Did Dan Rather "Fall" or Was He Leaving Anyway?

This was Jim Geraghty's reaction:

“This half-step by CBS is garbage, and they know it. Announcing this the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is comparable to announcing the news late on a Friday afternoon. The internal investigation - which we may never get to see at this rate - probably found that the entire CBS News structure is like the DNC press operations shop, only less accurate and with lower standards, and so this is the Sauronic Eye’s way of sweeping it under the rug. They’re every bit as bad as they were before the memo story ran, they learned nothing from this incident, and they ought to be thanking their lucky stars that an angry mob in pajamas carrying pitchforks and torches doesn’t march down to corporate headquarters like in some black and white monster movie.”

Mine is more cynical than that. I don't think this is even a half-step. I think Rather's retirement from the anchor desk was already in the works on this time-table, and the Blogosphere had zero, zip, nada to do with it.

If the "pajamahadeen" really had brought down Gunga-Dan, it would have been two months ago, not now. Hell, remember the producer that broke into normal programming to report (I believe it was) Yassir Arafat's death just a tad prematurely? That poor schlep was canned within a few days. But Mary Mapes, Rather's producer for the fabricated document smear against the President, is still on the job, last I checked.

Let's not kid ourselves, "great and svelt," about the extent of our influence. The megablogs helped give voice to the Swiftboat Vets, and shot down Memogate, but ain't no way that the "death star" has been blown up, or ever will be, at least any time soon.

The "Empire" isn't what it used to be, but it's still the Empire. There are plenty more "Darth Rathers" where he came from.