2004 Was Rather's Second Attempt to Influence An Election Away From A Bush

I was surfing and went past 60 Minutes. They had a segment on Jeffrey Wiegand (sp?) of the movie "The Insider" fame. They noted that CBS Legal had prevented them from airing a segment due to "tortious interference" concerns. Subsequently, the Wall Street Journal broke a substanially similar story (properly sourced - Ed.). Now 60 Minutes is attempting "innocence by association"! There story was tortious, but true seems to be the subtext. I expect the Wall Street Journal will disabuse them of the accuracy of such a claim. They are clearly much more prepared to deal with the situation.


But while searching my files, I came across an article of amazing prescience! It was written by Raymond A. Coffey of the Chicago Sun-Times on November 11, 1988, titled "Some Funeral, Dan!" and appeared on page 55. Here are the excerpts:


"That was some funeral Dan Rather and our local TV deepthinkers threw for Gov. Thompson on Tuesday night.
I haven't laughed so hard at a requiem in years.
And Thompson almost surely enjoyed it all even more than I did. Hardly anyone gets to attend his own funeral and then show up for work in the morning. I hope you didn't miss it...

Just minutes after 6 p.m... Some hours later, bam, zoom, hold on to your seats, CBS and Mr. Rather proclaimed that Michael Dukakis had carried Illinois...

That was stunning news -and CBS had it first and alone.

Almost immediately every TV reporter in town - from all the stations - was hammering and yammering at Gov. Thompson with questions about the "embarrassment" he had suffered and what devastation a Dukakis victory in Illinois would inflict upon Big Jim's political survival...

And then....Well, you know what happened. Mr. Dukakis did not in fact win in Illinois. Mr. Bush did. Mr. Rather and CBS were dead wrong. The rest of the TV pack looked dead foolish. And the governor is yet alive - and laughing."