It wasn’t enough that Dan Rather embarrassed himself, his network, and his profession a while back with that George Bush National Guard fiasco. Now he’s howling that CBS wasn’t living up to its contract agreement about his assignments and, in a huff of indignation, has quit.
Apparently his arrogance has blinded him to any notion that in the wake of the Bush story, he should have either resigned or been fired like those around him. My thinking then was that CBS was allowing him to stay on until the furor died down so that he could leave quietly and unceremoniously, his dignity intact. But no, he hung on and on. It’s easy to believe CBS was trying to pressure him into leaving by sidelining him.
That he chose finally to resign in a very public fit of pique is further testimony to his insensitivity about the entire matter. To say that at age 74 he had significantly overstayed his welcome at CBS would be to belabor the obvious.