Dan Rather

Dan Rather (b. October 31, 1931) was the anchor of the CBS Evening News for twenty-four years, until his retirement in March 2005. He also contributed to the show "60 Minutes". Rather covered many important events during his twenty-four years, and was known for his coverage of Nixon in the Watergate scandal and of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He has been accused of having a liberal bias, and his sudden retirement might have had something to do with the scandal known as "Rathergate".

Rathergate

In September 2004, the middle of the presidential election, Rather claimed on "60 Minutes" that he had documents which called into question Bush's National Guard service. These documents were almost immediately ruled to be shoddy forgeries. CBS and Rather himself later apologized for running the story.

Four CBS employees were later fired over the controversy, including the Senior Vice President, and many suspect that Rather retired in order to avoid the same fate. The documents were later reviewed by experts who decided that the documents were false, and that CBS was negligent in airing them.

Some have said that Rather intentionally ran the story in order to influence the election. Others have said that the false documents were included due to the story being rushed, and that they were not intentionally used for political purposes. A senior official of the Kerry campaign made a phone call to the man who was the source of the false documents four days before they were aired. Republicans have pointed to this as a conspiracy. Kerry claimed that his employee did nothing wrong. A few Democrats blamed Karl Rove, and he denied the accusation.