Rising through the ranks of CBS, from reporting for Houston's affiliate and then the White House in the early 1960s to being named anchor of the CBS Evening News some twenty years later, Dan Rather has always put himself in the center of controversy. Saying he "volunteered" to do so might be an overstatement, but past incidents, like claiming to have seen the JFK's Zapruder film, though misreporting its details, have pit him at the center of more than one WTF moment.

And then there was Memogate, leading to his ouster in 2005. He's since resurfaced, anchoring a show for HDNet and suing his former employer. And those are just two of his soapboxes. Elsewhere, he's become a vociferous critic of the media. And that's put him squarely in Scott McClellan's camp.

Speaking to an audience at the National Conference for Media Reform on Saturday in Minneapolis, Rather cataloged some of the "journalistic sins" McClellan says the media committed. You know, like eating up whatever the White House press secretary would spit out each day.

Rather offered this biting comment, which, while aimed generally at all of big media, was undoubtedly a dagger thrown at CBS News:

Let me say, by way of answering, that quality news of integrity starts with an owner who has guts. In a news organization with an owner who has guts, there is an incentive to ask the tough questions, and there is an incentive to pull together the facts — to connect the dots — in a way that makes coherent sense to the news audience.

But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, 'The buck stops here.' The more likely motto now is: 'The news stops… with making bucks.'

Rather's full speech on the next page.