Dan Rather just won’t go away nor update his obstinate refusal to acknowledge liberal media bias. Confronted with MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski’s observation that the mainstream media lack “balance” and convey “a liberal world view” (earlier NB item), Rather rejected the premise and offered up a banal defense: “What is the definition of liberal? I myself favor strong military, tight money, and clean water.” That’s the very same obfuscating silliness he put forward as an argument as far back as 1999 in an appearance on CNN’s Crossfire.  

In an interview for Julie Menin’s Give and Take program for WNBC-TV’s “New York Nonstop” digital channel, which will run this weekend and which TVNewser.com posted Tuesday night to highlight Rather’s take on a CNN-CBS News merger, Rather, making a parody of himself, declared his 2004 discredited hit piece of George W. Bush was “true” and insisted “I'm independent, fiercely independent,” maintaining:

I'm independent, I'm going to play no favorites, pull no punches. When I go down the street and knock out windows on one side, I'll knock them out on the other side. I think my record shows that.