Rather, Old Boy

Well, Gunga Dan escaped the firing squad. I'm not surprised, even if I am disappointed. Dan's the last guy left on earth who thinks Memogate got the story right, even if us simple types can't see it. What I can't see is how See.B.S. can possibly consider itself an honest dispenser of paper Dixie cups, much less the news.

I heard Bernard Goldberg on Sean Hannity's radio show this PM, and he suggested that this was all unnecessary - the MSM only needed to adjust itself to modern realities of the news business and they would not be irrelevant. What he meant (as I understood it) is that people have plenty of choice, and if the MSM is going to treat the public like morons, we're going to go elsewhere. I don't think this has happened yet, but it's seeming more inevitable as time goes by. Blogs, talk radio, whatever - there are plenty of places where people can go for news, analysis, opinion, whatever.

There's no need to take Rather et al as THE truth. Moreover, when a guy like this is shown to be a partisan, stubborn, know-nothing hack, the rest of us feel pretty justified in ignoring the MSM. All Rather had to do was say "look, we thought it was kosher & it wasn't, sorry" and he might have saved a shred of credibility. At this point, you get more reliable information from the Weekly World News and the National Enquirer than from network news.

Let's not even mention the report the suits came up with. No political bias? I presume there was no intent to influence the election, hmmm? I read a great quote from Abigail Adams tonight in Our Oldest Enemy ( which I highly recommend, BTW) when referring to the undeclared war between the US and France in the 1790s "Why, when we have the thing, should we boggle at the name?"

Now, aside from anticipating a highly popular word game of the 20th century, Mrs. Adams had her head screwed on correctly. Just because nobody found a memo from Rather to CBS execs saying "hey guys, I'm gonna screw Bush tonight so Kerry gets elected" doesn't mean the thing wasn't intended that way. The rest of us can see that. Defend this to the death, Danno. You're just hastening the death of network news, and I'm ready for that.