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The Education of Dan Rather (Noonan's fair and balanced Rather's career critique)
The Opinion Journal ^ | 12/02/04 | Peggy Noonan

Posted on 12/02/2004 4:39:56 AM PST by Jose Roberto

Ultimately this is what I think was true about Dan and his career. It's not very nice but I think it is true. He was a young, modestly educated Texas boy from nowhere, with no connections and a humble background. He had great gifts, though: physical strength, attractiveness, ambition, commitment and drive. He wanted to be a star. He was willing to learn and willing to pay his dues.

He had a strong Texas accent, but they let him know he wasn't in Texas anymore. I remember once a nice man, an executive producer, confided in me that he'd known Dan from the early days, from when he first came up to New York. He laughed, not completely unkindly, and told me Dan wore the wrong suits. I wish I could remember exactly what he said but it was something like, "He had a yellow suit!" There was a sense of: We educated him. Dan wound up in pinstripe suits made in London. Like Cyrus Vance. Like Clark Clifford. He got educated. He fit right in. And much of what he'd learned--from the civil rights movement, from Vietnam and from Watergate--allowed him to think he was rising in the right way and with the right crew and the right thinking.

People are complicated, careers are complicated, motives are complicated. Dan Rather did some great work on stories that demanded physical courage. He loved the news, and often made it look like the most noble of enterprises. He had guts and fortitude. Those stories he covered that touched on politics were unfortunately and consistently marred by liberal political bias, and in this he was like too many in his profession. But this is changing. The old hegemony has given way. The old dominance is over. Good thing. Great thing. Onward.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cbsnews; news; noonan; rather
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1 posted on 12/02/2004 4:39:56 AM PST by Jose Roberto
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To: Jose Roberto

Excellent... Peggy Noonan is such a class act.


2 posted on 12/02/2004 4:45:50 AM PST by xtinct (I was the next door neighbor kid's imaginary friend.)
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To: Jose Roberto
Here's how it got done: When I had been doing the show for a few weeks I could see that my work was not good--uneven, without voice, without a clear point of view. I thought I knew the reason. I had become increasingly a political conservative. Dan, it was obvious to me, was a sort of establishment liberal--not a wild leftist and not an ideologue, but whatever smart liberals thought was more or less what he wound up thinking, and saying. I couldn't write his views well, because I didn't buy them and didn't fully understand them. I couldn't write my views, because the show had to reflect his thinking. So I went to him and told him my problem. He was great. He said: On any given issue that we discuss, give the liberal point of view fairly and give the conservative point of view fairly, and then we'll end it with my opinion, because it's my show. I thought that sounded good.

And it worked. "Dan Rather Reporting" actually got something of a conservative following, not because it was a conservative show--it wasn't--but because it actually put forward the conservative point of view in what might be called a fair and balanced way.

Aha! So Dan Rather owed his success to Peggy Noonan's brilliant writing, who made his show "fair and balanced" and drew a large conservative audience because of that. It was her words, her script, that made him a success. After she left, his looney liberal rantings took center stage and his ratings began to slip. I hope Dan sent YOU some flowers, Peggy, because you did the impossible: Made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

3 posted on 12/02/2004 4:48:26 AM PST by shezza
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To: shezza

Sheeza, you are right on! Dan Rather owes much of his career to Peggy Noonan who wrote him fair and balanced essays for public consumption. Then we saw the real Dan Rather when he tried to bring Bush 43 down with his forged memos.


4 posted on 12/02/2004 4:50:47 AM PST by Jose Roberto
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To: Jose Roberto
Very well written article.
Must be tough for Rather to read the obit of his career.
The comparisons to Nixon must be especially galling.
:)

5 posted on 12/02/2004 4:55:49 AM PST by MaryFromMichigan (We childproofed our home, but they are still getting in)
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To: Jose Roberto

From reading the intro, it really does sound like he was a very good useful idiot.


6 posted on 12/02/2004 4:57:28 AM PST by Thebaddog (Dawgs at rest.)
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To: Jose Roberto

The entire article is wonderfully written....Noonan is magnificent


7 posted on 12/02/2004 5:01:17 AM PST by squirt-gun
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To: shezza
And Dan RATher is a LIAR, Ms. Noonan should have added.

Proof:

"Now respectfully, when you start talking about a liberal agenda and all the, quote, 'liberal bias' in the media, I quite frankly, and I say this respectfully but candidly to you, I don't know what you're talking about." —Dan Rather to talk radio host Mike Rosen of KOA Denver, November 28, 1995.

Rather repeatedly lied when he claimed no liberal bias at SeeBS, but as Ms. Noonan pointed out, he made it very clear that he was liberal and the show was liberal.

Red America knew you were a liar along, Dan RATher.

