Before there was Trump there was Reagan. He also drove them insane. After Reagan there was Bush sr who didn't drive them insane but only had one term. Them there was Bush jr who also drove them insane, but why is a story for another time.
But this story isn't about him. It's a tale of hubris and the downfall of the last of the great newsmen. Who actually weren't great but that is a story for another time.
Dan Rather
Dan Dan the looney man
Dan Rather was a news broadcaster who was always slightly off.
For three broadcasts he'd stare straight at the camera and say “Courage”. It was Freaky and they made him stop.
He got attacked by a crazy homeless man who kept going “Kenneth what is the frequency?”
REM made a song about it
He replaced Walter Conkrite as the CBS newsreader.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/2/15/cbs-will-replace-walter-cronkite-with/
Walter Conkrite hated him so much CBS had to bribe him with a network deal to get him to shut up
https://nypost.com/2012/05/17/darn-rather/
https://theguardian.com/media/2005/mar/13/business.theobserver
Then in the 2004 election Dan Rather tried to eat an elephant and choked to death.
John Kerry was the 2004 Democratic nominee and was getting slaughtered in the polls because all his old army buddies hated his guts for calling them baby killers and were not afraid to say it out loud.
The journ*lists were searching high and low for proof about George Bush's service in The Air National guard to offset this.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/my-role-in-rathergate_b_65222/amp
Doonsbury creator Trudeau offered cash to anyone who could prove it
He got nothing
Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, a leftist journ*list with an axe to grind, got the scoop on Bush using the Texas national air guard to draft dodge thanks to a meMo given to them by Bill Burkett, a maniac with a grudge.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rathergate-what-were-they-thinking/article745948/
If you think I'm being unkind to Bill Burkett here he is in his own words.
https://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html
He claimed to have overheard someone talking about “needing to scrub Bush's Vietnam record”, then claimed he was transferred to Panama as punishment for refusing to falsify George Bush's record.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna6055867
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2004/09/15/bill-burkett/
Then it turned out the documents were obvious fakes .
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna6055248
As revealed by free republic by a man named Harry MadDougald https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3347939/posts
They were supposedly typed but were in Times New Roman font
Michael Moore was offered the same documents by the lunatic with a grudge but declined
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1219050/posts
They had been faxed to CBS office from a Kinko fifty miles from Burkett's house. He claimed he burnt the originals. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html
Confirmed
fakes
https://www.thomasphinney.com/tag/killian/
Again
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/?p=1198527
And
https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/fw.pdf
Confirmed
https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/fw2.pdf
Again
https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/bush.html
And
https://creativepro.com/the-digital-dish-making-headlines-not-setting-them/
Again
https://www.aufamily.com/topic/10555-cbs-experts-warned-cbs-they-were-forgeries/
And
https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Hoaxes/cbsmemos/index.html
again
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/those-discredited-memos.html
And
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2004/09/10/killian-memo-update-3/
Again
https://www.drexdoclab.com/certifying-documents-what-we-learned-from-dan-rather/
And
Again
https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/t47br/dan_rather_on_george_w_bush_report_we_reported_a/
And
https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2004/11/05/forgery-for-dummies-democrats/28160027007/
again
Bush said they were fake
The secretary said she never wrote them
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Texas-Guard-secretary-says-she-didn-t-type-Bush-2725014.php
Killian's son said his dad didn't write like that
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna5956461
Killian's son went on fox news and talked about how the memo's were fake
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/killian-cbs-docs-smear-my-father
Killian's unit chief thought they were fake
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-guard-memos-questioned/
The Coperate media call them “fake but accurate”
But Bush would probably lose a lawsuit
https://old.reddit.com/r/Ask_Lawyers/comments/fgc6lv/rathergate/
But the New York times said forging the memos was probably a felony
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/opinion/first-find-the-forger.html
So Mary Mapes and Dan Rather got fired
There was an investigation
They released a report
The New York times book review didn't like it but who gives a shit about them?
