I'D RATHER NOT SAY GOOD-BYE, DAN

"Without his make-up, Dan looked like hell warmed over: old, defeated,
yet angry. And he told our television audience something that just blew
me away. Dan Rather said that American reporters may not ask tough
questions about George Bush or his wars.

"It's an obscene comparison," Rather said, "but there was a time in
South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if
they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced
here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your
neck."

Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism
that keeps US journalists in line. "It's that fear that keeps [American]
journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to
continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often."

Silence as patriotism. Ugh. He confessed, "One finds oneself saying, ?I
know the right question, but you know what, this is not exactly the
right time to ask it." It was making him ill and he was ready to say,
BASTA, enough. Suddenly, there was fire in those eyes: "It's extremely
dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted and I'm sorry to say that,
up to and including this moment of this interview, that overwhelmingly
it has been accepted by the American people. And the current
Administration revels in that, they relish and take refuge in that."

Of course, Dan said all these things to a British audience. But back in
the USA, Dan had promised America he would be a good boy, a trained
press puppy who would poop on the paper set down for him. He told his US
audience, "George Bush is the President. He makes the decisions. He
wants me to line up, just tell me where."

But CBS' million-dollar man was about to step out of line.

In 2003, BBC Television questioned George Bush's career as Viet Nam era
Top Gun fighter pilot. In the British broadcast, I held up a
confidential letter from Justice Department files stating that Poppy Bush had put
in the fix to get Junior Bush out of 'Nam and into the Texas Air Guard.
George could spend the war protecting Houston from Viet Cong attack.

A year after the BBC broadcast, the
I'm-going-to-be-a-real-journalist-now Rather decided to run the same story on 60 Minutes. And just as he
predicted, the press-police at the network and in the White House seized
him and lit the tire around his neck.

What was Dan's mistake? Yes, yes, he shouldn't have embellished the
story with a document he couldn't fully source. But that memo (not the one
in the BBC report) was about a side issue, not the key accusation, that
Senior Bush got Junior out of the draft. Despite not a jot of evidence
that the main story of draft-dodgin' George was wrong (BBC never
withdrew it), CBS cited Rather's insistence on the veracity of that report as
grounds to crush his career and his reputation.

Rather was convicted by a corporate kangaroo court. Dickie Thornburgh,
who had been Poppy Bush's Attorney General and owed his big salaries
and career to the Bush family, ran an "independent" investigation which
concluded -- surprise! -- the Bushes had done no wrong. It was Dan that
committed the evil. That whacky conclusion went along just fine with
the diktat of Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, CBS' owner, that a
"Republican administration is better for media companies."

In "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler explained why old Communists,
brought up for trial by Stalin, still sang the system's praises -- just
before they were shot. To do otherwise would have been to cast doubt on
the cause to which they sacrificed their lives. Now, Dan Rather, like
those soon-to-be executed victims of Stalin, has bowed his head in
silence in the face of the evil purge. To do otherwise, I suppose, would be
to acknowledge that his career has been a path of increasing salaries
and celebrity bought by increasing toady-dom.

Imagine if Edward R. Murrow, after having exposed Joe McCarthy, replied
to criticism by bowing his head for the noose-man.

Rather died as a journalist years ago by accepting the evil gag orders
of the media moguls. Still, I applaud his attempt with the Bush story
to kick his way out of his professional coffin. Unfortunately, his
current silence simply gives aid and comfort to the censoring corporate
news-killers.

Last night, Rather read off his last "news" broadcast, if you can call
it that. To Dan the newsman, and to American journalism, all I can say
is, rest in peace.

by Greg Palast