8 posted on 12/02/2004 5:13:03 AM PST by Dont_Tread_On_Me_888 (John Kerry--three fake Purple Hearts. George Bush--one real heart of gold.)
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To: Jose Roberto

You are right, this piece is "fair and balanced".


9 posted on 12/02/2004 5:18:00 AM PST by jocon307 (Jihad is world wide. Jihad is serious business. We ignore global jihad at our peril.)
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To: Jose Roberto
Dan Rather did some great work on stories that demanded physical courage.

I remember how Ol Dan carried on despite being wacked in the gut on the democrat convention floor by one of Mayor Daily's goon back in 68.

I thought Walter Cronkite uo in the booth was going to have apoplexy .I still remember him saking "Can you carry on Dan ?"
Hell of a trooper that good ol boy Rather
10 posted on 12/02/2004 5:27:14 AM PST by uncbob
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To: Jose Roberto
I think the analysis of Richard Nixon's downfall was brilliant.

He had been right and brave and done the right thing in the 1950s, and the American left and its cousin the American establishment would never forgive him for it.
11 posted on 12/02/2004 5:27:36 AM PST by oldbrowser (You lost the election.....................Get over it.)
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To: squirt-gun

bttt


12 posted on 12/02/2004 5:28:42 AM PST by alfa6
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To: xtinct

Really? I don't think Peggy is at her best here, at all--wonder why she took this assignment...Her praise is hedged and her prose is occluded...murky. Doesn't even read like her...


13 posted on 12/02/2004 5:34:39 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Jose Roberto
As a person with a little background in radio announcing, I can tell you that Dan Rather is not a talented announcer. His phrasing is so herky-jerky as to distract and his voice is somewhat hoarse and not easy on the ears.

I imagine that you could look among the stable of CBS staff announcers and find many that are superior to ol' Dan's news presentation abilities.

14 posted on 12/02/2004 5:57:22 AM PST by OldPossum
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To: Jose Roberto
If you were a young Dan Rather you knew which side was the side to be on. You knew which side your bosses were on. You knew which side would lead to your rise. And you knew which side would win.

This part of the article can explain a lot about Rather. It's similiar to a businessman trying to get ahead in the corporate world. Only the corporation is the MSM and it involves twisting reality for millions of viewers to produce a desired outcome.

15 posted on 12/02/2004 6:04:45 AM PST by Noachian (A Democrat, by definition, is a Socialist.)
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To: Mamzelle

"Really? I don't think Peggy is at her best here, at all--wonder why she took this assignment...Her praise is hedged and her prose is occluded...murky. Doesn't even read like her..."

Peggy probably is not at her best here. It's difficult to praise someone with whom you so fundamentally disagree; it is equally difficult to criticize someone who has helped you along the way. But everyone she knows is asking what she thinks, so she felt she had to respond. As she said, she thinks a lot of things, is trying to put it together in a way that makes sense, and it can be hard. I think we can give her a break on this one.


16 posted on 12/02/2004 6:25:42 AM PST by rwa265
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To: Jose Roberto

"Mr. Bush decked him instead, and with a question that reverberates: How would you like your whole career to be judged by one mistake?"

After papergate, the question can be changed to: How do you like your whole career being judged by one mistake?


17 posted on 12/02/2004 6:29:56 AM PST by rwa265
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To: Jose Roberto
Education of dan rather, this story leaves out that he was too stupid to get into Rice or UH so he went to a teachers college here in Huntsville Texas.
18 posted on 12/02/2004 6:31:32 AM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (Dan Rather called Saddam "Mister President and President Bush "bush")
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To: Jose Roberto
(from article)

And yet. Dan Rather was one of the great breaking-news reporters of our time. Hurricanes, earthquakes, big sudden stuff--he loved it, and he knew how to cover it. A friend reminded me of the beauty with which Dan asked for silence as CBS's cameras lingered on the sun going down on quake-ravaged San Francisco in 1989. And I think of his delicate coverage of stories like Princess Diana's funeral

I think that 1989/90 was the critical time when Dan Rather's head exceeded his hat size. He started believing too much of his own press, and started seeing himself as the story.

I remember watching Dan Rather covering the Oklahoma City bombing. He interviewed the man on the scene responsible for the search and rescue operations, I think it was the Fire Chief, though maybe he was Police. After wasting the man's time with obvious questions for five minutes, Dan Rather had filled his airtime and was ready to hand off. Before he let the Chief go, he asked him, on air, to remain available in case he, Dan Rather, needed him again later.

It was a stunning visual example of where Dan Rather though he fitted into a story. Of all the people at that scene, Dan Rather considered himself to be the most important, and felt that everyone, even the Commander at the scene, should make themselves available if he needed them.

19 posted on 12/02/2004 6:33:46 AM PST by gridlock (ELIMINATE PERVERSE INCENTIVES)
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To: Jose Roberto

Peggy Noonan bump


20 posted on 12/02/2004 6:43:42 AM PST by Tribune7
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