Dan Rather stepping down

According to early reports, Dan Rather will vacate the position he has held atthe CBS Evening News for twenty-four years.

Supposedly, he made the decision with the CBS executives during the summer and gave no indication it was related to the documents fiasco concerning the President's National Guard service.

Somehow, I just don't believe that is an honest answer. He threatened to quit in order to get the news desk job in the first place, now he decides to give it up. Suspect indeed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...

I say good riddance...and Amen.

Kinda like my own reaction to William Safire''s retirement. I can understand your relief. But Rather was a piker compared to Safire''s willingness to bend the truth. And Rather was probably less influential.

Considering I''ve never heard of Safire before, I somehow doubt that.

And you don''t call what Rather did bending the truth?

And you don''t call what Rather did bending the truth?

Based on what came out a month or two ago, I''d say his producer was had. Is that not the case anymore?

Safire''s been an influential columnist since not long after he quit writing for Nixon. He''s had quite an impact on American politics. He was swaying opinion before Cronkite retired, I believe.

Sad that a long and storied career can, for all intents and purposes, be mistrusted and denegrated because of a problem with a source.

"Robear" wrote:

Kinda like my own reaction to William Safire''s retirement. I can understand your relief. But Rather was a piker compared to Safire''s willingness to bend the truth. And Rather was probably less influential.

Rather was one of the top three in broadcast evening news for 24 years and hosted, ""60 minutes II"". I fail to see the comparison in terms of public saturation with Safire.

I never commented about relief. I did however comment on the timing which I find to be at least suspect. I have no political preference in that regard. My suspicion over Rather''s motives aside, the fact he chooses now to retire while commenting that he made the decision before the public release and his personal support for the discredited documents is of little matter to me. Claiming one decided to leave before they got caught is pretty weak but easy to defend since it can''t be proven. Considering the effort and the value Rather placed on the chair, I think suddenly deciding to retire is at least curious.

Sad that a long and storied career can, for all intents and purposes, be mistrusted and denegrated because of a problem with a source.

Rather and his producer made the call. I hardly think Rather with his name would be told to run the story if he objected. It was Rather''s story as one of the producers and he was involved directly, he even went so far as to support the documents on the air. Rather was hardly mislead here ( and to assume so would really be painting him as incompetent), they saw a chance to influence the public (or if you prefer to be less political, they saw sensationalism for ratings), they ran with it despite the warnings from their own experts and they got caught.

Rather should have left his politics at the door or have been careful to see through to the facts, either way, he failed to meet one or the other in a business that is based on presentation of details that can and will be investigated, espcially ones about a candidate in an election year.

The only one that damaged Rather''s name is Rather, there is nothing unfortunate about it when it is self-inflicted.

I didn''t say anything about it being unfortunate. I just compared it to the retirement of one of America''s top three columnists, a man who routinely lied and very rarely apologized. Heck, I''d love to see the Fox folks who hyped the Swift Boat Veteran lies retire, but it''s already clear they live to do every day what Dan Rather seems to have done once.

Rather gets pilloried; Fox gets a pass; Safire becomes ""William who?"". Yeah, there''s bias in the media, but it sure is not liberal.

"Robear" wrote:

I didn''t say anything about it being unfortunate. I just compared it to the retirement of one of America''s top three columnists, a man who routinely lied and very rarely apologized. Heck, I''d love to see the Fox folks who hyped the Swift Boat Veteran lies retire, but it''s already clear they live to do every day what Dan Rather seems to have done once.

Rather gets pilloried; Fox gets a pass; Safire becomes ""William who?"". Yeah, there''s bias in the media, but it sure is not liberal.

My comment about these events being unfortunate you will note, is actually in response to Warlock''s observation that the situation was ""sad"". The response was divided by the quote.

If I recall, the media all but demanded Bush denounce the Swift Boat Veteran''s campaign, yet they closed ranks and called Rather a victim of circumstances and information when he got caught.

I saw the Nightline interview with former NVA and Viet Cong soldiers attempting to prove the Swift Boats a fraud, too bad they had to go to communists to attempt to disprove it. That, much like this conversation on the swift boats, really isn''t pertinent to the dynamic of the events being discussed so I''ll address the point directly.

Fox news aside, their reporting, truthful or otherwise in the media really doesn''t balance out Rather in the large picture or make the attempt less serious. If someone lies then they should pay for it and claiming Fox is dishonest doesn''t really alter the fact that CBS found and presented bad information not from an opposing side or view point, but internally generated. The Swift boat vets are who they are, Fox didn''t create them, which is what CBS did with this story.