A RATHER UGLY EXIT
November 24, 2004 --
Dan Rather announced yesterday that he will retire in March as anchor of the CBS Evening News — though he'll hang on as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes."
"I have always been and remain a 'hard-news' investigative reporter at heart," Rather said in a statement. "I now look forward to pouring my heart into that kind of reporting full time."
Well, as Rather said on Election Night, albeit in a slightly different context: "Ladies and gentleman, if you believe that, you'll believe rocks can grow."
Believe the bit about "the hard-news investigative reporter" bit, we mean.
After all, Rather's announcement comes as the world awaits the results of a CBS-ordered "independent" assessment of the coldly calculated election-year hit that Rather & Co. attempted on President Bush earlier this year.
In a September "60 Minutes II" broadcast, Rather declared that documents — supposedly belonging to Bush's Vietnam-era squadron commander — showed that young Bush had defied his National Guard superiors' orders to report for a medical exam.
The documents were almost immediately exposed as frauds — first by Internet amateurs and then by several establishment news organizations.
Indeed, they weren't even clever fakes.
But Rather simply refused to let go.
In the face of compelling evidence that documents had been forged by a long-time Bush foe, Rather insisted instead that he was being targeted by enemies with political motives.
The anchor postured and preened and hemmed and hawed before admitting, not that the documents were fake, but that he had made "a mistake in judgment."
That's one way to put it.
Andy Rooney, Rather's curmudgeonly "60 Minutes" colleague, had a different take last week — more blunt, and far more accurate: "I am very critical of some of the people at CBS who make it apparent what their political leanings are," he said. "That's what happened to this thing of Dan Rather's that got out. There's no question they wanted to run [the story] because it was negative towards Bush."
Rooney clocked it: Rather has it in for the Bush administration.
To cite just one of many examples, as war clouds gathered over Iraq in February 2003, Rather proudly aired an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein — set up by lunatic-fringer Ramsey Clark and filmed by Saddam aides.
But he refused a White House offer of Condoleezza Rice to appear to rebut Saddam's comments.
Rather biased?
We'd say so.
So, how does CBS plan to regain the trust of its justifiably jaundiced viewers?
Retired Associated Press exec Louis D. Boccardi and former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh are supposedly examining the "60 Minutes II" episode — and, in particular, the role producer Mary Mapes played in its preparation.
Mapes had been gunning for Bush for at least five years and finally — she thought — had struck paydirt. Rather, " 'hard-news' investigative reporter" that he is, got sucked in. Together, they wrecked the credibility of the erstwhile Tiffany Network.
In the final analysis, though, they were merely the network's agents.
Boccardi and Thornburgh need to do more than determine whether Rather and Mapes get away with it. There has to be a full public accounting of the circumstances and environment that made the attempted hit possible in the first place.
As it is, Mapes' future is an open question.
But Rather, sort of, gets to skip town before judgment is rendered.
His last day in the anchor chair is meant to be March 9, 24 years to the day after he succeeded Walter Cronkite — an anchor once described as the "most trusted man in America."
History's verdict on Rather will be — needs to be — much harsher.
He has only himself to blame.
Courage, Dan. |
