The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Dan the Man

9.15.04 @ 12:01AM

ARTLESS FORGERS
Re: George Neumayr's Forged Press Credentials:

The "Mainstream Press" at this point is very much like the pedophile priests that assumed they still had the authority to do their jobs. Too late. Their transgressions have rendered them infecund and without virtue. Now they want us to shut up and stop watching their every move. Very well then. Since they've become outmoded, we should stop watching them.
-- Beto Ochoa
Austin, Texas

In George Neumayr's essay "Forged Credentials," he quotes Jonathan Klein, a former CBS executive, as defending the "60 Minutes II" debacle at CBS by asking Americans if they trust anti-Rather bloggers -- a "guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing." I stopped trusting "60 Minutes" back in 1986 when the show ran an absurd hit piece on the Audi 5000, purporting to demonstrate it suffered from "runaway acceleration." I was watching that program with my son and some of his buddies, whose hobby was drag-bike racing. One of the things they did to increase acceleration before a run was, with the front brake on, rev the motorcycle's engine to spin the rear wheel, heat the tire and make it sticky, so better able to grip the pavement. Two fingers holding down the front brake lever were enough to prevent the bike from lunging forward despite the full power of the engine spinning the rear wheel.

These boys laughed out loud as "60 Minutes" paraded alleged expert after expert trying to demonstrate how the Audi could accelerate out of control even though the driver was firmly braking. All the "60 Minutes" ace investigative reporters had to do to prove this could not happen, they said, was climb into an Audi--or any car--and tromp down on both the accelerator and brake at the same time. The car wouldn't go anywhere. A first-year engineering student could have explained to "60 Minutes" why this is so.

But "60 Minutes" aired this ridiculous story, which had vast repercussions on many thousands of people as Audi sales crashed, the company was almost forced out of the market, the franchise became worthless, people working at dealerships lost their jobs, Audi 5000 owners saw the resale value of their perfectly good cars destroyed.... To all of this "60 Minutes" was indifferent. Could it be that "60 Minutes" has always been more interested in a "good" story than a truthful one? Gen. William Westmoreland might have a thing or two to say about that.
-- Chris Mark

Many thanks to George Neumayr for having given us a fascinating review of Dan Rather.

Found especially interesting is this statement: "Rather's career arc looks complete: he has gone from nipping at the heels of Richard Nixon for a third-rate burglary to serving as the Democrats' copy boy for what looks like a third-rate forgery."

In attempting to determine cause for Rather's rather virulent hatred of Bush 43, it might be well to recall an event near the apogee of Rather's trajectory. It occurred during the campaign of 1988 that pitted Bush 41 against Dukakis. During what Rather clearly intended to be a newsmaker interview that would hole Bush at the waterline, Rather rather haughtily began to question Bush about his alleged role in Iran-Contra. A clearly stunned Rather suddenly found himself classically Bush-whacked instead.

G.H.W. Bush turned the tables by asking the oh so superior news reader if would want the public to judge Rather as unprofessional on the basis of the single incident in which he left in anger during one of his televised performances, leaving the TV equivalent of dead air. Rather reacted furiously and the well scripted effort to put a dagger in Bush was left in a shambles with both men shouting at each other at the top of their voices.

It is my surmise that Rather was stung to the core -- obvious to one and all as the result of his gross professional mis-judgment -- and swore revenge on Bush 41. His malign attempt to play gotcha with the son of Bush 41 seems all of a piece with the mean spirited, petty nature of this grandly self-inflated "news" anchor whose ego balloon was so rapidly punctured 16 years ago to the joy of many such as myself.

It is further my surmise that CBS may find some pretext for accepting Rather's resignation -- with all sorts of going away, nostalgic hoopla to sugar coat the dismissal -- if President Bush wins re-election. In that case perhaps Kerry and Rather can go on a world sports celebrity tour together to showcase their unique talents: neither needs any external movement of air to go wind surfing on a mill pond. They might even seek commercial gas turbine wind farm endorsements to tout their concern for the environment and the joys of living "off the grid".
-- Thomas E. Stuart
Kapa'au, Hawaii

I find myself in total agreement with Mr. Neumayr once again. I would add only this: It seems to me that the real arrogance here in the Dan Rather never-never land is Mr. Rather's contention that it is not incumbent upon him to prove the veracity of his presentation, but, rather, it is the responsibility of the public to prove him wrong. I guess this would change the old journalistic jeremiad, "Get it first, Get it right" to "Make it up, Get it our." I long ago made my peace with the network media's penchant for slanting the new; however, I draw a hard and fast line when they decide that slanting is not enough. Now they are actually creating it out of whole cloth.
-- Joseph Baum
Newton Falls, Ohio

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
Re: The Washington Prowler's Here We Go Some More:

The key to Rathergate at this point, since all but die-hard partisans admit that the documents are forgeries, is the source of the forgeries. If Dano had really been duped, my guess is that he would "out" the source in a moment. Since Mr. Rather has not "outed" his source, it is my suspicion that the source is a major Democrat or that there is major Democratic involvement with the source.
-- J. Sutherland
St. Louis, Missouri

The only remaining question, the documents used on "60 Minutes II" being demonstrably faked, is WHY Dan Rather would not seek an investigation to substantiate his report or punish the guilty.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Television, Sports, Environment, Constitution, Law, Military, Iran, Conservatism