Dan Rather says "It's All About Me"
September 20, 2004, 8:19 a.m.
It's All About Me
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***
Our first contributor has been in the news a lot recently. Or should I
say, he has been the news for 40 years. But he's no has-been. You've
watched him, you've laughed with him, you're laughing at him, it's CBS
current-affairs supremo Dan Rather, who tells NRO how he lives with
himself.
As the world's hardest-working journalist, I am often approached in the
street by fans demanding to know how frequently I'm on CBS - though
they often confuse me with Kenneth Anger, who Lesley Stahl once
told me I resembled! "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", they ask,
politely but firmly, before pummeling me. Well, to use one of my
pithiest down-home Ratherisms, you're seeing me more often these days
than a Bush-voting southerner is hurricanes!
If you watch CBS Evening News, as many of America's seniors do, you'll
know that some partisan "bloggers" - Republicans too lazy to get out of
bed in the morning, I think! - are casting doubt on the veracity of
documents dating from early 2004 that conclusively prove that George
Bush is not fit to be president of the United States, unlike John
Kerry. For these people, I have one simple, direct question that you
can stick in your own Memo to File: Do you have any idea of how
important I am?
I am a world-respected reporter who bases his reporting on
unimpeachable sources and anonymous tips, not like that dilettante
Cronkite. I report. I report the decisive facts. I report, and I decide
the facts. No opinion. Just pure, unfiltered, substantive, fair and
accurate facticitude, as we used to say at Sam Houston State
Teachers College, my alma mater. As my good friend and fellow "Sam
Houstonian," James Carville, remarked over lunch at the Mile Eye Club
when the partisan political ideological forces at the Washington Post
and ABC started spreading their lies, the sacred institution of nightly
network news is the mainstay of our democracy, and has been since the
Louisiana Purchase. That's why I am called an anchor - I provide
Americans with the kind of weighty news bogged down in silt and covered
with barnacles they're crying out for in this information-starved age.
In other words, presenting 60 Minutes II is a hallowed trust, a boon to
mankind. I am that trusting boon. "Bias" is simply not in my
vocabulary. And neither is "Chandra Levy," come to think of it.
If I were not television's most respected newsman, then why is it that
I am repeatedly asked by Les Moonves to cover the world's most
dangerous assignments? One week, I'm braving the fiery temper of
Hurricane Ivan by myself in a rowboat off Cuba; the next, I'm literally
"on-air" when I fly - with a monkey test-pilot at the controls, if you
can believe that! - the Air Force's untried, experimental
nuclear-fission jetplane somewhere over the South Pacific. Or what
about the time Andrew Heyward said at the morning
conference, after I'd proposed doing an in-depth, challenging story
about subversive CIA operations in Western Samoa in 1978, that he
wished I'd move there! And everyone else at the table agreed! I'm
sorry, pajama-clad partisans, but no other anchor could demand - and
receive - so much time off from appearing on CBS network affiliates to
get the kind of in-depth, challenging stories I'm renowned for.
Here's another tough question - the kind for which I'm justly renowned.
How is it, if my critics are right to say that "Rather has lost it" or
that "CBS stands for Counterfeit Bush Scandal," that I have so many
explosive scoops in the pipeline? I don't want to spill any trade
secrets, of course, but I'm working on two - beat that, Shafer, you
loser - blockbuster segments for 60 Minutes II! Tomorrow, I'm flying to
Abilene to liaise with an unimpeachable source who's providing me with
copies of copies of diaries written by Adolf Hitler between 1906 and
1947. These will finally prove to the world that this gadabout
housepainter refused to take a medical exam before entering the
Imperial German army in 1914, so rendering him unfit to command
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht come 1939. I've even arranged with
world-renowned historian Hugh Trevor-Roper to consult them with me,
though he hasn't returned my calls. But my producer assures me that
Professor Michael Bellsiles, universally regarded as an expert
forensic-document examiner in the groves of academe, will be there to
authenticate them. After that, I'll be investigating the most
controversial story of my career: I can't say much now, but a secret
text, typed on a superscript-equipped 1897 model IBM Selectric, called
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been provided for my eyes only
by an unimpeachable and anonymous source codenamed DAVID IRVING. Its
conclusions are going to rock the world. No longer will America believe
that Lord Rothschild did not use his family's influence to pull a few
strings when he financed the Suez Canal. A few random "bloggers" and
the American public as a whole will refuse to believe me, but CBS
stands by the accuracy of its story for the moment. Personally, I think
the lack of definitive evidence disproving the book's authenticity
speaks for itself. That is the real story here.
Courage.
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Liberals Hate America!
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