Swan song of the loon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former TV newsman Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS Corp in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush's military record.

The ruling on Tuesday by a panel of judges of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said Rather's $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and that a lower court erred in denying CBS's motion to throw out the lawsuit.

Rather says CBS breached his contract by not giving him enough on-air assignments after he was removed as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" in March 2005.

The appeals court ruled he failed to sufficiently support his claim that he lost business opportunities due to CBS's failure to release him to seek other employment.

Rather sued CBS, parent of the CBS television network, Viacom and others in September 2007, claiming he had been made a scapegoat to "pacify the White House." CBS was part of Viacom until the companies split in 2006.

Perhaps Rather will now go quietly into that good night. . .

Rather to sue over firing

Cartoon from Cox & Forkum

From The New York Times:

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 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.”

The suit, which seeks $70 million in damages, names as defendants 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 ‘the right wing.’ ”

He also continues to take vehement issue with the appointment by CBS of Richard Thornburgh, an attorney general in the administration of the elder President Bush, as one of the two outside panelists given the job of reviewing how the disputed broadcast had been prepared.

In a statement CBS said, "These complaints are old news and this lawsuit is without merit." Mr. Heyward said he would not comment beyond the CBS statement. A Viacom spokesman said he had no comment.

Yes Dan, everyone knows that CBS is nothing but a tool of the right wing.

Perhaps you took your fall because you were so eager to bring down a president that you disagreed with and personally disliked that you didn't care if the documents were fake. After all for almost all of your career as a "journalist" you could get away with airing lies and nobody could do a damn thing about it. After all there were only the three networks and they stuck together on stuff like this.

Then the damn Defence Department [spit] had to invent the damn Internet and the MSM's monopoly over the means of disseminating information was broken and you were too much of a dinosaur to make the adjustment.

Give it up Dan. You got caught and you got what was coming to you.