This section is much larger than its Democratic counterpart. One of the most prevalent tendencies you'll notice is how Rather chooses to relay only one side (the Democrats') of an argument. See also Conservatives.

The primary election debate was "New Hampshire's version of Snow White and the eight Republicans candidates, all of them grumpy."
--Dan Rather covering a Republican debate shortly before the New Hampshire Primary, February 15, 1996.

"The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, March 16, 1995.

"On Capitol Hill today, House Republicans failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to override President Clinton's veto of the bill that would have reduced the so-called marriage penalty tax. The president said the measure would have cost the U.S. Treasury too much and would mostly benefited the wealthy."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 13, 2000.
Note: What did supporters of the bill think? Rather never told his viewers.

"Republicans kill the bill to clean up sleazy political fund-raising."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 25, 1998.

"And a word about the people in the seats. Our CBS News/New York Times survey finds the Republican delegates are more male, more white and more, quote, "conservative" than the Republican delegates at the Houston convention four years ago. And these delegates are more male, wealthier, older and, by anybody's acknowledgment, more to the right than Republicans across the country in general. But you aren't going to be seeing many of the delegates at home--that is, not if the party has its way. Instead you'll be seeing the quite different party, the one that Bob Dole wants you to see and the Republicans want the country to see as the party will be represented on the podium.
--Dan Rather during live coverage of the 1996 Republican National Convention, August 12, 1996.

"President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have repealed the inheritance tax will stand. House Republicans failed today to get the two-thirds majority vote to override the veto. President Clinton called the measure a tax giveaway that would overwhelmingly mostly benefit the rich."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 7, 2000.
Note: Rather only tells why Clinton dislikes the bill but not why the Republicans supported it.

"It's over for the 107th Congress. The House adjourned the lame duck session today after sending President Bush the final bill creating what's called the Department of Homeland Security. Congress did not complete work on an extension of unemployment benefits for a million jobless people. These benefits are due to run out a few days after Christmas."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, November 22, 2002.

"Good evening. Legislation to reform shady, big-money campaign fund-raising is dead in Congress. Republican opponents in the Senate killed it today. It was the latest in a long running attempt to toughen loose laws that shield hidden donors with loose wallets and deep pockets. As CBS's Bob Schieffer reports, when it came to the crunch today on campaign finance reform, it was all talk and no action."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 25, 1998.

"President Clinton today attacked a Republican proposal in Congress. This Republican proposal would let people set up education savings accounts that earn tax free interest. The President said this GOP version benefits the rich and private schools at the expense of already decaying public schools."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, April 21, 1998.
Note: Rather did not give supporters of the bill (which included some Democrats) a chance to say why they wanted it.

Former Senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater had just died:
"Goldwater was born 89 years ago in Arizona, before it was a state. CBS's Richard Schlesinger remembers the man who turned the GOP hard to the Right."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, June 29, 1998.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, politicians of both parties sought for ways to improve airport security. The Senate voted to hire 28,000 federal employees to screen travel luggage, eliminating the contracts of private companies that now oversee baggage screening. In the House, Republicans believed that federalizing airport security would create more bureaucracy and more federal employees with less accountability. House Republicans wanted a measure that would give the president the option of choosing either private companies or federal workers at airports--or both. President Bush lobbied House members and praised the Republican bill for its "flexibility" in allowing him to choose either option. Democrats wanted screening done by federal agents and said private companies have already proven they're not up to the job. Democrats also say Republicans are against federalizing screeners because they are trying to please the companies that stand to lose business if screening is done by the government.

In two CBS stories about the vote, CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Bob Schieffer focused only on Democratic allegations of why Republicans were against federal employee screening:
"Republicans opposing this say they're just philosophically opposed to creating a larger federal bureaucracy. They don't state their underlying fear that if those baggage screeners become federal employees, they'll probably join unions, and unions often support Democrats."
--Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News, October 10, 2001.