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/05/12/the-flawed-report-on-dan-rather-an-exchange/
Bill Burkett, a crazy man with the innsmouth look, complained that the investigation ruined his reputation
https://www.salon.com/2005/02/22/burkett_letter/
They're still blaming Karl Rove
Walter Cronkite says he's a dumbass
https://ew.com/article/2005/03/10/dan-rather-signs-courage/
The feeling was mutual
Dan Rather still defends the documents
https://ew.com/article/2015/11/02/dan-rather-defends-truth/
No really
https://danratherjourn*list.org/investigative-journ*list/60-minutes-ii/record
Dan Rather still says he's a victim
https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/182tx8/i_am_dan_rather_former_anchor_for_cbs_evening/
He even sued for it
https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7m26s/dan_rathers_70m_lawsuit_likely_to_deal_bush/
https://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/2007/09/rather-files-70-million-lawsuit-against.html?m=1
https://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/2007/09/rather-files-70-million-lawsuit-against.html?m=1
And lost
Mother jones, a leftwing rag, agrees
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/04/bush-national-guard-story-lives/
Other leftist say he was set up
https://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/21/killing_the_messenger_who_gave_rather
Mary Mapes is still a part of the loser lecture tour
Mary Mapes wrote a book about it and how she helped the insane Mr Burkett contact the Kerry campaign
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2015/november/mary-mapes-60-minutes-truth-movie/
Hollywood made a movie celebrating Dan Rather as a modern day saint. Even New Yorkers were unimpressed
https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/movie-review-truth.html
No one liked that movie
https://www.stlmag.com/culture/film/truth-a-tepid-preachy-take-on-the-rathergate-scandal/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-dan-rather-movie-truth-lies-about-good-journ*lism
Not even Portlanders
https://www.wweek.com/arts/2015/10/28/would-you-rather/
Except Dan Rather
https://variety.com/2015/film/news/dan-rather-truth-robert-redford-1201661570/
And Mary Mapes
https://variety.com/2015/voices/columns/truth-cbs-news-mary-mapes-1201661448/
Bernard Goldberg and Dan Rather are old enemies, but that is a story for another time. Join him as we gloat over Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS and the death of sixty minutes.
https://www.bernardgoldberg.com/p/a-lost-fact-in-the-rathergate-mess-part-1-2
Also shocking Mapes knew Bush volunteered to fly in Vietnam but the air force thought he sucked and wanted someone who didn't need training wheels. Now that's the scoop you run: “George Bush was a terrible pilot”.
Cato says the government shouldn't investigate Rathergate. Someone remembers that to protect freedom for Thor you must also protect freedom for Loki.
https://www.cato.org/techknowledge/rathergate-incident-remembering-why-separation-press-state-vital
Chuds still mad
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/02/08/memo-to-dan-rather-shut-up-about-memos/
And so so are coperate journ*lists
But I mostly hate /r/askhistorian for strangling what could have been a great spergout in the cradle
Wikipedia deep dive because it just wouldn't be a 911roofer post without it
Who is Manuel Miranda ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy
Cope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_3#Recreations?
Karl rove!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_4#The_Lucy_Ramirez_page
Dan rather's daughter did it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_9#Rather's_Daughter
Now to monday morning quarterback. Rather and Mape's main mistake was to fall in love with a story. As a journ*list you should know when to give up. Kerry's comrades from Vietnam hated his guts and were willing to say darn near anything about him because they felt he was a traitor, but just because your candidate is losing doesn't give you the right to cheat. The second mistake is trusting someone with a grudge. As I previously said Kerry's crewmates hated his guts and were willing to say darn near anything to destroy him. Bill Burkett was like them, in that be blamed Bush for his problems with medical insurance and wanted to destroy him. That's not a reliable source. If you go to shoot the king don't miss.
The third mistake was accepting photocopies of documents Bill Burkett claimed he got at a livestock show. As Mike Walker put it in his brilliant book on journ*lism Rather Dumb “paper trails keep you out of jail”. These documents may have been stolen and that's a felony. Do you really think Bush wouldn't have Dan Rather frogwalked to prison on national television? Also if you don't know where they came from how the heck do you know they're real. There is a use for such dubious documents, however. Show them on-screen and mention that they might be forgeries but the white house refuses to confirm or deny these documents. “Are these real? I don't know. Only one man can answer that. President George Bush, what are you hiding?”
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