Unleash hell

Charlie Pierce, as usual, is right on the mark in his Friday Altercation gig, as he weighs in on the CBS mess.

I rise today to offer some unsolicited advice to Dan Rather and CBS -- to wit, unleash hell.

You got suckered. By whom is still a mystery, but you got suckered. Get up off the damn canvas. If they're going to accuse you of being out to get the Avignon Presidency anyway, then by God, do it for real. Start by digging into the AWOL story, which is still out there. (In fact, dig into the Pundit Payola scandal and see how many lines cross between the two stories.) Go after the assault on Valerie Plame, everything we weren't told about the 9/11 whitewash, and the ongoing laundering of the crazy intelligence culture that led us into a war. (A little press criticism there wouldn't hurt, either.) Compare it to the current run-up to the demolition of Social Security. Point it out every time C-Plus Augustus tells an outright lie, the way that he did the other day. "The president's remarks seem to bear no relation to the actual facts..." would be a nice way to start one story per newscast.

Load up the foreign coverage again. Vet the nominees yourself. Start with Chertoff, who ran Al D'Amato's Whitewater comic charade and who never moved far off GOP dirty tricks until he started devising ways to wipe his feet on the Bill of Rights. Ted Olson would be a nice second-day story, I would think. Squeeze your sources for every leak. Nothing is off the record. There are no gentlemen's agreements because there are no gentlemen. Shame your competitors by doing the job correctly. No fear. No favor. Truth, not fairness.

Be what they're going to accuse you of being anyway. Turn off the complaint line. You no longer care what Brett Bozell and his mailing list think of you. You are now off the reservation, outside the Pale. You are people with a television network and absolutely nothing to lose. Make them fear that.