Dan Rather stepping down in March from CBS News
Associated Press
November 23, 2004 DAN1124




NEW YORK -- Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the ``CBS Evening News,'' announced Tuesday that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite.

The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a ``60 Minutes Wednesday'' story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents.

Rather, 73, said he will continue to work for CBS, as a correspondent for both editions of ``60 Minutes.''

He made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that after the Nov. 2 election would be the right time to leave.

``I have always been and remain a `hard news' investigative reporter at heart,'' he said. ``I now look forward to pouring my heart into that kind of reporting full time.''

Dan RatherSuzanne PlunkettAssociated PressCBS did not mention a potential successor.

``He has been an eyewitness to the most important events for more than 40 years and played a crucial role in keeping the American public informed about those events and their larger significance,'' CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said.

Rather made his name as a reporter covering the Nixon White House. His nearly quarter-century at the helm of the ``CBS Evening News'' is the longest continuous anchor tenure ever for a network evening broadcast.

A report on what went wrong with the National Guard story, from a two-man independent investigative panel, is due imminently. Rather anchored the story and initially defended it when it was criticized.

Rather's announcement comes eight days before his NBC rival, Tom Brokaw, steps down as ``Nightly News'' anchor and is replaced by Brian Williams.

The triumvirate of Rather, Brokaw and ABC's Peter Jennings has ruled network news for more than two decades. Rather dominated ratings after taking over for Cronkite during the 1980s, but he was eclipsed first by Jennings and then by Brokaw. His evening news broadcast generally runs a distant third in the ratings each week.

His hard news style was mixed with a folksy Texan style that led him to rattle off homespun phrases on Election Night. But odd incidents dogged him: In 1987 he walked off the set, leaving CBS with dead air, to protest a decision to let a tennis match delay the news. And his claim that he was accosted on the street by a strange man saying, ``What's the frequency, Kenneth?'' led rock band R.E.M. to write a song with the same name.

Good riddance. Never liked him.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?
is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
I was brain-dead, locked out, numb,
not up to speed
I thought I'd pegged you an idiot's dream
Tunnel vision from the outsider's screen
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh

I'd studied your cartoons, radio,
music, TV, movies, magazines
Richard said,
"Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy"
A smile like the cartoon,
tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh

"What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
Butterfly decal, rear-view mirror,
dogging the scene
You smile like the cartoon,
tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh

You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh
I couldn't understand
You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh
I couldn't understand
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I couldn't understand
I never understood,
don't fuck with me, uh-huh

I find it kind of sick that he gets "pressured" into leaving for some forged papers. Yet, the president is destroying a country on false pretenses and people still vote for the moron. How high is the iq count in the states?Or how heartless is the population?

Dan Rather =



And if he actually felt "pressured" about it all, he would have left when those erroneous memos first hit not half a year later.

and explain to me again what the american people have to do with forcing dan rather out?


oh thats right, nothing

I'm more inclined to believe these forged documents were just an excuse to get rid of him and his fat contract. His ratings have been dropping for years (as have all the major network news broadcasts) and Rather probably just isn't worth the cash anymore. This gave the big wigs at CBS the reason they wanted to push him out.

Yeah, no kidding. He's old. It's time for him to take a hike.

I always liked how with great amounts of money CBS has, during the election it chooses to have a camera zoom in on a 1 by 2 foot map of the US to which Dan Rather will point to states with a sharpened yellow #2 wood pencil to indicate location of each state, and whom is ahead in popular vote.

"Do you hear that knocking...President Bush's re-election is at the door."

"This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex."

"His lead is as thin as turnip soup."

"This race is humming along like Ray Charles."

"The presidential race is swinging like Count Basie."

"This race is hotter than the Devil's anvil."

"Ohio becomes like a sauna for the two candidates. All they can do is wait and sweat."

"One's reminded of that old saying, 'Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.'"

"This situation in Ohio would give an aspirin a headache.''

"Bush is sweeping through the South like a big wheel through a cotton field."

"What Kerry needs at this point is the equivalent of Tom Brady coming off the bench to rescue him. But it's still too close to call."

"No question now that Kerry's rapidly reaching the point where he's got his back to the wall, his shirttails on fire and the bill collector's at the door."

"John Kerry needs something on the order of a 55 or 60-yard field goal to win this."

(To Joe Lockhart) "I know that you'd rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit than consider the possibility that John Kerry would lose Ohio."

(To Joe Lockhart) "What about Michigan? It's been out there for a long time. Is that making your fingernails sweat?"

