Abstract

Where Rather Was Right

The article discusses a mistake made by television news anchor Dan Rather regarding documents on President George W. Bush's National Guard service. Dan Rather and his "60 Minutes II" colleagues ought to feel embarrassed, but so should his "60 Minutes I" colleagues who seemed more eager to exonerate "60 Minutes" from having anything to do with those tainted documents than to support their colleague, who has anchored CBS News with passion and professionalism for twenty-three years. Instead of going with documents of dubious provenance they should have gone with Marian Carr Knox, who, as Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian's secretary, would have typed them but says she did not, yet adds that the information in them accurately reflects the views of her boss. If, as seems to be the case, the underlying point of the "60 Minutes II" episode was accurate, then it is a sad comment on the rest of the press that they have relentlessly and repeatedly focused on what Rather got wrong and relatively ignored what Rather got right (namely, that pressure was put on Killian to "sugar coat" Bush's National Guard record, that Bush got into the Guard via favoritism, that he got paid for meetings he did not attend, that he missed the physical he signed up for, and all the rest). Of course, if the media do their job between now and Election Day, there is one other narrative they ought to bring into focus, and that is the issue that should have been front and center from the outset: the narrative about Iraq. Is the U.S. war on Iraq an extension of what we did in Afghanistan, a real "war on terrorism" that is making the world a safer place?