Dan Blather in a Lather

I see where Dan Rather is making headlines again. The legendary anchorman, who was thrown overboard in the wake of his network finding him guilty in the Memogate Flap of 2004, is now making a splash of himself, as some critics see it, by suing CBS and Viacom for $70 million, claiming damage to his reputation and other crimes.

The original CBS news story, reported by Rather, which is a major part of the suit, had created the biggest firestorm since the Chicago Fire of 1871. Dan had always been the media equivalent of Mrs. O'Leary's cow. He managed to become the story in covering the news, whether it was leaving the network in the black by walking out of the news studio because the tennis match ran too long or somebody on the street asking him "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

The shock waves caused by the unprecedented suit reminded me again of the debate that erupted following a report on the Sept. 8, 2004 edition of 60 Minutes II about the authenticity of the documents that Dan Rather said indicated the president received preferential treatment during the Vietnam War. It was a scoop that made Dan Rather the most disgraced journalist since Jayson Blair.

Not since Congressman Richard Nixon found the Woodstock typewriter that Alger Hiss allegedly used in passing secrets to Whittaker Chambers had the fate of the free world seemed to depend on a typewriter font.

The casting doubt and threat to the Republic grew so bad in the two weeks after Rather's "exclusive," I was afraid to turn on the radio in the afternoon. Ann Coulter was going ballistic in her newspaper column. There must have been 10,000 websites attacking Dan Rather and CBS News. The not-recognizing-that-the-fon- in-the-1973-electric-typewriter-wasn't-invented-until-after-the-war proved conclusively that CBS' initials stood for the Communist Broadcasting System, as some people knew all along. Any minute I was expecting additional documents to turn up inside a pumpkin on Dan Rather's Texas ranch.

After 10 days of swearing for the authenticity, Rather and CBS finally began swearing at those who gave them the documents. They couldn't prove their authenticity. Everybody concerned said they were sorry. The apologies evoked the memory of my favorite news commentator, Emily Litella on Weekend Update, saying "never mind."

It wasn't CBS News' 60 minutes of glory.

"We're going to thoroughly investigate," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward, while appointing an in-house committee, as CBS did during the Westmoreland documentary case, the network's other major Vietnam War setback.

The report by the CBS News panel of experts, which Rather in his suit claimed was biased, exonerated the people at the network who had appointed the panel. This wasn't the first time in the history of investigative panels appointed by the people who should be under investigation that this has happened.

The report served another function. It was the banana peels the network news division needed to make its star anchorman walk the plank.

Rather had been an anchor so long (since 1982) he had barnacles. The scandal gave Heyward the excuse for giving Dan a push. In the back of his mind, he was plotting how to save the evening news, mired for the last 10 years in third place in the network news ratings race. His secret weapon was Katie Couric, who he admired as a journalist.

Heyward himself was fired before he could see that Couric is now on the way to being the biggest ratings disaster since Howard Stringer fell in love with Connie Chung as anchorwoman of the century, making Dan sit with her briefly on the Chungadan evening news.

Personally, I think Dan Rather got snookered. He had the chance to nail the president in the scoop of the election year, which could have been as big as the Swift Boat story that sank Kerry. Instead of checking out the typewriter vs. word processor issue, he goes with it.

He wasn't the first great journalist to be snookered. Remember "The Hitler Diaries" scandal that snookered Rupert Murdoch and his once prestigious Sunday Times of London?

Peter Arnett of CNN got stung in the famous documentary Tailwind, which claimed we were using nerve gas during the Vietnam War. The New York Times got snookered with all the news that Jayson Blair thought was fit to print.

Rather fell into the old Nixon trap of stonewalling. A day or two after the true facts were becoming known, he should have stood up and said, " Hey, folks, I think I made a mistake. This guy lied to me."

He could have blamed it all on his not bringing his reading glasses to work that day.

He could have even written an op-ed piece in The New York Times explaining he was only following the basic TV journalism principle of why let the facts get in the way of a good story? After all, if a story is too good to be true, then it also was to good to verify endlessly because it might be disproved before it could be aired. Then what would you have for all your time and money?

Whatever. I made a mistake. That's all he had to say. America is one of the most forgiving countries in the world. Everybody has been lied to by used car salesmen, real estate agents, TV commercials endorsers, even presidents.

All of this was ancient history, until Dan Rather shocked the TV news business by raking up a story that somehow seemed to have gotten buried like it had been sealed up in a coal mine in Wyoming.

