The Problem With Dan Rather

The whirlwind surrounding the memogate scandal has raised alot of questions regarding whether Dan Rather should resign or not. Fox News has graciously suggested that perhaps Rather was merely duped - that he had no personal axe to grind in the story. I disagree. Rather's behavior from the time of the "discovery" of the documents through the debunking of those documents smacks of someone who has intentionally put the story forward regardless of the facts. His unwillingness to retract the story or order an investigation is very suspect, as is his bulldogged insistence that the story is true.


Cox and Forkum.com 

Apparently, from what I'm hearing from Fox News, CBS will be admitting today that they were "duped" by the fraudulent documents regarding President Bush's National Guard service. Does anyone out there really believe that CBS was fooled by the documents? Well, I guess that there are some out there who probably do - just like there are some out there who actually believe that higher taxes are just what we need to jump start our economy.

I think that the biggest problem that I have with those of Dan Rather's and CBS's ilk is that they purport to be unbiased. I could handle their partisanship and bias far better if they would just openly acknowledge that they are a Democrat-leaning news organization and that all of their news will be presented through that lens. However, that is not the case. These organizations claim to present only the facts in an unbiased manner, but these claims are pure prevarications.

Duplicity by anyone in a position of public trust is one of the greatest evils of all. People come to politicians and the press with the reasonable assumption that they should be able to believe that the information that they are getting from them is reasonably reliable. However, the memogate scandal is showing what I have known for years - that there are many unethical people in the media and in public office who have no qualms of inserting their bias into stories that are factually based in order to promote their own agendas. Worse than that, we have seen that CBS was willing to air a story using fabricated documentation and untrue premises in order to slander the President and benefit John Kerry's campaign.

So, while CBS and Dan Rather may cry that they have been deceived, I, for one, do not buy it for a minute. My sincerest desire is that everyone who was involved in this slanderous news item will suffer consequences for their involvement. And I hope that those who knew or suspected (or didn't care) that these documents were forgeries and still promoted this story will face criminal charges. What they have done certainly deserves it.