Follow-up

05/27/2002

Dan Rather's behavior of late would cause most reasonable folks to guess that he's gone off his medication. Long considered the Great Satan of media bias, he still managed to touch our hearts and rally our spirits with his declaration of patriotic love of our country and support for our president in the difficult time after September 11. (1)

Then last week, in a schizophrenic twist, he expressed a fear that patriotism was getting in the way of asking the tough questions and that a reporter might be "necklaced" for failing to be patriotic enough. He added, "I worry that patriotism run amok will trample the very values that the country seeks to defend." (2)

This week, he's become even more manic. Most media people have realized that the public isn't buying the politicized hysteria of "Bush knew!" and have backed off to a more broad-based and reasonable questioning of what we can learn to better our abilities to prevent terrorist attacks in the future. Yet Dan Rather hasn't finished chewing this bone:

Wednesday, 05/22/2002, on Imus in the Morning, Rather claimed that because Attorney General Ashcroft didn't fly on commercial jets last year, then that proves that he knew terrorist hijackings were imminent.

"You can certainly give a new President the benefit of every doubt about what he knew. The, you know, the New York Post had this big headline, 'Bush Knew.' Well, you know, knew what? However, increasingly there are important questions that need to be asked, but again, until recently, I would say, until the last week, nobody was asking 'em.

"For example, the Attorney General of the United States before, just before September 11th, started inexplicably taking private aircraft to places where normally the Attorney General wouldn't take private aircraft, you know, government planes. Well, that would indicate that somebody somewhere was getting pretty worried, but if you're going to share that with the Attorney General, you know, why wasn't it shared with the public at large?"

Then he claimed bizarrely that the recent terror threat warnings were just a way of changing the subject from what Bush knew:

"You know, I can believe that the President and the people around him were surprised and peeved, to say the least, that the information got out last week, with David Martin's report, that President Bush had been briefed about some things that in retrospect, after September 11th, would indicate that, well, maybe somebody should have done something, and I can also believe that as with every President, somebody is in the White House scratching their head saying, 'How can we change the subject?' Now, the subject has been changed, suddenly and very effectively, from how is it that the FBI and the CIA didn't move on the information they had, where was the President briefed about what and when? The subject's been changed from that to suddenly one administration official after another and each escalating it as a new set of warnings. Maybe these two things are not connected, but surely the people in the administration and others could forgive us for perhaps thinking, well, perhaps there's some connection here."

In his next hour, Imus asked NBC's Jim Miklaszewski about the Ashcroft story. Although Miklaszewski initially supported Rather's version of the tale, twenty minutes later, apparently after doing some checking, he called back with this correction:

Miklaszewski: "Well, what happened, before he was sworn in, there was a personal threat assessment done by security agencies at Justice, and it was determined that since John Ashcroft is such a polarizing figure, that the threat assessment against him would be high, and that shortly after he was sworn in, he started taking government planes all the time -- it was recommended for his own security. And that during the summer, apparently when this story was first reported, Justice Department officials report that there were actually some threats against Ashcroft's life and that it had nothing at all to do with any terrorist threat."
Imus: "As Dan Rather tried to imply on the program here about an hour ago, trying to take down poor John Ashcroft, suggesting that Ashcroft had information about all of us being in jeopardy and -- well, he did imply that, but I think--"
Miklaszewski: "Yeah, that was their point, that apparently there were some stories some months ago that implied that Ashcroft was, in fact, had in fact information that caused him to take government jets for his own security and he wasn't passing that information along to the rest of the American people, but Justice Department officials say that record has already been set straight, but of course, that kind of setting straight never gets as much play as the original accusations." (3)

Not surprisingly, Dan's crazy talk raised a few eyebrows at the Justice Department. On Friday he was back on Imus in the Morning acting like he was the one who should be offended:

"It probably would be better for him [Ashcroft] to spend a little less time trying to, you know, sully up my reputation in some way, cover his own backside, and a little more time in let's get this thing straight."

Somebody ought to explain to Mr. Rather about two-way streets! Then he decided to blame the Justice Department for his spreading of mis-information:

When the use of the private plane was announced in July, "the Justice Department said the decision not to take commercial flights was made because of quote, 'a threat assessment' by the FBI. Nothing at that time about any specific threat to the person of the Attorney General. And when the Attorney General was asked about it at that time, his answer was frankly kind of confused and confusing. Now anyone listening right now may have ample evidence that everyone can be poorly spoken at any one time. But what I'm getting at is this: When the Attorney General and Justice Department don't come out and say, clearly and unambiguously, that this is because of a specific threat to the person of Mr. Ashcroft, that they make -- at the time remember, after 9-11 they changed some -- but rather make vague pronouncements about threat assessments, maybe vague for good reasons, who knows, then I don't think reporters can be blamed in light of what's happened since for asking: 'Well, wait a minute, was the threat assessment at peace with similar warnings we've learned about concerning commercial airliner hijackings or not." (4)

Between our snorting and chuckling, we would like to remind Dan Rather that it is his primary responsibility to get his facts straight. If he wants to hold himself up as a serious newsman and then chooses to spread gossip and rumors instead of facts, he shouldn't be surprised if he finds himself in hot water. Perhaps a nice long rest, as in retirement, would be in order.

If you would like to express your outrage to Dan Rather, the contact information is below:

Dan Rather
c/o CBS News
524 West 57th Street
New York, New York 10019
Phone 212-975-4321
FAX 212-975-1893

E-mail contact page (Use the "feedback" link at the very bottom of the web page)
or
insidescoop@cbsnews.com

Read more here:

NewsMax.com - Dan Rather: Bush Issued Bogus Terror Alert to Cover Up 9-11 Bungle
NewsMax.com - Dan Rather: Ashcroft Is Out to Get Me