Former News Anchor Dan Rather of the CBS News attempted to single-handedly affect the 2004 presidential elections two months before elections by reporting that six forged and falsified documents proved that President Bush’s Air National Guard service was bogus therefore making President Bush claim of military service illegitimate. Such a scandal would have thrown the 2004 election into Sen. John Kerry’s favor at least that is what Rather was hoping for.
Four of these document where presented on CBS 60 minutes as authentic however it was soon discovered that Rather and his anti-Bush assistant and associate Mary Mapes all too willingly participated in an fraudulent smear campaign initiated by Lt. Col. Bill Burkett.
Burkett claimed to have burned the originals after faxing copies to CBS. Burkett was retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Texas Army National Guard (see Rathergate)
Rather did not vet these documents or Burkett’s story before he broadcasted this smear to millions of viewers on his primetime Sunday night show. Up until now this was perhaps the single most blatant attempt by modern media to affect the outcome of a U.S. election.
Rathergate however was only the beginning. Former radio talk show host John Ziegler commissioned the Zogby Poll attempting to discover the media’s affect on this 2008 election. He is set to present his finding in an upcoming documentary "Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected". (see Zogby Poll)
What Ziegler details is a Main Stream Media pro-Obama campaign to negate the candidacy of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin while virtually establishing themselves as a campaign arm of the Obama campaign. (How Obama got Elected)
MSM did this by selectively informing and misinforming the electorate concerning the candidates. And in President elect Obama's case the MSM completely blacked out any and all negative reporting that would have help voters make an informed vote. (see video 5:15mins)
In the most important election of our generation, it is frightening to see that millions of people went to the polls and cast ballots based on misperceptions that they received largely from the media.
When the media actively engages in politicking for one Party over the other we then no longer have the constitutional 4th estate that media was constitutionally protected to be.
What we have is Media corruption and another failed American institution. (see 9:55mins video presentation)
Finally Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball thinks that it is his job in the media to make Barack Obama's Presidency sucessful.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, you know what? I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work, and I think that --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist!
MATTHEWS: Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country.
Matthews wasn't done with his odd new job description . . . An incredulous Scarborough kept pressing, astonished at such a complete 180 from Matthews's repeated insistence during the Bush presidency that he had to hold the government accountable.
SCARBOROUGH: Your job is the make this presidency work?
MATTHEWS: To make this work successfully. This country needs a successful presidency. NewsBusters(see 2:20min video)
I suppose this explains the tingle Matthews gets up his leg when he thinks of Obama!
