Dan Rather

I am an authentic blogger

February 20, 2015

We are bloggers. The media ignores us because we are not pompous, arrogant journalists who claim to have an exclusive window on the truth. The media routinely criticizes and ignores us when we fail to confirm the bias of a well oiled, propaganda machine that periodically credits "a blogger" for the sake of advancing a perverse agenda.

According to mainstream media legend, a single blogger instantly convinced the world that a CBS news story was based on forged documents. How do you like that banana? Do you actually believe that bizarre conspiracy theory? Does a blogger like myself, who has reached millions but is still categorically ignored by the lamestream media, actually have the power to restore sanity?

The superhuman blogger (pretend mythbuster) who by some peculiar coincidence was a GOP attorney (probably funded by the Koch brothers or Richard Melon Scaife) patiently waited for Dan Rather's show to air and within minutes, posted the accusation that documents which contained credible allegations were forgeries.

This Dershowitz-like tendency to call the truth a hoax is entertaining, but we should not allow the mainstream media to periodically credit "a blogger" for the sake of discrediting the simple truth.

"Buckhead" the blogger who led the charge against the "Liberal" media had even filed a suit to have President Clinton disbarred in Arkansas, and while I am no fan of Hillary Clinton, she occasinally got it right. But why did the mainstream media promote the agenda of the right wing conspiracy that destroyed Dan Rather? That is the question that mystifies the honest blogger and if you read from the beginning, I have probably answered that above.

The massive delusion of those who claimed that bloggers successfully scaled the citadel of the mainstream media is obscene because the exact opposite happened.

In 2004 when a version of this article was originally posted, CNN just reported that 56% believe that the media is more Conservative than Liberal. Now that CNN has evidently become the best hope for the GOP it is difficult for anybody to suggest that the media is anything but extremely unreliable.

Indeed, the rather staged, CBS controversy generated the gut-wrenching, back-slapping laughter provoking realities like the claim that a propagandist like Bill Burkett was a Democratic strategist who was connected to the John Kerry campaign. Karl Rove had evidently trained Bill Burkett well because the media repeatedly claimed that the DNC was responsible for fabricating George Bush's National Guard records.

Forging Government Documents holds a minimum 10 year jail sentence. Fingers were pointed for strictly political rather than substantive reasons and while nobody went to jail because the truth was never the issue, Dan Rather was slandered to death.

The truth is not that complicated. Bush's handlers were too embarrassed to not be able to fully account for his service during the Vietnam War and the obsession to divert attention away from the fact he had ignored National Guard duty standards and demands was diverted through bogus allegations. Needless to say, if documents were altered to conceal Bush's less than honorable duty, it is simply ludicrous to turn Dan Rather into a scapegoat for the purpose of protecting Bush's reputation.

The real scandal had nothing to do with Dan Rather, it was merely about scapegoating Dan Rather to hide the fact that Bush had disregarded his National Guard duties.

Karl Rove pointed fingers at the Kerry campaign to divert attention away from the fact that Bush was AWOL from the National Guard when many of his peers were drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam, and altering government documents to obscure the truth is consistent with Republican, not Democratic interests.

The intellectually challenged journalists who turned Dan Rather into another lone gunman and credited bloggers for exposing the truth about Bush's National Guard file ignored the blogger who wrote the following:

The Bushes love to ambush Dan Rather to divert attention away from their crimes. Bush Sr. did it to cover up Iran Contra and Bush Jr. did it to divert attention away from the fact that he was a National Guard deserter. Bush Jr. hates to talk about the truth, but he loves to talk about documents, because, in his words, "I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out." So that's what we did. We took a close look at the documents and we discovered that his Texas Air National Guard file show extreme signs of massive tampering. A close examination indicates that the altered parts disguise the fact that Bush did not receive an honorable discharge from the National Guard. The extensive tampering of Bush's discharge form covers up the embarrassing truth, and suffice it to say that if Bush received an honorable discharge for failing to show up, the need to tamper with his records would not exist.

That is the blogger truth the media always ignores.

In fact, Dan Rather got closest to the truth, when he said, "Those who have criticized our story have never criticized the heart of it... that George Bush received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard and, once accepted, failed to satisfy the requirements of his service."

George Bush's National Guard records were tampered with to cover up a dishonorable discharge and Bush's smear machine diverted attention away from criminal tampering and towards political scapegoating.

Facing questions about George Bush’s service raised in the NY Times and its own possible involvement with the disputed National Guard documents, the RNC canceled a hyped-up attack call with Ed Gillespie. After that, the Bush campaign canceled scheduled appearances by Dan Bartlett and Ed Gillespie on cable networks. These cancellations came as the Bush operatives refused to appear in a Q & A format alongside Kerry official Joe Lockhart. The relative silence of Republican operatives mirrored the failure to authentically document George Bush's National Guard duty.

Rather, 75, alleged that CBS and his former bosses “coerced” him into apologizing for a controversial story in which his role was little more than that of a narrator. Two months after the broadcast, he was bounced from the anchor desk, two years earlier than originally planned. He was subsequently marginalized in his new full-time job at “60 Minutes,” robbed of airtime and shortchanged on staffing. And although he was largely blameless, a CBS-commissioned probe of the story was clearly “biased,” because it reached “conclusions that were preordained to find fault with the broadcast and those persons responsible for it.”

Dan Rather was made the “scapegoat” by, among others, CBS executive chairman Sumner Redstone and CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves. Their motives were “to pacify the [Bush] White House,” “appease angry government officials” or “to curry favor with the Bush administration” as a means of advancing the corporate interest of CBS owner Viacom.

Does anybody doubt the fact that Dan Rather was forced to apologize for trying to report the truth?

On September 8, 2004 60 Minutes aired a report on President Bush's Air National Guard service, based on notes from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. These consisted of multiple memos regarding Bush's failure to attend a physical and meet other standard requirements. Lieutenant Killian had died in 1984 and CBS relied on the opinion of handwriting analysts and document experts who believed the material was authentic. "Documents obtained by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" shed new light on one of the most controversial episodes in Bush's military service, when he abruptly stopped flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to work on a political campaign."

" The documents include a memo from Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, ordering Bush "to be suspended from flight status for failure to perform" to U.S. Air Force and National Guard standards and failure to take his annual physical as ordered."

"The documents alleged that President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot."

"A spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," Kelli Edwards, declined to say exactly how the new documents were obtained other than that CBS News understood they had been taken from Killian's "personal office file." In addition to the order to Bush to report for a physical, the documents include various memos from Killian describing his conversations with Bush and other National Guard officers about Bush's attempts to secure a transfer to Alabama. Killian died in 1984."

According to "60 Minutes," Killian's personal files show that he ordered Bush "suspended from flight status" on Aug. 1, 1972. National Guard documents already released by the White House and the Pentagon show that Bush was suspended from flight status on that day for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination" but do not mention his alleged failure to comply with National Guard and Air Force standards.

If original documents were destroyed and replaced with detectable forgeries to discredit the simple fact that Killian was under pressure from his superior, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, to "sugar coat" Bush's officer evaluations, does it make any sense to blame Dan Rather for that?

Next: Why Elizabeth Warren is the perfect presidential candidate.

Plus: How the media is trying to rig election 2017

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