A not so creative liberal fantasy. Dan Rather 'got it right' in his 2004 story about President George W. Bush's avoidance of National Guard duty, a hit piece discredited because of Rather's reliance on forged documents, the President of the imaginary 'UBS News'cable channel will declare in an upcoming HBO drama helmed by left-wing writer Aaron Sorkin.
A TV Newser item on Monday [1] about how HBO has decided on Newsroom to be the title of Sorkin's new series which will center on 'fictional cable news anchor Will McCallister (Jeff Daniels) and his News Night staff at the fictional cable news channel UBS,' included a telling excerpt from the script for the pilot:
In another scene McCallister responds to pressure from his boss, UBS News president Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston)
Will: Charlie, I can't go after Halliburton and miss.
Charlie: Oh report the goddam news, Will.
Will: You remember a guy named Dan Rather?
Charlie: Dan got it right.
Will: He's no longer on television.
Halliburton and Dan Rather. Sounds like Sorkin is channeling the imaginations of Chris Matthews.
Last year on CNN (BiasAlert post with video) [2], Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, declared 'Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman' and charged 'the Republicans have moved into a mental institution.'
Earlier this year [3] he asserted 'Beck and Limbaugh are eye-poppingly awful' because they 'have such hate for Americans. They're my generation's Joe McCarthy.'