If he s undeserving of the label, perhaps perhaps he ll finally understand how this is precisely what he did to Kenneth Starr. Rather waved Starr s Republican affiliations around like a bloody shirt and endlessly characterized him as a partisan prosecutor while Starr was investigating Bill Clinton. Sounding an awful like Al Gore tumbling out of a Buddhist temple, Rather claimed he hadn't realized beforehand that the event was a fundraiser. Rather also tried to get out from under this story by emphasizing how he'd had his picture taken the night before with Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry. But there's an enormous difference between circulating your charm and circulating the collection plate.
Reporters don t headline fundraisers for political parties.
This is not to say reporters don t cross the line. They do so all the time, and get away with it. Over the last decade, major anchors, editors, and reporters have attended fundraisers for liberal interest groups. Transafrica has drawn Bernard Shaw, Bryant Gumbel, and Ted Koppel. The Children's Defense Fund drew Roger Rosenblatt and Jane Pauley.