Fox News contributor Susan Estrich writes a must-read column on FoxNews.com on CBS's bad-faith treatment of Dan Rather:
CBS has every right to replace Dan Rather in the anchor chair. That's their business, and it is a business. If they think Katie Couric can rate better, so be it. If they think an entirely new team will repair their relationship with the White House, so be it.
But when people serve you loyally, you don't trash them, step all over them, treat them like dirt, then kick them out the door – and expect your customers, consumers, your audience to look the other way, and keep watching. At least I hope we won't, once we make the connection....
...I met Dan Rather in 1987, when I took over the Dukakis campaign. He had always been one of my heroes. I knew he was smart as a whip, and knew politics, but I didn't know what kind of man he was. There were stories that he was tough. I was the first woman in a job like mine, and one of the youngest. He could have treated me like what I was: a kid. But he was unfailingly gracious, helpful, kind, a man of his word, old fashioned in the best sense of the word.
He was, in short, everything that the top brass of CBS has not been in its dealings with him.
Dan Rather will be fine. He has been humiliated, but he will land on his feet. But there is a lesson here. The news business is a tough business, but what business isn't? Thank Goodness I am lucky enough to work for Roger Ailes, who heads Fox News, and is the most loyal man in network news....
Read on...
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