IN: Daniel Irvin Rather, Jr. was born on October 31, 1931, in Wharton County, Texas, the son of Daniel Irvin Rather, Sr., a ditch digger, and the former Byrl Veda Page. The Rathers moved to Houston, where Dan attended Love Elementary School and Hamilton Middle School. He graduated in 1950 from John H. Reagan High School in Houston. In 1953, he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Sam Houston State University where he was editor of the school newspaper, The Houstonian.

On September 8, 2004, Rather reported on 60 Minutes Wednesday that a series of memos critical of President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record had been discovered in the personal files of Lt. Bush's former commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. Once copies of the documents were made available on the Internet, their authenticity was quickly called into question. Much of this was based on the fact that the documents were proportionally printed and displayed using other modern typographic conventions usually unavailable on military typewriters of the 1970s. The font used on the documents has characteristics that exactly match standard font features of Microsoft Word. This led to claims that the memos were forgeries. The accusations then spread over the following days into mainstream media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Rather and CBS initially defended the story, insisting that the documents had been authenticated by experts. CBS was contradicted by some of the experts it originally cited, and later reported that its source for the documents - former Texas Army National Guard officer Lt. Col. Bill Burkett - had misled the network about how he had obtained them. On September 20, CBS retracted the story. Rather stated, "If I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question." The controversy has been referred to by some as "Memogate" and "Rathergate." Following an investigation commissioned by CBS, CBS fired story producer Mary Mapes and asked three other producers connected with the story to resign. Many believe Rather's retirement was hastened by this incident. On September 20, 2007, Rather was interviewed on Larry King Live commenting "Nobody has proved that they were fraudulent, much less a forgery. ... The truth of this story stands up to this day."

were they verified?

OUT: Much of this was based on the fact that the documents were proportionally printed and displayed using other modern typographic conventions usually unavailable on military typewriters of the 1970s.

input: Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one's faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world." In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy--and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so--it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms." He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam. Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots: Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are "committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own"? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam--and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame. Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it."

Answer this question "what are his feelings towards Islam?"
output:
Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions.