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Dan Rather Admits Press Failure on Iraq »

Posted by: populist 3 months ago

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Rather opened by admitting that, referring to McClellan, " Whatever his motives for saying these things, he's right," but he also recalled that some reporters did ask tough questions: "So how do we reconcile these competing reactions? Well, we need to pull back for what we in television call the wide shot."

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chuck-the-canuck3 months ago

Perhaps our views on many things differ because some of us watch more than just the US cable and network news. I watch American news, I watch Canadian news, I watch British news and take them all with a grain of salt. Not much point listening to talking heads if they are all connected to the same body.
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Blackacereturn3 months ago

At lease he tried.
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  libsRfunny2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  Rather? Hardly. He was too busy flailing around an obviously fake medical "report" on Bush and pretending to have evidence.
  As for McClellan, he obviously failed miserably in his role as a press secretary. A good press secretary points out potential argument and information flaws and possible consequences. He never did.
  If McClellan says the press was "complicit" and an "enabler," then McClellan was so many more times over. The only thing the Bush White House could be held guilty of is group think, not lying.
  
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  injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  Blackacereturn
  At lease he tried.
  Really Danny Boy?
  FTA
  In the wake of 9/11 and in the run-up to Iraq, these news organizations made a decision -- consciously or unconsciously, but unquestionably in a climate of fear -- to accept the overall narrative frame given them by the White House, a narrative that went like this: Saddam Hussein, brutal dictator, harbored weapons of mass destruction and, because of his supposed links to al Qaeda, this could not be tolerated in a post-9/11 world..
  Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor September 17, 2001
  Dan Rather, anchorman for CBS News, appears on The David Letterman Show shortly after 9-11. The show had been off the air for a week.
  RATHER: President Bush made what I think is his strongest statement yet when he went to the Pentagon this afternoon. He was Giuliani-esque -- I don't think he would mind me saying that, no. He looked the camera straight in the eye -- unblinking -- and said "Osama Dead or Alive."
  
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    injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
    
    [Audience applause]
    RATHER: And with what we're dealing with here, which is not one man [Bin Laden], it's a hydra-headed operation that's in 55 countries around the world. Now granted, the focus is on, and we should understand, not just Afghanistan -- Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
    "Uhm did ya get that? Danny boy listed several countries including Iraq. This was 6 days after 9/11 and Danny boy, not Bush linked AQ to Iraq"
    
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      injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
      
      RATHER: They hate America. They hate us. This is one thing that makes this war different. They don't want territory, they don't want what we got -- they want to kill us and destroy us. It's a heavy statement, but it's true -- they seek to accomplish our death. Death as a people, as a society, and a culture.
      LETTERMAN: Why?
      RATHER: Who can explain madmen, and who can explain evil.
      RATHER: Saddam Hussein, if he isn't connect to this, he's connected to any other things. He's part of this 'Hate America' thing. You have to understand, Saddam Hussein is somebody I have sat this close, eye to eye.
      "Hum did ya get that? Danny boy Saddam to 9/11 or at lest he should be taken out for good measure. This was 6 days after 9/11 and Danny boy, not Bush linked AQ to Iraq.
      Ya think Danny boy belief that Saddam WAS behind 9/11 might have played in to the belief of the MSM linking Saddam to 9/11?"
      
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        injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
        
        LETTERMAN: The other day, Dick Cheney -- who to me seemed like the real deal -- Dick Cheney was talking about how counter-intelligence and espionage is dirty business, and maybe now we were going to have to get down in the mud with these people, and I thought well Holy God wasn't that the way it was supposed to be?
        RATHER: This [war] will be long, the casualties will be greater. Let's face it, we've already had more casualties, I mean five thousand of our fellow Americans have been killed already. When we talk about casualties, we've suffered casualties, but there will be more.
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        injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
        
