What Dan Rather and John Gibson Have in Common

We all remember when Dan Rather didn't do his homework on Bush just before the election. He was then still anchor at CBS and irresponsibly aired a story about Bush being AWOL during the Vietnam War. They toasted him for it, and eventually he had to leave off being anchor.

Well, we have the first instance of it in this election. First Steve Doocy of Fox News reported that Baruch Obama had spent the first decade of his life raised by a Muslim father. This itself was a garbled version of the original article in Insight, claiming that Hilary Clinton's camp had found out that Obama had attended a madrassa or fundamentalist Muslim school during the time his mother and step-father lived in Indonesia in the 60's. Double whammy--get Clinton and Obama in one swoop.

Then Gibson repeated it on his program, still without doing his homework.

It turns out that Doocy, Insight, and Gibson were skewed on several points. Obama had only met his father once in his life, and he was an atheist. CNN actually did their homework and contacted the school, which apparently was no different from any other "public" school in Indonesia at the time.

But in the end, none of this matters in the slightest. Obama had a conversion experience in his 20's. He was only 6 at the time he was in Indonesia.

Gibson has not apologized for getting his facts wrong. Doocy at least made some correction.

I am quite comfortable with my sense of bias among the media. Fox clearly leans to the right. Even here, I respect some more than others. O'Reilly, bless his soul, is arrogant and clearly has a right inclination, but I do believe he is honest. I can't think of anyone at Fox who leans to the "liberal."

There are clearly those who lean left at CNN and MSNBC. Keith Olbermann immediately focuses on the negative of any speech Bush makes. He is a kind of left version of O'Reilly. He's honest, but clearly has a "liberal" inclination. But frankly, I can't think of anyone at MSNBC who is as skewed liberal as, say, Anne Colter or Rush Lindbaugh is to the right. And I don't see how anyone sane can really consider Joe Scarborough a liberal. He regularly features Pat Buchanan and vigorously supported the Iraq War.

My favorite media people are those that really seem to try to listen to both sides--and who really seem to listen. I can't think of any of the main reporters for NPR who wouldn't fit in this category, although clearly some of the side program hosts are liberal. I consider Chris Matthews of this sort. His brother holds local Republican office and I honestly couldn't figure out during the election whether he was Republican or Democrat.

And certainly Tim Russert is so fascinated as an observer that I have no idea what his views are. I mean this as a compliment--he is so nerdily fascinated to watch the politics that who knows what he thinks!

Is David Greggory a liberal, like Snow and Fox have accused? I don't know if he is, but there is a point where the data is so clear that a person would have to be skewed even to give time to some possibilities. When the MSNBC correspondant says that the manner of Saddam's death has caused a big PR among Iraqis, isn't it possible that there is no bias here? What if it is so obvious to someone on the ground in Iraq that it would be skewed to pretend the other is even a possibility?

Clinton on Fox News

I was watching Fox News for a second tonight, Bill O'Reilly. I really don't know exactly his take on Clinton, but there was a very conservative woman who was talking about him "losing control like her 2 year old" in his interview with Chris Wallace.

Wow. Talk about how two people can look at the same thing and have two very different reactions. Here he's just come off of a very successful fund raising tour that raised a billion I think for a good cause, but that's not really what the interview turns out to be on. Second, it's at the same time that a very important intelligence report--the highest level intelligence report--has concluded that the War in Iraq, which the Bush administration has sold as important to help with the war on terror, has actually hurt the war on terror.

Now everyone who knows anything about anything has been saying this forever. Certainly these were the kinds of things that the State department was in tension with the Pentagon over. These are the things that the UN has been telling us forever but we wouldn't listen because we are smarter than everyone else. It would not be hard to absolutely castrate the credibility of Fox News by playing back arrogant and dismissive clips from 2003, 2004, 2005 before the evidence was so compelling. Show all the snide remarks they made about those who questioned the war and who argued that it would simply make more terrorists.

I saw an intelligent man refusing to take inane accusations lying down. And "out of control"? This woman must have a 2 year old that is a leader in the making. I saw a man with righteous indignation standing up for the truth. A man who was willing to admit that he tried and failed at something. Not an administration that is trying to blame something that happened 8 months into their presidency on the presidency before.

In Clinton's words, "I got closer than anyone has ever since." And "at least I tried. This administration had 8 months to try and didn't." And "If I had been president I'd have put 20,000 troops into Afghanistan looking for bin Laden." And "I wouldn't put 1/7 of my interest in Afghanistan."

I'm sorry, if things look at all fuzzy now, our grandchildren will smile if we dare say bin Laden was Clinton's fault or that Bush was a great president. They'll smile like I did when my grandmother protested because the history books were saying that it is not at all likely historically that Washington chopped down any cherry tree.

Smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave...