There is little doubt we have entered a period where increasingly restrictive governments presiding over diminishing personal liberties – even in the West – has become the rule. So it is refreshing when one hears someone who can garner some media attention speak out about it.

At first glance the lofty words offered in an interview recently by disgraced former CBS News Anchorman Dan Rather are almost inspiring. Mr. Rather simultaneously inspired journalists and lovers of freedom everywhere and unmistakably rebuked those lowly thuggish souls who wish to impose themselves upon such basic and fundamental ideas as free speech:

A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom. This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.

The Aspen Daily News, however, quotes what it calls this “legendary newsman” as also saying during a recent “impassioned” talk before the Aspen Institute that, “I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media.”

For those of you left scratching your heads wondering which it is – “a truly free and independent press” or a press (and other media) that owes its existence to a presidential commission that would then have a tremendous (and unconstitutional stake) in editorial departments across the US – then you are probably not alone.

Mr. Rather’s idea for a commission is that essentially some sort of agency be set up – preferably by President Obama, who will be featured on the cover of Time for the 12^th time in the past twelve months. The agency would see to it that newspapers and other forms of journalism that nobody reads or watches – and perhaps all of “public media” at some point – look to that commission for their bread and butter instead of working from a profit motive with revenue gleaned from subscriptions and advertisements as is currently the model. Mr. Rather’s rationale for ending for-profit journalism and journalism independent of government dictates is that corporations alter the content of news and make it their mouthpiece. In other words, Rather wants something akin to the current healthcare “reform” push in Washington for the journalism industry.

If Rather can’t get government to do it, he believes it would be nice nonetheless to concentrate control of the media in one or two non-profit organizations – sort of like the good old days when three TV networks and the New York Times basically told you what you should know and what you ought to think about it, except, of course, for the profit part. Unfortunately, Mr. Rather is too blind to see the dire contradiction readily apparent in his own words: “If not the government, then an organization like the Carnegie Foundation should (take on setting up such a commission). Without action… America will lose its independent media.”

States like Iran as well as Russia are examples of forms of governance once reserved to debt-riddled semi-failed and dysfunctional banana republics and African fiefdoms. The leaders of such regimes endlessly articulate the belief that only when government controls speech is it undiluted by corrupt self-interested parties. The problem that should be more than apparent to any journalist and particularly Dan Rather is the idea that media beholden to a monolithic government instead of a private sector composed of numerous competing interests is free and independent. Indeed, what we find In Iran, Russia, and so many Third World states is waste and corruption throughout government and its hand-picked industry because no one can blow the whistle on it. As Ronald Reagan once quipped, “If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”

Nevertheless, there is some doubt as to whether Mr. Rather’s agenda here is purely ideological; for, he too may well be among those greedy, self-serving private interests. Not only was his new media venture cited in the article, but there is also the possibility that Mr. Rather, like Tom Brokaw and countless other so-called journalists, has aspirations for a presidential appointment. Eternally in denial of his culpability – or ability – to control anything since the forged document scandal during the 2004 Presidential election, Rather nevertheless would score big to not only land such an appointment but have the chance to custom-make the entire enterprise in his own image. Imagine how exciting it would be for the former TV reporter to be a sort of new Media Tsar, granted the authority to oversee the futures of countless news organizations by recommending government money for those who fell in with the official line and denying it to those who didn’t (or who at some point embarrassed the “legendary newsman”).

Dan Rather is not known to be a humble man, so it is further curious his motives for asking anyone else for help, which by definition, is not independent behavior. My conclusion has to be that Mr. Rather would like, deeply, for those around him to think he is a man on a noble mission; that he is a man driven purely by ideas of the highest order – which of course are liberal ideas. The reality about Mr. Rather seems to be, unfortunately for him, rather disappointing. This is especially so after his having spent so much time convincing us how evil self-interest inherently is.

Considering the fact Dan Rather has chosen, hat in hand, to taken his request for intervention to the government together with the documented lop-sided pro-Obama coverage both before and after the election by most mainstream news media and Rather’s own forged document scandal, it seems clear that any significantly recognizable form of an independent media in the US is already nearly lost and far from the road to recovery. That independence exists by lack of government control is merely a formality for now, as the ideological subservience already has created the appearance of an institution Dan Rather seems intent on formalizing.

Mr. Rather did however correctly mention, as the Aspen newspaper put it, that “at stake… is the very survival of American democracy.” So, at least on that one fact we can all agree. It is just too bad he seems intent on driving the stake through its heart.