Discussion: Dan Rather Defends Brian Williams: He's 'An Honest, Decent Man'

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Discussion for article #232943

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The number of fucks I give about this story is rapidly dwindling.

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Media only wants to investigate each other. I
think I’d rather be dry-humped by Steve Doocy as he watches King
Abdullah drop bombs on ISIL than follow this story.

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The pilot says William aircraft did receive some small arms fire that day, but the RPG attack was on another chopper in the formation. So, it seems Williams didn’t flat out lie as much as embellish or exaggerate. The pilot knew about the claim years ago, but figured it was just a case of whatever.

My guess is Williams peed his pants when he heard the chopper had taken small arms fire. He had to explain his wet pants some way. Small arms fire absorbed by the bridge they were hauling became an RPG upclose and personal. Cut the guy a break.

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“Dan Rather Defends Brian Williams: He’s ‘An Honest, Decent Man’”

He’s also supposedly a “liberal”, which is why this is resulting in him being pilloried instead of a quick round of IOKIYAR.

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Dan Rather did not lie, but was deceived and he got a bad deal. He is more forgiving than I would be about how he got treated compared to other journalist who have lied and plagiarized.

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If you’re referring to how Rather was treated in the aftermath of trying to release dumbya’s military records I’d have to agree. But Williams is so much prettier and so much more unctuous and that gets him points…

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Dan Rather was done in by his producer, Mary Mapes.

Those documents came to 60 Minutes through Bill Burkett - a stooge caught up in his own good intentions and zeal. Burkett’s source was later tied to Karl Rove (See <a href=http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/truth-or-consequences">Texas Monthly for more details, though there is more to the story than they report)

Burkett then hustled the questionable documents straight to 60 Minutes. where this -new story- quickly replaced the story they had been working on of G W Bush’s Guard service as reported by Jim Moore (Author of Bush’s War For Reelection, Bush’s Brain) and myself. Mary Mapes rushed to air this new story without putting the documents to extensive vetting, particularly as to a source.

The documents began to be questioned within hours of his story airing. The right wing web kicked in and within a few days most people believed the Burkett documents to be thoroughly discredited. It wasn’t pretty. Rather soon capitulated and quickly faded into silence.

This was all devastating to me. I’d spent an incredible amount of effort and time researching and writing about G W Bush’s National Guard story only to watch the water be muddied with questionably sourced documents.

At this time I had been interviewed twice by Rather’s producer, Mary Mapes, about the Bush National Guard Story. I had offered them the original Bush military records which I had obtained through FOIA request with an unbroken chain of custody paper trail, complete with letters of release. Mapes was more interested in what I knew about Bill Burkett whom I knew from paranoid emails he sent me about finding documents at an old Air Force base in Texas. I didn’t trust Burkett and I warned Rather’s producer that Bill Burkett had ties to J.H. Hatfield - the Author of “Fortunate Son.”

Fortunate Son came out during the runnup to the 2000 election.The book made claims about a G W Bush cocaine arrest which was supposedly covered up by his father G H W Bush. The book was quickly discredited when the author was found to have been a felon.

After this the stories about Bush’s cocaine use were dropped.

With his book pulled from shelves, the law coming after him again and mounting debts, J H Hatfield then killed himself - but not before declaring that Karl Rove had given him the cocaine arrest story. There are phone records of at least one call between Rove and Hatfield.

To this day I believe Rather was set up by Karl Rove.

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That’s a pretty good assumption for sure. Republicans are experts at deception, dissimulation, guile, hypocrisy, duplicity, fraud and trickery. If only Dems had just a wee bit of it in their veins

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It’s too bad that the media doesn’t savage Fox reporters as much when they screw up. I mean the opportunities are endless. But then Fox News is an entertainment network and not a …news network…

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Chammy, my problem is I really want to vote for honesty, integrity and intelligence. There’s too damned little of that in politics these days. We’re stuck with stuff I don’t even want to describe.

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Thanks so much for the link. It’s an endlessly fascinating story although a sad and frightening one about honest politics which has gone the way of the dodo.

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Martin, you are the stealth creature lying in the weeds. Its easy to forget you are there and then, POW, you pounce.

That is not intended to be a backhanded compliment either, just a regular old compliment.

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Williams hurt his own standard and comparing him to the dregs of the news business does him no favors. He either has great integrity or he doesn’t. This little expose pretty much tears down the high integrity wall.
Is he awful, no. Does he have the highest journalistic standards, I guess that depends on how you measure them or his honest ability to judge himself.
I say, he has scarred himself forever.