Is Dan Rather Restoring His Legacy or Tarnishing it Further?

The story, pushed as an exclusive by Rather and CBS news was indeed that. It also turned out to be fictitious when a quick and cursory check of some of the documents implicating Bush as receiving special considerations were shown to be poorly constructed forgeries.

The aftermath of the false news story at CBS was nasty as critics of Rather, especially Republicans, as well as journalists who Rather had rubbed wrong over the years were quick to point out the liberal leaning anchorman had finally gone too far, stepping over the boundaries of allowing personal views to slant a news story or in this case to propagate a fictitious one.

Within days the staff that had put the story together were fired and within two months, Rather was relieved of his anchor duties on the nightly news and placed with the bed sheets and linens in the closet at Sixty Minutes so that he could slowly be weaned out of the CBS News Division and the public eye.

 We all should have known that Rather wouldn’t stay quietly in the night although at first he did go quietly into the sunset.

Now Rather who enjoys being on camera as much as a piece of toast enjoys being buttered, is back on the airwaves of any program at any network who will let him tell his story of how he was wronged by the corporate owners and management at CBS. In his lawsuit Rather claims he was unfairly required to deliver CBS’s apology on air of the bogus story. He mentions that he was merely the narrator and as such shouldn’t have had all the heat and fury directed his way. Any first year journalism student knows that defense isn’t worth a plate of false documents.

 When an anchorman, who continually professes himself as a journalist doesn’t personally check facts presented to him to air nationally, then he is no longer a journalist. Even a cub reporter knows that facts need to be checked on a major story and information obtained from say the General Accounting Office has more chance of veracity than a comment made by Elmer at the corner bar. Over the past twenty years Rather was quick to jog up to the podium to collect an award for his program’s coverage of the news but the minute he narrates a fictitious story that brings shame on him and his network, he states that he is just a reader of the news and has nothing to do with it save what the tele-prompter tells him to say. Although Dan Rather would like to have it both ways the court of public opinion can see this as just another way to try and get back at a company that did nothing but allow him to destroy his own credibility plus bring shame to their network.

Dan Rather is mistaken if he thinks this lawsuit will help restore his tarnished image. Standing up and just admitting he made a serious error in judgment would do a great deal more than whining in a civil action that he was unfairly done in by something that he allowed to get past his forty years of expertise.