This Could Be Big

Sid Blumenthal has looked more deeply into the Dan Rather suit against CBS and sees something I had been wondering about. Rather doesn't want the money, the first too-obvious interpretation many in our lap dog press have been mouthing. He wants vindication that the story about Bush's National Guard service was essentially correct and that the CBS management team sandbagged the story, and Rather, to ingratiate themselves with the Bush White House. Rather is a bulldog and he sees the chance to not only recover his reputation, but also to use the subpoena power of the suit to expose the whole rotten mess from the Bushies to CBS and Viacom. Watch for this one.

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 of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.

In making his case, Rather will certainly establish beyond reasonable doubt that George W. Bush never completed his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. Moreover, Rather's suit will seek to demonstrate that the documents used in his "60 Minutes II" piece were not inauthentic and that he and his producers acted responsibly in presenting them and the information they contained -- and that that information is true. Indeed, no credible source has refuted the essential facts of the story.