of Representatives, where the bosses of the Republican oligarchy allowed only one vote, offered by only one party, in what was once rightfully called the People's House, which is now run like Brezhnev's politburu, or Castro's elections.
The Iraq war is the transcendent issue of our nation, with more than 2500 of my brothers and sisters lost to us, in large measure by the arrogance, the intolerance, and the ignorance of the true believers of the one party America, the true opponents of our democracy and freedom, who only allow one point of view, with the goal of destroying anyone who differs, with results we see every day on the evening news.
The action in the House was nothing more than a fraud and a sham, nothing more than an opportunity to tape new attack commercials, which did not even allow a vote on the serious proposal offered by the military's best friend for decades, the Marine Corps war hero Jack Murtha.
Had I still been with the House Democratic Leadership I would have fought like hell for the entire Democratic Caucus to boycott the entire sham, unless the Republican bosses had allowed a real debate, with an American style vote, with the Republicans offering the George Bush policy, with the
Democrats offering the Jack Murtha policy, with the Congress debating the choice, voting for one or the other, with the American people watching a debate worthy of a nation at war.
Let the American people watch the Republicans debating themselves in a half empty chamber, with the news reporting that the Democrats had walked out because they were not allowed to even offer one alternative proposal, and then let the Democrats hold a separate meeting, listening to leaders like Murtha and heroes like Hackett and others who have just come home, and the retired Generals with names like Batiste and Zinni who speak for the troops, and the good sense of the nation,, far more
than the cocktail party warriors and partisans who would turn America into a nation that allows only one point of view.
If the House Republicans allowed a one party vote, with one choice, in the tradition of Castro and Brezhnev's vision of democracy, once again, our friends at the Editorial Board of the Washington Post, so obsessed with their neoconservative viewpoint, so desperate to evade responsiblity for years of having been so disastrously wrong, so shameless in their intolerance of honorably reporting
alternative views, was today Brezhnev's Pravda, to Boehner's imitation of Brezhnev's Politburu.
Does the editorial board of the Post really believe there is no alternative offered by the opponents of the current policy, as they stated in their lead editorial today?
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post is a liar. They dont even acknowledge that an alternative view exists. What they should have editorialized, is that that preventing those in Congress who represent half the nation, who have been far more right where the Post has been far more wrong, from being allowed to even have a proposal allowed to be voted on, is anti-Jefferson, anti-Madison, and anti the core of American democracy.
The Post has a right to its opinion; but they dont respect our right, to have ours.
So: when I read of Dan Rather watching George Clooney honor Ed Murrow, it is not a story of sadness, it is a story of hope, and when I read that Rather is talking to people such as Mark Cuban, I will predict what is coming, whatever they may be talking about.
What Edward R Murrow embodies, in the great and storied and well earned tradition of CBS News, honorably carried on by Bob Schieffer, is that journalism is not about fads, trends, the prejudice of the moment, the spinning of the hour, the bias of who's in and who's out.
Edward R. Murrow embodied the aggressive and courageous search for truth; the ferreting out of facts; the honorable creation of context for those facts; the noble undertaking of a free press that involves a clash of ideas, involves the fair presentation of differing views, involves the diligent search for the heart of the matter.
That is why Jefferson spoke so reverently of the role of the free press in our democracy, no matter how many mistakes are made in that search, no matter how many times Tom Jefferson was personally demeaned by the press who's freedom he fought so hard to defend.
Is it any wonder that some cable programs have audiences lower than the average family dinner?
Is it any wonder that every day brings stories of weakening circulation for papers such as the Washington Post?
Is it any wonder that everywhere you look, more and more people, first thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands and now millions to tens of millions of patriotic and concerned Americans are looking elsewhere for their news and information?
It is flattery, but not false flattery, that Arianna Huffington is evolving into an important and pathbreaking idea entrepreneur who does enormous service to the very notions of an informed citizenry, free press, and honest debate that is what our country is all about, which we stray from now, at our peril.
On this site, you read of different people offering serious alternatives, not the fraudulent claim that there are no alternatives.
There are news and information sites growing all across the internet, many with far more supporters than most of the cable outlets offering shallow versions of insider baseball (which often proves to be wrong), pastel versions of what should be great national debates, and shameless trash popularizing
the demented notion that courageous women who have suffered the ultimate loss are nothing more than harpies to be abused for profit on the catatonic screens of the televised commercialism of crap.
So Dan, welcome to the fight. Join us. Join Bob Parry, fighting to save his consortiumnews. Join Caroline Kay, fighting for her wonderful site makethemaccountable. Join the alternet and Daily Kos. Join Arianna here, and keep us posted here on what you are doing. Join the Jersey sisters. Join the vets who post here brilliantly, and conduct themselves nobly on their return from Iraq. Join the millions and tens of millions who are your natural friends, your audience in waiting, the multitudes who are tired of political lies, slander television, the sensationalism of the latest murder or the shallowness of the latest slop peddling poop that one group of insiders tell to another, as though we aren't there.
Murrow said to McCarthy: Have your no decency, sir? Well, there is an audience of tens of millions ready to patronize decency and truth, and from things I do privately, I promise: stay tuned.
Oh, how I wish Ed Murrow were with us. And in a way he is, his spirit, his integrity, his honor, and his professionalism are with us on the screens through Clooney's film of Murrow, on the sites that are learning and growing and doing their best to live up to his standards, and now, coming soon, I predict, in the comeback of Dan Rather.
The Times story is not sad, its promising. Dan is no longer the power of the screen, the toast of the town, the man of the hour. But he is still Dan Rather, the man of Murrow, who can take Murrow to the far reaches of the world through this new medium, that has the power to build ratings based on truth, even greater than the glory days of the Network News....
This potential, this power, this mission, this vision can be Dan Rather's greatest dream, and greatest triumph, when he comes off the mat, like Rocky Balboa, and champions the highest traditions of American journalism, the greatest traditions of American freedom and Thomas Jefferson's notions of a great democracy, with an informed citizenry, engaged in the courageous search for truth.
Ed Murrow is the past.
Dan Rather is the present.
And we are the future.