My previous to Kerry Republican [10-19-2004 04:23 PM ET (US)]

Well, I guess Kerry Republican just wanted to stir some shit, because Kerry Republican doesn't answer.

Rather to Step Down From 'CBS Evening News'

November 23, 2004

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK - Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the "CBS Evening News," announced Tuesday that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite.

The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents.

Rather, 73, said he will continue to work for CBS, as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes."

He made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that after the Nov. 2 election would be the right time to leave.

"I have always been and remain a `hard news' investigative reporter at heart," he said. "I now look forward to pouring my heart into that kind of reporting full time."

CBS did not mention a potential successor.

"He has been an eyewitness to the most important events for more than 40 years and played a crucial role in keeping the American public informed about those events and their larger significance," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said.

Rather made his name as a reporter covering the Nixon White House. His nearly quarter-century at the helm of the "CBS Evening News" is the longest continuous anchor tenure ever for a network evening broadcast.

A report on what went wrong with the National Guard story, from a two-man independent investigative panel, is due imminently. Rather anchored the story and initially defended it when it was criticized.

Rather's announcement comes eight days before his NBC rival, Tom Brokaw, steps down as "Nightly News" anchor and is replaced by Brian Williams.

The triumvirate of Rather, Brokaw and ABC's Peter Jennings has ruled network news for more than two decades. Rather dominated ratings after taking over for Cronkite during the 1980s, but he was eclipsed first by Jennings and then by Brokaw. His evening news broadcast generally runs a distant third in the ratings each week.

His hard news style was mixed with a folksy Texan style that led him to rattle off homespun phrases on Election Night. But odd incidents dogged him: In 1987 he walked off the set, leaving CBS with dead air, to protest a decision to let a tennis match delay the news. And his claim that he was accosted on the street by a strange man saying, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" led rock band R.E.M. to write a song with the same name.

DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer writes:
"The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents."

These were not forged documents were they? Did Not 60 Minuets present a woman who typed the original documents and she confirmed that the wording and content the 60 Minuets report were essentially as she had transcribed into the originals?

If I go to my old manual typewriter and type Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg, worded just as Lincoln's original, hand written copy was worded, and I offer my work to you while stating "this is Lincoln's Getisbourgh Address", is that a forged document that I hand you?

Edited by author 11-23-2004 04:20 PM
They were not "allegedly forged documents" they were forged documents.

I recall that the woman you mentioned had either been questioned or interviewed by CBS or Dan Rather in defense of Rather, this is not some independent source backing Dan Rather and CBS.

The aged woman you refer to was a typist for the Texas National Guard, and she is going to remember exactly, or even "essentially as she had transcribed in the originals"? Come on! Transcribed is not original and any transcription or reconstruction that is passed off as authentic by an old enemy of George W. Bush with the purpose of being used by other enemies of George Bush without passing the tests of document experts and actually ignoring the warnings and protests of document experts is most likely a forgery.

CBS has got to be as happy as Sandy "Secrets In My Pants" Berger or Gary "I Didn't Do It" Condit that other news is crowding Dan Rather's biased blunders off the front page.

Is March 2005 too early for Dan Rather to go?

CBS and Dan Rather are claiming that Dan Rather's latest exhibition of his personal biases, the forged Texas National Guard documents aimed at tilting the election towards Hanoi John Kerry, is not the reason for Rather's decision to step down at CBS. Who believes that?

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Send Buttons to CBS Evening News people, especially Dan Rather - send buttons to media pukes http://www.buttondepress.com/Button-em.htm

After Dan Rather gets down wiping the egg off his face over his latest screw-up, the forged Texas National Guard documents in an attempt to smear President G.W. Bush, Dan Rather has found himself a permanent place along the Axis of Weasel and permanently etched his name in Media Idiots Hall of Fame.

Mailing Address
CBS Evening News
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

Andrew Hayward - President CBS News
Dan Hewitt - Executive Producer CBS News
Mary McGinnis - Senior Vice President News Coverage
Dan Rather - Anchor, CBS Evening News; Corres. 60 Minutes II
Jim Murphy - Executive Producer
Pat Shevlin - Executive Producer CBS Evening News Weekend
Bill Whitaker - Correspondent
Elizabeth Kaledin - Correspondent
Richard Schlesinger - Correspondent

My idea is to send a button to Dan Rather's associates and ask them to present the button to Dan Rather.

Source of information - http://www.cbsnews.com/

CBS News Bios -
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/17/...ty/main525997.shtml

Since Dan Rather is a correspondent to 60 Minutes II, buttons could be sent to his associates in that department.

Edited by author 11-25-2004 11:24 PM
New York Post
BLOGGERS WIN THEIR AIR ATTACK VS. DAN

Wed Nov 24, 2:27 AM ET

By DEBORAH ORIN

WASHINGTON CBS anchor Dan Rather's discharge under less than honorable circumstances is the icing on the 2004 election cake for a lot of Republicans who see him as the icon of liberal media bias.

It's also a dramatic sign of the Internet-fueled revolution that means the old "mainstream media," such as CBS and The New York Times, can no longer set the terms of political debate, as they did just a few years ago. CBS and the Times tried, but failed, to dismiss challenges to Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War service from the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Internet helped the group make its case.

Now Rather is going out in ignominy because of his "60 Minutes" report using fabricated memos from a discredited source to question President Bush's National Guard service.

The story was quickly torn apart by Internet bloggers, who produced convincing evidence that the memos were forged.

Some anti-Rather bloggers now fume that he is still getting away with murder, and that there is a CBS cover-up because he's keeping his job on "60 Minutes."

But go back four years to the 2000 presidential election, in the pre-blogger era, and Rather would likely have gotten away with his phony story and it could have tilted the election against Bush.

