Breaking: Dan Rather sues CBS for $70 million

Via the NYT:

Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.” As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.

In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House” though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from â€˜the right wing.’ ”

In essence, he’s painting himself as an innocent ‘victim’:

The portrait of Mr. Rather that emerges from the 32-page filing bears little resemblance to the hard-charging, seemingly fearless anchor who for two decades shared the stage with Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings as the most watched and recognizable journalists in America.

By his own rendering, Mr. Rather was little more than a narrator of the disputed broadcast, which was shown on Sept. 8, 2004, on the midweek edition of “60 Minutes” and which purported to offer new evidence of preferential treatment given to Mr. Bush when he was a lieutenant in the Air National Guard.

Yeah, you were merely the messenger, eh Dan?

CBS didn’t ruin Dan Rather’s reputation. Dan Rather did.

14 Responses to "Breaking: Dan Rather sues CBS for $70 million"

Great White Rat says:

September 19, 2007 at 5:09 pm

Maybe Rather ought to sue God for making him clueless enough to think he could slip those fake TANG documents past the rest of the country.

Oh, wait…God already has a suit pending. And He’s in trouble, because Satan gets all the lawyers.
benning says:

September 19, 2007 at 5:13 pm

Why can’t he simply retire and show some dignity? Oh, wait! That’s right! He hasn’t got any!

Asshat!
Severian says:

September 19, 2007 at 5:27 pm

Bull, but typical of the traditional leftist approach. It’s not my fault, whine whine. Personal responsibility is not their forte, heck, Rather still apparently believes the documents are not forgeries, denial is not just a river in Egypt. It’s all BS though, he was all over those forged memos like Clinton on an intern, and deliberately ignored evidence and advise about their authenticity, or rather lack there of, no pun intended.

CBS should sue him and Mapes for their complicity in making the network look both more stupid and partisan then they already were.

Now expect the usual leftist trolls to come around telling everyone how the documents were never really proven to be forgeries, that there were typewriters that would do this, all the usual clueless drivel we’ve seen and seen discredited in the past. Bull again, when this thing hit I was working at a national center devoted to forensics, and one of my colleagues was a vetted, certified document and signature examiner, a damned smart and rigidly ethical man, and he could not believe that anyone would have taken those documents seriously as valid and real. But when some people want to believe something they often will ignore any facts that don’t support what they want to believe, same as with Gore’s disciples and the AGW myth.
Tango says:

September 19, 2007 at 5:42 pm

…man, talk about bitin’ the hand that feed ya!
Big Bang Hunter says:

September 19, 2007 at 5:47 pm

“….how the documents were never really proven to be forgeries…”

– Right now I’d say they’re probably wondering just how bad this could get. We know there were ties to the DNC. There was direct evidence of thst, but as usual the Liberal press was MIA on the whole thing. when they did have to finally print a token piece on the story, they would simply repeat the same lies over and over.

– He knows where all the skeletons are buried, so its a matter of CBS/Viacom deciding on keeping it all quiet and paying, or taking a chance on much worse charges from the FEC/AG.

– I hope they decide not to pay, because Mapes took the money and ran. I’d love to see all of them in a big court fight, getting depositions and hearing some of the truth about the whole thing for a change. What I’d really like to know is what part Kerry play in the affair.

– As for the LunarBats, they never know when to quit.

– BBH –
NC Cop says:

September 19, 2007 at 9:12 pm

What’s that saying, “No honor among thieves”.
G-Monster says:

September 20, 2007 at 1:42 am

Dan Rather, isn’t that the guy that became famous when he stepped up out of turn to ask Richard Nixon a question?

If I remember correctly, it was very rude of him to his fellow journalists, and then he went on to badger Nixon.

Later in life he was spanked properly by George Bush 41, as George Bush insisted on a live interview.

Rather had rehearsed for the confrontation, and when the time came, Dan Rather ran like a chicken and walked off the set.

He never got another interview with Bush 41 or Bush 43, so he tried to go after 43 with forged documents.

CBS was embarassed at what a bad journalist they had, and they fired him. Well, they actually kept him on a little while as he probably begged them to let him finish his 25 years out or whatever.

Now the ungrateful little b^$%^&d sues them?

I hope they countersue and beat the pants off him.
G-Monster says:

September 20, 2007 at 1:46 am

After reading BBH,

I too would be curious to know how much of a part John Kerry and his campaign had in the whole rathergate issue.
PCD says:

September 20, 2007 at 7:48 am

Blather could be opening himself up to a suit by the President for Defamation of Character. The Blather documents will be proven to be fakes in court. Then, Blather will be proven in court to have malice as a forethought. The two ingredients to provide the President the grounds to sue Blather eventhough the President is a public figure.

Someone check this theory with Beldar.
Leslie says:

September 20, 2007 at 9:21 am

ST nails it!

In essence, he’s painting himself as an innocent â€˜victim’ . . . .
CBS didn’t ruin Dan Rather’s reputation. Dan Rather did.

Amen to that.

