White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway is spewing propaganda, Dan Rather said Wednesday morning on his satellite radio show “Dan Rather’s America.”
Rather, who famously spread fake news about George W. Bush’s military service just before the 2004 election, asserted Conway’s use of the phrase “alternative facts,” in defending the White House’s claims that Inauguration Day crowds were huge, is a “propaganda tool,” Mediate reported.
“This idea of ‘alternate facts’ is a propaganda tool,” Rather said. “Yes, I used the word ‘propaganda.’ A propaganda tool in order to confuse people. Personally, I think this is very dangerous.”
Rather has an interesting relationship with facts and propaganda himself. Just before the 2004 election, Rather reported that then-President George W. Bush had gone AWOL while serving in the Texas Air National Guard. There was only one problem with Rather’s story: it was totally false. Rather was removed from his spot at CBS’s anchor desk after it was determined that his story was untrue, and he left the network shortly thereafter.
“Here’s the central point, folks,” he said Wednesday. “When the spokesman for the president, and when the president himself, but the spokesman most recently, talks about alternate facts, alternate facts — whether you like President Trump, or don’t like him, or haven’t made up your mind about him — this, folks, is ridiculous.”
Rather concluded his rant by saying that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s most recent White House briefing gives him hope that Spicer’s relationship with the press may improve.
Water runs downhill, that’s a fact. . . There are facts, and this idea that there are alternate facts is a propaganda tool,’ Rather said. “Yes, I used the word ‘propaganda.’ A propaganda tool in order to confuse people. Personally, I think this is very dangerous. . .Yesterday’s press briefing in the White House press room gives me some encouragement because what we need here is civility and a decent respect for the roles that a press secretary plays and that the press plays, and you saw some of that on display yesterday. So we ought to tip our cap to that and say: ‘That’s more like it.’ The press has its role to be more adversarial, and the press secretary has his role to speak the truth.
