best anchors ever the long time ago the c.b.s. evening news he currently is the host and managing editor of dan rather reports on access t.v. and i'm honored to have the legendary newsman and my friend than join me he's been with us many times in fact this man while anchoring the c.b.s. news would cover hurricanes for us on larry king live here in the lower member standing are very very well know victory dan rather without a man or let's get right to it what do you make of the bridge gate well first of all it's an overstatement call it bridge gate and i want to start of all this serious but if you first wrote about it this all started with watergate watergate became a shorthand word for a widespread criminal conspiracy led sort of say by the president of united states out of the oval office constitutional crisis of the country more than forty people serve hard time now those who know that story to be true of this widespread criminal conspiracy tried always to soften it by saying well these things happen

all the time as bridge gate it is this gate and that gate there's only one gate and that's watergate good serious no this bridge fiasco you can call it that as we head toward the front a better word see what i mean that there is one has to has to have some context for things in the watergate isn't a whole different category now this kind of thing does happen in politics very often a widespread criminal conspiracy led by a president whom happen once in a lifetime first of all i think the story has a long way to run. and what's happening to governor christie he's hunkered down like a mule in a hail storm just right now. i was going to ask you get here dan rather is rushing toward christie's going through you just gave it to him well he's also admitted he would rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit and go through this. because partly is other is some of the

republican compatriots are turning to him like your friends in the desperate housewives turn to one another that's inevitable in these things happen i think is a long way to run we don't know how it's going to turn out i do not assume that it necessarily knocks christie out of the republican president in law who's going to find out that he knew about it more in could what is reason here now we have to know more they've indicted they've called on people to testify or if someone turned or someone said he did know well that would be very bad news for christie indeed but you mention criminal charges that's one difference here watergate is this a widespread criminal conspiracy forty people convicted felons as best i can see there's no mall been broken here in the bridge gate thing now it may turn out very very best to getting one are they missed you know they were all in one but as i understand it from criminal defense attorneys it is going to be a difficult case to make but we will see what is not a widespread criminal operation i think where the trouble is really going to come

down in the courts are civil cases people say listen i was put out this was unfair and i think that they'll have some cases you covered politicians with so on the something that always amazes me and i defer to your knowledge of this whether christie knew or not let's take his top aide nixon was going to win that election what is the invading democratic headquarters looking for why you're going to win the election one mayor isn't supporting you so your staff close is. well. you got it when you where are you were one where the governor christie knew about it always involved probably don't know but at least his staff you have to say they were schooled in the high ninety's on a dumb test this was really dumb to do it on from all appearances with these big good people did was they parachuted into the valley of the stupid he didn't need to do is depressed he could get them a month from now a year of now or two years and it was

a dumb thing to do but look who among us haven't done something dumb our lives and pettiness the jersey city governors big mayors elected people are all going to come down to help them he says he's not going to go as they cancel everybody down from the state to help out the city why the big politicians major politicians get petty . i can understand of the local councilman but why a governor or a governor's top aide well because nobody's perfect that's number one secondly it depends on organizations take on their personality and character from the top and not every political organization is filled with revenge and that i'm pointing out the downfall of richard nixon was clearly it wasn't good enough for richard nixon to beat his opponents this is key it was either the watergate thing it wasn't just good enough for him the big his opponents he's want to destroy and that's the lion and you can say in a way that land where that land was made to determine how long this bridge to two

asian goes because it from all appearances they sought to destroy the mayor the democratic mayor they have supported together this is reported listen i i was going to discuss this later over there right now fox news channel president of into this roger ailes who's in the now they've got a book coming out that will be apparently really attacks and i haven't read it yet he was asked an interview today the distinction between the news and opinionated program his exact reply was i grew up in the era when dan rather hated richard nixon he was a newsman but you knew what his opinion was the reaction well first of all of a lot of the you hated things i never seen it just simply isn't true it isn't really really worth discussing with respect and continue respect the office of the president i respected richard nixon and he came into office what is true we know this from the tapes richard nixon hated dan rather and c.b.s. news that a matter of record and roger ailes was and for all of the things he's accomplished

roger ailes was an operative for richard nixon use of an expected to say something like this and frankly i don't take it personally don't take it seriously do you agree with the think that the thought that fox news channel is a actual part of the republican party. you know what i'm pausing only because i want to give a thoughtful answer that i understand that argument i think it goes too far which used to say i think ailes is considers himself still a part of the republican party i think central far as he's able to that he wants his channel to be that way but i don't want to indict everybody at fox news channel because i know some of the pros there who are pretty good i don't want to dance around your question but i do do think that roger ailes would say this about him he is a very good businessman he's very smart about television and he built a network when i for one wasn't all sure he could do so and has he used to do benefit the republican party yes the record is very clear on that but is it

