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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDan Rather on the GOP and dt
19 hrs ·
I have lived through nearly 4,500 weeks in my life, and I have never seen a week like the one we just had.
I have seen weeks of far greater darkness, of war, and death, and economic despair. I have seen weeks of more confusion and uncertainty. But I have never seen a week where a president of our nation has behaved with such a cavalier disregard for the norms and institutions of our democracy. And it now seems like the investigation is expanding into Trump's business dealings. The comparisons with Richard Nixon are plentiful these days, but even he did not seem so untethered from our basic governance. And I have never seen so many members of a political party rally around incompetence, intemperance, and inanity.
The threats, the lies, the willful disregard for the rule of law should be limited to the world of Hollywood caricature. To see this played out each night on the news, to read about ramblings and inconsistencies in justifications for actions that should never have been taken, is to see a moment of great peril for our nation.
I remain, however, an optimist. I see the swellings of civic engagement and action. I hear the voices of those who demand that this subversion of our national ideals shall not stand. I have covered social movement of the past, and never have seen one where so much power and numbers lie on the side of the opposition. This is a clash for the values of our nation. Our destiny is in our hands.
spanone
(135,873 posts)if there's a link, i'd like to pass on to some friends
thanks....
Amaryllis
(9,525 posts)spanone
(135,873 posts)JHB
(37,161 posts)Conservatives hate Rather. He's been their poster-boy for "liberal media bias" since his Vietnam reporting.
They've cultivated hatred of him as an avatar for liberal media bias. Back in the 80s when there was talk of the ownership of CBS selling it, cronies of Jessie Helms started a campaign to crowdsource a conservative buyout (long before that term existed). The pitch line was "Become Dan Rather's boss!"
They've fostered despising him to the degree that he can be considered one of the training wheels for the cultivated hatred of Democrats that has been their operating system since 1992.
(Yes, a good chunk of them acted that way before then, but by 1992 they'd pretty much purged liberal Republicans, and the one faction could act freely and go whole-hog.)
That's one of the the real reasons why he got canned. He was no longer in the spotlight, and it was an easy sop to conservatives to throw him overboard.
erronis
(15,328 posts)I'm sure we all have some levels of antipathy (or a less fancy word - hatred) towards many actors in the right-wing arena.
Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, CBS News all stood for a level of integrity that the GOP couldn't, and still can't, stand. It goes against their basic instincts and also doesn't let them lie, cheat, steal at will.
The ascendency of types like Gingrich and Delay were perfect signs that the GOP had lost any ethical backbone. Norquist and Turdblossom turned their brand of perfidy into a science. Now there are cookbooks for wannabe acolytes and Turtlesque sycophants.
KelleyKramer
(8,982 posts)You make a good point, they resent the integrity, because they have none
Permanut
(5,637 posts)Dan Rather is one our national treasures.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)We need him in the forefront, now.
murielm99
(30,761 posts)He has seen us through assassination, war, Presidential resignation and terrorist attacks. I trust his judgment on this.
gademocrat7
(10,667 posts)Dan Rather is right. Persist.
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)spiderpig
(10,419 posts)What the Bush/Cheney cabal did to him was a dirty rotten shame.
We are all the poorer for not having him on mainstream media during this horrible mess.
Uncle Walter weeps.
calimary
(81,461 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)This bears repeating.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)"And I have never seen so many members of a political party rally around incompetence, intemperance, and inanity."
There has never been a Repug party like this.
PsychoBabble
(837 posts)enid602
(8,652 posts)He's a quixotic version of Hitler.
rockfordfile
(8,704 posts)burrowowl
(17,645 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)All we can do is support the Democrats and Independents in Congress to DO whatever they can, as the minority.
If we have to wait until mid-terms, I fear it'll be too late. What else will be gone by then?
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)His job is to help Republicans win by cheating in a classic Big Brother type atmosphere where a new voting fraud agency is conceived to commit massive voting fraud!
BigmanPigman
(51,627 posts)I wonder if it's age and wisdom, health insur, patriotism or a combination.
spiderpig
(10,419 posts)this clown in my life.
I've been protesting since the Nixon administration, and Dan Rather has been my knight in shining armor since he stood up to Tricky Dick in that famous press conference.
lark
(23,155 posts)Love Dan Rather!