Dan Rather -- CBS Newsman? or Literary Agent for Bill Clinton?
by Chad Groening
June 23, 2004
(AgapePress) - A media watchdog organization says it is not surprised at the "softball questions" tossed Bill Clinton's way by CBS anchorman Dan Rather during an interview broadcast Sunday night on the program 60 Minutes.Tim Graham of the Media Research Center says it is obvious why former President Bill Clinton chose Dan Rather to be the first interviewer for unveiling his memoirs, titled My Life. "Because Clinton knows that for him, Dan Rather is a soft touch, a powder puff, an apple polisher, a lapdog," Graham says, noting that the CBS news anchor has had a long track record of "cheerleading" and "softball questions" with the former commander-in-chief.
The MRC spokesman says Sunday night's broadcast was a stark contrast to how Rather treats Republicans. Graham recalls a 1988 interview the newsman conducted with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was running for president at the time.
"[Rather] basically suggested that with Iran-Contra [controversy], Vice President Bush and others had made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world," Graham explains. "He basically asked him a whole bunch of accusatory questions, interrupted the vice president, talked over him, yelled at him, and at the end, cut him off. So when you look at an interview like that, it's a stunning contrast [to the Clinton interview]."
According to Graham, the more recent interview was jut another example of how Rather is "putty in Bill Clinton's hands."
"Dan Rather has a history of being very soft on Bill Clinton, and it was really a remarkable hour of softball questions -- and a lot of them were barely questions," he notes.
Graham says Rather sounded more like the literary agent for Clinton than a legitimate reporter on Sunday night. The anchorman, he says, "sat idly through a series of Clinton whoppers and forwarded them without objection to the audience at home."
