Dan Rather was once at the top of the journalistic universe, having replaced Walter Cronkite as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” (when network news broadcasts still meant something). But then came a story meant to smear President George W. Bush, based on forged documents that were almost immediately revealed as such. Then (as this Daily Beast story recounts) came the Rather apology; the revelation that CBS News could no longer vouch for their credibility; the CBS-commissioned investigation faulting Rather and his top producer, Mary Mapes; and finally, the end of Rather’s career at CBS.
Now nearly 80 years old and hawking a new book, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News, Rather insists the forged documents are accurate. “I believe them to be genuine. I did at the time, I did in the immediate aftermath of it, and yes, I do now.”
This claim is silly, as this 224-page Report of the Independent Review Panel makes clear. (While CBS’s independent panel report didn’t specifically take up the question of whether the documents were forgeries, it retained a document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded that the documents in question were “not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.”) Three years after the story, Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its parent company, Viacom, claiming he had been made a “scapegoat.” In 2009, a New York State Appeals Court said Rather’s $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety, and that a lower court erred in denying CBS’s motion to throw out the lawsuit.
What appears to have happened is that Rather cannot emotionally or psychologically accept that the Bush National Guard story was built on lies, which ended up destroying his career. And so he has become a desperate, embittered man, frantically trying to vindicate his name, unable to see that his efforts merely remind us what a pitiable figure he has become.
“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” These are the words of Captain Ahab as he tosses his harpoon toward the great white whale.
Dan Rather may want to reacquaint himself with Moby Dick. Things didn’t end well for the obsessive and revenge-seeking Captain Ahab. And they’re not ending well for Rather, either.
Wow, I never knew that the "Wrath of Khan" was around during Herman Melville's time!
Time machine. Great story if you ever have the time. Melville stole *all* his stuff…guy to really watch out for….r nr nAs far as Rather, I think another analogy might be “the strawberries”…
Maybe he needs aricept.
Patient Zero of the Bush Derangement Syndrome. Rather deserves our pity rather than our scorn.
What Rather pulled in this story was nothing new. He pulled a similar con-job in 1988 for this despicable documentary "The Wall Within" in which he presented five fake Vietnam combat soldiers for purposes of airing their wild stories of committing atrocities or being exposed to unspeakable horrors as a result of their government making them fight in combat. It was up to B.G. Burkett, who did something simple as get the service records of these alleged combat scarred veterans and discover that five of the six profiled in the special were liars who never spent a day in combat. Mention "The Wall Within" to Rather though, and you will get the same stubborn mule-headed insistence in its truthfulness as he pulls today with the National Guard story. It is an article of religious faith in him that he can never be proved wrong by his conservative critics of the right and those who have been noting the problem of left-wing media bias and its damaging effect on our national institutions. To do that, gives credence to the liberal media's worst enemy and this, they can not do for the same reason that the Left can never admit the truth about Communism. n nRichard Nixon I think had Rather pegged right, "Are you running for something?"
Ah, the irony! Dan Rather was shoved "rather" hard by floor security at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, and a great deal was made about a blow that, to be honest, simultaneously (1) made Rather's subsequent career as a successful left-leaning journalist possible and (2) seems to have inflicted a certain amount of irreversible brain damage. n nWhat the Lord gives with one hand He occasionally takes back with the other.