Les Jones: Dan Rather Goes Bye Bye

November 24, 2004

News > Dan Rather Goes Bye Bye

Dan Rather announces retirement from CBS Evening News in four short months.

This all comes prior to the results of the CBS internal investigation over Ra^thergate. Despite what Spoons thinks, this is a sign of opprobrium. Rather wanted to retire in 2006 to make it a round 25 years as the CBS News anchor. NBC announced Brokaw's retirement over a year in advance. This short retirement timeframe tells me he was thrown out.

I spent a lot of time blogging Ra^thergate and you can bet I'm loving this. And what did Dan Rather say about the initial criticism of his report?

Today on the Internet and elsewhere, including many who were partisan political operatives, concentrated on the key questions of the overall story, but on the documents that were part of the support of the story.

Uh huh. And what did he say on election day?

One would expect that the blogging machine which the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign has used for any number of purposes over their four years will start now, if it hasn't started already, to say, listen, Kerry-Edwards, for the good of the country, need to concede.

Well, Dan, as an unaffiliated, unpaid member of that blogging machine, all I can say is adios, amigo. You were biased and you were arrogant, and it's well past time for you to exit the scene. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Posted by lesjones

Comments

Where did you hear that 2006 stuff? Everything I ever heard was that Rather was going to retire this spring.

Posted by: Spoons at November 24, 2004

I'll have to find it. Here's a source for the Brokaw retirement number. It was actually announced 18 months in advance, which is even longer than I recalled.

By the same token, do you have a source for the "retiring this spring" figure?

Posted by: Les Jones at November 24, 2004

He's going away. Good riddance. But what more is there to say that wasn't said over and over already for two straight weeks about a month ago? Meanwhile, I searched in vain last night on all the cable channels for some scrap of news about Ukraine, but all there was was wall to wall Rathergate.

Speaking of Ukraine, here's an update on what our moral superiors the Russians are up to:

"Maidan has an information that the outgoing power is preparing a provocation on the Independence Square (Maidan). At 6 o�clock (Kiyiv time) illumination on the Independence Square may be turned off and against indignant crowd the Russian special police units �Vytyaz�� may be used.

Maidan-Inform has">http://maidan.org.ua/static/enews/1101256299.html�>has already informed, that the Russian special unites may be present in Kyyiv."

Supposedly, the Ukrainian special police are planning to defend the protesters against the Russian troops. Ugh. This is looking like it's going to get really ugly.

But hey, Putin supports our president. He's fighting against "terror." He's with us, not against us.

Posted by: Steve K. at November 24, 2004

Oh, and giving credit where credit is due -- the Bush administration has reacted to the situation very appropriately.

Posted by: Steve K. at November 24, 2004

Who said Russia was our moral superior? I favorably quote one Russian guy and suddenly I'm brown-nosing Putin.

Russia opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They sold equipment to Hussein during the embargo. They profited from the Oil for Food scheme.

I think Russia is getting religion on terror after the school murders, but that's about as good as it gets. The only other thing I admire them for right now is playing the Europeans on Kyoto. I'm sure the Europeans imagined they'd be collecting money from the U.S., and instead they'll now be paying money to Russia. Serves 'em right.

Posted by: Les Jones at November 24, 2004