Dan Rather Must Go

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

I have to say that the risible statement given by CBS News Wednesday night finally did it for me. Who do these people think they are? They have failed to find a single expert who will back the authenticity of the memos; their own experts say they warned CBS not to go with the story; Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian’s secretary thinks they’re fakes…and yet CBS anchor Dan Rather and CBS News president Andrew Heyward say they stand by their story and will continue to investigate the provenance and dubiousness of the forgeries. This beggars belief.


How do I put this to Mr. Rather? It doesn’t matter if the underlying story is true. All that matters is that CBS’s evidence is fake. Get it? End of story. For what it’s worth, I believe President Bush got into the Guard because of his dad’s connections. I believe he probably didn’t perform his duties adequately in his final two years. When I first read the CBS story, I thought the docs were “devastating.” I’m not backing this president for reelection. But all that is completely beside the point.


Journalists are supposed to provide accurate evidence for their claims. CBS didn’t. And its response to the critics is to stonewall and try and change the subject. The correct response – the one they’d teach you in kindergarten journalism class – is immediately to check the authenticity of the documents as best you can, and if the doubts persist, to apologize immediately, and yank the story.


Can you imagine what CBS News would do if a government official found to be peddling fake documents refused to acknowledge it? And kept repeating his story nonetheless? They’d be all over it. But, you see, they are above politicians. They are above criticism. And they are stratospheres above the bloggers who caught them red-handed.


The Coup De Grace


And then this astonishing statement from Mr. Rather to the Washington Post’s press and broadcast industry reporter, Howard Kurtz: “If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story. Any time I’m wrong, I want to be right out front and say, ‘Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'”


Memo to Mr. Rather: you can’t break that story, because someone else in pajamas already did. Check the frequency, Kenneth. You are so far from being out front on this; you are leagues behind in the dust. Have you heard of the Internet? You can find it on that weird machine in your office they call a computer.


Kerry Finds His Voice


I liked this tack: “So I’ll be straight with you: things are getting worse. More than a thousand Americans have been killed. Instability is rising. Violence is spreading. Extremism is growing. There are now havens for terrorists that weren’t there before. And the Pentagon has even admitted that entire regions of Iraq are now controlled by insurgents and terrorists. The situation is serious – and we need a president who will set a new direction and be straight with the American people.”


What I like about it is not necessarily Senator Kerry’s prescription. I don’t think he’s likely to resolve this any more effectively than Mr. Bush will. Most of the damage has already been done. What I like is Mr. Kerry’s challenging the Bush administration’s propensity to avoid facts, deny reality, and slime opponents as a campaign strategy. We need a debate on Iraq. We need a real thrashing out of what has gone wrong and how to put it right. We need to hold this administration accountable for its errors.


Why has no one been held accountable for the weapons-of-mass-destruction intelligence fiasco? Why has the Abu Ghraib shame been fobbed off onto underlings, when real responsibility for the chaos that allowed it to happen belongs in the Oval Office? What gets me about Mr. Bush is his refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of his own decisions. That goes for Iraq and the way in which he has squandered our fiscal future. The left doesn’t really get this because they were never that keen on the war in the first place and they do not get hot and bothered about government spending. And much of the right just echoes the party line. At least Mr. Kerry is finally asking the right questions. Someone has to.


Gone To Beagle Heaven


A couple of years ago, longtime readers may recall, I found a little stray beagle on Euclid street in D.C. She was in terrible shape, malnourished, disease-ridden, and obviously abused. I couldn’t leave her there, nursed her halfway back to health and found her some wonderful parents, a gay couple who were friends of mine. After a hefty amount of vet bills, she thrived. And this morning I got this e-mail:


“I just wanted to let you know that Euclid left us about two months ago. (Sorry for the delay in letting you know, but it’s still really hard to face this.) She seemed to be taken rather suddenly by pancreatic cancer. Up until the Wednesday evening, she was her usual self. In the middle of the night, after being let out twice, she started throwing up in bed.


“On Thursday Ron took her to the vet. Things were looking bad enough for her that we brought her home Thursday night. We were able to spend a final night sitting up with her. I called my parents (they thought of her as their ‘grand dog’) who came over at 5am to spend some time with her, because she was suffering so much that we wanted to get her to the vet’s when the office opened. We got there shortly after the office opened, but before the vet got in. While Ron was signing the papers to have her put down, Euclid passed away naturally, on her own.


“Needless to say, Euclid’s passing still leaves a considerable hole in our lives. However, we retain many wonderful memories of her and the joy she brought to us. And we’ll always be grateful to you for bringing us into her life. I am sorry that you never got to see the happy, confident dog that she became.(Although she still kept traces of your influence. If the Sunday paper was left on the floor and there was a Maureen Dowd piece, she’d piddle all over it.)” Atta girl.


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