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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / The Firing of Dan Rather

The Firing of Dan Rather

by John Cole|  February 27, 20057:05 pm| 22 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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This is alternately amusing/alarming:

It was meant to be a heart-to-heart: just the two presidents and their translators, sitting alone inside the historic castle that overlooks the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Four years earlier, in another castle in Central Europe, George W. Bush looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and saw his trustworthy soul. But what he saw inside Putin last week was far less comforting. When Bush confronted his Russian counterpart about the freedom of the press in Russia, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: “We didn’t criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS.”

It’s not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush’s National Guard service. Yet it’s all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media

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Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    TJ Jackson

    February 27, 2005 at 9:07 pm

    Is it really so unusual that Putin would frame all this within the context of his own experience and that he doesn’t really understand how America operates? Look at the way people in the US said we could negotiate with the mullahs in Tehran or with the jihaddies. Some people just don’t get it and never will.

    For example, old Europe.

  2. 2.

    Aaron

    February 27, 2005 at 10:45 pm

    I was taking a course in Australian politics at an Indonesian university. The lecturer was a visiting Australian professors. The course began to discuss the free press in Australia, and how the government could only ASK the media not to print something if national security was at stake.

    Several hands shot up and asked “how is that possible?” “why wouldn’t the government simply shut down the paper, etc.”

    Very illuminating.

  3. 3.

    S.W. Anderson

    February 28, 2005 at 1:03 am

    Putin is off by a few clicks as to the degree of presidential authority in this area. But he’s not completely off as to the way things are headed.

    Advancing the trend of recent decades, Bush made it clear to the White House press corps from the git-go that those deemed unhelpful would be punished. That means access denied; no saying So-and-so is just doing her job; no second chances.

    I think this policy is one reason why CNN’s John King got a whale of a lot of access to do his almost worshipful paean to Bush last year

  4. 4.

    Bob

    February 28, 2005 at 9:24 am

    Regimes generally limit the freedom of the press as much as they can.

    With the tightening of the ownership of the media in the U.S., and the ownership almost entirely consisting of large corporations, the interests of the current regime in the U.S. and the Media are pretty consonant.

    There was that old saw, that freedom of the press is free to anyone who can afford to own a printing press. With each generation there is more consolidation and new technologies with the potential to be used by dissenters.

    By the way, along with presiding over NAFTA, which has had long-term disastrous affects on jobs here in the U.S., the Clinton Administration sat back while media conglomerates gobbled up television and radio stations. So as much as Bush’s tax relief for the ultra-wealthy is so destructive for the average American, Clinton’s fingerprints are on on job losses and media concentration.

  5. 5.

    CadillaqJaq

    February 28, 2005 at 10:32 am

    Freedom of the Press is an old, quickly going out of date expression. It was in vogue when people actually bought newspapers to get the news. Broadcast media and now the recent explosion in web logging has brought about substantial unbridaled changes in news reporting/absorbing, at least in this country and maybe a handful of others. Risking preaching to the choir, who other than maybe Putin doesn’t realize that?

    Question for anybody: does today’s Russia have many web loggers getting their word out? Just curious.

  6. 6.

    Mikey

    February 28, 2005 at 11:56 am

    They really, really, do not understand Americans or America, do they?

  7. 7.

    Kimmitt

    February 28, 2005 at 1:07 pm

    By the way, along with presiding over NAFTA, which has had long-term disastrous affects on jobs here in the U.S.,

    I just want to step in for a moment here — most studies seem to show that NAFTA was more or less a wash for American or Canadian jobs (though a benefit for the consumers of both countries) and a significant net positive for Mexico, job-wise.

    Sorry for interrupting with a tangent.

  8. 8.

    shark

    February 28, 2005 at 1:12 pm

    And lets give a big FUCK YOU to Dan Rather while we’re at it, for handing them this sort of situation to either misinterpret or deliberately lie about to undermine our country….

  9. 9.

    M. Scott Eiland

    February 28, 2005 at 1:33 pm

    *snicker* Sounds like Putin is reading DailyKos and/or Atrios. If the CIA is intercepting Russian intelligence messages, they’ll probably find out what the Russian equivalent of “Chimpy McHitlerburton” is.

  10. 10.

    M. Scott Eiland

    February 28, 2005 at 1:43 pm

    You know, reading that Putin comment makes me wonder if Putin was remembering Bush the Elder’s notorious on-air slam of Piltdown Dan during the 1988 campaign, and was trying to re-create it within his own frame of reference. If so, it failed, and we’re left with yet another reminder that Piltdown Dan is a pathetic failure who will be nothing but a historical punchline fifty years from now.

  11. 11.

