Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Mea Maxima Culpa

Brent Bozell is mad at CBS and Dan Rather. Well that goes without saying. Bozell founded the conservative "critique" of media, the Media Research Center.

You all remember last year Dan Rather participated in a report which flagged up the AWOL story. The story was later demolished by the presence of forged documents. Dan Rather and many others (including myself) still believe that the substance of the report was largely accurate. President Bush was lax in his performance of his guard duties. This is intolerable to conservatives.

To conservatives the presence of the forged documents prove that President Bush served with no laxness (as President Bush has claimed). And Dan Rather should have committed seppeku live on television out of shame for his mistake. And CBS should have replaced their entire news staff with hardcore Republicans. So the fact that Dan Rather is being honored for his career in journalism on the event of his retirement is a slap in the face.

To me, it seems like Bozell is getting worked up after nothing. Rather's gone. He's been replaced by someone of a much more conservative bent. On the other hand, Bozell's goal isn't good journalism, it's conservative propaganda. So keeping up the pressure, well, I guess there's no harm in that.

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