But let's have a show of hands: How many knew he was still there?
It is a classic case of karma. For years he held a power that Presidents couldn't match. He could go home after the interview and edit remarks, leak themes, and shape expectations so thoroughly that viewers would see what they were told they would see -- and only that. He could raise questions, balance or imbalance carefully weighted views, cast doubts, editorialize while claiming merely to report, meet politicians personally, get to know them, carry grudges, foist off partisan schemes as if they were news, critique the motives of his critics, and defend bad journalism with the ever-bigger lie till nobody could remember what had really started the whole mess.
He thought he still had the power of Uncle Walter and St. Edward R to get away with murder. He went on the air with a half-baked story as close to an election as he could manage it.
He swore the whole thing was both good jounalism and true.
It was neither
He swore he had independent verification from credentialed experts.
He had none of that.
He delivered his scoop.
And before he got off the air, the bloggers had him by his cyber nuts.
And they didn't let go.
He wanted one last watergate before he left..
He got it.
But this time it was on him.
And he lived to feel the coils of smugness tighten around his rib cage in a death-lock while his expriring breath hissed the old judgmental mantra: "The cover-up is worse than the crime."
And now at the end of his career someone did that to him.
