“The only true indication of his treatment of a Democratic president loved by all liberals, with no Vietnam War or closet conservatism to threaten that love, is his treatment of Bill Clinton. Dissent was minimal and usually token and obligatory.”
— Ratherbiased.com on CBS News anchor Dan Rather’s preferential treatment of Democratic presidents, namely Bill Clinton (Aug. 22, 2002)
Move over, CNN. Another spin-doctor for the Left is scrubbing up to perform even more extensive cosmetic and reconstructive surgery on Bill Clinton’s hemorrhaging legacy.
In his fourth interview with the ex-president, CBS News top propagandist Dan Rather, who has twice kissed the blood-soaked feet of Saddam Hussein, while never requesting a sit-down with President George W. Bush after nearly four years, will be given yet another chance on “60 Minutes” to kiss the ring of Bill Clinton, the Don of the Democratic Party – and the man Rather wishes were still in the Oval Office.
The Rather-Clinton love fest is scheduled for Sunday, June 20 on “60 Minutes,” in which Clinton will be allotted an unprecedented one-hour to catch Rather’s endless softballs, where Clinton will no doubt be given the red carpet treatment as a prelude.
According to USA Today’s Peter Johnson on June 1, Rather and Clinton plan to talk in a progressive dinner-type manner: First in Little Rock, “where Clinton is building his presidential library; Harlem, where he keeps his post-presidency office; and Chappaqua, N.Y., where he lives and where he wrote the book in longhand.”
Rather was quoted in USA Today as saying that “Clinton is worth it”:
“Few presidents have written memoirs themselves, and obviously we want the interview to have as much breadth and depth as possible.”
Yeah, right. As if Clinton ever had that “breadth and depth” when Rather was going easy on him for eight years. What makes Rather think the American public is going to hear anything different, other than his latest slam on Bush?
Johnson’s headline, “Rather gets Clinton” was even more revealing: Of course Rather “gets” Clinton; he’s one of many liberal reporters who truly understands and relates to the heart and soul of Bill Clinton.
Clinton, the paper tiger that refused to confront Saddam Hussein after declaring in 1998, along with the rest of his Democrats that he, too, like Bush, believed Hussein possessed WMDs and was a threat to U.S., won’t be getting filleted like Bush has been over the last four years in one of Rather’s copious Republican fishing expeditions.
After all, Democrat sycophants like Rather had ignored the countless opportunities to expose Clinton as the consummate political fraud. Instead, Rather and his media allies let Clinton keep his “Get out of every political, corporate and moral scandal” media pass and “Stay out of jail for perjury, tampering with evidence, suborning witnesses” free card.
What’s more, after confessing to Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly on May 15, 2001 that he truly believed Clinton “at core” was an honest man, Rather went even further by claiming: “I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
Still, on Feb. 7, 2002, Dan Rather made even more excuses for Clinton’s pathological lying when he told MSNBC’s “Imus in the Morning” host Don Imus via phone interview that as a reporter, he actually views Bill Clinton’s lying as an excusable human frailty:
“I think the fact that someone has told a lie, even a big lie or maybe several big lies over a lifetime, does not mean that they’re an inherently dishonest person. But, you know, this may mark me as one of those people – I believe in redemption and that Bill Clinton – is he an honest person? I think he is an honest person.
“A lot of this is just dancing on the head of a pin. Well, I think we understand, Imus, that, you know, people like O’Reilly, they are never gonna say anything good about Bill Clinton. And anybody who says anything good about him is gonna be castigated by them and maybe that’s fair enough. My own view is that, though I’m a reporter, I try to report deep down the middle and try to allow for, you know, human mistakes.”
But this is the same Dan Rather who always stops short of calling George W. Bush a liar for the war in Iraq, claiming Bush is responsible for what former Clinton staff member Dick Morris refers to as actually Clinton’s “ticking time bombs” left for Bush in the form of Hussein, bin Laden and al-Qaeda terror cells. (Yes, Dan, there is a connection!)
It was also extremely telling when Dan Rather was the only U.S. reporter that Saddam Hussein handpicked to spin for him in February 2002.
