I'll bet Clinton and feedhell both laughed at Dan Rather behind his back. They used him like a whore and he didn't even ask for money.

"They used him like a whore and he didn't even ask for money."

Of course not baby, he did it for loooove.
(In my smoothest crooning voice)

Hey ANOTHER anecdote, GOD I am full of them!
After the whole Elian incident my company’s staff went to a local bar in SoHo as we used to do "occasionally"
A friend and I wound up sharing a booth with a couple of 30+ ladies, after the usual introductions, one of them asked me where I was from, since I always take that to mean where are you ORIGINALLY from ! I said "Cuba" - her face lit up and she shoved it like an inch from my face and asked anxiously "what do you think about the Elian case?"
Like any other Cuban I told her I thought it was a charade, the father was coaxed by Castro and Clinton had done a great disservice to freedom in general. The she asked me what I thought about the Diane Sawyer interview with Elian, I told her I didn’t see it.
Then she sheepishly admitted that she had been the producer of the segment and that the segment had been edited in such a way to TOTALLY discredit Elian's family in Miami.
Now, the logic of this escaped me (since silly me I thought a reporter's job was to report"
The lady ( just forgot her name sorry !) admitted that once they went back and looked at the footage it kind of looked that Elian "had" been coached to say he wanted to stay in the USA because he even became violent when the thought of going back to Cuba arose.. He was so adamant about it that the network thought noone would believe this was not set up. According to the producer at no time was anyone from the Miami family coaching Elian in fact Elian seemed to be extremely adamant about not going back to Cuba, fearful and agitated he gave a million reasons (all of them wound up on the cutting floor) why he wanted to say in the USA.
Diane Sawyer and the producer decided that no kid of that age could've had such a clear and defined set of priorities and asked me if at that age I knew that I wanted to leave Cuba.
"Hell YES I did!" Not for any political reasons, Kids don’t think That way , I wanted to leave Cuba for the simple (and very childlike) reason that I wanted a NEW bike and my folks couldn’t get me one ! Simple as that. When that happened my 6 year old brain just decided I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!
So Elian's passion was not (as the ABC crew assumed) a rehearsed anti-Castro posture, but just a kid of 6 who all of a sudden had everything he did not have in Cuba and just did NOT want to go back to lacking “childhood necessities”
The producer said that she will always regret having had that interview edited the way it was edited and hoped one day to make it up. Well TOO friggin' late for Elian now lady!

Cual es la frequencia, Kenneth?

CBS (Costant Bull Shit, Crap and Bull Shit)
ABC (Absolute Bull Crap)
NBC (nothing but crap)
And we all know what CNN stands for:
Castro News Network
Clinton News Network
Communist News Network

Fox News is no longer in my cable subscription (I noticed it only yesterday), so I missed Fontova`s interview. O`Reilly will post a translation, won't he?

What a sad pathetic story, KC. Yeah, that is the way it works, I probably could find that producer you talked to, might even know her. And I was in lower Manhattan (the WTC) working early, when that predawn raid happened. The photo was so freakish I was sure it was a photoshop. I was shocked when I learned it wasn't.

My girlfriend has told me stories about seeing Saturday morning cartoon braodcasts from Miami on clear days in Cuba. Probably the worst time of the week for a little girl in Cuba to get broadcasts from the US! All those shiny toys and games? Damn near breaks my heart.

I've tried to tell castro suck-upsand che shirt commandos that people in places like Cuba, Nor5th Korea, and other dictatorships just want to have nice things for themselves and their family, and a chance at a better life. And the whole not dying of starvation thing. And then they ask "Who are you to decide what people want!?" I dunno. Just a guy who's been a human being all my life.

And the "news" is a joke no matter your political alignment.

Rather was just one in a long line of the old guard that are thankfully falling one by one. You can fool some of the people some of the time...

Mora:
This producer seemed to want to admit her violation to her craft- it was kindda eerie, because there was a lot of pain in her admission. I was probably the first Cuban she had spoken to since the whole thing happened and she just had to confess.
I remember she said she was from Florida and was in NYC on biz.
I forgot on my first post explaining to the producer that the Cuban reaction to Elian went beyond that of the political stance. It was a MIRACLE. We all have seen the statue of our virgin saving the three fishermen in the boat. There’s a deep connection between our religious believes and miracles on the sea. Dolphin’s protecting him? In almost perfect health? Not even a sun burn? We as Cubans saw something no American could ever understand. It was a divine sign and it was taken away from us. TRUST me this producer was at the point of tears.

Yes the whole Elian raid was so bizarre. I remember getting to work (again SoHo , Broadway & Houston) and my crew was very somber, this is young .COM crowd so I wondered what was up. They asked me if I had seen the news and then showed me the picture. Now, this is like I said a kindda young crowd not really into politics and if at all kindda left wing, but they were appalled by the picture.
One of the younger guys with his only connection to Cuba was knowing me was so infuriated he started throwing stuff around the office, while saying “This is the FUCKING USA , you don’t point machine guns at kids!”
At some point during the day a poster made it to one of the walls saying “JANET RENO MUST DIE”

It was strange because EVERYONE agreed on this. The father was being manipulated with god knows what threat (not very difficult). The logical conclusion of everyone was. The USA gave this guy Visa 2 days after the kid gets to the USA but Castro waits a month to let him out? Why?
That he was allowed to come with his wife and other kid? And…?
How many more people dear to the father and his wife were left behind?
I tell a simple threat that would’ve made ME speaks wonders about The BEAST.
“You speak against Fidel and we don’t care if we have to die in the USA we WILL kill YOU, YUR WIFE YOUR KID AND ELIAN!”

Justice was trampled upon that day and the only consolation is that Janet Reno will die a slow shaky death.