{"id":1229,"date":"2004-09-10T09:55:35","date_gmt":"2004-09-10T13:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/dan_rather_didn"},"modified":"2004-09-10T09:55:35","modified_gmt":"2004-09-10T13:55:35","slug":"dan_rather_didn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/?p=1229","title":{"rendered":"Dan Rather didn&#8217;t check his facts again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn&#8217;t.<\/strong> <\/em> <\/p>\n<p>You probably remember hearing that piece of advice, but Dan Rather is now paying a heavy price because he never learned it. <\/p>\n<p>He triumphantly slammed President Bush&#8217;s National Guard service record this week on <em>60 Minutes<\/em> using <a href=\"http:\/\/instapundit.com\/archives\/017710.php\">falsified documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It now appears that the documents may have come to him from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailyrecycler.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/bombshell-spectator-post.html\">Kerry campaign<\/a>. The document may have started out as a prank, because there are several things that are blatantly out of place in a 1973 document. However, it appears that the opportunity of giving President Bush a hard time was too sweet for Dan to resist.<\/p>\n<p>Dan has a long history of using false reports to slam undeserving targets. He used to get away with it before blogs appeared on the scene. Today, we have a different environment for news reporting. Almost before 60 Minutes was over, bloggers were uncovering the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indcjournal.com\/archives\/000838.php\">truth<\/a> behind Rather&#8217;s smear attempt. <\/p>\n<p>Within a few days, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/09\/10\/politics\/campaign\/10guard.html\">major<\/a> media outlets realized that the story would not die and like sharks, tore into their wounded comrade unmercifully. Anything to improve ratings.<\/p>\n<p>CBS execs may be fiercely partisan, but they are not dumb. They will disavow and disassociate themselves from anyone connecting them to this embarrassment. <\/p>\n<p>I believe Rather is toast, and it couldn&#8217;t be happening to a more deserving guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn&#8217;t. You probably remember hearing that piece of advice, but Dan Rather is now paying a heavy price because he never learned it. He triumphantly slammed President Bush&#8217;s National Guard &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/?p=1229\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1794],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3R4iK-jP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}