DAN RATHER: TASED AND CONFUSED

[EV_Ares]

The Still-Unreported Story of "Top Gun" George Bush

New York- Newly unearthed records reveal that, in 2004, when Americans were in the midst of a brutal electoral battle over whether to reelect a president posing as a war hero, a commanding US reporter, Dan Rather, went AWOL. Just three months before the election, Rather had a story that might have changed the outcome of that razor-close race. We now know that Dan cut a back-room deal to shut his mouth, grab his ankles, and let his network retract a story he knew to be absolutely true. In September 2004 when Rather cowered, Bush was riding high in the polls. Now, with Bush's approval ratings are below smallpox, Rather has come out of hiding to shoot at the lame duck. Thanks, Dan.

It began on September 8, 2004, when Rather, on CBS, ran a story that Daddy Bush Senior had, in 1968, put in the fix to get his baby George out of the Vietnam War and into the Texas Air National Guard. Little George then rode out the war defending Houston from Viet Cong attack. The story is stone-cold solid. I know, because we ran it on BBC Television a year before CBS (see that broadcast here). BBC has never retracted a word of it. But CBS caved. So did Dan.

That's according to Rather's written confession, his law suit, which is as much a shameful set of admissions as it is a legal complaint. In the suit filed Thursday, Rather tells us that Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, owner of CBS, was "enraged that the Broadcast had hurt CBS in the eyes of the Bush administration." Viacom then set out to, "divert public attention from the accurate facts reported in the Broadcast concerning President Bush's service (and lack thereof) in the TexANG during the Vietnam War; and enable CBS and Viacom to curry favor with the White House…." Redstone roared and Dan, hearing his Dark Lord's voice, admits he then "refrained from defending" the truths in the Broadcast. Dan shut his mouth, he confesses, in return for 30 pieces of Viacom silver: a promise that "his contract would be extended." Had Rather stood up to the Viacommunist thugs and defended his story, President Kerry and our nation could today express gratitude for his public service. Instead, Dan traded the public interest for airtime on 60 Minutes. Yuck.

Now Dan is shocked to find that the network snakes didn't live up to their slimey bargain with him. Well, Dan, that's what happens with snakes. Get in bed with them and wake up slimed. The Story Still Not Reported - By contrast, BBC never backed down from the story of the fix that got Little George out of 'Nam. We had a smoking hot document and an interview with the crucial source: the man who confessed to making the call for Bush to the head of the Air Guard. No, I won't give you his name. I don't expose sources - unlike Dan and CBS. That's another thing that makes me just FURIOUS. Rather revealed, then blamed, a source, retired Air Guard officer Lt. Col. Bill Burkett. Burkett, an Abilene rancher, is a courageous, stand-up guy. . But after standing up with Dan, he was ruined, ostracized from the cattle business. No one would sell him feed. Dan got a multi-million dollar kiss-off from Viacom. Burkett got dead cows and bankruptcy. And there's more. More that Dan didn't report. As I said, Dan picked up an old story, one that I reported, as did others, in 1999. But we added our discovery of a confidential document which had walked its way out of the files of the US Department of Justice. It was a whistleblower statement that explained why the Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, who arranged for George W. to get into the Air Guard, kept silent about it for 35 years. It states that, in 1997, Governor George W. Bush overruled his state's Lottery director and gave a billion-dollar contract to a company tied to Barnes. Barnes received a cool fee of $23 million from the contractor.

This is a devastating accusation. And one that's more serious than the scandal of a draft-dodging rich kid's vile use of daddy's connections three decades ago. Here was evidence of gross abuse of public office by Governor Bush to pay off a crony who kept silent while Bush ran for the presidency. US Reporting: Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But how could I expect Rather to take on the tough story when he wouldn't stand by the easy one? In June 2002, two years before his media lynching, Rather explained his Fear of Reporting in an interview on BBC Television (cautiously, to a European audience only):

“It’s an obscene comparison but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people’s necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. It’s that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often. Again, I’m humbled to say I do not except myself from this criticism.” This is what's so frustrating about Dan Rather. He's two people: a real journalist locked inside a television news-actor begging for air-time. Indeed, disgustingly, in his law suit, he conceals his inner reporter by claiming he only "narrated" the draft dodge story. For shame.

But what about all those other preening birds on the chicken ranch known as US television news? Rather tells us he wasn't alone in failing to ask tough questions. Not one damn US reporter asked Bush at a press conference, "Yes or no, Mr. President: Did your daddy call Ben Barnes to get you out of the war in Vietnam?"

The same week Dan confessed that he agreed to shut up, a journalism student, Andrew Meyer of Florida, insisted on asking tough questions of the man Bush defeated, John Kerry. For Andrew's impertinence, he was hit with 50,000 volts from a taser. Andrew is just a student and still needs a couple of lessons in posing questions properly. (Lesson One: "Wear a grounding wire.") But Andrew has the next lesson down pat: ask the question they don't want to hear when they don't want to hear it. Rather could use a few lessons in journalism himself - from Andrew - about taking the heat for the story. Seeing Andrew's arrest and Dan's complaint, I was thinking that perhaps, instead of tase-ing those reporters who ask questions, we might tase those who don't.