Rather probably noticed that CBS had settled with Imus, and now he figures they’ll cut him a deal, too. It would be nice to think that they won’t. But they probably will, because these things usually are–i.e., plaintiffs are paid to go away.
sanity says:

September 20, 2007 at 9:21 am

I wonder if this suit was brought about after seeing Imus sueing CBS.

ABC: Draft Copy of the Imus Lawsuit
Big Bang Hunter says:

September 20, 2007 at 10:33 am

– For those of you that may have not been around or aware of the entire MemoGate scam I was involved in the blogsphere investigation that went on within hours after the initial posting of the fake documents. Here’s the rundown of what we found as a group. You may never see any of this in the Left-wing press for obvious reasons, and even the legitimate outlets haven’t shown any interest in an “expose” of the facts. Enjoy. This is whats been going on with the press in this country for years.

– Known by material proof or attested to by witnesses:

– The original package of fake documents were forged by another nutcase Bush hater from the Midwest. He shopped them around to everyone who would listen, including the DNC, in 1999. Everyone, including the DNC, spotted them as fakes and declined to buy them, so Mapes took them and sat on them for 5 years. The whole Texas story was a red herring, staged to confuse the paper trail. The moron in Texas was paid to “shill” the docs as a cover story, and had nothing to do with actually producing them. He was just a local Leftwing nut they used.(I’m leaving out names for legal reasons, but they are available to anyone that cares to know the truth.)

– Mapes sat on them for 5 years, tried to get the DNC/Kerry to back Rather’s plan to go public on his newscast. The DNC again declined, but said if CBS wanted to do it they would just deny any involvement.(This is putting the best face on the DNC’s involvement, but we couldn’t find anyone that would go any further with the testimony. Obviously there could be a lot more if anyone seriously wanted to know.)

– The memo’s were spotted as fakes by several major bloggers within hours after they were posted to the internet. There are so many mistakes/impossibilities its laughable. The most obvious is that photo copies of the “originals were perfect overlays of the same docs written in modern MS Word, but there are many many other aspects about the copies that were simply impossible for the 1940’s typewriters. Additionally there were many “mistakes” in the text of the memo’s, as attested to by ex-TANG military personnel.( The TANG personnel were immediately attacked by the press, and Rather went on the air night after night telling yet more lies and defaming the TANG officers credibility, presenting all this propaganda as “facts”.)

– The “expert” professor that CBS hired to “prove” the documents were real never actually did. Eventually when he started posting his own problems with the memo’s CBS fired him and then discredited him.(This is only a brief account of the pile of evidence we found in that two weeks just by tracking down people and stories and documents, along with emails and phones calls. For some strange reason none of the MSM press outlets were able to do this themselves. Real mystery huh.)

– After two weeks when CBS was looking like a gaggle of fools they asked Rather to “take one for the team”, promising him and Mapes they would be taken care of. Apparently Mapes was happy, and took the money and ran. She sent out all sorts of thinly veiled threats just prior to releasing her book, and then suddenly she went quiet, and the book contained nothing new, nor did she tell the truth. So she came to an agreement with CBS to bury the truth. Rather started that way, but his ego made him go back on things. Now he decides to the sue.

– To this day the press refuses to publish the truth, or even expose the facts that were uncovered by the online community. Names like LGF, Powerline, WhizBang!, ect, were completely ignored by the Liberal press throughout the entire episode.

– For all these reasons, and because the main perps do not want to admit they tried to manipulate a national election, I doubt very much if you will ever see this come to trial, in much the same way you’ll never see sKerry take O’Neill up on his offer to give him $100,000 dollars if he can prove a single mis-statement on his book about Kerry’s lies and dishon0rable service/discharge, or sue O’Neill so they could slug it out in court.

– The reason the Lefties always duck court appearences is those pesky things called “depositions”. They will lie to the people without hesitation, but not the court where they could do jail time for perjury.

– BBH –
Jack Deth says:

September 20, 2007 at 1:31 pm

I believe it was a FReeper named “Buckhead” who first noticed the dis-similarities in the supposed Texas ANG memo and lateraled his finding to LGF, Big Bang.

I know I saw and smelled something fishy with the memo when it was flashed on the TV screen. Having copious Active AF orders typed on IBM Seletric typewriters from that time frame.

Jack.
Big Bang Hunter says:

September 20, 2007 at 2:30 pm

– Jack – you are correct. BillINDC, Bill Ardalino ,was in constant contact with CBS’s “expert”, and it was amusing to watch him change his opinions over that short time span, finally choosing to wash his hands of the entire mess when he called the docs “probable fakes”, and CBS started the discrediting campaign against him through Rather’s on the air lies.

– The so-called CBS “independent” investigation was a CYA joke. When they knew the bottom line was they were caught, they switched to the “well thats our story, and we’re sticking to it, and besides you can’t prove they’re fakes anyway” defense. The typical Progressives approach when they get painted in a corner on their lies. Deny everything, admit nothig, ever.

– BBH –

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