The fascinating thing about the original hysteria about the Memogate Flap is what kind of scoop was it anyway? Was there anyone who didn't know the president wasn't exactly John Wayne during the Vietnam War? Was it a shock that George W. Bush might have been an irresponsible rich young man? Didn't we know years ago that he was a party animal as a young man? Didn't we know that connections might have gotten him a sweet spot in the Air National Guard? And would anybody have been surprised if his attendance record was probably not the greatest in the history of the weekend warriors in the National Guard?

The thing that amazed me is the way the story was treated as if anybody who touched it would get the bubonic plague. Why weren't other networks, especially those who are the most trusted name in TV news, whichever network that may be (I lose track), nailing down the story? Why was the focus totally on Dan Rather? Wasn't Dan just the fly on the horse's ass, as Dan himself might have put it, coining one of his phony folksy sayings?

Okay, Dan Blather can seem like a jerk sometimes, managing to become the drama instead of the news. But it's not as if he was some kid just out of a high school journalism 101 class, Where there's fire, as Dan might say quoting an old Indian saying, there must be smoke.

Once again, Dan has become the story. Still not Smiling George, the poster boy of the Air National Guard.

Let's all hoist a few brewskis to the invincible Red Baron von Richtofen of the Air National Guard, who we in the media allowed to fly away from the dog fight as Hurricane Dan went down in flames.

Comments

[jam800]

Great piece on Dan Rather. I think your points are all very qualified and interesting. There is one point that you make, however, that I find kind of disconcerting. You say that Rather should have just said, "Hey, folks, I think I made a mistake. This guy lied to me." I do agree with your point when you say that America is most forgiving nation out there. However, is it not true that the Network News Media is an institution that the American people hold to high regard. Even if the ratings are slipping for Network Newscasts, we expect when important stories are brought to the forefront that an apology won"t be immediately offered. On the other hand, you do make the point the story was somewhat buried and the limelight was only put on him. But this is the digital age where this blog, Media Matters or any person can make something small turn into something so big. Nonetheless, I do agree that with your points on Rather being a victim, and I think that in this business it is easy to screw up once and be done. Still, saying sorry can only get you so far. Look at where Senator Craig is.

[GenericBlogger]

Dan Rather apologized in 2004. I agree that apologizing does not assure job security. Performance and ratings do.

Rather didn't screw up once and his career ended. He has a history of making mistakes. The CBS Evening News has been third in the ratings for at least 15 years with Rather at the anchor. His modus operandi has been to report mostly from the anchor desk, sometimes from the field, occasionally with a flair, with a trigger happy mouth, taking risks, sometimes going too far, messing up, doing the talk show circuit to explain himself, and then apologize saying he won't let viewers down.

More than anyone, Rather managed to attract attention from the news onto himself. The "Can Dan" movement started in about 1988 when CBS viewers and investors protested in front of the CBS building to get rid of him. Think of this, a news anchor inspiring a street protest against him and his employer. Yet CBS not only kept him but defended him.

He was fortunate CBS kept him for such a long time. He sees the glass as half empty when it was more than half full for his entire career. Now, portraying himself and portrayed by others as a martyr he pretends to valiantly battle the corporatized media while masking his failures.

For all intents and purposes, Dan Rather is history. The relevant question for me is this. If the Texas National Guard story is true, why hasn't anyone followed up to the point where an investigation was launched and possibly a special prosecutor was assigned? For those who say the Republicans are so powerful they squelched it, I say the Democrats are powerful enough to keep the story alive and thoroughly investigated. If anyone has an interest in seeing Dubya put in his place, it's the Democrats.

If Dubya's Texas National Guard story has merit, the window of opportunity for that has long passed. Any possible impact on Dubya now is to set the record straight for history and his legacy.

Still, I will patiently wait to see the outcome of Rather's litigation.

[protagonia]

So Dan Rather is HUMAN while also speaking up? Well, we can't have that. The American people are supposed to be polite while being run over roughshod. Only the bullies on the right can do as they please.

He is striking at the MSM in general with a HUGE weapon. This lawsuit will gain the issue much needed attention.

The MSM is garbage, and I no longer eat it up.

Never will again. They lie to us. They do us harm.

