I'D RATHER NOT SAY
GOOD-BYE, DAN
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
By Greg Palast
Without his make-up, Dan looked like hell warmed over: old, defeated,
yet angry. And he told our television audience something that just blew
me away. American journalists, Dan Rather said, simply may not ask
tough questions about George Bush or his wars.
"It's an obscene comparison," Rather said, "but there
was a time in
South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks
if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will ... have a
flaming tire of 'lack of patriotism' put around your neck."
Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism
that keeps US reporters in line. "It's that fear that keeps [American]
journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to
continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often."
Silence as patriotism. He admitted, "One finds oneself saying,
'I know
the right question, but you know what, this is not exactly the right
time to ask it." It was making him ill and he was ready to say, basta,
enough. Suddenly, there was fire in those eyes.
"It's extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted
and I'm
sorry to say that, up to and including this moment of this interview,
that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And
the current Administration revels in that, they relish and take refuge
in that."
Of course, Dan said all these things to a British audience.
[our hero.]
-
But CBS' million-dollar man was about to step out of line.
In 2003, BBC Television questioned George Bush's career as
Viet Nam
era Top Gun fighter pilot. In the British broadcast, I held up a
confidential letter from Justice Department files stating that Poppy
Bush had put in the fix to get Junior Bush out of 'Nam and into the
Texas Air Guard. George could spend the war protecting Houston from
Viet Cong attack.
A year after the BBC broadcast, the
I'm-going-to-be-a-real-journalist-now Rather
decided to run the same story on 60 Minutes. And just as he predicted,
the press-police at the network and in the White House seized him and
lit the tire around his neck.
What was Dan's mistake? Yes, yes, he shouldn't have embellished the
story with a document he couldn't fully source. But that memo (not the
one in the BBC report) was about a side issue, not the key accusation,
that Senior Bush got Junior out of the draft. Despite not a jot of
evidence that the main story of draft-dodgin' George was wrong (BBC
never withdrew it), CBS cited Rather's insistence on the veracity of
that report as grounds to crush his career and his reputation.
Rather was convicted by a corporate kangaroo court. Dickie Thornburgh,
who had been Poppy Bush's Attorney General and owed his big salaries
and career to the Bush family, ran an "independent"
investigation which
concluded -- surprise! -- the Bushes had done no wrong.
It was Dan that committed the evil. That whacky conclusion went along
just fine with the diktat of Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, CBS'
owner, that a "Republican administration is better for media
companies."
In "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler explained why old Communists,
brought up for trial by Stalin, still sang the system's praises -- just
before they were shot. To do otherwise would have been to cast doubt on
the cause to which they sacrificed their lives. Now, Dan Rather, like
those soon-to-be executed victims of Stalin, has bowed his head in
silence in the face of the evil purge. To do otherwise, I suppose,
would be to acknowledge that his career has been a path of increasing
salaries and celebrity bought by increasing toady-dom.
Imagine if Edward R. Murrow, after having exposed Joe McCarthy, replied
to criticism by bowing his head for the noose-man.
Rather died as a journalist years ago by accepting the evil gag orders
of the media moguls. Still, I applaud his attempt with the Bush story
to kick his way out of his professional coffin. Unfortunately, his
current silence simply gives aid and comfort to the censoring corporate
news-killers.
Tonight, Rather read off his last "news" broadcast, if you
can call it
that. To Dan the newsman, and to American journalism, all I can say is,
rest in peace.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his reports at