The only problme is, it happened 43 years too late...
NEW YORK - With the curtain about to rise on the Katie Couric era at CBS News, it has closed for Dan Rather.
The network confirmed Tuesday it was cutting ties with Rather, a tie to the CBS News glory years who spent nearly a quarter-century as its public face until things went sour over a story about the president's military service.
In tense statements, Rather and the network said they couldn't agree on what came next for him at CBS. But CBS News President Sean McManus' decision seems designed to get a fresh start at a news organization where the tough Texan cast a long shadow.
"I have enormous respect for what Dan has brought to CBS News and what he has meant to CBS News, but I had to make the tough decision of what direction in which to go, and this is what I chose," McManus said.
Rather, 74, has no intention of retiring. He is weighing an offer to do a weekly show at the tiny HDNet, a high-definition network offered on some cable and satellite systems.
"It just isn't in me to sit around doing nothing," he said. "So I will do the work I love elsewhere."
For more than two decades, Rather, NBC's Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings of ABC dominated television as the faces of the evening news and whenever big stories broke. The habit of anchors traveling to the scene of news stories is largely Rather's legacy.
Yet CBS was last in the ratings and without a transition plan even before the ill-fated September 2004 story about President Bush's military service. Rather narrated the report, in the midst of the presidential campaign, which CBS later concluded after much criticism it could not substantiate.
Six months later, on March 9, 2005, he signed off for the last time after 24 years as the "CBS Evening News" anchor. Rather contributed eight stories to "60 Minutes" this past season but he complained it wasn't enough work to satisfy him. He said CBS offered him a new contract with no assignments.
His exit, Rather said Tuesday, represents CBS' acknowledgment that "after a protracted struggle ... they had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there."
McManus, who took over last fall as CBS News president, wouldn't discuss in an interview with The Associated Press the specifics of what CBS offered. He's been trying to push "60 Minutes" into a new era, with Couric and CNN's Anderson Cooper to begin doing stories in the fall.
"Basically, there wasn't a situation that we could come up with where there was enough meaningful work for Dan to do at CBS News that made sense for both him and us," he said. The decision wasn't financial, McManus said.
CBS' send-off to Rather includes a prime-time special on his career that will air this fall, and a contribution to Rather's alma mater, Sam Houston State University.
A former CBS News correspondent, Bill McLaughlin, said Rather should have had the wisdom to fade out gracefully after the Bush story.
"There comes a moment for all of us to leave the professional stage, whatever it may be, and knowing that requires courage and wisdom," said McLaughlin, who teaches broadcast journalism at Quinnipiac University. "Dan is like some once-great major leaguer who ends up playing in the minors instead of facing reality."
Rather may have been thinking of his predecessor in declining an ill-defined job. After retiring as anchor, Cronkite was given an office at CBS headquarters that he still maintains, but he often complained bitterly of having little to do and having retired too soon.
Couric inherits Rather's old chair at the "CBS Evening News" in September. The genial Bob Schieffer has been doing the job since Rather left, lifting the ratings in the process.
"Dan should be very proud of his long and distinguished career," said Brokaw, who's worked on documentaries and traveled extensively since voluntarily stepping aside for Brian Williams in 2004. "I wish him all the very best. He's as tough a competitor as I'll ever have to go up against. I know that he'll find satisfaction in whatever he chooses to do next in life."
Besides the potential HDNet job, it is unclear what Rather will do. None of the other broadcast news or cable news networks have publicly expressed an interest in him. Rather said last week that he had formed a company, News and Guts, for future journalism ventures.
Rather joined CBS News in 1962, first getting noticed for his wind-blown coverage of Hurricane Carla. He covered President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War, civil-rights struggles, the Nixon White House and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. For every journalistic coup, like being the last Western journalist to interview Saddam Hussein before he was routed, it seemed the tightly wound journalist was involved in an odd incident witness his mugging by a deranged man saying, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"
"Too much is made of anchors and their personalities, their ups and downs," Rather said. "The larger issues the role of a free press and of honest, real news in a democracy, the role of technology in supporting a free press, the `corporatization' of news and its effects on news content all deserve more attention, more discussion and more passionate debate.
"I'll see you soon," he said.