a sole operative in propaganda machine for the party and have stopped short of that right now or move to something more current expectations for obama in two thousand and fourteen what's going to happen in the house and the senate well as united as goes many times the straight answer kind of question is i don't know what to discuss it with you but you know i've been around long enough to know that he who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass in ivory every even more than my share of the talk about what's going to happen i would say at the present time we're talking here near the end of january in the election year i think the republicans keep control the house of representatives i would not be surprised to see it in games and seats in the house republicans keep control of the house in the senate the republicans will gain seats in the house and the senate but i don't think enough to get control of the senate it is not going to be a good year for parag obama and the democrats in my judgment you is that a few months back that president obama's opponents politically want to cut his

heart out and throw his liver to the dogs politically right is that still true even more true today it was when i started you think it's part racist. i do apart only because i know that people jump over there but it was later so venomous well here's a little bit i do make clear not everybody who disagrees with obama not nearly everybody not everybody in the republican party but your question was is some of it yes i think it's impossible to have the first president of color in the white house and not recognize that that some of the dislike for him and his policies of it is rooted in racism no question about it but not by no means all of it and let's acknowledge that president obama has made his own mistakes he hasn't operated a perfect presidency. so it gets complicated but the answer question is some of the races of course as an american as a journalist what are your thoughts is snowden a hero or

a villain you know no human has that person is the most difficult question i try have to try to answer these days i come out of i think he's neither a hero nor a villain at least not of asians what we know because we don't know the whole story that we know the least we don't believe no question about that but for example when i'm not did he get the job intending to be the leaker that he became or was he conscience stricken every got the job leaks or things like that we don't know but again i don't want to basle it but i think let move people i'm i'm a bit torn on the one that i think the information on the medium and long will it will be of value to society we stand a chance of being a better country because there's information gets out in the short run i understand the organisers listen the country needs to be able to keep some secrets such as who in our my apparatus is has contacts and pakistan and other places exposed and

enjoys difficult to come down on it that i think he's neither a hero nor a villain i think those who say bring him back to this country let him. stand trial that's fine but it quickly gets in the question if you're going to put him on trial what about the head of the g.s.a. of what do you know the lawyers on the at the n.s.a. who didn't deliver to the congress what are your thoughts on the right to listen to phone calls of. domestic or foreign you know i think you want to carry around with arnold ok denies that no i think in in twenty first century reality. oh that the government has to have a very constricted and very limited ability with proper safeguards built into it to listen to some called what i'm an orderly opposed to is blanket listening to calls over and there is a system places we know i'm not saying the system is perfect let's point for

cyclists is to be is that you have a court where they're supposed to go to this court and the court is supposed to be a check and balance now some of the time they have been going to court other times it looks like the court may be the quote the fix is in but i can't i can't subscribe to a theory that says the government under no circumstances can listen to no telephone calls to mostly not given the terrorist environment which we're operating now right how do you feel about and i greet totally one hundred percent would you say it's a dilemma but they've got to do what if you knew someone was going to do something or you had strong suspicions and you could prevent it do you not for that yes and how would we judge any president who said well i could have known what you know what i decided to leave but i'm not and will be right back with the great dan rather coming up more right after this. i'm better than this guy but i'm. trying to.

thank all of. my. family that for colleges right. here to play. today. i'm abby martin writes the stories we cover here you're not going to hear any rights at our back story the extra headlines and talk there's a reason they don't want to do not all of them are no more telling the truth that we should all be completely outraged now let's break the set. on a maronite in the financial world to. take back to seems to goldman cannot stop exiting very slowly taking no demand to credit it not going to get any economic benefit in life there are absolutely and there are bought.

league. play. lists lead. to live . cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. to live. dan rather the former anchor c b s evening news and of course with access t.v.

