Goodbye Dan.

Well, I suppose the conservatives will be all throwing office parties on Wednesday when Dan Rather retires. I, on the other hand, will miss him. He's been as much a part of my life as Walter Cronkite was when I was a kid growing up. Without his broadcasts, my day will feel empty.

Critics who "question his bona fides as a hands-on reporter forget the days and nights he's spent in the anchor chair during times of national crisis, holding air for hours with the teleprompter shut off, interviewing, editing, directing coverage," Steve Kroft (of 60 Minutes) says. "You have to be a great journalist and broadcaster to do that. If you are deficient in either category, you'll be exposed as a fraud in 15 minutes."

I think there are things to fault him on, surely, but he was tough, and bridged a generation from Vietnam through Iraq--which given the change that simulataneously occured in our nation's current of ideology, had to be tough to do. He's branded as liberal because he came of age in a time of liberal thought....but he at least always made a case for theatrics, if nothing else!! HA! Remember Bush VS. Gore on election night? "His back is at the wall, he is feeling the fires grabbing at his coat tail..." or something along those lines, which he later had to eat, fist and all.

I'll miss the old guy. I grew to like him, probably just as much as you grew to dislike him, Mike, yes, or no?