In fact, Saddam Hussein actually heaped praise on Rather, which in itself speaks to Rather’s strange obsession with murderous dictators (i.e., Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat) and his willingness to become a mouthpiece for their anti-American propaganda:
“The responsibility of displaying the truth as an outstanding man of the media, to carry out this responsibility is something that is on – of course you will do that,” Hussein told Rather. “You can play the truth. [Bush] will be sparing people many – a lot of harm.”
Essentially, Rather’s overall goal in meeting with Saddam Hussein was to get the now-detained demon-possessed despot to humiliate President Bush and undermine his authority as our leader – as well as give Rather another chance to make excuses as to why Bill Clinton never really started what George W. Bush had to justly finish in Iraq.
“President Bush sends his regards,” said a U.S. soldier admirably of George W. Bush as the cowardly Butcher of Baghdad was being pulled out of his spider hole last December.
But U.S. troops were never able to respect Bill Clinton as their commander-in-chief that same way, and rightly so. It was mainly because Clinton loathed the very military he initially dodged as a young anti-war college student – and eventually sought to later use for politically timed photo-ops, impeachment deflections and his own self-aggrandizement.
Also equally telling is Hussein’s now-dead son, Uday, who was quoted as saying once that he feared George W. Bush because Uday knew his time of raping, torturing and murdering innocent Iraqis was short with Bush in office.
Conversely, however, Uday never feared Bill Clinton. That’s because Clinton never once pursued the terrorists who kept attacking us here and abroad, on his watch. They knew with Clinton in office, they were safe. And that’s exactly how Dan Rather has kept Bill Clinton – safe, while at the same time, bashing Bush.
Moreover, that’s exactly why Rather earned the title of “the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporter for 2001” at the Media Research Center’s Dishonor Awards. In addition, Rather won unanimously in two other categories: The Flakiest Comment of the Year and the Sore Losers Award for refusing to concede Bush’s victory in Florida.
(When Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris called the state for Bush, instead of reporting objectively, Rather editorialized how Harris had called it as she “sees it and decrees it.” What’s more, after Bush was legitimately elected, Rather even went on David Letterman and had further revealed his disapproval of Bush when he complained that Bush wasn’t “elected” but instead was “selected.”)
Yet, given his open apologetics with Clinton – and his open animosity towards Bush, Rather will still be the star pitcher of countless, ready-made softball questions he’ll ever-so-gently toss to the former president of the most corrupt and scandalous presidential administration in U.S. history, in the upcoming “60 Minutes” interview.
But it should come as no surprise: With the seemingly endless parade of hate-filled, anti-Bush hit pieces by axe-grinding, disgruntled, washed-up political hacks like Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke and Joe Wilson, “60 Minutes” has been rapidly building a reputation for promoting Bush hatred since last March.
Ultimately, the Rather-Clinton floor show will be a deliberate attempt to undermine the Bush administration – complete with a collective slap in the face to our U.S. military and the war on terrorism by having on the one man that could have done more to stop the current spread of international terrorism, but purposely refused to do so in the long run.
As the media elite’s biggest Clinton apologist (with CNN and the New York Times close behind) to go to bat once again to help Clinton hock his book of fables, “My Life,” which he should have called “My Lie,” Rather will seek to belittle Bush, while trying to score political points for John Kerry’s faltering campaign. Rather will also give Clinton’s 9/11 legacy one more shoeshine.
Much like the star treatment Rather has always lavished on Clinton, Kerry is just another in a very long line of corrupt Democrats that Rather has gone great lengths to shelter from legitimate criticism, especially if it means adamantly discrediting Bush.
After all, Kerry needs all the help he can get – even if it means the media elites continually compromising what little journalistic ethics they have left in order to accomplish their number one goal: Bringing down President George W. Bush.
While continuing the elite media drumbeat of the Abu Ghraib hysteria, Rather, who erroneously claimed credit for breaking the story (when it was actually our honorable U.S. military who started the investigations and demoted those involved – and that they had already told the media about back in January), has also taken credit for this latest so-called “big coup” with Bill Clinton.
Much like another political softball pitcher for the Democrats, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Rather will undoubtedly do his level best to help Clinton win yet another of many more political games against the alleged “vast right-wing conspiracy” team.
