Today is Dan Rather’s last day as the anchorman for CBS News. There will be lots of posts about it today on many different sites. Here’s my connection – Rathergate was my first exposure to the blogosphere. Like so many others, I didn’t even know blogs existed prior to that event. The first blog I ever visted was Rathergate.com. I went there today and thanked them for introducing me to this amazing new world. Dan Rather stories will come and go, but the blogosphere is here to stay.

It was just a few short months ago that I started checking out the links at Rathergate.com. I did so again today, clicking on PoliPundit, a site I started going to regularly soon after my exposure to Rathergate.com. And there, just a few lines from the top of PoliPundit’s site, was a link to Musing Minds.

Things move fast around here.

My Uncle David passed away this morning about 4 a.m. He passed peacefully into the Lord’s arms. He had pancreatic cancer and was taken to the hospital Monday with pneumonia. He was surrounded by family and love.

Uncle David was a wonderful man. He made my aunt the happiest she’d ever been. He was a loving father and grandfather.

He will be missed. But we know he is in with the Lord. And he’s probably playing on the heavenly back nine with Dad right now.

Brit Hume interviewed Ari Fleischer on Special Report March 8, 2005. I have just finished transcribing it.

[Videotape]:

Helen Thomas: Why then is a family grudge included in official papers States Acquisition on war and peace?

Ari Fleischer: Helen, if you’re referring to, form, an attempt to assassinate a former United States President which Iraq tried to do when former President Bush went to Kuwait.

Helen Thomas: that’s why we’re killing thousands of people in Iraq?

Ari Fleischer: Helen I also think it’s why former President Clinton responded to that assassination attempt with four days of cruise missile strikes against Iraq.

Helen Thomas: People are acting like this is a conversion to democracy by the sword. How can you, I mean, are you going to kill all these people to get democracy?

[Live]:

Brit Hume: That is what daily press briefings were like in the first years of the Bush Administration and that’s pretty much what they’re like today. Briefers come and go, but the press, and some of its prominent members seem to be forever. Why is this? Well who better to ask than the man who, as you just saw endured the slings and arrows for most of President Bush’s first term, his former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, author of Taking Heat the new book about his experiences on the job. Ari, welcome.

Ari Fleischer: Thank you Brit.

Brit Hume: So what causes, in your judgment, the atmosphere, that intensely adversarial atmosphere which has existed for some time in the White House briefing room?

Ari Fleischer: Well part of it is the healthy way every democracy should be carried out with press holding the government accountable and asking the tough questions. But I also happen to think that in the modern media, particularly live TV coverage, it’s almost now become a performance in that briefing room, half by reporters, half by the press secretary, it’s just a new era.

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