Dan Rather Finally Says Goodbye

November 24, 2004

I remember watching Dan Rather on 60 Minutes back in the ‘70s. Nobody was better than Rather at bringing sweat to the brow of an interviewee. His investigations uncovered scams, shams and government waste. It was compelling television and I was glued to it each Sunday night.

 

Then came the wrong turn.

 

Rather was determined to become the top dog at CBS. That meant rising to the standard set by Walter Cronkite in the anchor's chair. No doubt, Cronkite was a hard act to follow but Rather was the wrong second act. His abrasive manner, his stilted delivery, his street-wise persona were in direct contrast with Cronkite's fatherly image as “the most trusted man in America.” Nobody trusted Rather, and, as it turns out, with good reason. Rather was a pit-bull turned loose in the Tiffany Network's china shop. His clumsy lumbering through the world of news seemed to break everything around him. Sometimes he even became the news. In 1987, he stormed off the Evening News set after CBS execs decided to stay with a tennis match that had run long instead of coming to him on time. There was also the very strange mugging incident. After claiming to have been roughed up on the streets of New York by a man who asked, “Kenneth, what is the frequency,” even the most ardent supporters began questioning the wisdom of keeping him in the coveted anchor spot.

 

And who can forget the very odd manner in which he ended each newscast for a spell with the peculiar sign-off “Courage,” whatever the heck that meant.

 

The news business is filled with left-leaning journalists. As it turns out, Cronkite was one of those furthest to the left. However, Cronkite had the professional regulator in his brain that kept that political ideology in check. It wasn't until many years after leaving the anchor chair that anyone, outside of his close friends and associates, had any idea of where Cronkite stood, politically. Journalism came first to Cronkite. Integrity was his most important commodity.

 

Not so with Rather.

 

Rather's no-holds-barred style naturally exposed more of him than most journalists would ever find comfortable. As a White House reporter during the Nixon administration, he once moved his line of questioning beyond what the president deemed appropriate. “Are you running for something?” Nixon joked. “No, sir,” Rather shot back, dead serious. “Are you?”

 

Just before the Iraq War, Rather scored an interview with Saddam Hussein. Many saw that as either Rather compromising his American citizenship to get the interview or Saddam's impression that Rather was anti-Bush. Either way, it didn't play well with the conservatives in America. Not that it mattered to Rather.

 

Ratings didn't seem to matter, either. After a brief stint at the top, just after taking over from Cronkite, Rather dropped to third place where he remained for most of his 24 years at the helm. The Tiffany Network became the K-Mart Network.

 

But the downfall of Rather was his overzealous determination to bring down President Bush. Despite warnings from experts who questioned the authenticity of documents pertaining to Bush's National Guard service, Rather pressed forward with the story just before the 2004 presidential election. In hindsight, it appeared to be more a desperate attempt to rescue the sinking Kerry campaign than a serious attempt at real journalism. Even in defeat, Dan Rather vehemently denied the discredited National Guard documents had anything to do with his demise.

 

When Walter Cronkite left in 1981 it was, for CBS, the end of an era. With the departure of Dan Rather, it's the end of an error.