Rather Pathetic

Bob Swartz at SouthDakotaModerate, one of my Keloland colleagues, left this comment after my post on Dan Rather. 

Bogus documents and blogosphere outing aside, I think Rather is doing this because to this day nothing in the story he reported has ever been debunked by Bush or anyone else for that matter. How he reported the story was wrong but apparently the facts he reported weren't. He doesn't need the money, he is just trying to re-gain some of his credibility. Will he succeed? Probably not, but not because he reported a lie. He just lied in his reporting.
Posted by: sdmoderate - Sep 23, 2007 12:54 PM

Here is my reply:

Dear Bob:

Thanks for the comment.  However, I cannot agree.  It was and now is again up to Rather to show that the facts are as he reported them, not up to Bush to debunk them. 

The only things new in the Sept. 2004 story were the claims that George Bush, as a national guard pilot, ignored an order to get a physical, and that his commanding officer felt pressured by the Bush family to go easy on George W.  Those claims rested solely on the documents that, Rather himself admitted, "cannot be authenticated."  The story collapsed.

Rather's news team allowed itself to be hoodwinked by two-bit Democratic hack.  CBS responded by canning him.  The ignominious end to his career obviously left a deep emotional wound that has not faded over the last three years.  He has coped by persuading himself that it was all someone else's fault.  That is the basis of his ludicrous law suit.  All this is rather pathetic, don't you think?

For a valuable update on the story (valuable because it largely supports me), see the Philadelphia Inquirer: 

In effect, [Rather's] suit says: "Hey, it wasn't just me. I'm not responsible."

Not true. As anchor, managing editor of CBS Evening News, and contributor to 60 Minutes, Rather presented himself constantly, tirelessly, as the man on the scene, the reporter, the boss, engaged, involved, directly responsible.

And he was: responsible for every word, sound, and image that met the viewer. When 60 Minutes aired its report on Bush's National Guard record at the height of a passionate, contentious national election, Rather was lead reporter; the story bore his stamp and credit. And it blew up.

Within hours, the credibility of memos that 60 Minutes reported as being written by one of Bush's Guard commanders was being attacked, trenchantly, on conservative blogs. In a few days, it was a national wildfire.