Newsbusters details Rather’s reluctance to label Hezbollah, hellbent on destroying Israel, as a terrorist organization.

Bill O’Reilly: “But here’s the problem with American reportage. Some networks give moral equivalency to Hezbollah in the reporting of this war.”

Dan Rather: “I agree that that’s a problem.” O’Reilly: “Do you agree it happens?” Rather: “I agree it happens, and I agree it’s a problem, that, it’s a problem that those of us in journalism have been reluctant to address—I do not exclude myself from this criticism—reluctant to address that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.” O’Reilly: “Right.” Rather: “It’s committed to the destruction of Israel. It isn’t committed to trying to just gain territory. It’s committed to its destruction.”

Dan Rather money quote, literally:

“It’s not by accident that our slogan in this country, written on our money, our buildings in Washington, united we stand.”

It’s fake, but acurate!

Allah at Hot Air has more.

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Jon Friedman of Marketwatch appeared on Tucker after Matthew Sheffield to defend the former CBS former anchor. This guy was easy meat:

TUCKER CARLSON: Whatever you think of Dan Rather’s politics, I think you’ve got to be offended by CBS News did with that story. Why can’t he just admit it was false?

I think he did, I think he basically said he regretted the story, he was sorry it was aired, and lets move on from there.

Obviously Rather does not believe the story to be false or else he wouldn’t have said it on Larry King Live Wednesday night.

KING: You’re saying that was a fair report, I mean that was — you believe that report to this day?

RATHER: Do I believe the truth of the story, absolutely.

Video of the LKL segment available at Hot Air.

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Matthew Sheffield, executive editor of the Media Research Center blog Newsbusters and co-found of Rather Biased.com, joined Tucker Carlson Wednesday afternoon to discuss Dan Rather’s departure from CBS and his new job at HDNET.

Disclosure: I’m a frequent contributor at Newsbusters.

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Fake, but accurate news is on the way:

Dan Rather may be down, but he’s not out.

Three weeks after being let go by CBS, the former anchor has agreed to launch a new television program on HDNet, the high-definition channel owned by billionaire and Dallas Mavericks basketball team owner Mark Cuban.

“We are excited about it,” said Cuban, who described “Dan Rather Presents” as “an opportunity to do news in what I like to call ‘fearless mode,’ what Dan calls ‘with guts.’ Go out there and find the stories we think will have impact.”

(h/t Right Wing News)

Ann Coulter appeared on FOX News’ Hannity & Colmes Wednesday night to discuss the WMD found in Iraq and a comment she made about John Murtha. Coulter was opposite of liberal Laura Schwartz, who downplayed the WMD and made it sound like it wasn’t what we were looking for. One question; why aren’t liberals happy like all conservatives that we found WMD? Don’t question their patriotism, though.

Alan Colmes quoted Coulter from an interview she did with John Hawkins from Right Wing News:

Liberal Schwartz agreed with John Kerry’s characterization that our troops are terrorists. Co-host Alan Colmes jumped in saying Coulter “attacks widows.” Instead of a positive comment about our troops, he bashes Ann.

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Good riddance:

CBS is expected to announce Tuesday that former “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather will leave the company after 44 years at the network.

Rather’s contract runs through November but he is expected to leave the network immediately to pursue other opportunities.

On tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes Dan Rather was supposed to interview Former President Bill Clinton for the “work” his foundation has done for AIDS relief. However, it quickly turned into a fluff piece that promoted his Presidency, how much he accomplished, and his hopes to be the First Husband.

Clinton blames those big bad pharmaceutical industries for charging high prices for medicine that prevents people who are suffering from AIDS to use it. He accuses them of price gouging and thinks that they can “sell them [medicine] for a lot less and not lose any money”. Of course the report does not mention the amount of money and time devoted on researching cures and medicine that will prevent death.

On the subject of AIDS relief failure during his Presidency, Clinton blames Congress:

CLINTON: Well I don’t think I could have done more. It was like pulling teeth to get any foreign aid money from Congress when I was there and when they had a President of their own party and they had their core Christian conservative constituents saying okay we want to fight this, and then it became much easier. I wish I could have gotten more but I couldn’t have.

Yes, that darn Congress. I don’t think Clinton heard what he said. He thinks that Congress withheld on giving money and then some how predicted that a Republican President would be elected in ‘96 or in ‘00 and then they would give it. Congress punished millions of people just because Bill Clinton was not of their party? I hope that Bubba does know that not all members of Congress were Republican during his tenure as President.

In the latter part of the segment Rather sat down with Clinton, not to discuss AIDS, but to talk about how much he missed Air Force One and if he looks forward to being back on there as the First Husband. Rather’s face was glowing red during this portion. This was basically free air time for the two buddies to talk about how much they both miss him [Clinton] being in the White House.

RATHER: Mr. President, when we traveled with you in China, you weren’t aboard Air Force One. Do you miss it?

CLINTON: Oh, I don’t miss the trappings so much, but I love the plane because it’s a great place to work.

RATHER: Do you in some quiet moment look forward to the time maybe when you’ll be flying on it in a different capacity, as the First Husband?

CLINTON: Well, the answer to that is no, I don’t. I don’t think about that. And I have urged all of Hillary’s supporters not to think about that because she’s got to run for re-election and it’s a big hazard for anybody who’s up for re-election to think about anything but re-election.

RATHER: Well, as you know, we now have on television, we have a woman President of the United States.

CLINTON: Yeah, Geena Davis.

RATHER: Is the country ready for a woman President, a real woman President, as opposed to one on television?

CLINTON: I don’t know. My gut is yes, that if a woman came across as a strong and seasoned and well prepared, if you said the right things in the right way and you had a good record to back it up my gut is yes. But the hard truth is we won’t know until it happens.

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NY MAG – Dan Rather’s future on CBS News certainly looks less than assured, just as the updated paperback edition of David Blum’s 60 Minutes tell-all, Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick . . . , hits stores this week. Among Blum’s new revelations: The night before last fall’s controversial National Guard piece aired, Rather called 60 Minutes Wednesday executive producer Josh Howard from the anchor desk to find out why he wasn’t running promos for the story. When Howard told him he couldn’t promote it—CBS News president Andrew Heyward hadn’t seen it yet, nor had the lawyers, and they hadn’t even contacted the White House for comment—Rather threatened to take the story to the Times that night. (Rather later backed down.) The anchor was feeling a good deal less of a cowboy after the story blew up in his face. According to the book, on the night before his on-air apology, Rather confessed to Howard that he’d had doubts about the veracity of the memos all along. “I knew when I did the [document consultant Marcel] Matley interview that something wasn’t right with all this,? Rather confessed to Howard, belying his stalwart public position.

Anyone care to pull out the bullshit-o-meter?

Thank you for your patience, the video is now up.

Sorry for the delay, but it took me about an hour to convert this video from .mpeg to .wmv. (My converter was acting up)

Download the video here (Click, hit Save As)

*Note: I will have the other videos up tomorrow, I am just too tired to get to them now.

UPDATE: Thanks to A Little About Everything for another video.

I will be live [video] blogging Dan Rather’s last night as CBS’ Nightly News anchor.

Update: The Moderate Voice will be doing the West Coast round up.