Sour Grapes

Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.

"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Why can't this guy just go away quitely?

In the suit, filed a day earlier in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Rather claimed CBS and Viacom Inc. (VIAB) used him as a "scapegoat" and intentionally botched the aftermath of a discredited story about President Bush's military service to curry favor with the White House. He was removed from his "CBS Evening News" post in March 2005.

I think there is plenty of evidence around that CBS is not in bed with the White House. Rather was the perfect scapegoat because he was in charge of a very large story designed to take the President out of politics and the evidence Rather relied on was false. There was plenty to suggest that his evidence wouldn't hold water and he blatently ignored it. Rather could very easily be the prosecutor in the Duke rape case for all the red flags he ignored in producing that story.

"They sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate financial gain, and in so doing, I think they undermined a lot at CBS News," he told King.

If you mean they threw Rather to the wolves to save what was left of their reputation as well as dodging a very expensive, nasty lawsuit, then yes, they were after financial gain. And as I recall, they kept the old buzzard around after removing him from the news desk. Wasn't he on 60 Minutes for a while, along with a few other cameo performances.

Rather didn't mention other instances in which he believed news organizations bowed to corporate and government pressure.

These egocentric old crows can't stand being in the shadows. Cronkite was equally bad. Shut up and go away.