Dan Rather’s complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as ‘CBS Evening News’ anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They’ve said that the former anchor is ‘sad,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘a loser,’ on an ‘ego’ trip and engaged in a mad gesture ‘no sane person’ would do, and that ‘no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true.’ If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather’s suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization’s intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power […]