Dan Rather, one of the three leading U.S. news anchors for the past two decades, signed off from CBS News for the last time on Wednesday but tributes were mixed with sniping after his final months were marred by a scandal that tarnished his reputation.

Whoa there Reuters!  It wasn’t Rather’s last three months that tarnished his reputation:

For those of you who weren’t around, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was a doozy.  I still remember seeing a young Dan Rather on the convention floor being knocked about by Chicago police as he attempted to report the strong-arm tactics of the Chicago political machine as it controlled the floor debate.

And this:

One night in October 1986, Rather was walking down a Manhattan street when he was punched from behind and thrown to the ground. His assailant kicked and beat him while repeating, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"

To which Rather explained:

I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn’t and I don’t now. I didn’t make a lot of it at the time and I don’t now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea.

That led to a really bad REM song.

Then there was the 1988 attack on George H. W. Bush:

Dan Rather has always been sure there was "more than meets the eye" on Iran-contra. Rather had CBS investigate extensively into the scandal in hopes that possibly Ronald Reagan or George Bush were involved. On January 25, 1988, Dan Rather interviewed Bush in a now-infamous interrogation. The interview is now considered so much a part of history by C-SPAN that it sells video tapes of the confrontation on its Web site.

In the interview, Dan Rather kept trying to implicate George Bush, trying to get Bush to say that he was involved in Iran-contra. Over and over again, Rather would ask Bush a question about his knowledge of the imbroglio. When Bush wouldn’t concede that he had prior knowledge, Rather would interrupt him and ask him another question about whether he knew. This went on until Rather interrupted Bush for the last time and ended the interview. The interview caused a stir. A number of CBS affiliates called the Bush campaign to apologize for the anchor’s behavior. Sam Donaldson, known for his own confrontational interviews, said, "Rather went too far." Mike Wallace, a fellow CBS reporter, said, "The style was wrong. Dan lost his cool."

Then of course, election night 2000:

"I can hear some people at home saying, ‘Ooh, if the electoral vote count is now what Dan Rather and CBS says it is, 121 for Bush, 119 for Gore, it seems to me just a few minutes ago Bush had a long lead.’ His lead has evaporated and melt–been melted faster than ice cream in a microwave. ‘What’s happening here?’

"Let’s kiss this electoral vote again for you: 121 for Bush, 119 for Gore. This is the way the map looks at this moment."

"This knock-down drag-out battle drags on into the night. And turn the lights down; the party just got wilder. To err is to human–is human, to really foul up requires a computer. And that’s what’s happened with Florida. Everybody that we know of had put Florida into the Gore column sometime ago. Now we’re pulling it back into the undecided column because some bad data came from certain precincts in Florida. . . . This thing is so wild, wacky and wooly, nobody knows how it’s going to come out."

"If [Gore] doesn’t carry Florida, slim will have left town."

Rather and Bob Schieffer were discussing the chances of Gore getting enough electoral votes to win:
SCHIEFFER: Does he get them in Colorado? He was not favored there. Oregon? Arizona? Iowa? He was not really favored in any of those states. But if he could just get one of those states, then Gore would be president.
RATHER: Well, we’ve said it many times, if–if a frog had side pockets, he’d carry a handgun.
SCHIEFFER: And, Dan, …(unintelligible).
RATHER: And he doesn’t have side pockets, so maybe he won’t get those states and maybe he will.

"Call the doctor, call the police, call a psychic. In Florida, it’s tightened up."

"Bob Schieffer, you have to go back to sometime in the 1800s, I think, Deputy Dog, in order to find a race that’s this close."

"I have been to goat ropings and space shots and I’ve covered presidential elections since the 1950s, and I have never seen anything like this."

"But before the trail goes completely cold, let’s give a tip of the Stetson to the loser, Vice President Al Gore, and at the same time a big tip and a hip-hip-hooray and a great big Texas howdy to the new president of the United States. Sip it, savor it, cup it, photostat it, underline it in red, press it in a book, put it in an album, hang it on the wall: George Bush is the next president of the United States.

"Well, Bill Whitaker, you can tell them we welcome them to the club because frankly we don’t know whether to run, to watch or bark at the moon."

"I’m always reminded of those west Texan saloons where they had a sign that says, ‘Please don’t shoot the piano player, he’s doing the best he can.’ That’s been pretty much the case here tonight over this election. We do the best we can on these calls. But we have to stand up and take responsibility and be accountable."

"Al Gore’s situation is he’s basically got his back to the wall, his shirt-tail on fire and a bill collector’s at the door."

"Now for those of you who just joined us, perhaps those of you who are just getting up, some extraordinary things have been happening, including Vice President Gore calling Governor Bush and offering, apparently, his congratulations, then being told that the situation in Florida had wobbled into Weirdsville."

"I have to believe that when Governor Bush was told in the second phone call by Al Gore, ‘Governor, I’m withdrawing my congratulatory words to you,’ that Governor Bush’s eyes probably got as cold as your average pawnbroker’s when he heard that. But then why wouldn’t they?"

If you’re saying, ‘Well, that Florida secretary of State, is she Republican, Democrat or mugwump?’ It turns out she’s a Republican.

Florida–they say California’s the big burrito; Texas is a big taco right now. We want to follow that through. Florida is a big tamale. It’s not only a hot tamale, it’s the only tamale that counts up here now–25 Electoral votes. He who wins Florida, wins it all.

And let me point out that Warren Mitofsky, who has been around these things since Trigger was a colt, says that those ballots where people thought–said they thought they were voting for Go–Gore but ended up voting for Buchanan– none of that shows up in the Buchanan vote totals in Florida, so that story may go away as time goes along.

Those are just quotes I chose to steal that referenced Florida only.  The link has a TON more strange quotes.  It was speculated at that time that Rather had lost it.  Not his journalistic edge, but his sanity in general.  All of that led UP to the last three months.  His obviously biased reporting for 30 years led UP to the last three months and simply climaxed at that point I feel in large part because CBS News’ ratings had plummeted to the bottom of the news barrel.  CNN and Fox were glitzier and hitting him 24/7.  They were what Rather was in 1968, all news, all the time.  By October 2004, all he had left was the one trick that he knew best, pandering to the people that ruled the country in 1967.  Problem is, a LOT had changed since then.  I really feel sorry for Dan Rather, he was the captain of his battleship in the age of nuclear subs and his ship was sinking.  He knew it.  And, as with all seafaring captains, he was going to go down with his ship. The mutiny was long overdue.

Tags: National Politics