The New York Observer [1]‘s Joe Hagen says:
With respect: answer the questions,” said Dan Rather, the CBS News anchor. He was asking a direct question to President George W. Bush, his re-election campaign and his political allies in the press and on the Web. “We’ve heard what you have to say about the documents and what you’ve said and what your surrogates have said, but for the moment, answer the questions.
…
“It’s never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn’t show up for a physical,” he said. “The longer we go without a denial of such things—this story is true.”
…
“I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story,” he said. “If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.“This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth,” he said.
Uh huh.
So when did you stop beating your wife, Dan? I say that with respect, of course… but I really think your credibility as a newscaster would be strengthened by your simply answering my question. You’ve never answered that question, you know. The longer we go on without a denial of such things, this story is true.
I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward you, and CBS news, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about this wife-beating because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story.
Oh, is THAT your attitude Dan ? You going to cop a ‘tude with ME?
Look, Dan, I gotta say this: Your denials are NOT helping your case, here. If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information.
Your non-answer is is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth, Dan.
Time to fess up.
When DID you stop beating the snot out of your wife? Answer the question and quit dodging.
Ps to the reader:
OK, you get the point.
I know what this is; Ratings. I reported a poll by ABC/WaPo yesterday that says Joe McCarthy rates higher on the approval scale than the person CBS is intent on getting into the WhiteHouse… John Kerry. So, perhaps, Dan’s just trying to get better approval ratings… Kerry’s tactics of lying didn’t work… why not try lies combined with flawed logic and strong-arming like McCarthy did?
Is Rather really senile enough to try to push an attack any Freshman in journalism school would tell you is just soooooo flat out wrong? I guess the evdience points to an answer of “yes”.
Hat tip to Q and O [2] who has more.