Good Riddance to Dan Rathers Rotten Bias

Good Riddance to Dan
Rathers Rotten Bias

Even as he gets ready to leave the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, Dan Rather still insists that hes a brave journalistic truth-teller, not a partisan political operative disguised (poorly) as an objective newsman. Im hard to herd and impossible to stampede, he recently boasted to The New Yorkers Ken Auletta.

Some of the liberal medias professional apologists insist last years fraudulent 60 Minutes hit piece should not be the yardstick used to measure Rathers professional worth. Former New York Times reporter Alex Jones, now a Harvard media expert told USA Todays Peter Johnson it would be a gross disservice to emphasize the shameful forgery fiasco. It doesn't diminish his decades-long career of distinguished broadcast journalism, Jones asserted.

Actually, if theres one TV news star whose career was epitomized by twisting the news to assist liberals and knock conservatives, its Dan Rather. Last Septembers politically motivated fraud wasnt a departure for Rather; it was just an extreme example of the obnoxious bias thats tarnished his whole career. MRC has an exhaustive library of Rathers liberal rantings posted on our Web site (www.mrc.org), including 15 video clips.

A few of the highlights:

Conservatives Are Hateful: Rather often portrayed conservative policies as mean-spirited assaults on children. Early in 1995, Rather began one newscast by declaring: The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.

Six years later, Rather used a similar mantra to scold President Bushs big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education. Of course there were no cuts in 2004, the Cato Institute calculated the Department of Educations budget had soared 75 percent during Bushs first three years, from $36 billion to $63 billion.

But the Clintons Were Wonderful: When CBS paired Rather with Connie Chung, he sought inspiration from the liberal First Family. If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, wed take it right now and walk away winners, Rather fawningly told Bill Clinton in 1993. Then when Hillary decided she wanted a New York Senate seat, Rather put on his Democratic press secretarys hat: Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning.

Rather evidently didnt mind looking foolish as he touted the Clintons greatness. He startled FNCs Bill OReilly in 2001 when he declared Bill Clinton to be an honest man. Rather ridiculously elaborated: I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.

Helping His Liberal Friends: During last years campaign, John Kerrys operatives wanted to sully Bushs economic record, and Rather obliged. Reporting the brutal murder of four civilians in Iraq last March, he smarmily asked: What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy, it may be, for some, the only job they can find.

But when Kerry faced criticism, Rather switched from offense to defense. In a July interview, he presented the Democratic nominee as a hero victimized by a nasty GOP: Have you ever had any anger about President Bush who spent his time during the Vietnam War in the National Guard running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?

Liberals will probably miss having such a friend at the helm of a network newscast, but fans of fair and balanced journalism wont miss Dan Rather one bit.

Related Items:
Notable Quotables: Dan Rathers Legacy of Liberal Bias
The Dan Rather File, an exhaustive text and video library
Press Release: Statement From MRC's Brent Bozell