Dan Rather Spits Bullets

CBS News | CBS Stands By Bush-Guard Memos | September 11, 2004�06:26:39

I got to see this broadcast last night on the CBS Evening News. Poor Dan Rather was hoarse, and probably should not have participated in the broadcast. Dan was pissed enough about folks out there who would impugn his journalistic integrity to read the news, despite his voice.

If you did not catch it live, CBSNews.com gives you plenty of free video to see Dan, pissed. If looks could kill, there would have been casualties. Hopping mad, the look of determination to not lose his temper on the air spoke volumes about his distaste for everything George.

Not that little w did not have it coming. After the way he tore into Dan a few years back when confronted by the fact that he did not win the election legitimately, Dan Rather has a journalistic axe to grind. Rather has consistently provoked the ire of this administration by apologizing to the viewing public for getting caught up in war fever. He read the names of the victims of the war, and continues to update us every night. Dan asks questions which detract from the talking point of the campaign, seeking real truths, as opposed to flattering sound bites.

I do not consider Dan to be a champion of the liberal movement. He is, instead, a champion of journalistic integrity and has the cajones to admit when he has been duped or wrong.

Now, at this point, we have nothing which conclusively disputes these memos. Just innuendo. Dan did his fact checking. Innuendo does not. (I for one am pinning my whole writing career on the power of innuendo, but I am not a journalist, I am a computer desk pundit. But I, as does Dan, do admit when I make errors and bad predictions, and I do not hide them by re-editing previous posts, although it is tempting. I am not interested in recasting my past statements in more positive light. I say what I say and I mean it at the time. Therefore, as held to GW's standard, it is truth.)

The power of innuendo has been a drag on the Kerry campaign. Kerry has no friends in the press, as they run the story of liars on the front page and bury the work of credible journalists inside. Now, Dan Rather is the news item, not the truth about Bush's unfulfilled commitments to the National Guard.

My suggestion now is, to dispel all this and do the right thing, Bush needs to go back to the Guard and take his deployment to the battlefield in Iraq like a man. By hiding like a mouse, he fools no one.