        When we send out sons and daughters into this kind of war, into this Twilight Zone that they're going, there will be great casualties. Now, it remains to be seen whether we have the staying power, that's basically up to you, and me, and everybody in the audience, and every American, whether we have the staying power, whether we have the will to stay with it, is the big question. But you say 'Will it do anything?' I certainly think it can, but what would we think of ourselves if we didn't try.
        RATHER: This will take years, this may very well take another four, eight, ten years. The world's view of us, in many places with many people, is we just don't have the stomach to stick anything out. Well, we were great during World War II, but this is a new generation, they're all spoiled.
        Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
        Interview on "The David Letterman Show"
        September 17, 2001
        
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jimdoze3 months ago

The failure of the Press is that of depth of understanding in a broad range of matters, including: 1. The history and cultures of the Middle East, 2. The enormous catalyst to ethnic troubles emanating from oil wealth, 3. The worldwide necessity for the daily flow of vast quantities of oil from the region. 4. The exhaustion of realpolitik as a means of keeping the lid on rival factions in the region. 5. A lack of imagination as to the consequences of the region erupting in all out war. All of which leads to the fallacious assumption that that the administration is self-dealing... which, in turn, leads to the fallacious assumption that Iraq was simply a self-dealing adventure gone awry.
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  Beau78902 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  It's really much simpler than that, jim.
  The failure of the press is that they don't think critically and no longer do their own investigations.
  Most reporters and editors are lazy, and when stories come to them prepackaged by some PR firm representing the White House, industry, or some other group, they most often run with those stories.
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    jimdoze2 months, 4 weeks ago
    
    I second the laziness notion.
    I also fault Bush's inability to articulate enough of his vision, without fully divulging overarching strategy, to stimulate the dormant curiousity of the press corps. If that inability to articulate should, in the end, result in premature withdrawal from Iraq, it will move that character flaw from the comic to the tragic.
    
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      hyperbola2 months, 4 weeks ago
      
      Well jimd, Bush has given us at least half a dozen different, inconsistent "explanations" for his disastrous Iraq war. How about just plain misguided incompetence at this point. What is urgent is to weed out the incompetents that got us into the quagmire on false pretences in the first place - from both political parties and the media.
      Don't let Iraq War Architects Back into Polite Society
      
      Politics â;; "Someone should have to pay in some way for the decisions that they made to mislead the American people," said Clarke, counterterrorism adviser. "Some sort of truth and reconciliation commission" might be appropriate because, he said, "we can't let these people back into polite society".
      http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/06/08/...
      
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      Beau78902 months, 4 weeks ago
      
      Why do you think he didn't fully divulge (I'd say he actively hid) his overarching strategy, which as you pointed out the other day, was to protect American oil interests?
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        jimdoze2 months, 4 weeks ago
        
        Beau, you are misquoting me. I did not say it was to "protect America's oil interests". The essence of what I said was that protecting the overall flow of oil from the Middle East was in the interest of the world, the world economy and, as such, in America's interest. There is a vast difference in the tenor and substance of those two statements.
        He did not fully divulge primarily because Turkey is considered our ally. While considered our ally, there are very substantial factions within Turkey who would love to see Iraq break apart. Those factions would literally have a field day in that event... and we would not be able to hold Turkey back. This is the reason that Pelosi's Armenian gambit was beyond stupid.
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        Beau78902 months, 4 weeks ago
        
        Well, I was trying to summarize rather than quote you. But I may be missing something about your argument.
        How does Bush's not divulging that we wanted to protect the WORLD'S oil interests by deposing Saddam hold Turkey back? It seems to me that under your premise that factions in Turkey would like to see Iraq break apart, and we were talking about deposing Saddam for any reason, Turkey would have a field day.
        In fact, it seems that the less reasonable our justification (i.e., to find and destroy WMDs that many didn't believe existed as opposed to protecting the world's oil interests), the more reason those factions would have to foster civil war in Iraq.
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        jimdoze2 months, 4 weeks ago
        
