http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hUVO6cyEPAt-CaWVsvqXELJ0_DCw
Apparently Dan Rathers is pissed off about the way CBS treated him after he got caught faking the evidence in a story about GWB. I hope the trial drags on for a long, long time and we find out all the dirty secrets about what goes on in CBS News.
So because Dan Rather did his job - reading the news stories prepared by others - he was somehow responsible for “faking” something? Explain?
I’d be pissed off, too…
As I said, I’d love for the details to come out about who does exactly what at CBS and all that. If in fact he’s just been a news reader that would be great to know. They’ve always given the impression that anchors have a lot of power to determine what stories run and how.
I predict this suit gets thrown out real fast.
Network contracts pretty much give the network the option to get rid of you whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, or with no reason at all.
I don’t see him having a leg to stand on.
Can’t remember who in blogland pointed this out, but one would think that, if Rather cared more about his reputation than the prospect of winning some moolah, he’d never file this suit. Everyone’s always thought of him as a newsman, for better or worse, rather than a pretty face reading someeone else’s words. The premise of his suit is that he was the latter rather than the former, and that’s admitting to a big step down.
Of course he is a news reader. He was doing stories for CBS news, 60 Minutes 2 and 48 hours. No on, and I mean no one, would be expected to write all of the things he was doing.
He has producers, directors, writers, editors and cameramen.
Did you actually think the entire newscast rest on his shoulders?
No, but I would not be surprised if HE does.
The right wing obsession with Dan Rather is hilarious. This in a nation where the corporate media has suppressed any coverage of the Downing Street memos. Where the Republican Party has their very own “news” network. Where Clinton’s infidelities were lit up with a spotlight while Bush’s are cloaked in darkness. Rather has more journalistic integrity than everyone at Faux News put together. Although the documents in question could not be authenticated, the contents of them were indisputably true. So with all the misdirection skills of a sideshow barker, the Republican Party has managed to turn attention away from Bush’s dereliction of duty and turned it on to a dedicated journalist.
Simple question. True or false: the documents were forgeries.
I love this “the documents could not be authenticated” bullshit. Are you suggesting they were NOT forgeries?
Or maybe he’s suggesting that it doesn’t matter that they were forgeries if what they said was true? Maybe the cops should plant evidence, as well, as long as they are pretty sure a guy’s guilty.
Incidentally, it’s kind of funny how someone can believe something is true when the only evidence for it is a forged document.
More important question: Was what they said true?
See that little dot, waaaaay off in the distance? It’s the boat you missed.
The documents were offered to PROVE that their contents were true. That was the reason for showing them. You cannot pretend that the more important question is Was what they said true? when the documents existed for the purpose of convincing us that what they said was true.
If the documents were fake, but the underlying facts were true, then the appropriate thing to do is discard the documents and offer truthful evidence that the story they told was real.
As Sarafeena points out, this line of thinking suggests that we can plant evidence on guilty suspects to ensure a conviction; it leaves out the realization that the evidence is supposed to lead us to the conclusion that they are guilty in the first place.
Mighty slippery, counselor. The documents exist for a purpose? Well, if they were manufactured specifically to that end, you might have a point. But, IIRC, the lady who produced them testified that they were recreations of previous documents created for purposes of bureaucracy, not political slander. They may have been misused or no, but they were not “created” to a purpose, unless you can prove otherwise.
Simple answer: I don’t know. And I don’t think anyone is absolutely certain.
I’m absolutely certain they were forgeries.
Cite, please? I’ve been reading right wing blogs for years and the last time I remember reading his name was around the time he got fired. A quick search of Instapundit shows about one reference every two months, usually to make fun of someone else.
Fixed your post.
False. That was easy.
Okay, then…how about “unattributed recreations purporting to be something they weren’t”? 