***************************
Greg Palast is the author of “The Necklace-ing of Dan Rather” in the New York Times bestselling book, Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild (Penguin 2007).

Link: http://www.gregpalast.com/dan-rather-tased-and-confused/

[rodeodance]

1. Burying the truth about Bush-----By: David Neiwert

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/24/burying-the-truth-about-bush/
> Burying the truth about Bush
> By: David Neiwert
>
> The credibility of the Washington Post’s editorial page took another hit today with Charles Lane’s nasty hit piece attacking Dan Rather — suggesting he’s not in his right mind — for suing CBS in the aftermath of the “Rathergate” ratfucking. Especially the nut graf:
>
> Finally, no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true.
>
> On both counts (as with nearly all those preceding), Lane is factually and profoundly wrong. There were plenty of reasons at the time to think that the so-called “proof” that the “Killian documents” were fraudulent was itself mostly fraudulent, or at best fatally flawed. And there are plenty of reasons to believe that they may well have been authentic — including the study by Utah State professor David Hailey , who concluded that he was “totally persuaded they were typed.”
>
> Moreover, Rather’s attorneys point out in their complaint (which Lane appears not to have read) that the private investigator hired by CBS in the aftermath of the debacle concluded that “the Killian documents were most likely authentic, and the underlying story was certainly accurate.”
>
> As Eric Boehlert — whose contemporary reporting for Salon on the story was authoritative and convincing — wrote in his book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush:
>
> ...
>
....................

[tkmorris]

2. Dupe, dude

[karynnj]

3. I would suggest a much simpler lesson that Meyer needs to learn

One that is rarely needed by kids in the entry level journalism class in high school. After you ask your question, wait to hear the answer, if one is forthcoming. In Meyer's case, what Palast is trying to hide is that Kerry intervened at the very beginning to let the obviously troubled kid ask his question. Meyer than engaged in a rant against the Senator, blocking him from answering. I am shocked that an investigative journalist of Palast's supposed skill can't see a set up when it placed before him.

Consider:
The first video seen was from Meyer's web site and was linked to by the Miami Herald's coverage hours after the event, when he was still in jail. This means it had to be premeditated with people ready to process the tape and put it on Meyer's website. The tape eliminated all the preliminary events - such as Meyer rushing the line, the police acting to stop him, Kerry saying that he would let him ask a question, Meyer engaging in a pompous rant - not letting the Senator get a word in edgewise - continuing and moving closer to the stage when the sponsor's of the event cut his mike. If this is Palast's idea of good journalism, I will need to take his stories with a bigger grain of salt - it is simply guerrilla theatre.

Senator Kerry has given thoughtful answers to these questions when asked in other forums by people who then let him respond. Here, the "journalist" became the story. As Meyer was taken out, you can here bits and pieces of Kerry's answer on the election question as it faded in and out on the tape - as Meyer was moved to the far back of the auditorium. No one has put out the transcript of Kerry's answer showing that the stunt, not the 2004 issue was the focus of the story. Palast also ignores that 700 people were there to hear a serious speech on foreign policy - and their desire to learn what Kerry thought on various issues was ignored. To me this simply says that Palast has jumped the shark and he confuses a cheap stunt by a person known to seek attention inappropriately with real journalism.

The worst result of this is that in the MSM accounts it makes the idea that 2004 was stolen appear to be the province of people they can call nut cases. This makes it easier to ignore the comments of people, including Senators Kerry and Boxer, listing the very real ways that votes were suppressed, machines switched votes (Senator Kerry spoke of the touch scenes that asked you to confirm you voted for Bush when you had voted for Kerry - in a speech on the Senate floor.) and other ways that the Bush team used to steal Ohio. Congressmen Conyers and Tubbs spoke of many discrepancies on January 6, 2005 - they are all in the record. RFKjr did an analysis that showed that including the suppression of votes, he could identify enough lost "votes" that Kerry should have won Ohio. There were also well documented studies of the caterpillar ballot problem (in Cleveland) that were posted here.

If Meyer was genuinely seeking answers rather than confrontation, wouldn't he have responded to Kerry's comment that he had read Palast's book - with a question on what he thought of its content or did he agree with it? What is clear is the Palast and Meyer want a narrative that Kerry avoided the question - but the facts are against them.

[CTyankee]

4. I read that Palast book and was disappointed in the way he tarred Al Gore.

I found him over the top in many instances. My guess is that he is a "contrarian" just to be one.

[Toots]

5. Greg Palast seems to have completely missed the real story

It was no big deal for influential people to pull strings for their children. Happened all the time and no one was going to get upset over it and Bush* would not have lost any credibility. The real story that Rather was about to reveal was that Bush* after serving two years decided that was enough and just quit his service. The entire last year of his service he was unaccounted for. Also why did Bush* refuse an order to go for his annual flight physical and why did he quit flying after promising the Texas National Guard that if they spent millions training him he would fulfill his obligation.. Greg Palast has very little room to talk IMO..