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Brian Lowry
Tom Brokaw looks to be enjoying his emeritus status, producing documentaries and occasionally popping up at
Then there's Dan Rather, the other member of that generation of broadcast journalism stalwarts, whose career was always punctuated by strange and mercurial interludes, including the protracted legal battle with
Thinking about Rather always brings to mind an observation about the entertainment business by the agent Pat Faulstich, who was fond of saying that the best job you'll ever have is the one that precedes the one you always wanted.
For Rather, his career apex might actually have come when he was a hard-charging network correspondent, the guy who fearlessly braved hurricanes or getting roughed up while an outraged Walter Cronkite looked on during the 1968
In 1981, Rather's agent shrewdly pushed to land him "
Once ensconced in the anchor role, though, Rather often seemed ill at ease and proved a lightning rod for controversy. Angry about a sports overrun, he walked off the set, leaving the network with dead air. He was reminded of that incident by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush during a testy interview that saw Rather finally cut Bush off -- an exchange that returned to haunt him, at least in the minds of conservatives, when his piece on Bush's son and his
Granted, some of Rather's troubles -- like that weird mugging where his assailant asked, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" -- were beyond his control. But Rather also conveyed the sense of somebody not entirely comfortable in his skin, from his experiments with different news signoffs ("Courage," he said for awhile) to an affiliate meeting where he pointedly introduced himself to print journalists -- "Dan Rather," followed by firm handshake -- as if nobody recognized him. On election nights, he unleashed peculiar "Dan-isms," spouting Texas homilies like "That dog won't hunt" or "This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex."
"The CBS Evening News" had been languishing ratings-wise for some time in 2004, when the flap over his "60 Minutes II" report about Bush's
Given his third-place status, Cronkite said when Rather left the network, "it surprised quite a few people at
The Bush report's sloppiness fueled the right's long-simmering hostility toward Rather, and he became a public relations liability. Everyone pretended that the decision to leave was his -- timed to the 24th anniversary of his anchoring tenure -- but it was obvious that was a face-saving maneuver. Rather's subsequent lawsuit at least exposed that truth, but otherwise appears to have only prolonged the ordeal.
Upon leaving
Rather is indeed a reporter, and a good one. It's the anchor chair that never truly suited him -- and his inability to vacate it gracefully that further clouds his legacy.
Although he can cast about for others to blame, ultimately, that dog won't hunt.
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Dan Rather's Spacy Broadcasting Odyssey