"The Education of Dan Rather"- Peggy Noonan captures Rather's rise, arrogance and dastardly fall

Opinion Journal ^ | 12-2-04 | Peggy Noonan

[STARWISE]

Excerpt .. balance at link

The Education of Dan Rather

From the golden age of network TV to the end of its hegemony.

Thursday, December 2, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Life is complicated, people are complicated, and most of us are a jumble of virtues, flaws and contradictions. I like to try to understand the past, try to put it together in a way that makes sense to me. This can involve judging not only your own actions and decisions but those of others, which can be hard. I have a friend who once said in the middle of a conversation, "Don't understand me too quickly." Don't categorize me; don't decide you broke the code. Sit back and watch; it's more interesting than you may know.

Which gets me to Dan Rather, who was once my boss, and who of course has announced his retirement from the anchor chair at CBS News. Everyone I know is asking me what I think of it. I think a lot of things.

I'm going to use the past tense in speaking of him because I'm speaking of his career, and speaking of when I knew him in the past.

My first thought: It is a hard world. We all know this in the abstract, but it can take you aback in the particular. In public life the entire body of your work--an entire career of almost 50 years--can now essentially be summed up and dismissed by the last headline on your career, which in this case is "Rather Retires Under Cloud After Forged Documents Story." If Dan had retired of his own volition a year ago, that would not be the headline. "Long Career Reflected Stunning Rise of U.S. Media" would be more like it.

[STARWISE]

As only the inimitable Peggy can, the picture painted seems so plausible.. he bought the fame and the press releases .. and but for his last desperate, brazenly stupid and biased campaign screw-up, might have gone out to cheers, honors and high-priced speeches. But the always veiled, unmitigated hubris and arrogance foiled that, and now he'll forever be linked with fraud. You almost had most of the country fooled, Dan .. sayonara.

[upchuck]

Blather, arrogance, Clinton, arrogance, sKerry, arrogance, Dasshole, arrogance.

Arrogance always, sooner or later, takes you down.

[Calvin Locke]

...and now he'll forever be linked with fraud.

Instead of being known as the anchor that way overstayed his numbers, or lack thereof, he has a "-gate" after his name.

Is Richard Nixon smiling, or what?

Schadenfreude, anyone?

[Billthedrill]

Stunning. One of the most brilliant columns on the topic, and I am more than content to let Noonan have the last word on the matter. She's earned the right.

[JoeSixPack1]

Kudos to Peggy. She summed up Danny, rather well. :-)

[Agent Smith]

Right on target. Even Mr. Rather might agree.

[FreedomCalls]

Dan Rather has become the Nixon he despised.

[KC_Conspirator]

I think it about it this way. Bush beat Kerry, he beat the democrats in the house and senate, and Bush made Tom Dasshole and Dan Rather lose their jobs.

[clee1]

Yep... a wonderful legacy he leaves.

[ForGod'sSake]

I'd say this is a keeper. Gets into the Dan's mind a little. Scary place.

FGS

[JanetteS]

Probably the worst moment in his career, because it was arguably the one most obvious in showing bias and a political agenda, was the time Dan tried to beat up George H.W. Bush live, on the "CBS Evening News," over Iran-contra. Mr. Bush decked him instead, and with a question that reverberates: How would you like your whole career to be judged by one mistake? I do not doubt that CBS News that night thought it was going to take down a vice president, and wanted to. And was embittered by its failure. Which may have contributed to the years long, Ahab-like quest of producer Mary Mapes to bring down George W. Bush with documents it took bloggers less than 24 hours to reveal as fabrications.

I love Peggy Noonan's writing. The entire column seems to be composed as if to delicately deliver this knockout punch of a paragraph.

[Lancey Howard]

"The old network hegemony is over. That's why network news viewership is down, that's why the evening news isn't appointment TV anymore. America didn't turn crazily right, Americans just finally got political options in how they'd get the news, and took advantage of them."

Peggy Noonan nails it.

[Travis McGee]

"Two things to be said here. One is that CBS News hasn't changed that much, and the other is that the media world in which it operates has changed completely. The whole context has changed. No one has to accept the enforced corporate liberalism of the networks anymore, as they did from 1950 through 1990. They have options, from cable to Fox to the Internet to hundreds and thousands of radio shows, newspapers, magazines. The old network hegemony is over. That's why network news viewership is down, that's why the evening news isn't appointment TV anymore. America didn't turn crazily right, Americans just finally got political options in how they'd get the news, and took advantage of them."

[Richard Kimball]

I thought it was a brilliant article. Peggy Noonan actually moved me to a grudging respect for some of Rather's work. It's funny that Mary Mapes desperately wanted to destroy Bush, but ended up destroying Rather.

[PhilDragoo]

The document on the left is the one CBS tried to foist off as legit 1972 typewritten; the one on the right (in black on white) is one I created with a little help from Bill Gates and Microsoft.

The bum in the center is a discredited propagandist full of hate and gas, signifying nothing.

Door, ass, ash heap of history.

[Trepz]

Even Mr. Rather might agree

Although he knows he has shown a deliberate liberal bias to his reporting, dannyboy will never admit to having done so. He will always claim that the bias is in those who disagree with him. The facts are what dannyboy tells others they are. To question his assessment of both the facts and how they are to be interpreted is simply not acceptable. He is Dan Rather, and he is not to be questioned.

[Travis McGee]

Thief is to Fence, as Rather is to Forger.

[STARWISE]

Well done!! His lofty visions of adoration and idolatry are dashed by the pettiness of bitter revenge....
tinged with a just a tad of criminal intent. ;>(

[orangelobster]

"CBS then was full of people who liked to argue about who opposed the Vietnam war first, this producer or that reporter. It was a matter of pride who was antiwar first. "

I had to laugh at the pathos of this.

[Bonaparte]

We've all got our blind spots and Rather is Peggy's.