RAthER Interesting, With Friends Like This Who Needs Enemies?

Dan RAthER will step down Wednesday but not with the fan fair and adulation that he most probably sees fitting of a news man of his stature. However, as Dan RAthER would say in one of his Rather-isms, don’t bet the trailer money that he’ll disappear.

In this LA Times article many wonder just how Dan RAthER lasted as long as he did or better yet the power he must have had to evoke such hostility from his CBS brethren. Ever since the RAthERGATE Scandal it would appear that the embarrassment CBS has suffered has taken its toll on the CBS power’s that be and staff . Some of the most interesting comments toward Dan Rather are coming from within CBS itself as the LA Times article examines:

“Morale is not very good right now,” Schieffer said in an interview. “I think our credibility was hurt by” the Bush story.

In a New Yorker article this week, “60 Minutes” co-editor Mike Wallace is quoted calling Rather’s on-air persona “uptight” and “occasionally contrived.”

Wallace and former “60 Minutes” executive producer Don Hewitt confessed that they preferred to watch Rather’s competitors.

Cronkite, who maintains an office and a small staff at CBS News, told the magazine that Moonves should have been tougher on Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward.

Previously written, The Dan RAthER farewell tour cannot be over soon enough as it is clear that the transition from CBS Anchor to Dan’s “what do I do with my life next” has not been a smooth one for all parties involved. After so many years at CBS it appears that Dan stepped on one too many toes along the way. Dan will probably be back in one form or another one day, but the stigma of this scandal will be for all times.

What can be described as the Dan still does not get it quote of the article, “I’ve learned to trust the audience,” he said. “The harshest critic could not be nearly as hard on me as I am on myself.” Wrong Dan, if you trusted your audience you never would have tried to perpetrate this fraudulent story and no one is harder on anyone than us, We The People.

Update: Over a The Anchoress, they have some more great insight on the irony of Dan Rather’s fate.

Update: Dan Rather’s Farewell Overshadowed by CBS Scandal

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