This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features an old favorite, former CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who said that the Republican Party’s “strong turn to the right” is the fallout from the Reagan years.
He was on “CNN Tonight” Wednesday when he said the following when sizing up the huge and politically diverse Republican presidential field:
“We never had this many candidates in the race when I say this early, but I would say there’s a relationship between the 2016 presidential campaign and what happened in the 1970s during the Watergate period in this sense. What happened in the mid 1970s resulted, eventually, in the Republican Party taking a strong turn to the right with the two-term presidency of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party is still struggling, on the one hand, with the success of the Reagan presidencies, which by the way, I would argue, the presidency of George H.W. Bush was the third Reagan term.
“So, in effect, you had three Reagan terms. After the Republican Party took this strong turn to the right coming out of the 1970s and the party is still struggling with that, which is one of the reasons that they have, what, 16 candidates and counting in the race for the primary at the beginning.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “What? Dan Rather isn’t any better at political analysis than in document authentication. So, by his reasoning, if a more moderate Republican had beaten Jimmy Carter in 1980, in 2015 the party would be unified with fewer presidential candidates?”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