To date, Rather, who won’t likely be sitting down with Bush anytime soon, has had sit-downs with Clinton in August 1996, March 1999 and December 2000. But Bush hasn’t actually been in a big hurry to speak with Rather, given Rather’s unprofessional ambush of his father, George H.W. Bush.
Since Rather falsely accused Bush, Sr. of not being honest with the American people concerning Iran-Contra, why should George W. Bush ever trust Rather again to be fair to him? Especially when Rather got up and stormed off the set in middle of the interview:
“You made us hypocrites in the face of the world!” Rather screamed at Bush, Sr. on Jan. 25, 1988. “How could you sign on to such a policy?”
When George W. Bush was eventually interviewed by CBS, only “60 Minutes II” correspondent Scott Pelley was allowed to talk with Bush; both Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw had already interviewed Bush – probably because they were less likely to be antagonistic than Rather would have been with President Bush.
Also, given Rather’s hostile treatment of Republican presidents, is it any wonder why George W. Bush doesn’t hold many news conferences with the angry, spiteful White House press corps who have been extremely unfair in their coverage of Bush?
Recall Bush’s speech in March? Six of the most ravenous, liberal White House press reporters simultaneously declared open season on Bush with vicious, accusatory questions, specifically aimed at embarrassing and demeaning Bush and his job performance.
In stark contrast, Clinton, who is loved by all media liberals, is going to get even more praise and softballs tossed to him when he shows up on Oprah Winfrey on June 22, and NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” on June 23:
“To me, it was an easy call,” gushed Jeff Fager, “60 Minutes” executive producer to Knight-Ridder Newspapers’ Gail Shister on June 4. “This guy just wrote 957 pages, and he’s a very interesting and controversial figure. He’s got a lot to say.”
Actually, Clinton would have a lot more to say if he had told the truth about Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Vince Foster, Ron Brown, Whitewater, Enron and the countless other scandals that Dan Rather and his media minions have been covering up:
“Dan’s been pushing for this story, and he got it,” Fager told Shister. “There’s a comfort level there. I think Clinton trusts him. I think he respects him.
“It’s very rare when a president writes his own memoir so soon after leaving office. I’d be shocked if we don’t find an hour in it. I’m sure we could do more,” Fager said almost giddily. “Plus, we usually do repeats in June.”
Well, of course there’s a comfort level with Dan Rather. Clinton has always trusted and respected Rather – and why shouldn’t he? Rather has never been hard on Clinton – especially after Rather has been running damage control for the Clintons since 1991.
Unequivocally, Rather equally adores Hillary Clinton:
“Dan Rather admires Hillary Clinton,” said Ratherbiased.com. “He shows his admiration by asking soft questions, promoting her, and defending her against criticism. He also seems to believe that Clinton was correct in describing a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
For example, on his May 1, 1998 broadcast, Rather went to bat for Hillary in this liberal diatribe during the Whitewater investigations:
“The President and Mrs. Clinton came under new and strategically aimed political fire today on two fronts. Republicans raised new questions about First Lady Hillary Clinton in selectively leaked tapes from the congressional leadership on Capitol Hill – recordings of personal prison phone calls made by Mrs. Clinton’s former law partner Webster Hubbell.”
At a CBS affiliates meeting on May 27, 1993, Rather was quoted by the Columbia Journalism Review as having said (when referring to Clinton’s congratulatory comments on his new partnership with then-co-anchor Connie Chung):
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Rather gushed. “Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President. If we could be one-one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners.”
Casting aside any vestige of journalistic objectivity, towards the end of the interview with Clinton, Rather could no longer hold back the tremendous, all-encompassing adoration that was bubbling up inside of him for both Bill and Hillary during the satellite interview:
“Mr. President, we appreciate more than we can say in a short time both being on CBS This Morning and taking the extra time to do this. God bless you. Thank you very much. And tell Mrs. Clinton we respect her and we’re pulling for her. Thank you very much.”
But whenever anyone has tried to honestly investigate or interrogate the Clintons, Rather would quickly and forcibly lapse into his typical Democrat defense mode – especially when the scandals involved Bill Clinton’s documented womanizing.
