The Education of Dan Rather (Noonan's fair and balanced Rather's career critique)

The Opinion Journal ^ | 12/02/04 | Peggy Noonan

[Savage Beast]

You can forget about the "attractiveness" bit, Peggy. And, when Dan went to New York, he got indoctrinated, not "educated".

[olrtex]

Are you an elite snob from Boston pretending to be a good old boy in Huntsville?

[ThePythonicCow]

Duplicate post - see earlier post at:

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

[bvw]

Rather reported from a open-air desk set with his back to a collapsed California two-stack freeway, waiting for them to pull the crushed and mangled bodies out.

He was obviously very distressed. Why? Because, thank G-d, there were only a couple or so. Not the dozens and hundreds he had pumped and stroked his followers for.

Day after day, hour after hour, he sat there selling soap and cars packaged in a promise of human blood and guts to come.

This is what I wrote on the other thread about that "reporting". It was sick. Not "peak" -- it was "the pits".

[randog]

Peggy Noonan has such the wonderful gift of being able to tell you you're a screwup without hurting your feelings. In fact, you'd probably thank her afterwards.

[Eva]

Peggy wrote the article the way Dan Rather instructed her to write his commentary, telling both sides and then adding her opinion. Dan might even be proud of her for this piece, he certainly cannot complain that it is unbalanced or untrue.

[Westerby]

While channel surfing one day a few years ago, I stopped in the middle of program showing a piece of a Rather "off-camera" tape.

I'm not sure, but the setting might have been Seattle, and it was prior to him doing an on-the-spot news segment, outside in the cold night air. When I stumbled across it he was in the middle of primping and posturing, trying to get his trenchcoat just right - "collar up, or down? How does this look? Belt on or off? Like this? If it's on, fastened or casual loose? Serious anchor-man image or just plain Joe in the street".

It was unintentionally hilarious (the program was some kind of comedy show) - here was this vain, pompous, star-man, preening in front of his staff trying to get "the look" just right. He was the essence of the Ted Baxter character in the old Mary Tyler Moore show.

The piece of the tape I saw must have lasted less than two minutes - but it was priceless. I never saw, or even heard of it again. Maybe Rather bought up all the known copies. If he didn't he should have. Anyone else see it? Does anyone out there in our vast Freeper conspiracy-land know of it? Or if and where and how it can be found?

It was one for the ages and in its candid camera style told as much about Rather as even a Peggy Noonan column.

[Westerby]

Exactly.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

"Are you an elite snob from Boston pretending to be a good old boy in Huntsville?"

Not quite, in fact I have been to SHSU and at the age of 65 I am going back there.

I hate the Dan Rather Media Center in the middle of the campus.

During the time Dan Blather was enrolled, this University was known as Sam Houston Institute of Technology.

[Don Corleone]

R.I.P. Rather

[Liz]

RATHERISMS (election reports)

"It's tighter than a prairie dog's butt in a dust bowl!"

"This race is tighter than a face lift on a 50 year old auditioning for 'Dawson's Creek'."

"Tonight we've seen more ups and downs than a Viagra conference."

"It's all about chads. Chads, chads, chads. Chad, chad, bo-bad, banana-fana, fo-fad. Chad."

"This race is about as hard to call as a deaf hog up a sassafras tree."

"George W. Bush is like a whorehouse pianist -- he can see the prize, but he can't touch it."

"This election is bouncing around like Dolly Parton jumping rope on speed."

"The recount room is locked up tighter than an Iowa trailer park in tornado season."

"This one's tighter than Rush Limbaugh's bike shorts."

"This one's a crotch-grabber, folks, and I'll bet a handful of nuts it won't be over any time soon."

"Tell grandma to take her teeth out of the glass, this'll be a nail biter."

"This race is stickier than a pine cone enema on a hot night in the bayou."

"This one is working out to be a hum-dinger, only the fat lady ate all the hums and is now eyeing the dingers."

"This race is tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach."

"This race is as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a '55 Ford."

"The Florida voter may be getting screwed harder than a drunken Paula Zahn at CNN's Christmas party."

"If Gore loses Florida, you can call Ned Beatty and fire up 'Dueling Banjos' because Al will be squealing like a pig."

"His lead is as thin as turnip soup."

"The presidential race is swinging like Count Basie."

"Ohio becomes like a sauna for the two candidates. All they can do is wait and sweat."

"One's reminded of that old saying, 'Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.'"

[SuziQ]

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.

I believe this is why the leftist, elitist class hates George W. Bush. They can't mau mau him into accepting THEIR attitudes and it's driving them NUTS!!