Dan Rather: Objective Newsman?

Just how objective is "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather? 

He claims he does his level best to suppress personal opinions while reporting the news. But the folks at RatherBiased.com have put together a compelling compendium of Rather quotes that prove his pretense to objectivity is beyond ludicrous.

Here's a sampling from Rather Biased.com's "Compare and Contrast" page:

Rather on sexual harrassment allegations against Clarence Thomas:

"It raises the potential, the potential for a strategy that says, 'Listen, Anita Hill has raised this. In order to save Clarence Thomas's nomination we're going to have to, in effect, tear her apart.' Is that pretty much the strategy as you see it?"
- Dan Rather in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, Oct. 11, 1991. 

"It is related to what women say, and with justification, about rape charges. If you think you've been raped or you know you have and you come forward with charges, then you suddenly are the person who has to pay the price."
- Dan Rather in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, Oct. 11, 1991. 

Rather on sexual assault allegations against Bill Clinton:

"[E]ven if it ... turns out to be true, it happened a long time ago and ... they've gotta be figuring maybe, just maybe the American public has heard all they want to hear about this and are saying, you know, 'Next, let's move on to the next thing.'"
- Dan Rather on "Imus in the Morning," Feb. 23, 1999.

"I don't remember all the details of Juanita Broaddrick. But I will say that - and you can castigate me if you like - when the charge has something to do with somebody's private sex life, I would prefer not to run any of it."
- Dan Rather on "The O'Reilly Factor," May 15, 2001. 

Rather on lying by Republican Oliver North:

"The man [Oliver North] Presidents Reagan and Bush branded an American hero was portrayed in court today as a liar and a thief."
- Dan Rather on the "CBS Evening News," April 14, 1989. 

"Despite these statements [by Nancy Reagan and Al Gore] that North is a documented liar, North, according to the polls, has a strong chance of defeating incumbent Democrat and former Marine in Vietnam Charles Robb. ... What's going on here?"
- Dan Rather reporting on Oliver North's run for the Senate on the CBS Evening News, Oct. 28, 1994. 

Rather on lying by Democrat Bill Clinton:

BILL O'REILLY: And I want to ask you flat out. Do you think President Clinton's an honest man?

RATHER: Yes, I think he's an honest man.

O'REILLY: Do you really?

RATHER: I think - I do. I think he's an honest man.

O'REILLY: Even when he lied to Jim Lehrer's face about the (unintelligible)?

RATHER: Listen, who among us have not lied about something?

Dan Rather on the hazards of covering the powerful:

"I strongly believe that in our system no citizen has to face any leader on bended knee. He is not standing before a monarch or a descendant of the sun god."
- Dan Rather in his 1977 book "The Camera Never Blinks."

"Do powder puff, not probing interviews. Stay away from controversial subjects. Kiss ass, move with the mass, and for heaven's and ratings' sakes, don't make anybody mad - certainly not anybody you're covering, and especially not the mayor, the governor, the senator, the vice president, or the president, or anybody in a position of power. Make nice, not news."
- Dan Rather complaining to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, September 1993. 

Rather, with his then-new partner Connie Chung, making nice to the Clintons:

"Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. If we could be one-one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House, we'd take it right now and walk away winners."
- Dan Rather at a meeting for CBS affiliates, May 27, 1993. Quoted in Columbia Journalism Review September/October 1993.