On November 1, 2001, hours before the House was to vote, the CBS report that night again focused on Democratic allegations as to why Republicans were against the bill:
DAN RATHER: After weeks of debate and delay, there's a showdown in Congress tonight on legislation to improve aviation system safety against terrorists. CBS's Bob Schieffer has late details. Bob.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, Dan, the House is headed toward a final vote tonight on several measures to strengthen airport security, including one that would turn over baggage screening at airports to federal law enforcement agents. It's turned into a bitter partisan fight and, with a vote perhaps less than an hour away, still too close to call.
Airline crews who wanted to federalize the screeners and the top White House lobbyist, Nick Calio, who's against it, came to the Capitol looking for votes. House Republicans said their opposition was grounded in a reluctance to enlarge the federal government. Democrats saw another reason.
Rep. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-Mo.): It's because Tom DeLay and Dick Armey were trying to please, I guess, the special interests, who did not want to lose these contracts.
SCHIEFFER: He meant the mostly foreign-owned companies that currently hold the multi-million-dollar contracts to screen airport baggage. They mounted a bare-knuckle lobbying campaign to keep law enforcement agents from doing the job. Before the vote, their head lobbyist said they might sue the government if they lost.
KENNETH QUINN (Aviation Security Association): If the federal government was going to nationalize their work force, in essence take away that business, that industry, there's certainly a lot of case support for them to receive compensation under our Constitution.
SCHIEFFER: Final debate was fiercely partisan, ironic because there had been strong bipartisan support for numerous airport security measures until Republican leaders Armey and DeLay convinced the White House to oppose federalizing the screeners. Since then, it's been an all-out partisan mud fight. Still no prediction on a winner. Dan.
RATHER: Bob Schieffer reporting live from Capitol Hill.
--Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News, November 1, 2001.

"As far as your labeling of me as a liberal, I'm not sure where you (or anyone else) get such ideas, since I've never discussed my politics in public or private except to say that I voted for Eisenhower twice. I suspect that such labels -- in my case as well as others' -- are less the product of what I've said than of what others have said about me."
--Dan Rather, responding to a May 16, 1995 article in the Rochester Post-Bulletin which accused him of being liberally biased.

The Republicans and President Clinton were having budget negotiations for the 2001 fiscal year:
A pre-election stalemate developed today on a major federal budget bill. President Clinton is threatening to veto the bill which contains the Republicans' $240 billion tax cut package. The president says there are just too many tax breaks in it for the wealthy. He would veto the bill even though it contains some of the provisions he wants such as an increase in the minimum wage.
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 26, 2000.
Note: What did the Republicans think of the bill?

There was a massive flood in the upper Midwest; victims needed help:
"President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders are playing a political blame game today. Each is trying to avoid blame and political disaster over Congress's stalemate on the Federal Disaster Relief bill. For his part, President Clinton said today that he'd veto the bill because of what he sees as totally unrelated provisions Republicans tacked onto it."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, June 10, 1997.
Note: What did Republicans say for their part?

"Republicans in Congress tonight killed the big tobacco bill dead, a serious blow to the president's budget plans."
"Another breaking story tonight with huge implications for the health of the U.S. economy and the health of smokers. The months-in-the-making multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement bill is dead. Finished. Senate Republicans under heavy pressure and heavy money from the tobacco lobby, voted tonight to kill it."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, June 17, 1998.

"Good evening. New details are emerging tonight for a shifting, expanding and more politically explosive and partisan session for tomorrow's Republican-led House Judiciary Committee impeach the President inquiry."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, November 18, 1998.

"The Republicans tended to get up close and personal ('Rather is a liberal,' or somesuch ad hominem attack)."
--Dan Rather in his 1994 book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice.

RATHER: "Soup kitchens around the country are reporting demand for their services is up this Thanksgiving--unfortunately, donations are down. And now with the coming shift of power and agendas [1994 takeover by Republicans] in Washington, many charitable groups are worried about how they--and the people they help--can make it."
THRELKELD: "[T]his Thanksgiving there'll be a hot meal and a bed for anyone who needs it. Next Thanksgiving, though, [the] homeless may not have that to be thankful for."
--Dan Rather and Richard Threlkeld on the CBS Evening News, November 23, 1994.

Independent Counsel Ken Starr sent his report on Bill Clinton to the House of Representatives:
"For all of the talk of bipartisan cooperation and caution, there's plenty of impeachment talk in the air, plenty of resignation talk in the air, and a definite push [by Republicans] for fast public release of the details of Starr's report even before the Clinton camp sees it. With that in mind, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt said today, and I quote, 'You don't overturn the results of an American election on a whim,' unquote."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 10, 1998.
Note: What did a Republican House leader have to say?

