Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Dan Rather and my horn

Well here we are. I left on a little non-traveling holiday after my "prediction". Little did I realize that the great "lion of journalism" from Wharton, Texas, would go and ahead and be the catalyst for the beginning of the end some six days later.

In case you haven't been keeping up, Dan Rather is a flaming liberal and hopes to further their cause. His latest "Hail Mary"-esque attempt was running with a story based entirely on some "found" documents that detail G. W. Bush's "lackluster" military service. The only problem? The documents are completely fake. Don't believe me? Go here. Or here. Or anything here. Basically, at the time the "memo" was supposedly created, there were basically no such machines-- typewriters, computers, or otherwise-- that could have produced such typeset. And of the very few possibilities, there is no chance that a Texas Air National Guard office would have any of them. NONE. I won't even go into all the other inconsistencies of the timing of the memos.

The old media floats a lie...and within 16-24 hours the blog world has them completely debunked. I'm imagining Dan Rather in an oversized helmet with a butterknife trying to slay a dragon. He and his cohorts are so myopic that they don't even realize that they're in a battle, much less that they've already lost it. There may be some parallels between the old media and the most recent incarnation of the "Dream Team". They both think that all they have to do is show up and they win. The only difference being the "Dream Team" probably only needed another two or three weeks of practice and they would have rolled. The old guard media...? D-U-N...DONE, DONE, DONE. . Lileks says it better. Plus he sorta backs up my theory (My stock rises!). I quote:
"Blogs haven't toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you've seen films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke, then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We've been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes. And when the dust settles we will be right back where we were 100 years ago, with dozens of fiercely competitive media outlets throwing elbows to earn your pennies." Read the whole thing here.

The old guard medidiots (Can I copyright that?) don't even know to stop talking after the quicksand is streaming into their own mouths. As of this moment Dan Rather is staking his reputation to the authenticity of the memos. The Boston Globe (Boston? Surely not) has not retracted it's story based on the same "documents" and still features a copy of the memo on it's website. Other media outlets realizing that the writing is etched on the wall, have turned there guns inward. Even the NYTimes and the WashPost are piling on.

The old guard has some gaps and can not longer hold the line...it's about time.

1 comment:

Miss Demeanor said...

I can just see old Blather hunched over his keyboard, snickering to himself, really pleased with himself, thinkin' he's really got Bush this time. Rubbing his hands together in a maniacal fashion. What a disgrace. If you haven't read it yet, you should read Bias by Bernard Goldberg. He worked for "THE Dan" and tells what kind of bastard he was.

By the way..great entry!