        Turkey is held back by the fact that we have boots on the ground there. They won't risk fighting us. However, it is not uncommon for them to cross the border chasing Kurds. Further, at this point they know that we are working toward a unity government while trying to impress upon the cooler heads amongst the Kurds their fate if Iraq falls apart.
        In meantime, we are doing our best to prevent Iran's proxy war in Iraq from igniting further ethnic based violence. Violence which Iran knows would fuel the flames of anti-war sentiment in the U.S., possibly getting us to leave.
        First and foremost, we are protecting Iraqi oil interests... which, btw, serves the world's economic interests and, therefore, ours. Nothing would make the current administration happier than to have a unified Iraq, able to protect itself internally and externally, pumping larger and larger quantities of oil into the World oil markets... for all to buy. With that, we'd leave in a heartbeat.
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    bluetexasvalley2 months, 4 weeks ago
    
    "...stories come to them prepackaged by some PR firm representing the White House, industry, or some other group..."
    In the newspaper industry they are called *handouts*, and rightfully so.
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  hyperbola2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  Well jimd, having studied quite a bit of the "background" information that you cite, I reached the conclusion that the Iraq war was indeed a self-serving adventure gone awry - and furthermore that it was evident that it would go awry from the beginning.
  US corporate media has several major problems, including: (a) it regurgitates "state propaganda" from a corrupt government trying to cover up failure without verification, (b) it is extremely provincial (knows little about the world) and governed by a herd mentality, and (c) much of it is in cahoots with generalized corporate corruption.
  
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    hyperbola2 months, 4 weeks ago
    
    McCain and the IRI - A Center for Corruption in Iraq
    
    Politics â;; Corporate media pundits have covered up that the military-industrial complex and oil industry played an integral role in the invasion and occupation. Shady figures such as Black, Scheuneman and Jackson and unscrupulous companies like Chevron, Blackwater and Lockheed Martin. At the center are none other than IRI and John McCain.
    http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/06/09/...
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unome23 months ago

I don't think the media was all that great prior to 9-11, but starting on that day it slipped into a whole new level of mis-information.
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BB643 months ago

Danny admits press failings? He has no credibility. If it wasn't for Kennedy's assassination, he would have remained a nobody. As to failings, this coming from a man you "created" his own news stories. His desire was to effect the outcome of an election through lies and fake documents. And now we're supposed to think he has an opinion worth my listening? Dan Rather, go away.
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Neophile3 months ago

Here's the full video of Rather's speech at the NCMR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97SzcumnYdc
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  injest2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  Reporters didn't question if Saddam Had WMD's or not because they had been reporting it as FACT for YEARS!!!
  It really is just that simple.
  
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joeblowe3 months ago

This puts me in mind of several movies I've watched where some reporter guy gets wind of a big story that is going to simply SCREW a local or national politician to death. The intrepid reporter digs and digs and starts getting together a very damning story from a couple of corroborating sources, THEN there's the meeting with the local editor. Who says, "Kill that story" or some such thing because the local editor doesn't want to OFFEND the people who spend AD money at the paper, or perhaps he is corrupt too. THEN the "big boss" shows up and says, "Screw 'em - run with it." What we need here is more of that heroic "big boss" who doesn't care about ad revenue so much as he cares about telling the honest truth. If we had more of that here in Illinois just MAYBE our state and Cook county governments wouldn't be QUITE so horribly corrupt. And - maybe we wouldn't be in Iraq?
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  jimdoze2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  And just maybe, if they weren't all hell bent on becoming the next Woodward and Bernstein, they would have at least attempted to obtain a fundamental understanding of why are in Iraq and why we need to be.
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    hyperbola2 months, 4 weeks ago
    
    Rubbish. The Bush government is STILL trying to repeat the failures of British colonialism in Iraq for cheap oil. Like the Brits before us, it will fail - the only question is how much more mass murder will occur before we leave.
    Iraqi MPs in Washington: No to Bush, yes to Arab League
    
    News â;; Iraqi MPs roundly rejected the idea of negotiating any binding longterm Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States as long as US forces remain in their country. They also said that the Arab League might be the outside party best placed to convene the negotiation required to achieve intra-Iraqi reconciliation.
    http://news.propeller.com/story/2008/06/08/iraq...
    
