DC Trawler

Dan Rather Still Thinks He Has Room To Talk About ‘Good Journalism’

(REUTERS/Mark Blinch)

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If you’re a regular reader of this humble blog, you know that I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever voting for Donald Trump. You may or may not like that. Either way is fine. But I do understand at least a few of the reasons he’s now the GOP nominee. The following is a big reason.

Remember Dan Rather? Did you know he’s now on Facebook? Well, here’s Dan Rather, writing on Facebook:

I felt a shudder down my spine yesterday watching Donald Trump’s fusilade against the press. This is not a moment to be trifled with. It wasn’t his first tirade and it won’t be his last.

I was reminded of my college journalism professor, the late Hugh Cunningham, who would exhort his young charges in a thundering voice to “never let them scare you.” It was his most important lesson. One of Edward R. Murrow’s favorite words was “steady.” That also bears repeating today…

Good journalism–the kind that matters–requires reporters who won’t back up, back down, back away or turn around when faced with efforts to intimidate them.

This pontificating about good journalism and “speaking truth to power” would have a bit more oomph if it wasn’t coming from the guy who destroyed his own career by falling for obvious forgeries because he wanted George W. Bush out of office. To this day, Rather still insists that this photocopied Microsoft Word document was created in 1973:

Killian_memos_MSWord_animated

Somebody even made a movie about this obvious lie and titled it Truth. It’s actually kind of funny, if you’re a connoisseur of Orwellian lunacy.

Dan Rather is a revolting old dinosaur. A slightly younger but equally revolting dinosaur, Donald Trump, is absolutely right about people like Rather. In every election, the Republican candidate’s opponent isn’t the Democratic candidate. It’s the press. And now, the GOP finally has a candidate who’s calling out the press.

I can’t blame anybody for enjoying such a refreshing change of pace. It’s not enough to get me to vote for Trump, because he lies about everything all the time and is a terrible person who would be an even worse president, but I understand the appeal.

Several people have pointed out one upside of a Trump presidency: Sure, he’s an unhinged demagogue, but he has an (R) after his name. That means the press would do the job they’ve been sleeping on ever since King Barry’s coronation. They’d finally try to rein in an American president’s autocratic grasping for power. They’d try to destroy Trump, and he’d try to destroy them. Maybe they’d be able to keep each other in check.

(I’d say “Everybody wins,” but the rest of us will get caught in the crossfire.)

And if Trump does win, maybe the press will regret pushing him as the GOP candidate, in hopes that they were setting up Grandma for an easy layup. There’s no such thing as too much schadenfreude.

Regardless of who you pick on Nov. 8, nothing matters and one day you’ll be dead. That’s why I’m voting for this guy:

P.S.