Is the presidential campaign driving you crazy? The Daily Beast’s Ben Collins knows someone who might be able to help. Collins recently interviewed perhaps “the only sane man writing about politics” on Facebook, and tells us that the experience was “like therapy.” Collins’s inadvertent therapist: former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather.
As Collins indicated, for more than a year Rather, galvanized by Donald Trump’s candidacy, has been commenting on his Facebook page about the race for the White House. As he explained to Collins, “I just said, What the hell. I want to be myself…I want to do the kind of journalism I was trained to do in the tradition I grew up -- the Murrow tradition, the CBS tradition.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people have shared these posts. Millions more have read them,” noted Collins. “Nobody seems to know why they’re catching fire, and Rather is not interested in precisely why…But here’s one good reason: Each post is filled with equal parts foreboding and hope.”
Regarding the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Rather wrote, “Our Founders believed in reason and the power of intellect. Donald Trump made clear tonight by his wilful ignorance of important issues that he does not. Our founders feared the accumulation of power, they loathed vanity, and tried to build in protections against the demagogues who would appeal to mankind's basest instincts. Donald Trump relishes in all of these impulses.”
Here’s some of what Rather said in the interview with Collins (bolding added):
-- “My goal with this is not to convince anybody of any political persuasion. What I’m really hoping I’m doing is encouraging people to think -- and I think it’s happening far more than I ever would’ve imagined. A lot of journalistic operations in print and online have begun slugging off their sleepwalking and started calling truth and lies as they see it. And not a moment too soon. It’s maybe even too late. What I worry about is moving into the post-truth era of American politics. God help us if we’ve moved into such an era.”
-- “I do sometimes ask myself, ‘What would Edward R. Murrow have done?’ I’m willing to bet heavily he would’ve been there on Facebook early.”
-- “If my car engine has trouble, I want an experienced mechanic. If I’m gonna have surgery, I want a physician to operate on me. When it comes to news, reporting the news, I want somebody who’s experienced and dedicated to pull no punches, play no favorites, tell me what’s going on, and try to connect the dots. When it comes to journalism, it’s something I care about.”
-- “Several somebodies linked to the campaign said our better angels will soon take over. Most of this campaign, the better angels have been on a long lunch break.”
