Dan Rather is set to prove CBS News worked with Republicans on how best to deal with Dan Rather after his 60 minutes story on the Texas National Guard letters.
You know, direct political interference in a major news organization.
You know, the allegation that was pooh poohed when brought up by Putin:
Updated Let us also not forget that Bush himself said such a tactic would be reminiscent of Putin's Russia:
But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."
And watch how Time also tried to "laugh" off the whole thing:
The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides.
And sometimes the Russians know more about what's going on in the US than our own "media."
We'll be learning about political interference in what the media reported in the past 8 years for some time to come.
It started long before the Jan 20, 2001 inauguration of Bush... let's hope it ends on Jan 20, 2009.
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