That Time Dan Rather Called Bill Clinton Allegations Old News, ‘Let’s Move On’

As the sanctimonious and shocked media class express shock and outrage that the tribalism of the people of Alabama might rationalize a vote for Roy Moore over a pro-choice Democrat who has more in common politically with Chuck Schumer than with their fellow Alabamans, it’s been instructive to see how they reacted back when their guy, Bill Clinton faced similar more devastating allegations back in the 1990s.

Tim Graham at Newsbusters has used the Media Research Centers fantastic archives and research techniques to uncover a quote from none other than the leader of the elite media circa 1999: a not-yet disgraced Dan Rather circa 1999 on the not-yet disgraced Don Imus radio program:

DON IMUS: Even this Juanita Broaddrick thing that, this interview that the people over there at NBC News have been sittin’ on for some reason, who knows but –DAN RATHER: Well, I think the reason is pretty obvious that they’re, they don’t call me and tell me why they run or don’t run these things, but I think it’s pretty obvious. They are nervous about, number one, whether this information is accurate, whether it’s really true or not. And then number two, even if it does it turns out to be true, it happened a long time ago and number three, they’ve gotta be figuring maybe, just maybe the American public has heard all they want to hear about this and are saying you know, “Next. Let’s move on to the next thing.”IMUS: I was reading in either Time or Newsweek that even the woman herself, Juanita Broaddrick said that she hopes that this thing went away this week and even she was sick about hearing about it and it’s her story.”RATHER: Well, let’s hope she gets her way with that.

Imagine that reaction to the Roy Moore allegations today from a leading television anchor seen as the dean of mainstream journalists. “These accusations might not be true, happened a long time ago, people want to move on.” And when told that the alleged victim is not thrilled with the spotlight she now finds herself in said journalists “hopes” it all goes away.

Of course there is tribalism and of course both sides of the political spectrum use allegations such as these for their own political ends. Let’s all stop pretending otherwise. Especially the sanctimonious, hectoring media.

Journalists are not supposed to be a part of such political and tribal instincts, their supposed to be objective, or so they tell us.