“Rather seems to love Bill Clinton so much that white is black,” said Tim Graham of the Media Research Center on May 21, 2001 about Juanita Broaddrick’s rape charges against Clinton that Dan Rather and other in the Democrat-friendly media have slanted:
“The only problem with Rather’s argument is what really happened at CBS on the Broaddrick story. He seems to think investigating it or sending out reporters is pandering to Republican pressure groups. (It’s easily said that Rather had no resistance to pressure groups when the accuser was Anita Hill.)
“Broaddrick’s story of sexual assault was merely a skunk in the middle of the road to be driven around and ignored. When her interview surfaced on Dateline in 1999, Rather publicly declared that he didn’t like the story and hoped it would vanish.”
When he spoke with O’Reilly, Rather concluded his arguments in incontrovertible defense of Bill Clinton:
“What you’ve got is you have the Republicans trying to bring down Bill Clinton. I think it was an organized campaign.”
Graham added that Rather was careful only about the anti-Clinton accusations, not with Clinton’s crumbling credibility in denying any affair with a woman:
“For all his usual talk-show bluster of Mr. Breaks In When the News Breaks Out, Dan Rather has been revealed as a man who believes honesty is overrated, and that he was willing to sit on any story that might show that the truth is “unfortunate for Clinton and the country,”” Graham said.
But for Rather, his ideological biases and Democrat-friendly leanings have routinely clouded his news judgment. To Rather, there’s a certain sense of wonder and nostalgia about Bill Clinton, who ideally embodies everything liberals like Rather have adopted.
Towards the end of Clinton’s presidency, Rather admitted on CNN’s Larry King Live that he might even be interested in doing a talk show with his beloved ex-president:
“You talked about what President Clinton is going to do,” Rather giddily told King. “How do you feel about a talk show that had President Clinton and myself on a national talk show, maybe 9:00 Eastern Time? How would you feel about that?”
Rather loves the Clintons so much, he made no apologies for doing everything possible to shield Bill and Hillary from public and judicial scrutiny during the impeachment trial:
“I have hated it [the Lewinsky scandal] from the very beginning and I have hated right the way through…I have no apology. I hate it. I have hated it all the way through,” Rather told King on Dec. 3, 1998.
In fact, earlier that same year, Rather made his pal Bill Clinton out to be the victim of Kenneth Starr’s alleged witch-hunt and Monica Lewinsky’s supposedly unwanted sexual advances. But it was actually Dan Rather who started a witch-hunt of Starr, not only to protect Clinton but also to smear Starr’s impeccable reputation in the process.
Relying heavily on slanted polls mainly produced by CBS and Clinton-friendly New York Times during the Clinton-Gore era, Rather seemed to have been willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel to adamantly defend his main man, Bill Clinton:
“By more than two to one, the public says special prosecutor Ken Starr is politically motivated to damage the Clintons,” Rather said in Feb. 18, 1998.
“[In] a CBS News poll about public reaction to the alleged Clinton-Monica Lewinsky connection, 74 percent say they personally don’t want to know more,” Rather also reported on his Feb. 18, 1998 broadcast.
“With President Clinton, only the most virulent Clinton-haters now want him to leave office,” Rather wrote in his Aug. 12, 1998 syndicated column.
To further display his special devotion to the Clintons and his fellow Democrats, Rather also spoke at a Democratic Party of Texas fundraiser, which was organized by his own daughter, Robin. But when he was later confronted about it for ethical reasons, Rather claimed he didn’t know it was a Democratic fundraiser and offered a half-hearted apology; Rather even denied knowing of his daughter’s involvement.
So will Rather let Clinton off the hook yet again in the June 22 interview? More than likely, yes. To prepare, Rather better exercise that pitching arm because chances are he’ll be throwing Clinton a lot of softballs that he would never even think of throwing to Bush.
Ultimately, the major difference between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in Rather’s Democratic lovesick eyes is status. As a fellow Texan, Rather should be just as cordial to Bush as he is to Clinton. But the real reason Dan Rather despises George W. Bush is Bush doesn’t fit into Rather’s elitist mold quite the same way Clinton and Kerry do.
Indeed, there are many answers to questions that Dan Rather and the rest of the elite media have never bothered to ask Bill Clinton that aren’t going to be addressed in their sham of an “interview” on June 20.
