CBS to Rather: Good Night, And Good Luck

That his last weeks and days at CBS should be marked by turbulence seems somehow appropriate for Rather, although through the years he has been among the most ferociously loyal of company men where CBS News was concerned. As with such illustrious predecessors as Edward R. Murrow, Rather's in-house enemies were up in the corporate stratosphere, not down in the trenches with the hard-working journalists.

He suffered and squirmed under the disastrous reign of CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch, who slashed the news division budget and, by losing professional football to another network, lost a number of important affiliates, too. Rather's "Evening News," which had been No. 1, eventually fell to third place. In some major markets its lead-in, the local CBS station's news, was paltry, further handicapping the Rather program.

Over the years he endured all kinds of advice and counsel on his delivery of the news. There were plans to do the newscast standing up after Cronkite left, but those were abandoned. For a while, Rather wore a sleeveless sweater under his jacket to try to "warm him up" on the air. Some found his formality too rigid. As the hired entertainment at a Clinton-era press dinner, radio shock jock Don Imus observed, "Dan Rather delivers the news as if he were making a hostage tape."

But all the comments only tend to "underscore," as Rather liked to say, his controversiality on the air, his status as a national lightning rod, a dynamic personality about whom no one seemed to lack an opinion. On the CBS Web site yesterday, former rival Tom Brokaw spoke in mellow tones of the old three-anchor era that is now history, Brokaw having retired, ABC's Peter Jennings having died and the great Rather having been brought down from his pedestal.

"Dan, Peter and I chased each other around the world a lot," Brokaw recalled. "We made each other better, I think, by being so competitive." It was Rather who was the most competitive of all and whose trips to the news sites of the world forced his fellow anchors to follow. This might be his great contribution: redefining the term anchor to such a degree that "anchor" is an anomaly. An anchor holds a ship in one place, but Rather was always on the go, whether interviewing terrorists in the Mideast or clinging to a tree in the midst of a torrential hurricane.

He was and remains a living legend in the business he loves, and the bumpy years that ended his CBS run cannot change that. One of Rather's former bosses, Sir Howard Stringer (now president of Sony Corp.), used to marvel that when he'd walk down the street with Rather, the anchor had a magnetic effect on people -- real people, who would come up to him to shake his hand or express a grievance or offer words of admiration.

Last night, Bob Schieffer -- Rather's temporary successor -- said on "CBS Evening News": "Dan Rather was one of the great reporters of his time." This followed an affectionate and even stirring report by Anthony Mason that retraced a few of Rather's giant steps.

Rather says that, though 74, he has no intention of leaving broadcast news. But watching the farewell report last night, one couldn't help thinking: We shall not see his like again. Ever. Because the domain he dominated is one of the things he is taking with him.

The world has changed a lot in Rather's 44 years at CBS. Yesterday, it changed a little more.