After Republicans bucked historical trends and gained seats during the 2002 congressional elections, Al Gore, Tom Daschle and other prominent Democrats have placed some of the blame for their party's losses on conservative talk radio and the Fox News Channel. But they are not alone in criticizing the upstart cable network.

Over the years, prominent on- and off-screen personalities from CBS News have also criticized FNC. And FNC has returned the favor. The two-way sniping has increased with the increased liberal attacks on Fox News and its status as "part and parcel of the Republican Party," as Gore has described it. Asked during an interview on MSNBC's Donahue what his opinion of FNC was, longtime 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney replied that "there's no question it is blatantly conservative."

The two networks have been at it for years, exchanging barbs ever since the heydays of CNN and CNBC during the mid 90s. Fox has always maintained that it presented news in a fairer fashion compared to its "liberal" counterparts. CBS, in turn, has been suspicious of FNC from the very beginning.

Early in its short history, 60 Minutes contributor Mike Wallace did a January 19, 1997 story on FNC and Rupert Murdoch, its financial backer and president of News Corporation. At the time, the network was a gaping money hole, Wallace figured the whole enterprise was doomed to failure:

MIKE WALLACE: Murdoch's fat bids have failed to secure rights for future Olympic Games, and his cable news channel hasn't been a slam dunk either.
NEIL CAVUTO (from FNC): And Fox News Channel has a lot more news for you.
(Footage from Fox News Channel; FNC building and electronic sign)
WALLACE: Murdoch has gambled over $ 100 million on his Fox News Channel, trying to compete with Ted Turner's CNN. But viewership is dismal and some analysts say that Rupert Murdoch has overreached again.

The fledgling network was also conservatively biased, Wallace asserted. After citing one example of  FNC's "conservative spin," Wallace turned to the then-owner of CNN, Ted Turner, a self-described liberal, who agreed that FNC had a conservative bias.

WALLACE: And on Murdoch's new cable channel, the news also comes with a conservative spin.
UNIDENTIFIED ANCHORMAN (from Fox News): Those who are street-wise in America's big cities know that drug pushers and liquor stores make a ton of money the day the welfare checks arrive. It's a tough thing to say, but it's true.
WALLACE: Ted Turner disdains all this. He believes Murdoch's political bias contaminates his news coverage.
TED TURNER: He looks down his nose at good, honest journalism. He thinks that pay--that his media should be used by him to further his own goal.

As it turned out, Wallace's prognostication was wrong. Fox News became more successful, sometimes even giving the dominant CNN a run for its money in the ratings race. CBS News president Andrew Heyward agreed with Wallace's assesment of the newly successful FNC, telling a C-SPAN interviewer on July 30, 2000 that Fox's slogan "fair and balanced" was a fraud since it "implies that the rest of the media are biased." This charge is obviously absurd because the rest of the media are fair, Heyward argued, therefore Fox News tilts to the Right.

Naturally, FNC denied Heyward's charge and a few months later on November 29, Fox News anchor Brit Hume returned the favor, criticizing Dan Rather for being ridiculously skeptical of then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris who had certified her state's votes for George W. Bush during the 2000 post-election battle.

BRIT HUME: Finally, we go back to Sunday's big event in Tallahassee: the official certification by the Florida secretary of state of George W. Bush as the winner of the state of Florida, a duty conferred on her by Florida law once she has received the returns showing who got the most votes.
This is how it played on CBS News.
DAN RATHER (from CBS): Florida's Republican secretary of state is about to announce the winner -- as she sees it and she decrees of it -- of the state's potentially decisive 25 electoral votes.
The believed certification -- as the Republican secretary of state sees it...
She will certify -- as she sees it -- who gets Florida's 25 electoral votes.
The certification -- as the Florida secretary of state sees it and decrees it -- is being signed.
HUME: Captain Dan the Newsman.
And that is Special Report for this time.

Asked about the Hume clip in an interview for a New York Times Magazine article the following June 24, Rather rejected Hume's critique:

The Hume accusation seemed to pain Rather. He found all of this unseemly. "I respect Brit very much," he repeated, "but that's hogwash. Any reporter who didn't bring a strong sense of skepticism about the inherent fairness of players on both sides of the fierce dogfight in Florida was not doing his job."

Dan Rather, who wept in the presence of David Letterman while reciting the second stanza of "America the Beautiful," now sees national pride as a global threat. He told the BBC this week, "It's an obscene comparison, but, you know, there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of tough questions."

Dan Rather vs. Roger Ailes

The person at FNC with probably the least affection for Dan Rather is its president, Roger Ailes and the feeling, in all likelihood, is mutual. While working on George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, Ailes advised the vice president on how to deal with Rather in an upcoming interview. When CBS News had filed its request earlier, it told the Bush campaign that the session would be a benign affair, similar to the those done for the other primary candidates.

That's what Bush thought, but that hardly turned out to be the case, as the interview instead turned into the most infamous and controversial of Rather's career. Bush may have believed CBS but as Newsweek reporters Peter Goldman and Tom Matthews wrote in their magazine's review of the presidential campaign, The Quest for the Presidency: The 1988 Campaign, Ailes was under no such illusion:  

The limousine ride to town was the only chance they would have to prepare Bush for the likelihood that, as Ailes predicted, Rather would be coming at him like a mad dog.
Bush seemed insufficiently worried. "I've answered the question [about Iran-contra] five hundred times," he said. "I don't see any big deal."
"This is a big deal," Ailes said. "All they have to do is press you on dates and bullshit that you haven't had time to review, and you're gonna look like you don't know what you're talking about. If somebody asked me what I had for lunch last Thursday, I wouldn't know, but I'd look guilty trying to think about it."
"No, no," Bush said. "Dan Rather is a good newsman. He won't do that."
"Hey," Ailes said, "his job tonight is ratings. His ass is on the line. He doesn't care about you. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd shoot you."

Rather's Changing Opinion of Cable News

When CNN was the dominant cable network:
"You know, I for one think CNN does a terrific job, and not because I'm appearing on their air tonight. Everybody knows they do a good job."
--Dan Rather on Larry King Live, March 11, 1996.  

LARRY KING: In fact, one of the things that tempted you to nearly come to CNN was the fact you'd be on more.
DAN RATHER: Absolutely.
KING: Right?
RATHER: Well, as I've said to you before, I wasn't just tempted. If I could have gotten here, I'd have been here.
--Larry King Live, December 3, 1998  

KING: Were you tempted to come to CNN a year or two ago?
RATHER: Yes, not only was I tempted, but at that time, if I could have gotten to CNN which I was trying to do, I would have gotten to CNN. It was just -- turned out to be a bridge too far, but the short answer is yes, I would.
--Larry King Live, January 10, 2001  

When Fox News Channel was the dominant network:
"The problem for cable networks, of course, is they have to fill all that time. They have a deadline every nanosecond and sometimes the time was filled with something other than news. A lot of it was, forgive the word if you must, just blather."
--Dan Rather on Larry King Live, November 4, 2002