CBS news anchor Dan Rather appeared on BBC a few nights ago and admitted that the patriotic climate post-9/11 prevented journalists from asking tough questions of its leaders, and compared the situation to South Africans during apartheid who would have burning tires placed around their necks if they dissented. I could have done without this apples to oranges analogy to South Africa (Rather himself said the comparison was “obscene” though that didn’t stop him from using it), but I was bothered more by the interview itself, and the implication that somehow Rather was taking the high-road.
Rather, you might remember, stirred some controversy when he was interviewed on CNN back on September 22, 2001 and said that he didn’t “feel right” wearing an American flag pin on his jacket lapel as was quick becoming the de rigeur display of patriotism among TV talking heads after September 11th. But he also said that “I have absolutely no argument with anyone else who feels differently,” and in fact he did wear a flag pin on his nightly broadcasts. And, in the same CNN interview, he said that “What I want to do, I want to fulfill my role as a decent human member of the community and a decent and patriotic American. And therefore, I am willing to give the government, the President, and the military the benefit of any doubt here in the beginning.” (Emphasis mine) And lest we forget, this is the same Dan Rather who several times on national tv offered himself for national service: “If [Bush] needs me in uniform, tell me when and where — I’m there.” (He also said more or less the same thing in this recent interview: “”I would willingly die for my country at a moment’s notice and on the command of my president.”)
And look at this statement from the BBC interview: “[Self-censorship] starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole – and for all the right reasons – felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within themselves. And one finds oneself saying: ‘I know the right question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it.‘” (Again my emphasis). I’m curious what Rather thought were the “right questions,” let alone when this supposed “right time” would have been, since he had already unquestioningly allowed that the prevailing patriotic mood was for “all the right reasons.”
So forgive me if I’m feeling a little underwhelmed at Rather’s admonishment of the media for self-censorship, himself included. If you ask me, he — and just about every other mainstream journalist — checked his credibility at the door the day he decided he would be willing to give Bush the benefit of any doubt, for any period of time. How safe for Rather to now speak up about “patriotism run amok” 8 months later, from the safe vantage point of time and the ever so slight tarnishing of Bush’s image among the American people. And is it a coincidence that Rather is now speaking up at the very same time that the media is falling over themselves en masse to determine what Bush knew about terrorist threats before 9/11, seizing the moment to collectively don their muck-raking hats that have been collecting dust in closets since September 11, 2001?
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Rather has long been the poster-child for what conservatives like to think is the liberal bias of today’s media, and so I was curious to see what RatherBiased.com — a site dedicated to “documenting America’s most politicized journalist” that I discovered in the days post-9/11 — would make of these recent admissions by Rather. However, I’m sad to report that the site effectively closed down last December. It must have been tiring grinding that old saw of the media’s liberal bias! At any rate, there are plenty of other groups and societies for “responsible journalism” (read conservative bias) that are wagging their I-told-you-so fingers at Rather’s recent admissions.
