It has taken me at least four days to slog through the Dan Rather profile in the March 7th edition of the New Yorker. Probably should have given it up the first time it put me to sleep, but sometimes I can't resist following through on something just to see if it's really as bad as I think.
Of course, it may be the writer's fault. But I don't think so. I think the fault lies with the subject who seems to be particularly incurious for a journalist. Or is that what's happened to the majority of journalists.
In any event, the profile does not explain how Dan Rather was taken in, to resurrect a story about the GWB non-attention to his military commitment, when it was obvious that his level of inattention had gone way beyond that. Moreover, as early as December 2003 it was pretty obvious that the issue was merely being resurfaced by the Bush campaign to provide an excuse to "go after" Kerry's distinguished career. And everybody fell for it, dammit!!!!
But then, when Rather received the report that there were no terrorists or terrorist ties in Iraq before the Americans invaded, his reaction is to go on the air and proclaim that, since there are terrorists there now, the Bush administration's earlier assessment had some validity!!!!! And he gets paid multiple millions to pontificate like that on the evening news!!!!
Since I've never watched the CBS evening news, I really have no independent basis for an assessment. On the other hand, I have no reason to doubt the evidence provided in the profile, because every objective analysis of what journalists are actually doing, suggests that they are either all gullible or lazy or both.
There are good reasons why the likes of Karl Rove and the Bush administration have no respect for the news media. Their incurious approach to reality reinforces the temptation to deceive.
I mean, if journalists are not interested in the truth, why should they be entrusted with it? If what they report and print is going to be inaccurate anyway, why bother to set them straight?
That, I suspect, is the mindset into which our leaders and representatives have fallen and, to tell the truth, I can't really blame them.