dan i understand the president is no one from the administration or is the president and first lady going to be a little bit of the thing. all things considered probably the right to call because well because there's so much going on in the soviet union including the persecution of gays and lesbians that there's only a part of it it wouldn't be very difficult for him to go in my judgment but i have no doubt it was a close call in his mind because after all the olympics with most of his and very special category and you try to lift above nation for that matter international politics but in russia at the present time just not possible. ok we have a situation this country a president's unpopular congress is on whose popular was a hero in america. well it's a good question maybe united do a book where of all the heroes on i think there are a lot of heroes and i think the cop who walks the lonely beat in

a tough neighborhood by himself and my hero i think the single mother with three kids is working four jobs trying to keep her. her family together is a her on their day to day heroes all over the country in terms of transformational political leaders pretty short supply right now and you look up and down the society but we go through these periods you know larry you know i've talked about this so many times before i'm so i'm an optimist by experience and by nature i love this country with a deep abiding. love and i'm optimistic about the future i know the argument that go listen we're on the down who's live in the back side of the slope we're in the room on the standing there and we have no overall commanding heroes in our political life but you know what we'll get there we'll get there again i don't have any doubt about it great lawyer to friend of mine a way that we've been a williams i asked him once you're not the missile pessimist said of course i'm

a pessimist of intelligence and i thought i'm not going to take the opposite view that i don't know that compare that i wanted you to compare the controversy over lara logan's now discredited sixty minutes report and the problems you had if your national guard service report on what your landlord larry but i want to make it very clear i don't want to add to c.b.s. news these problems are a local problem i know what if he was like to be in the vortex of those kind of controversies and i'm pulling for everybody at c.b.s. news and. virtually have all my life there is a great difference between their situation this is the one you mentioned and we're going to do with the bush national guard story let's see it clearly where our story our story was true you could argue in play did that we reach that truth through a flawed process and there were plenty of people that they knew the story was true but they couldn't stand it so they had to make it out to be false that's what

happened to us key thing our story was true did george bush's father use influence to keep him from going to be at naam getting him into national guard yes that's true. george w. bush there's no joy in seeing there's did he disappear from his national going obligations that's a fact those things are true to our story was true we caught him only you can argue in preference to him that the process was not pristine but i've got a call when i come back to i'm not walking to logan's use and i'm not walking sixty minutes use i'm no longer at c.b.s. on that they've got a lot to deal with this and i don't want to add to their problems you asked me the difference between that situation in which they have acknowledged that they had a problem witness all across told me near the end of his life that he was disappointed yes he got it in a raw deal and you certainly felt when they did the fiftieth anniversary of j.f.k.'s death and tend to airbrush you out when you reported from dallas so many

reporters on that scene in that area and you feel like you're finally you know what i like you any do you want to start of the grass is a great day and i said you have this work and i love it and all of that happens leaders of the detail and i do think that. we need to see when it comes to history they can airbrush me out of the pictures they present when it comes to the history the news organizations in be trying to change history and the c.b.s. news history is whether they now like me or not like me or who they are doesn't you go through just this coming year and a version of tiananmen square in which we were at the union square the civil rights movement which i covered. not to mention the kennedy assassination so to try to change history and that's really serious what they do to me doesn't matter all right you've done a lot to get a story including i told you tried heroin back in one nine hundred sixty five right

so you would cover that as a you would understand don't since i've tried pot i live right after the fact i got a friend to smoke it because i thought i would start smoking again but part was i thought a part should be legal i've said before i'm always heroin or iran's older quite different thing. this is the scene is the houston police stationed in one hundred fifty five i'm covering the police beat heroin nobody really knew what heroin was my recollection is they had arrested some musicians and came to town and they were talking about their trojan with heroin what is heroin i work in the radio stations or so when you want to do the police say well we don't know we've never tried it so what would you do it for me this would not happen today and you can say it was a damn fool thing for me to do but this is what happened between us and what it was like of the number one otherworldly is the best way i can describe it i can also say it gave me a three or four day headache afterward and i came out it was a myself i don't know what he what he sees in this stuff and i never want to touch

it again and never did to katie couric on the internet we're on the internet. what do you make of all this where's it all going well we're going to words all going but it's part of the reality and going to be perfectly honest for a long time to come you know we went through in terms of journalism but. also the society we went through the print age of newspapers that gave way to the radio era radio era gave way to the television era now the television iran might have been used in a way to the internet era doesn't mean it's going to replace television more than television replaced radio but the internet is the future when everybody wants it or not now i have to think it over in the mind the internet is a force for good information education edition from users that have its problems yes one of them being that with anonymity you can smear your neighbor or anybody else nobody can help it but nonetheless and if it isn't already true larry i think it's already true but if it isn't the truth now that most people get most of their