But, while still nursing the much-hyped Republican scandals of the Nixon-Watergate era, the Reagan-Iran-Contra era, the George H.W. Bush-“Read my lips” era and the current George W. Bush Iraq war/WMD era, Rather’s total impunity of Bill Clinton and other corrupt Democrats only further reveals his ideological and political biases.
If Dan Rather were really doing his $8 million per-year job, his personal affection for Bill Clinton would never get in the way of his investigative reporting on the volumes of facts and figures regarding Clinton’s high crimes and misdemeanors. And Rather’s admiration for Bill Clinton would never cloud his news judgment like it has the last 13-plus years.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with journalists admiring a U.S. president, Republican or Democrat. Just as long as they don’t allow their admiration to slant their reporting when there are issues to be reported that might place that president in a negative light. But, knowing the politically, morally and ethically corrosive legacy of Bill Clinton, Dan Rather’s biases obviously have surfaced as he seeks to relentlessly defend Bill and Hillary from the numerous scandals and felonies of the Clinton-Gore era.
Only now it’s these same media elites, who have tirelessly safeguarded Bill and Hillary Clinton from public and private scrutiny, that are trying to scandalize and demonize the Bush administration in order to revise Bill Clinton’s sullied legacy.
After all, Dan Rather has shown far more respect and admiration for Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton than he ever has for former Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush – combined.
In essence, the real reason Rather and Clinton have a mutual affection for one another – which has always compromised Rather’s objectivity – is because they are cut from the same cloth. They share the same values and income level, and reside in million dollar neighborhoods, while still hanging out with the same liberal Democrat elites.
But when former CBS News correspondent and Emmy-winning journalist Bernard Goldberg, author of bestsellers, Bias and Arrogance, heroically wrote a 1996 Wall Street Journal op-ed, exposing the fortress of liberalism that Dan Rather and other media elites have kept well entrenched in the news media, Rather’s elitist world was rocked.
Goldberg, a professed liberal, who should be considered a hero of American journalism, was instead despised and labeled a traitor by CBS insiders, even though CBS News president Andrew Heyward, years earlier, admitted to Goldberg: “Of course there’s a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left. If you repeat any of this, I’ll deny it.”
Speaking of which, Rather especially took offense at Goldberg’s thoroughly documented charges of liberal bias, calling Goldberg “deplorable.”
As a counterpunch to Goldberg for exposing Rather as a journalistic fraud, Rather, who clearly acted like a deer catch in the headlines of his own political biases, is now claiming that conservatives are the ones who are biased, when liberals invariably control CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, the two Times and the Post.
In fact, a new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a liberal think tank, found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative. But that’s only counting liberal reporters who even bothered to answer the survey – and answer it honestly: “The argument over whether the national press is dominated by liberals is over,” said Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes in the May 28 edition.
Barnes added that the Pew poll also found that 55 percent of national journalists believe the press should treat Bush more critically than he has been: “They think he’s gotten off too easy, despite empirical evidence of media Bush bashing.”
In the end, Dan Rather has never been able to be objective or honest in his reporting of Bill Clinton. Whenever Clinton re-appears on the public scene, any objectivity Rather ever had goes flying out the window in the presence of his Democratic idol.
While the evidence of liberal bias in the media has been overwhelming after over 40 years of non-partisan polling, Rather will still carry water for Bill Clinton and other degenerate Democrats until he eventually resists the very idea of retirement – clenching tightly with white-knuckled fists to his beloved anchor chair and TelePrompTer.
Imagine, if you were Dan Rather: You’re reflecting on your entire career and the only “accomplishments” you have to show for your nearly 50 years of leftist propaganda are two enemy-appeasing “interviews” with Saddam Hussein, a murderous dictator whose responsible for killing nearly one million people – and the shameless hero worship of Bill Clinton, the most scandalous, amoral and felonious president in U.S. history.
God forbid, if John Kerry actually does manage to also lie his way into the White House as Clinton did, Dan Rather might just win his second Golden Glove for pitching a round of Democrat-approved softballs to Kerry – another equally corrupt Democrat, who will also feel just as politically safe as Clinton did with Dan Rather on the mound.
Part II: Serious questions that Dan Rather won’t likely be asking Bill Clinton about what’s actually in his new book.
Upcoming column: The media elite’s predictably slanderous reactions to the death of The Great Communicator who won the Cold War, former President Ronald Reagan.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”