Noonan and Rather

Jason Z. flags a passage in Joe Hagan's piece mentioning that Peggy Noonan wrote Dan Rather's commentary. Sez Jason, "I always thought Rather got a bum rap for being biased against conservatives. The fact that he once shared a wordsmith with Ronald Reagan would seem to be further proof of that."

Indeed! And, as Noonan herself points out:

[Rather] was politically on his side, and I was growing more conservative. I went to him one day and told him it was starting to be a problem for me to write his point of view well. He was terrific; he said that on every issue we would give a full airing of the views of both sides, but then at the end we’d call it the way he saw it because it was his show. That was fine with me, and we put together a broadcast that I still think was distinguished in that more often than not it was balanced. Each side got its say.

Not a exactly a guy whose "on-air liberal bias" is "the stuff of legend."