Instead, because of the bloggers, the story backfired, boosting Bush by revving up his supporters.

"The Michael Moores and Dan Rathers of the world attacking Bush kept the Republican base motivated and helped get out the vote, and that's why, to some extent, I'm actually sorry to see him go," said GOP pollster Jim McLaughlin.

Republican strategist Rich Galen put it this way:

"The problem with Rather is that he insisted his view was not just a view but the only view. But now the marketplace is deciding who people will read and who people will believe."

Edited by author 11-25-2004 11:25 PM
New York Post
A RATHER UGLY EXIT

Wed Nov 24, 2:27 AM ET

Dan Rather announced yesterday that he will retire in March as anchor of the CBS Evening News — though he'll hang on as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes."

"I have always been and remain a 'hard-news' investigative reporter at heart," Rather said in a statement. "I now look forward to pouring my heart into that kind of reporting full time."

Well, as Rather said on Election Night, albeit in a slightly different context: "Ladies and gentleman, if you believe that, you'll believe rocks can grow."

Believe the bit about "the hard-news investigative reporter" bit, we mean.

After all, Rather's announcement comes as the world awaits the results of a CBS-ordered "independent" assessment of the coldly calculated election-year hit that Rather & Co. attempted on President Bush earlier this year.

In a September "60 Minutes II" broadcast, Rather declared that documents — supposedly belonging to Bush's Vietnam-era squadron commander — showed that young Bush had defied his National Guard superiors' orders to report for a medical exam.

The documents were almost immediately exposed as frauds — first by Internet amateurs and then by several establishment news organizations.

Indeed, they weren't even clever fakes.

But Rather simply refused to let go.

In the face of compelling evidence that documents had been forged by a long-time Bush foe, Rather insisted instead that he was being targeted by enemies with political motives.

The anchor postured and preened and hemmed and hawed before admitting, not that the documents were fake, but that he had made "a mistake in judgment."

That's one way to put it.

Andy Rooney, Rather's curmudgeonly "60 Minutes" colleague, had a different take last week — more blunt, and far more accurate: "I am very critical of some of the people at CBS who make it apparent what their political leanings are," he said. "That's what happened to this thing of Dan Rather's that got out. There's no question they wanted to run [the story] because it was negative towards Bush."

Rooney clocked it: Rather has it in for the Bush administration.

To cite just one of many examples, as war clouds gathered over Iraq in February 2003, Rather proudly aired an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein — set up by lunatic-fringer Ramsey Clark and filmed by Saddam aides.

But he refused a White House offer of Condoleezza Rice to appear to rebut Saddam's comments.

Rather biased?

We'd say so.

So, how does CBS plan to regain the trust of its justifiably jaundiced viewers?

Retired Associated Press exec Louis D. Boccardi and former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh are supposedly examining the "60 Minutes II" episode — and, in particular, the role producer Mary Mapes played in its preparation.

Mapes had been gunning for Bush for at least five years and finally — she thought — had struck paydirt. Rather, " 'hard-news' investigative reporter" that he is, got sucked in. Together, they wrecked the credibility of the erstwhile Tiffany Network.

In the final analysis, though, they were merely the network's agents.

Boccardi and Thornburgh need to do more than determine whether Rather and Mapes get away with it. There has to be a full public accounting of the circumstances and environment that made the attempted hit possible in the first place.

As it is, Mapes' future is an open question.

But Rather, sort of, gets to skip town before judgment is rendered.

His last day in the anchor chair is meant to be March 9, 24 years to the day after he succeeded Walter Cronkite — an anchor once described as the "most trusted man in America."

History's verdict on Rather will be — needs to be — much harsher.

He has only himself to blame.

Courage, Dan.

You think in a city that has Mission Control that we could have better ways to
clear our freeways. The Honorable Mayor White of Houston has enacted a law on
the Houston freeways if you breakdown or have a flat you will be towed in 6
minutes at a fee of $75.00. If you don't have the cash, check, or charge card,
the car is impounded! Yes indeed , "Houston we do have a
problem!!!!!!"

This will really get the Tourism for Houston a lot of good!
Dan Rather where are you when we need you?

The assasination of the former prime minster of Lebanon Rafiq Al- Hariri is an American Israely conspiracy excuted by the Israely Mosad to drive Syria out of Lebanon.

Hey Don Dean, If you can't pay with cash, check, credit card or charge card, your car gets impounded? That 6 minutes seems awfully quick, maybe the tow truck is ordered after 6 minutes.

Ed, if the Mossad drives Syria out of Lebanan, can that be so bad? Sure seems like a deadly, tragic even sleazy and criminally wicked way to do it.

This Houston traffic problem is another reason for the morons to hate George W. Bush, especially down in Texas. It has to be Bush's fault, because after all, he used to be governor of Texas, he caused this. Just wait, they'll prove it over here on this "I Hate George Bush" forum.

http://www.quicktopic.com/28/H/vAGmYRyWRC7h

Is it true that Dan Rather will be working for the National Enquirer?

Good riddance

DISBARRED ATTORNEY / CONVICTED FELON … receives "Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal" -reality check?

The National Republican Congressional Committee has just awarded convicted felon, disbarred attorney, John r. Burgess, buffalo grove , Illinois, the 2004 "Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal".

Burgess’s background. includes convictions of fraud, attempted larceny and soliciting under age prostitutes. additionally, the state of New York found burgess guilty of misconduct, immediately threatening the public interest and, the Supreme Court has disbarred Burgess from practicing law.

Burgess’s company, International Profit Associates, Buffalo Grove, ILlinois has been charged in the largest ever EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit, and is presently under investigation by the Atty. Generals of several states.

Burgess is presently employing the NRCC award in an extensive PR campaign to entice new business to his company.

Doesn’t anyone do their homework??

Robert,

Can you back that up with a source?