The Cassandra Page: Rathergate

Four years after the blogosphere exposed the forgeries that CBS used in its story about George W. Bush and the Texas Air National Guard, the MSM/DNC is no less relentless in its lies about Republicans.

The MSM/DNC has spread so many smears about Sarah Palin in little more than a week, it is almost impossible to keep track.

But we have countered every attack and will counter even more. Because Rathergate was about much more than Dan Rather, George Bush or John Kerry. Rathergate had less to do with typesetting, kinkos, superscript "th", or a "failure to authenticate" than it had to do with the future of information.

Rathergate was about the ability of the old media to control the discussion (no matter what the issue).

Rathergate was about the old media monopoly.

Rathergate was about alternative sources of information.

Rathergate was about the truth vs. the power of the old media.

Rathergate was about a long term revolution.

Within months of Rathergate, Dan Rather was out of a job, and so was the President of CNN over an entirely different scandal exposed by conservative blogs.

During and after Rathergate, CBS News was discredited, and so was Newsweek over a different scandal in which bloggers presented the truth to the public.

Numerous other major news outlets would be discredited over lies in 2005 (and later).

The point is, Rathergate provided a boost that helped the blogosphere counter MSM/DNC lies from that point forward. Rathergate is a major milepost in the new media revolution. Rathergate is as important as Drudge's exposure of Monicagate.

We make a mistake if we think of Rathergate as merely a pleasant memory that serves no purpose today. Rathergate is a battle that must be refought every time that the MSM/DNC tells a lie.

The left continuously celebrates (and misinterprets) the anniversaries of its greatest victories - Watergate and Vietnam. We will hear about those events nonstop until the MSM/DNC disappears. We must celebrate our victories also, or the left will reinterpret history and remove Rathergate and other milestones from our collective memory.

As we fight the anti-Palin smears, Rathergate must be our weapon. Just as the left opposes our efforts in the war by linking all such efforts to Vietnam, we must remind the world that the MSM/DNC has no credibility because of Rathergate. We must serve notice that we will not allow the equivalent of forged documents to smear our candidates. We will not stand by as anonymous Rather-wannabes spread lies.

Only by building on the victories of the past will we enable those victories to mean something in the future.