That is Bill O’Reilly’s assessment of Rathergate. O’Reilly just bit the dust. I have little use for his opinion now. He has been on a downhill slide for some time, but this time he stepped off the cliff.
Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded.
Bill, I think you need to look at this through a different lens. Dan Rather is not the victim here. Being skeptical was not the issue. Dan was plenty skeptical about Bush’s ANG service–so much so that he grabbed the most damning evidence he could find without even looking at it. Is that journalism? Of course, we all know who really is to blame:
Unscrupulous people know that any accusation can be dumped on the Internet and within hours the mainstream media will pick it up.
I seem to remember that for nearly two weeks the Swift Boat controversey raged online before anyone in MSM picked up on it. By then all that remained was for John Kerry to offer contrary information, perhaps in the form of releasing his military records. And how long did it take before MSM picked up on the fake documents Rather offered up as proof of Bush’s failure to properly live up to his ANG requirements? Rather never admitted what we all could see was true–they were fake. The best he could do was say they weren’t authentic, but the material in them was. Doesn’t Bill consider that “unfair freedom of speech”?
Let’s talk about MSM and their standards. O’Reilly mentions Kitty Kelley’s book, filled with slander by anonymous sources, bemoaning that this information was printed on page one. Funny, I didn’t see much about it in the blogosphere except skepticism (unless you frequent far-left sites). It had no legs on the internet. But Kitty spent quite a few mornings on the network shows pimping the book, to the glee of folks like Katie Couric.
A click of the Internet mouse can wipe out a lifetime of honor and hard work. Just the accusation or allegation can be ruinous.
Aha! Now we understand. O’Reilly faced sexual harrassment charges, and eventually settled with his accuser. This article is really simply his way of telling us all he really wasn’t guilty–just a mouse click away from oblivion. When he finally falls from his perch, I anticipate we will all be blamed.
Glenn has more.