[TJS]

CBS wanted to replace Dan Rather before the National Guard memo fiasco. Rather had taken CBS news into the ratings cellar. They were waiting to show Dan the door as soon as his contract expired. When Dan got snookered on Bush memo, the CBS brass saw a way to move Dan out. If all parties had been honest about it, Dan should have said, "I made a mistake, they lied to me." CBS should have said, "Dan's tanked in the ratings and we want to bring in new blood." If CBS and Dan had done their mea culpas instead of dancing around the issue, at least Dan could have gone out with dignity and CBS would have avoided this lawsuit.


Footnote on mea culpas: If John Kerry had said, "I made a mistake, they lied to me," instead of his lame excuse of "voting for it before voting against it," he might be president today.

[GenericBlogger]

Once again Dan Rather succeeded in stirring the pot, kicking up dust, and riling up emotions.

[Chalkeater]

Yes Rupert Murdoch published The Hitler Diaries along with almost daily lies from Fox News http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/fox_news_crazy_.html
but unlike Rather he's never been punished, unless punishment is laughing all the way to the bank.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Just another example of the mob tactics the bush crime family uses.

You hit us, we hit you 10 times harder. Examples: Mccain in So Carolina, Max Cleland, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson and now Dan Rather.

These people are the worst thing that has ever happened to American politics.

Babs is related to Franklin Pierce (not exactly the best president we ever had). Prescott Bush was associated with war profiteering in WWII. Is it any wonder that gene pool gave us dumya?

[TommyMcCarthy]

Personally, I applaud Mr. Rather's action. I hope he has the stones to stick it out, weather the inevitable firestorm of criticism, (see this and several other posts here on Huffpo today), and resist the almost-as-inevitable settlement offer CBS will be pressured to offer in exchange for silence.

Presumably Dan Rather seeks vindication, not money. The rest of us, through the discovery process, may get a glimpse of how the administration has managed to cow the mainstram media into submission and self-censorship, therby opening the door to all sorts of abuses of power.

Without a vibrant national press, the first amendment means nothing at all.........tm

[Manx]

That Dan Rather became the drama rather than the news is a cliche now among media types. So what? Of course, there is a lot of professional jealousy because Rather became a super-star of journalism.

I still admire Dan Rather and support his efforts wholeheartedly. Long may he wave!

[Maezeppa]

Dan Rather's story was factually correct. One of several pieces of supporting evidence didn't have airtight provenance but the facts didn't live or die by that one letter. Without the letter it was a tough and disturbing story of how a rich kid with influential parents got promoted to the front of the line ahead of more deserving applicants.

[Spookcatcher]

I hope Dan gets the records of Bush's service (and AWOL/Desertion) so the Joint Chiefs can Arrest Bush, Congress can Impeach Cheney and I'll take my chances (for a very short time) on Pelosi as Potus.

[FogBelter]

Why doesn't CNN have Jack Cafferty look into this story with some of his CNN resources? (I suggest Jack because he has a backbone.) Or Hell, maybe even Anderson Cooper would be up for some real journalism after slumming in the Anna Nicole, Britney, OJ, Paris Pulp Pit for so long.

Bottom line, Rather is an afterthought to this whole story, why not actually confirm or deny it in the court of public opinion? And expose CBS News and Bush's henchman to little daylight for a change. There is room for a victory for the goodguys here and it shouldn't be passed up ... and why should President AWOL get a break?

[Rrhain]

Ahem. Rachel? There is no evidence that the memos were forgeries. The claim that the font wasn't invented until after the war is not true. The claim that the baseline is perfect and thus is evidence of a computer printout and not a typewriter is not true.

The worst that can be said about the documents is that they were acquired from a source with an agenda who refuses to disclose where he got them. That's a reason not to use them, yes, but it is not proof that they are forgeries.

And, of course, all of this distracts from the rest of the story, making it seem as if the entire premise that Bush failed to meet his service obligations rests upon a couple pieces of paper.

[champions1]

dadw5boys...your post is most accurate and this fellow MARVIN what's his name..I will take Dan Rather anyday...we must fight to get the truth out. Guess what, we can handle it. GW has done nothing but lie & cheat his whole life. He will be remembered by Liar ROVE...AND Liar CHENEY

[dadw5boys]

Is this story suppose to defame Dan Rather if so it failed.
The evidence will speak for it's self. Even the documents they created to prove Dan Rather wrong HAVE THE SAME FONT as the documents they claim are fakes.
Let the jury decide this one. They have already threathened and abused honest people and this article is nothing more than a vague attempt to let Bush and his CRONIES get away with their lies.

[BillZBubb]

I hope Rather gets the $70 million. The craven CBS management folded like a KMart tent.