Dan Rather and Orchestrated Leaks

[Annie]

Isn't it weird that Republicans are never the victim of one of these?


http://ratherbiased.com/news/content/view/145/

Rather's Right-wing Orchestra.

July 21, 2004, 08:44:48 EDT
Does Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" have a night job? Apparently so, or at least in Dan Rather's mind.
On last night's CBS Evening News Dan Rather offered this spin on the Sandy Berger flap:

"Sandy Berger, who was National Security Adviser under President Clinton stepped aside today as an adviser to Senator John Kerry. CBS's John Roberts reports this was triggered by a carefully orchestrated leak about Berger and the timing of it appears to be no coincidence."

The phrase "carefully orchestrated leak" caught our attention since during the 2000 campaign, Rather had used it in blasting Republicans for a leak which he said was intended to damage Al Gore's campaign shortly before the Democratic convention. As it turned out, Rather had once again jumped the gun without any facts since the leak turned out to have originated from a Democrat.

Knowing that one of Rather's many political double standards is his attitude toward the leaking of confidential material (anti-Republican leaks good, anti-Democrat leaks bad), we decided to look at Rather's usage of the phrase. We found that according to Rather, the only carefully orchestrated leaks are ones that harm Democrats. Never once did he use the term to describe a secret revelation against a Republican.

In case you're interested, here's the list of every time Dan has used the term since 1990:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Republican critics eager to run Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary out of her job are again demanding her resignation. A congressional report, made public first in a carefully orchestrated leak, then officially released today, says federal auditors cannot account for nearly a quarter of a million dollars O'Leary spent on foreign trips."
--CBS Evening News, January 4, 1996.

Reacting to the news that Clinton adviser Dick Morris had divulged campaign secrets to a prostitute:
"You know that there are a lot of Democrats who use words like 'set-up' and 'carefully orchestrated leak.' Now we've heard a lot of talk these past few weeks about efforts to manipulate press coverage of these conventions. Do people, or do they not, believe that the timing of this particular story may be yet another different kind of effort to manipulate coverage?"
--Democratic National Convention, 1996.

"It appears tonight that leaks--carefully orchestrated leaks--of secretly recorded tapes of Monica Lewinsky that were damaging to the Clinton camp may not have told the whole story. Also today, weekend reports of what Lewinsky is or isn't prepared to tell special prosecutor Ken Starr may not be accurate either."
--CBS Evening News, June 22, 1998.

Vice President Gore is also on the spot tonight over a new, carefully orchestrated leak involving accusations about Gore's past campaign fund-raising practices. A Justice Department official is calling for an independent investigator in the case."
--CBS Evening News, June 22, 2000.

 

[freeandfun1]

Is he still on TV? I haven't watched an ABC/CBS/NBC news broadcast in...... well hell, I can't remember the last time I bothered watching one of those idiotic "nightly news" programs.

I went to a UNLV dinner a few years ago and Tom Brokaw gave a speech. Somebody from the audience asked him what the funniest thing he ever saw during his years of reporting on politics. His reply was, "what, other than seeing Reagan elected president twice?". You coulda heard a pin drop - nobody laughed. I guess he forgot that Nevada is a GOP powerhouse. Plus, all those there had to have donated $5,000 or more to UNLV that year, so his audience was mostly small business owners from the community. Needless to say, the next year the dinner featured Barbara Bush as speaker.

 

[Annie]

And the networks, CNN, NYT, TRIB, they don't know what is with their numbers. Can they recognize disengaged when it smacks them in the head?

 

[musicman]

Thanks to some carefully orchestrated leaks, a significant number of Americans have realized that Rather&Co. are nothing more than party hacks masquerading as objective journalists. As a result, they're losing the stranglehold they've enjoyed for the last 30+ years, along with their individual and collective asses.

Hence, the cries for some sort of government-enforced "diversity".