Sometimes it's what they neglect to mention that's more revealing than that was.
Disgraced former CBS anchorman Dan Rather, now broadcasting from obscure AXS TV on the high triple-digit end of the cable dial, told Rachel Maddow of an incident back when he was a reporter devoted to hounding Richard Nixon. (Video after page break).
Rather appeared on Maddow's MSNBC show Tuesday to divert attention from President Obama's ongoing scandals involving the Benghazi attack, IRS targeting of tea party groups, and Justice Department spying on the Associated Press, Rather serving the transparent purpose of recounting the good old days when evil incarnate in Nixon inhabited the White House.
His stroll down memory lane brought an interesting revelation, first disclosed in his memoirs published last year, "Rather Outspoken" --
MADDOW: On the AP story, we've discussing (sic) earlier with counsel from the Associated Press, I know that you have some experience of being gone after by an administration because of your reporting. Didn't you get, didn't you get sort of Nixon burglarized during the Nixon presidency?
RATHER: Yes he did. Long story but it turned out I didn't know at the time, our home was burglarized by people that turned out to be part of the plumbers' operation (created to determine sources of leaks in the Nixon White House), the notorious plumbers' operation, didn't know it at the time. It was a long time figuring out who did it. There are those to this day who say, well, no, it wasn't really that, but it was, our home was broken into. But this became common during the Nixon administration.
Here's how it was described in "Rather Outspoken," as excerpted last year by the Daily Beast --
Prior to the Watergate break-in, Rather may have been the victim of an attempted burglary. The then-White House correspondent had been scheduled to go to Florida to cover the president, but instead stayed home. Late at night, his daughter heard an intruder. Rather immediately "did what any Texan would do: I made sure the family was safe, then grabbed the shotgun." Rather went downstairs and saw the intruder. He loudly chambered his shotgun and the burglar very quickly skedaddled. Examining the house, nothing had been taken, but the files in Rather's basement office had been rifled through.
Rather neglected to tell Maddow the most vivid detail of the burglary, which was him confronting the intruder with a loaded gun and forcefully chambering it to show he meant business. Then again, this would not have gone over well with Maddow's audience, who would rather have heard that he asked the burglar if they could negotiate until police arrived.
