Monday, March 07, 2005

Dan, Don't Let the Door Hit You

I'm not retiring, I'm changing jobs," the 73-year-old Dan Rather said in a phone interview. Still, when he was asked what he could yet do in his career to make viewers forget about his role in a flawed story last year on President Bush's military service " I can't," he said softly. But he added quickly that he believed Americans would eventually reach what he considered the right verdict about his legacy.
Dan, get over it. You blew your legacy in your fervor to crucify an innocent man. American's can forgive mistakes but not the deliberate attempy to frame, convict and sentence.
"It is not right to judge an entire career [by one error], as awful and systemic a failure as this was," said NBC's Williams. "One error does not a career make."
This is the kind of hooey that makes American's even angrier. A mistake or error requires innocent misunderstanding. That was not the case here. You see Dan, in your zeal to hang the president you chose not to follow procedures and use good judgement. You knew better but chose to cast caution to the wind in your unbridled fervor to hurt George Bush.
That brazen misuse of journalistic power has poisoned whatever legacy you may have had and there is no "fixing" it. Head down, no lines, exit stage left.

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