news from the internet it soon will be particularly young people now that that's a people don't leave a visit all under the age of forty other it's only will depend on newspapers by and large for most of the news noted and on television radio they go to the internet that's where it is yeah but the young they grow up and be old get older and leave us what happens to newspapers in twenty years they are around i think they'll be around the again having said i'm an optimist i understand the argument that they're finished i don't think so anymore than normal going to remember radio came in everybody's that was in newspapers or that it's really worth vanished when television came in is that both radio and television if it is it doesn't work out that way i think newspapers will be around i think their content will be more it will be longer longer form it is now because people who want longer form news reports and information go to newspapers do you miss the old days of three networks m p b s. sure i do of course i do something will say that the journalism we have

probably for our news but the journalism was better than that there are no more rose now. i'm not sure that's true and i'm not sure on the best person to judge it because have to all you know i'm a i'm a child of the thirty's forty's fifty's sixty's and seventy's i do agree that there are moral stands alone this is one of the problems i had with walter cronkite mum i'm sorry for the way cronkite who was of your bible icon a legend but maroon was the founding strain developed on it journalism one knew it as we know it i don't think it a one of his matched moros the quality to sustain quality of his journalism but a model vice enough to say listen the golden age was back when i was doing it back in the sixty's and seventy's there are a lot of good journalism around today in fact the three uyghurs at a.b.c. c.b.s.

n.b.c. a very good one to a great of for my first rate first rate and the newscasts are first rate but they're not many people as many used to watching them well i have some of the newscast and i think overall we're over adult beverage i think the three anchors would say they probably have difficulty with it because there is so sensitive they've always been seriously through ratings and demographics but i don't think any either any one of the three network newscasts now are as hard or as hard news as the anchors would like them to believe but they'll have to speak speak for themselves did you run a tough ship and see you the managing editor i was so with your orders cast there's anyone that anywhere would come down from above than say don't rub those. basically no c.b.s. at that time i can speak for you know the deal was i was an anchor and managing editor of the t.v. news which meant i had to call in every story it was of legal process i would ask

a lot of other people's opinion but in the end i decided what went into broadcast and what didn't now after the broadcasters over i was accountable plenty of times i got hauled into the news division president's office and said then what the hell do you think you do if you try to track this thing into the ditch but that's the way it worked then only there were only two occasions in the twenty four years that was anchor managing editor of even years that a news division president. came anywhere close to commanding that we do something coverage one was the newer member this case of drona point for a second congressman. condit member there he the. killing of girl in the lantern gary condit eerie condit everybody else it was august news was late everybody was running with one story i didn't want to run with it and finally the news division president in effect that then you got to run something on this and i said it's her journalism the words she said you got to and so but by and large

c.b.s. when i was there i got to make the calls on the evening news but i was accountable it was over you know i didn't make all perfectly all the obvious when did you ever come close to leaving c.b.s. of your own militia going to another network you know that ted turner and well a lot of first let me correct that oh in my heart of hearts you know but there were times when i did carefully considering that one when when roone arledge oh tried to get me to come to a.b.c. news in one thousand eighty seven united eighty or it was a powerful push where i really went there and they've you know well if you know what i mean and then. around the two thousand i want to say in one thousand nine hundred ninety two thousand odd ted turner came with an offer and quite honestly i've always wanted to work for ted i admired him from the last really odd but those two times i considered but each time over money was better elsewhere and one could

argue might have been better financially to go you know somewhere i've seen be as leaders tend to go my hands i understand and i had to kind of loyalty and also not just loyalty but i thought it was the best place in the world for electronic journalists to work no regrets on sure you always have regrets you no matter who could've should've done this that was what keeps you going. you know i love reporting years as with fish and go i have a patient who is out of i have a lot of water larry many of which you know what many of which have been exposed over the years i have a lot of blooms someone's over inflated some of them still open wounds but i think even people who disagree with me are both like me for a reason that would be there's have a passion for covering the news always have you say working for me going is that i should i love to get out on a story and a big stories even better than the been out front to be in the really big story.

there's nothing like that you're kind of got it wakes up and says what's going to happen today absolutely on my feet at the floor every morning i say where's the story. oh it was thanks to dan rather for joining me on the politicking today for my views out there i want to hear from you join the conversation on my facebook page and share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting change things and using the politicking hash tag that's all for this week's politicking you've got a surprise guest for you next week and so. i know c.n.n. m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close and for the truth of the might

think. it's because one call attention and the mainstream media works side by side with joe actually on the we're going to come. out our team we have a different right. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not gonna. get. you guys to the jokes i will hand over their stuff that i'm.