Last night, Dan Rather emerged from the cable news ether to speak at length with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the late former prime minister of Pakistan.
Throughout the segment, CNN played clips of Mr. Rather’s recent interview with Ms. Bhutto for his show on HDNet (which you can watch above), and Mr. Blitzer peppered the Category 5 Newsman with questions about her qualities as a leader.
"She saw, perhaps better than most, the depth of the feeling of radical Islamic terrorists and she wanted to do something about it," said Mr. Rather. "And that was her vision. That’s the reason she went back, knowing that she was in real peril when she went back."
Mr. Rather then returned to a familiar subject—courage.
"You know, one definition of courage is being able to be afraid but go ahead and do what you think needs to be done," said Mr. Rather. "And she certainly fits that."
It was Mr. Rather’s second appearance on CNN in recent months. Back in September, he went on CNN’s "Larry King Live" to give his first interview about his $70 million lawsuit against CBS.
Last night, there was no mention of the lawsuit as Mr. Rather focused exclusively on the grim situation in Pakistan.
"The ramifications of what’s happened in Pakistan the last 24 hours are going to reverberate certainly throughout this year and beyond," concluded Mr. Rather. "While we were focused so much on Iraq—and let’s don’t get into an argument of whether we should have been or shouldn’t have been for the moment—for better or for worse, focused on Iraq as we were, Afghanistan, in some ways, was going to hell in a hand basket, and Pakistan even more so."