"But on the partisan level, the difference is this: the Democrats have put themselves at the vanguard of the shift in mores that is opening society to openly gay men and women. Maybe not to the extent that certain gay political leaders would like or demand, but the Democrats have staked out the cutting edge of the political center, at least, on these issues. In contrast, the Republicans are being dragged along--and for a national party that seeks to be the dominant one, that's not a comfortable position to be in."
--Dan Rather in "Rather's Notebook" at the CBS News Web site, April 18, 2000.

"President Clinton says [the GOP tax credit] is unacceptable because it does not apply fully to working women, especially poor women who take a tax deduction for child care."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, June 13, 1997
Note: Rather relays only one side.

"True or false, that part of the Republican agenda is now to try to paralyze the White House with so-called ethics inquiries?"
--Dan Rather to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Election Night, November 5, 1996.

"It [the tobacco settlement bill] was originally supposed to earmark a broad new tax on cigarettes to bankroll anti-smoking efforts, especially those aimed at the young. All of a sudden this bill now has a Republican provision to bankroll election year tax cuts, especially the so-called marriage tax. CBS's Bob Schieffer is watching as big money buys a new tobacco bill."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, June 11, 1999.

"[B]y 60 to 28 percent Americans think the Senate trial is politically motivated by Republicans to hurt Bill Clinton,"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 2, 1999.

Jack Kemp had just been picked to be the Republicans' vice presidential nominee. Dan Rather interviewed him at the convention:
"Even some Republicans describe the current platform as quote, 'harsh, extreme,' even 'radical.' Do you see it that way?"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 12, 1996.

"The delegates to this convention have been selected, inspected, detected and categorized by the press, the pols, the pros and the pollsters. We know that they are mostly male, overwhelmingly white, mostly well-to-the-Right politically, and almost one in five of these delegates is a millionaire."
--Dan Rather during live coverage of the Republican National Convention, August 12, 1996.
Note: Rather makes 7 million dollars a year at CBS.

"Money and politics figured into a vote today in the Republican-controlled Congress. The Senate gave final Congressional approval to a ten-year phase-out of inheritance taxes. President Clinton calls it a tax break benefiting mostly the rich and says he'll veto it."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 14, 2000.

Indiana senator Richard Lugar announced he was running for president:
"While others in the GOP pack are running as Mr. Right or Mr. Far Right, Senator Lugar is stressing his foreign policy expertise."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, March 3, 1995.

"There was no doubt about Republicans in the House having enough votes tonight to pass another key item in their agenda to rip up or rewrite government programs going back to the Franklin Roosevelt era. This is a bill making it harder for federal agencies to issue new regulations to protect health, safety and the environment."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 28, 1995.

"The Republican party has operated a slick public opinion task force since 1972, geared to bombarding radio or TV call-in shows and letters-to-the-editor columns. My reaction is close to awe for how successful they are both in bashing the media and in making the media their accomplices."
--Dan Rather in his 1994 book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice.

"Republicans in Congress today unveiled their long-awaited and potentially most explosive proposal of all--to cut Medicare spending increases by more than a quarter trillion dollars."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 21, 1995.
Note: Medicare spending was still scheduled to increase, although not as much as Democrats wanted.

"From another offensive wave on Whitewater to a sweeping rollback of federal regulations on health, safety, and the environment, it's a political carpet-bombing attack [by Republicans], wall to wall, House to Senate."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 17, 1995.

"The Republicans' all-out offensive on Whitewater today featured contradictory testimony."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 26, 1995.

"The Whitewater tag team offensive by Republicans in Congress is winding down, at least for now."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 10, 1995.

"Obviously there's a lot of anger and frustration out there. Republicans have tailored their campaigns, nothing wrong with that, around that. How do you transform all that anger into something positive for the country?"
--Dan Rather to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, proposing anger at Democrats is the reason Republicans won in 1994. CBS News, November 1994.

The Republican convention had just approved its platform at the 2000 convention:
"Also unchanged is the Republican platform's hard stand against abortion rights and a woman's right to choose."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 28, 2000.

