Here's what IMDB reported:
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather insisted Tuesday that the "so-called" presidential debates are not controlled by the journalists presiding over them but by the two political parties.
He accused his colleagues of showing too much deference to the candidates and operating in general in a "defensive posture" and imposing self-censorship on themselves.
"These so-called debates are not for the people, by the people," Rather said Tuesday at Time Warner's Politics 2008 Summit. "They are for the parties, by the parties. That's what's wrong with them."
Dan Rather is right. The debates we've been seeing haven't been debates at all. They've just been campaign commericals. And, since Rather is an expert in being a partisan media hack, there's no question he knows what he's talking about here.
And it's a shame. If Obama wasn't such a coward and had stood by his pledge to debate McCain "any time, any where"--remember, McCain tried to take him up on that offer with a bunch of townhalll-format debates but Obama turned him down flat--we might actually have gotten some real debates with real questions asked by moderators who weren't concerned with partisan books about to be published or with making sure they look good for the RNC and DNC goons who have bribed them.
I wonder why Rather is speaking out, though. Perhaps he is upset because his colleagues didn't make a greater effort to make the Democrat ticket look better by maybe working in a few more Obama slogans in the questions, or maybe he's still on a pointless crusade to convince everyone he was actually a serious journalist for the past couple of decades?