Power Line: Positively 52nd Street

November 24, 2004

Positively 52nd Street

USA Today carries one of the better stories on Dan Rather's announcement that he will be stepping down as the anchor of the CBS Evening News: "Rather: 'Time for me to move on.'" The story quotes Rocket Man and Jim Geraghty to good effect:

Said John Hinderaker, a Minneapolis lawyer and co-author of Power Line (powerlineblog.com): "I wouldn't say I feel vindicated. I never felt we were in need of vindication. But now that the episode is pretty much behind us, I think it's been a tribute to the power of the medium: the Internet."

The bloggers, starting just hours after the 60 Minutes report, raised doubts about the Guard documents. They questioned, for example, whether the papers could have been produced on a 1970s-era typewriter. "Within a matter of hours, millions of people had seen that information," Hinderaker said. "The biggest newspaper with the biggest resources and the biggest budget could not have done what we did that day."

Some anti-Rather bloggers viewed Tuesday's announcement with suspicion. "There's no way CBS will face the music and admit that the 60 Minutes story was a cheap-shot, amateur, sloppy, partisan, nasty, half-witted bit of hackery," Jim Geraghty wrote on Kerry Spot (at nationalreview.com).

Coincidentally, from Rather's comments yesterday the USA Today story quotes Rather's reference to Bob Dylan's song "Where Are You Tonight?," while the New York Times story quotes Rather's reference to "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."

Rather seems to have a major Dylan jones, which is a little funny for a guy his age. But who am I to quibble? I too think naturally of the many possible comments that can be drawn from the Dylan canon. Here's the one that comes most immediately to mind for me:

Nothing was delivered
But I can't say I sympathize
With what your fate is going to be,
Yes, for telling all those lies.
Now you must provide some answers
For what you sell has not been received,
And the sooner you come up with them,
The sooner you can leave.

Posted by Scott at 06:37 AM |

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