Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor whose career ended because of a false story about President George W. Bush’s military service in 2004, tweeted several times in support of the Atlantic‘s story about President Donald Trump disparaging the troops.
The Atlantic alleged that Trump had called fallen American soldiers in the First World War “suckers” and “losers.” Its sources were anonymous, and nearly a dozen witnesses went on the record to dispute author Jeffrey Goldberg’s claims.
A subsequent report by Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin could not confirm the central allegation of the story, though she claimed — again, using anonymous sources — that some minor details in the Atlantic story were true, or had seemed plausible.
But Rather seemed convinced enough to tweet several times in support of the Atlantic story after it came out on Thursday:
[Thread follows with entire Gettysburg Address]
Rather also posted two videos of himself reading the Gettysburg Address and “In Flanders Fields”:
During the 2004 election, Rather reported that Bush had shirked National Guard service. The story, aimed at a wartime president running for re-election, seemed likely to erode his support among conservatives and military voters.
But the documents on which Rather relied appeared to have been forgeries. A subsequent internal investigation by CBS News found that one of the journalists who worked on the story had contacted Democratic nominee John Kerry’s presidential campaign.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.