    Bloggerhead

    February 28, 2005 at 2:31 pm

    Yeah, Scott, as opposed to, say, Brit Hume, who will be known to posterity as “Honest Brit” and lionized, beginning in the Hindrocket administration**, as the bulwark of journalistic integrity, until the even more scrupulous bloggers were able to take over.

    And, John, the real misguided perception was the president’s apparent belief that he can see into people’s souls. Given Putin’s actions since then, I wonder what it was that the Russian saw when he returned Bush’s penetrating gaze.

    **Hey, if you can implant journalists with fake names, why not a president.

  12. 12.

    S.W. Anderson

    February 28, 2005 at 5:53 pm

    M. Scott Elland’s vindictive, twist-the-knife ehthusiasm for bashing Dan Rather would be right at home at BlogsForBush

  13. 13.

    M. Scott Eiland

    February 28, 2005 at 6:53 pm

    Hard to resist twisting a knife that he tried to put in someone else’s back, S.W. I believe they call that “karma.” Piltdown Dan got his ass handed to him by Bush the Elder seventeen years ago, and he’s wanted payback ever since. It’s a shame that he’s too incompetent to manage it, isn’t it?

    Oh, and you might want to have your eyes examined–the name’s “Eiland.”

  14. 14.

    Bob

    February 28, 2005 at 9:16 pm

    Kimmit, NAFTA was the beginning of a series of trade agreements that generally moved manufacturing jobs abroad. NAFTA itself was just among Canada, the US and Mexico. The shift in jobs to Asia has had a more profound effect on the US. Those manufacturing jobs had historically had more health and retirement benefits, union wages, etc. Some of this was offset by a boost during the dot.com boom, but that busted. Right now the American standard of living is way over what the average American is making. That’s reflected in the trade deficit, which is itself obscured by the artificially cheap Chinese currency and their willingness to finance our debt.

    Right now America’s working class (I know, it’s a quaint concept) is in jeopardy.

    Big problems ahead.

  15. 15.

    Bob

    March 1, 2005 at 10:09 am

    That’s why it would be nice to further investigate how the Texas Air National Guard information was leaked to the press. It’s got the scent of Rovian dirty tricks. Of course, many here actually laugh that Rove might have pulled one on Rather, not realizing that he pulled a bigger one on them.

    Rather, by the way, was a news reader. He got his start in national news misreporting what happened in Dealey Plaza when JFK was offed. By definition of his position, he offered nothing for the political argument, left or right (despite some attempts to presume a mighty bias). He just read was was put in front of him.

  16. 16.

    Jim Treacher

    March 1, 2005 at 10:53 am

    The “Dan Rather as Ron Burgundy” defense? Hmmm…

  17. 17.

    M. Scott Eiland

    March 1, 2005 at 12:24 pm

    “The “Dan Rather as Ron Burgundy” defense? Hmmm…”

    Yes, Boob’s argument has two independently entertaining things about it:

    1) It’s laughably untrue, and;

    2) It insults Piltdown Dan.

    Beautiful!

  18. 18.

    Kimmitt

    March 1, 2005 at 7:45 pm

    Kimmit, NAFTA was the beginning of a series of trade agreements that generally moved manufacturing jobs abroad.

    Yes, but they also generally moved financial services and other jobs here. NAFTA’s a wash for the US and Canada. This is my field. Trust me.

    Right now America’s working class (I know, it’s a quaint concept) is in jeopardy.

    This is a real and very important issue. It’s also not a new one — low-skill wages haven’t increased in real terms since 1973 or so, while the wages of other workers have increased at or above the growth rate of GDP/productivity. This problem has little to do with NAFTA and much to do with a host of other — and very complicated — factors.

  19. 19.

    Bob

    March 1, 2005 at 11:29 pm

    Kimmit, I won’t argue with you. I see a heavy erosion in blue-collar jobs with nothing to replace them. I see no real effort to train people. I see a constant effort to further weaken what little power these people have (breaking unions, destroying social programs).

    NAFTA drove a lot of Mexicans off their farms.

  20. 20.

    wild bird

    March 2, 2005 at 10:50 am

    Is putrid putin all broken up now that DAN RATHER is no longer there? why is he so up set? it looks like one left-wing liar is out and other is all ready to cry his heart out what a woosie

  21. 21.

    Bob

    March 3, 2005 at 10:10 am

    wild bird, as long as you can imagine Putin (an intelligence thug) with Dan Rather (news reader for a network in the US) as part of the grand conspiracy against Heaven On Republican Earth, you will have trouble understanding anything much beyond putting on your shoes and tending to your toilet needs.

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    February 28, 2005 at 12:01 am

    Around The ‘Sphere

    Items selected are NOT limited to one viewpoint. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of The Moderate Voice.

    PARTISAN,…

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