Dan Rather sues pants off CBS

I'm sure Dan Rather ain't exactly hurting for money, but CBS ain't either. So what a joy it would be if Rather won every penny of the $70,000,000 lawsuit he's filing against the network. CBS so deserves to have to pay that amount.

The suit results from Rather being forced to step down as evening news anchor following the story about Bush's National Guard memos during the 2004 "election." From the get-go, Freepers tried to debunk this story using every silly meme they could think of. According to them, proportional fonts weren't invented yet in the '70s, typewriters with such fonts weren't invented yet in the '70s, the National Guard didn't have such typewriters, the font on the memos was too close to that of a modern word processor, Bush wasn't invented yet in the '70s, and so on and so on and Scooby-Dooby-Doo. Every one of these claims was shot down almost instantly. Every damn one of them. But the right-wing media engaged and comforted the Freepers in their tirades, leading to the myth that the memos themselves were discredited. This fable stuck in the minds of much of the general public as if it was fact.

The memos never were discredited. Many think they were. They weren't.

The legendary newsman says CBS and several executives violated his contract and "seriously damaged his reputation." The latter charge though may be weak: As was pointed out in The Last Word of 2/3/05, a Hear The Issues poll taken just after the Bush memo flap showed that Americans considered Dan Rather the most unbiased news anchor in America - while the despicable Brit Hume was considered the most biased.

Rather says CBS executives made him "a scapegoat" in an effort "to pacify the White House." Rather says the bigwig who oversaw his radio segment told him he was losing that position because of "pressure from 'the right wing.'" So that pretty much shows you where CBS stands, doesn't it? Rather also takes aim at CBS's appointment of Richard Thornburgh - Attorney General under Mad Dog Bush - as a panelist to review the disputed memo story.

Even though Rather wants $70,000,000 costly dollars, at least he has the gumption to stand up and be heard above the din of the right-wing noise machine. It may be a small price to expose how a bunch of Freak Rethuglic loudmouths can get away with shouting down the most trusted man in America and how right-wing pressure can ruin a legitimate news story. Hopefully there will be subpoenas against RNC insiders who were behind all this pressure.

Better yet, maybe the truth about the legitimacy of the National Guard memos and the preferential treatment Bush got will finally come out.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/business/media/19cnd-rather.html)