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      earthlingerer2 months, 4 weeks ago
      
      I take it that's the kind of democracy that Bush/Cheney and the neocons don't respect.
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nikkibabe2 months, 4 weeks ago

It is not too late. The media can tear apart John McCain with tough questions and bring him down. At least it will be payback for Bush and the failure of the media in 2002/2003.
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  abntv2 months, 4 weeks ago
  
  Still living in the past ehh?
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agoodlibertian2 months, 4 weeks ago

to jimdoze: you are incorrect. The Irag was was to deceive
the american people so big business could make lots more money. If you still do not believe this is true, you are a fool.
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hamy2 months, 4 weeks ago

At least someone finally has the balls to stand up and take some responsibility for this mess. Although the people who really should never will.
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simonsez2 months, 4 weeks ago

My niece, Katelyn, stationed at Baluud, Iraq was assigned, with others of her detachment, to be escort/guard/watcher for Martha Raddatz of ABC News as she covered John McCain's recent trip to Iraq.
Katelyn and her Captain stood directly behind Raddatz as she queried GI's walking past. They kept count of the GI's and you should remember these numbers. She asked 60 GI's who they planned to vote for in November. 54 said John McCain, 4 for Obama and 2 for Hillary. Katelyn called home and told her Mom and Dad to watch ABC news the next night because she was standing directly behind Raddatz and maybe they'd see her on TV.
Well, of course, we all watched and what we saw wasn't a glimpse of Katelyn, but got a view of skewed news.
After a dissertation on McCain's trip and speech, ABC showed 5 GI's being asked by Raddatz how they were going to vote in November; 3 for Obama and 2 for Clinton. No mention of the 54 for McCain.

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bigurn2 months, 4 weeks ago

Where was Rather's courage when he was in a position to change things from the inside? Now safety retired, he brow beats the industry that made him a millionaire. I find the reaction distasteful.
The "old" media is far too fueled by immediate gain, the 24 hour news cycle, and is headed by corporate managers who are too far past their prime. While there is plenty of error in the "new" media, there is enough accuracy to give the rest a run for their money (pardon the pun). Sites like Propeller exist in part due to the failure of the old media. I haven't had a newspaper subscription in a decade, and rarely watch even the local news.
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Tcaros2 months, 4 weeks ago

Dan Rather is somewhat of a patsy, same for Charles Gibson.
The press is bought and payed off at the highest levels. There is no more "free press." It's been replaced with a press that has to "check" with the front office before running a story which may affect someone's profit.
Those who are proffiteering off the war have connections in the media and entertainment fields.
(shows like 24, alias, etc.. glamorize intelligence work- reality shows make it acceptable to peer into people's private lives ) The more noticeable influence is the lack of a "solitary" question to make anyone in this administration accountable to the public. That is what the press used to do.
Would we ever see a Woodward and Bernstein?
hmmm...
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Tcaros2 months, 4 weeks ago

Instead of Woodward and Bernstein, we have some lap dogs; Rather and Charles Gibson.
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nikkibabe2 months, 4 weeks ago

After this administration of crooks ends on 1/19/2009, they should try all of them from top to bottom for war crimes and crimes against humanity and put them behind bars.
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chuck-the-canuck2 months, 4 weeks ago

The administration lies to the press.
The press lies to the people.
And everybody lies to themselves.
I would have much more (I'm not really sure the word is respect, but I'll use it anyway) if the Americans said, "Yeah it's all about the oil. So what."
It's all the hypocrisy that stinks.
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Tcaros2 months, 4 weeks ago

This really makes you wonder if there is a case to be made regarding freedom of the press.
Are they violating the "spirit" of our Constitution's 1st Amendment?
We know that a free press keeps corruption in check.

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