I'm really going to miss Dan Rather

Dan made his bones reporting form the battlefield in Viet Nam.



That was forty years ago. The reporting was done for CBS. Forty years with one company says something.

Dan and his colleague, Sam Donaldson, were huge thorns in the side of many presidents, but none were more affected by their straight-atcha style than Richard Nixon. Dan was there for all of it.



Dan was never afraid to go after a story. And he knew the real deal in the middle east, having been there when the Russians were in their Afghani quagmire.



He also jumped the shark a bit. I always thought his reportiong 'from the eye' was a bit much. But that was Dan. Never halfway.



I think it is pretty fair to say that, at his core, Dan was left of center. When one views the totality of his reporting, and when one adds the weight of the villification he suffered at the hands of the nascent and then mature right wing hate mongers, one would have to agree. He pissed them off. Others, however, would say that, right or left leaning, Dan was an honest reporter.

For forty years he did what he did. I recall being so sad to see Dan take over from Walter Cronkite. I was right to be sad at that. But Dan never tried to be Walter. He was Dan. And that was good enough, really.

But the hatemongers won in the end, didn't they? I am convinced that Dan was set up by those same hatemopngers. What role anyone involved in the whole imbroglio played will probably never be known. But they got him.



Forty years he worked at CBS. As I said, that says something about a person, to stay with one company that long.

An unceremonious dumping of a company's employee after forty years says something, too. About the campany. And about the people who corrupted that company.

Today, the news is that Dan is leaving pretty much right now. Months before his scheduled retirement. A retirement he never wanted.

I'll miss you Dan. You're as good as peach cobbler at the Firehouse supper.

In terms of news from news men like Cronkite, Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw. It's a good thing we have blogs that we can turn to for alternate news sources...

It was CBS that Ed Morrow worked for too, and I don't think the pubs ever got over their hate for that broadcaster!

I have a feeling Dan will surface somewhere else though. He's just not the type of person who retires!

NT

Nothing has yet been announced with any finality, as far as I know. Has there been?

NT

I have been watching him since Kennedy's assasination. I always felt that he was honest and I trusted him more than I ever did any of the others. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever turn on Katie. I do and will miss him at CBS but hopefully he will turn up elsewhere.

and I loved him for it! When I was watching our country circling the bowl on election night, like an unstoppable runaway train, it was Dan Rather's colorful Texan-speak that saved me from losing my fucking mind.

As a Texan, it felt like an inside joke to counter the big unfunny one going on for real.

Dan knew his shit and he was front & center of wherever the action was happening. You could count on him bringing you along for the ride. No bobble-headed teleprompter-reading robot.

Also, as a Texan, we HAVE KNOWN FOR YEARS that those documents were the Real Deal - they crucified him because other people down here couldn't take the same heat that Dan could.

I'm so sorry to see him go, it's everybody else's loss but Dan's.

CBS should so ashamed at his treatment but they are soulless ghouls and I can't wait for them to get their asses handed to them when Couric sinks like a stone. Egads.

The operative word being 'was'.

How sad.

that I have not sent: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1455256#1455749

and if they could anchor at different times during the day to expand their newscasts to be closer to a 24 hour news channel (and perhaps work with SBS of Australia and other networks to form a newer global news network of reporters, etc. that really does NEWS and not corporate sensationalist propaganda). Perhaps reporters like Christianne Amanpour, Laura Logan, and others that have an ounce of self-respect might get drawn to an effort like that.

Then we can really establish that Katie Couric is NOT the first sole woman anchor of a news show!

"He recalled a speech delivered at the national convention by then CBS News reporter Dan Rather.

The Texan recalled working for a radio station in his home state where he was responsible for starting the broadcast each morning by playing a pre-recorded religious program.

He would then speed across town to get breakfast, but the program was barely long enough for Rather to get his meal and return.

One day, however, the record was stuck and kept repeating “go to hell, go to hell, go to hell.” When Rather returned to the station, he found the phone ringing off the hook.

“When he answered the phone, it was his boss furiously informing him of the malfunction,” Beell said."

http://www.jlmc.iastate.edu/news/2005/fall/spj.shtml

I'm going to miss him too. It'd be nice if he and fellow Texan Bill Moyers joined forces somehow.