"On Capitol Hill, the Senate voted overwhelming approval today for the big balanced budget blueprint. Supporters of the plan say it would balance the budget in five years, provide $85 billion in tax breaks mostly for families with children, cut the capital gains tax which would help immediately the wealthy, and save $321 billion out of Medicare, defense and other spending."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, May 23, 1997.

"The more than year-long investigation ended almost the way it began: A Republican offensive targeted at First Lady Hillary Clinton."
--Dan Rather reporting the findings of the Senate in the White House Travel Office scandal on the CBS Evening News, June 18, 1996.

The House and Senate Conference Comittee finally agreed on a version of a bill for airport security. Democrats wanted federal employees to be baggage screeners, Republicans insisted that private companies should do the screening. Conservatives were able to influence the final bill so that it included elements of private screening. Rather then called the bill "watered-down":
RATHER: Tonight's Eye on America brings you late details and context in the long, drawn-out political fight over improving American aviation security. The flying public has been asking for action by Congress since September 11th. There has been very little. Holiday travel is coming up fast now, so as CBS' Bob Schieffer reports, at long last there's talk of a watered-down compromise bill ready for takeoff.
BOB SCHIEFFER: The planes are back in the air and now, after months of partisan fighting, congressional negotiators have finally agreed on a plan for airport security that may convince more Americans it is safe to fly. As Congress got in a partisan fight over whether federal agents should replace the low-wage civilians who screen bags, airport business dropped and public exasperation with government safety efforts soared.
WOMAN: I think they're kind of just arguing just to argue, basically.
MAN: The politicians usually take a lot longer to catch up with the public.
SCHIEFFER: A CBS News poll out today reflects the growing annoyance. Last month, more than half those sampled were satisfied with government efforts to improve airport security, but that has now plunged to just 37 percent. Apparently feeling the heat at last, congressional negotiators finally broke a partisan deadlock today and agreed on a common approach.
Highlights of the deal: The federal government will take over airport security from the airlines; all baggage will be searched or X-rayed; within a year, all passenger and baggage screening will be done by federal agents.
To satisfy conservatives worried about enlarging the government, a few airports will be allowed to experiment with a combination of federal supervisors and private baggage screeners. Other airports can opt for a similar program in two years.
--Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News, November 15, 2001.

"When all was said and done on campaign fund-raising reform in the Senate today, all was said but nothing was done."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 7, 1997.

"You said this morning that the party's message will focus on the needs and cares of the people. Now, how do you reconcile that with a President who has just signed a quote 'welfare reform bill' which by general agreement is going to put a lot of poor children on the street?"
--Dan Rather to a Democratic Congressman Chris Dodd on the CBS Evening News, August, 1996.
Note: "General agreement" cannot possibly mean "the American people," because polls at the time supported the proposed changes.

"The persistence of the hunger problem coincides with a fifty-percent drop in the nation's welfare rolls.
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 20, 2000.

"The Republicans' Medicare drug plan. The real thing or an election year placebo?"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, April 12, 2000.

"Republicans were still pumping out a stop-gap budget certain to draw another presidential veto, a bill containing what President Clinton called tonight, quote, 'critical cuts in Medicare and other programs.'"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, December 16, 1995.
Note: Rather relays only one side.

"Late today Republicans defeated proposals that would have protected women from being forced to leave the hospital just hours after breast cancer surgery. Also defeated: a proposal to let women choose gynecologists as their primary care doctor."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 13, 1999.

"[T]he national [Republican] party is at loggerheads with most Californians on issues like gun control, abortion, and the environment."
--Dan Rather in "Rather's Notebook" at the CBS Web site, April 12, 2000.

"The Republican-controlled House voted today for tax cuts totaling almost $800 billion over ten years. President Clinton says he will veto any legislation of the sort. The President favors a more modest tax cut in the $300 billion range. The President says his plan will leave some money to knock back the national debt and shore up Medicare and Social Security."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 22, 1999.
Note: Rather relayed only Clinton's explanation, none of the Republicans'.

"Republicans have opened renewed attacks on Attorney General Janet Reno. This is not big news. She has been a target of Republicans for removal from the Justice Department from practically the first day she came into the job as the first woman ever to hold it." "Secretary of State Madeline Albright has been under heavy fire lately, too. Now Reno is under heavier fire than ever. Not a good time for women in the administration."
--Dan Rather in his syndicated column, May 24, 1999. print_file('footer'); ?>