Dan Rather Goes on Offense

Interesting New York Times piece on the continuing lawsuit by Dan Rather against CBS over its resolution of the 2004 controversy over President Bush's National Guard records, which cost Rather his job. In a nutshell, the network came under conservative fire for a 60 Minutes II report that relied on documents suggesting that Bush had received special favors allowing him to shirk duty with the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. CBS eventually backed off the report, saying "it could no longer vouch for the authenticity of the documents on which the report had been based."

Rather sued, and according to the Times, his expensive legal inquest has turned up evidence that CBS ran its investigation into Rather's report—which blamed Rather and his producers for rushing a report to air—with an eye toward pleasing conservative critics:

Some of the documents unearthed by his investigation include notes taken at the time by Linda Mason, a vice president of CBS News. According to her notes, one potential panel member, Warren Rudman, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, was deemed a less-than-ideal candidate over fears by some that he would not “mollify the right.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Thornburgh, who served as attorney general for both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, was named a panelist by CBS, but only after a CBS lobbyist “did some other testing,” in which she was told, according to Ms. Mason's notes, “T comes back with high marks from G.O.P.”

Another memorandum turned over to Mr. Rather's lawyers by CBS was a long typed list of conservative commentators apparently receiving some preliminary consideration as panel members, including Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan. At the bottom of that list, someone had scribbled “Roger Ailes,” the founder of Fox News.

The case is likely to go on trial early next year, says the Times. But it would be ironic if it turned out that, in accusing Rather and others of running a shoddy investigation gathering evidence to fit a predetermined outcome, CBS was, well, running a shoddy investigation gathering evidence to fit a predetermined outcome.