Get rid of Dan Rather? Absolutely!

   Dan Rather is an insult to anyone who calls themselves a journalist. His public and on air behavior this past week proved to the world, once again, that he is not objective in his reporting and CBS is fast losing creditability as a newsworthy broadcast network.
   My Mother always taught me that if I couldn’t say anything nice about someone, not to say anything. But there are times when it is very difficult to follow this advice. This is one of those times.
  Dan Rather is arrogant, cunning, devious, deceptive and sanctimoniously phony as a three dollar bill. In lieu of straight news reporting, which he is supposed to do, he continually slants and distorts the news to suit his own personal agenda. He used to get away with it before the advent of talk radio and cable news companies but it is not so easy now.
   His egregious conduct a week or two ago on “60 Minutes” reminded me why I no longer watch or listen to CBS News. In a carefully crafted façade with fellow Bush haters, Rather claimed to have a bombshell regarding George Bush’s National Guard Service. During the newscast, he produced “explosive” memos which he said “established” that Bush failed to follow orders and that he didn’t perform his Guard service as required, received preferential treatment and lied in the process.
   The problem is that the documents are widely believed to be forgeries and one of the main sources he quoted has now denied the accuracy of the documents.
First of all the author of the memo is a dead man. Surprised? Second the wife and child of the dead author have come forward to state that there is no way their husband and father wrote that memo. Rather cited “those who knew him” as saying he may have written the memo.
Experts from around the country came forward to say that the memo was a tad curious. On its face dated 1971, it appeared to be in a type created by Microsoft for its word processing software. Simply put, this type wasn’t around in 1971. Rather neglected to say that the memo was a copy and not the original.
   According to the Associated Press which added more doubt to the memos, the Dallas Morning News, reported that the officer named in the memo as exerting pressure to “sugar coat” Bush’s record had left the Texas Air National Guard 1 1/2 years before the memo was dated.
   Retired Col. Maurice Udell, the unit’s instructor pilot who helped train Bush, said he though the documents were fake. “I am completely disgusted with the report I saw on ‘60 Minutes’ Udell said. “That’s not true. I was there. I know Jerry Killian. I went to Viet Nam with Jerry Killian in 1968”. (Killian is the source of the memo Rather quoted in his newscast.)
   Killian’s son also questioned some of the documents, saying his father would never write a memo like the “sugar coat” one.
   Rather, as is his custom, didn’t quote a single one of those who said the documents were fake. He quoted only those who made his story plausible.
   Dan Rather is an insult to journalism. His evening news story following ‘60 Minutes’ was a desperate attempt to cover up the fact that his story may have been based on forged documents.
Instead of admitting that it is possible the memos were forged, Rather launched another attack on those who brought legitimate questions forward. Someone once said you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Mr. Rather would do well to heed that advice.
   CBS should get rid of Rather or face the fact that their credibility, like his, is at an all time low and getting worse by the day. Should CBS get rid of Dan Rather? Absolutely!
   That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

   Milo A. Nickel is the former President and COO of Louisiana State Newspapers.

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