"This presidential race has been crackling like a hickory fire for at least the last hour and a half."

"Let's see where it goes from here. Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows."

"We keep talking about Ohio if you've been tuning in and out or you put the baby to bed or you went to pop the cap on an adult, or otherwise, beverage..."

"We used to say if a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun."

"No one is saying that George Bush is not going to win the election, and if you had to bet the double-wide, you'd have to bet that he'd win."

"In southern states they beat him like a rented mule."

"If you try to read the tea leaves before the cup is done you can get yourself burned."

"We need Billy Crystal to Analyze This"

"You know that old song, 'it's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely' for President Bush in most areas of the country."

"We had a slight hitch in our giddy up, but we corrected that."

"In some ways, George Bush's lead is as thin as November ice."

"Put on a cup of coffee, this race isn't going to be over for a while."

"You look at the map and say it's all a big Bush victory. But this is one time when your Mother is right, looks can be deceiving."

"John Kerry's moon has just moved behind a cloud, as far as Florida is concerned."

On Kerry's chances: "To use a metaphor, he's gotta draw to an inside straight. But hey, sometimes you get lucky and hit that straight."

"Is it like a swan, with every feather above the water settled, but under the water paddling like crazy?"

"What you have here is the football equivalent of a fourth quarter rally by Kerry."

The election is "closer than Lassie and Timmy"

"Keep in mind they are teetotally meetmortally convinced they have Ohio won."

"Vice President Dick Cheney would not have flown all the way out there (Hawaii) overnight and put that lei around his neck and sort of hula-danced, if you will, unless he thought there was a chance of carrying that out there."

"President Bush smiling there with his family. He's laid down aces so far."

"You can almost hear the GOP (deep breathing sound). We're getting within maybe smelling distance."

"We don't know what to do. We don't know whether to wind a watch or bark at the moon."

On how the results are affecting strategists: "It's one reason so many of them drink a lot."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), on being congratulated on victory by Rather: "Thanks Dan, I always believe you." Rather: "Now, ladies and gentleman, if you believe that, you'll believe rocks can grow."

conservatives are going to love this

At the very least, he had the balls to step down, unlike Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc...who've said stupider things

Rational people already ignore Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell

I hold Rather to a higher standard than those morons.

24 years is a long time, I think it's time for a change frankly and he's going to still get paid and be involved. He's also getting older so this will give him more free time. I honestly don't think he'd be fired.

It was stupid for CBS to run the story period. 40 some odd years of experience and they take the story documents from some jackass in Texas on Kinko copies and run with it, stupid. Fact checking would be good before running a story on National News. Producers should lose their jobs before Rather. His unwillingness to admit they ran a hack story is reason enough to ignore him further. Credibility is all they have to stand on so it's best for CBS and Rather to move on. It's time for someone else to get a chance at that gig, besides a shake up may be good for thier steadily declining ratings. Rather will probably get to focus on stories he feels most strongly about now likely on opinion shows where you can take or leave his comments.

saying something stupid and putting out forged documents when you work for a national network are two completely different things. And no, I'm not defending Robertson and Falwell. The media has to be able to atleast pretend they have some credibility left, he removed all doubt.

I thought Falwell had already stepped down during that whole scandalous scene back in the day. Or perhaps I'm thinking of some other TV evangelist.

That's been shot to hell a long, long, time ago.

Just like only the weak of mind would put faith in the creditability of Pat Robertson and Jerry Farwell to lead them morally.

I think PJ Doll's assessment provides the best logic behind him stepping down.

puremagic, good to see you.

I think you're probably right. I'd like to think that if someone in the media tried to insult our intelligence so pathetically (used p.o. box 12345), they would get fired, but it didn't happen right away. So PJDoll is probably correct. Oh well, I guess it really doesn't matter.

I don't see why this is causing such an uproar. This has nothing to do with the forged documents designed to crucify Bush. There were stories reporting that he was stepping in March over the summer. This has nothing to do with the documents.

And this doesn't make me happy as a conservative. Sure, good riddance, the man is a journalistic piece of shit. What does it matter though, the objective clothing in ABC and CBS has been completely stripped away leaving a blatantly liberal bias in these two national networks. CBS will simply replace him with another left leaning news anchor to put a left leaning spin on EVERYTHING that CBS reports.

...and I stopped taking anything he wrote seriously.

--PunkDavid

Oh yeah, because CBS and ABC...they're "objective" news folks.

Hey, so isn't Fox News...

well shit, in MY OPINION. if a news source isnt kissing bush's ass. they are all ofa sudden liberal biased. boo.