Rather Delusional

Yesterday, I noted that Dan Rather is filing a lawsuit against CBS for not getting enough airtime following the Rathergate mess. Well, today brings a copy of the actual complaint, and it's a laugher. Actually, it is tragicomic since it shows just how delusional some people are about the whole incident and the lengths to which some people will go to grasp at straws.

I'll let Beldar take it from here:

The law firm that Rather has retained, Chicago-based Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, is indeed a good firm. The complaint that Sonnenschein's New York office has filed on Dan Rather's behalf, however, is a nicely buffed and polished piece of garbage. The lawyers who wrote it appear to have been infected with Rather's own delusions, as becomes clear when one gets to numbered paragraph 3 on the second page:

The Broadcast incorporated copies of documents written by Mr. Bush's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian ("Documents"), corroborating important aspects of the story.

Not "purportedly written" or "allegedly written," mind you, but just "written." Later in the complaint (at pp. 19-21), while not quite affirmatively asserting that the "Documents" are indeed genuine, Rather's lawyers come very close to that by alleging that Erik Rigler, a private investigator hired by CBS, had reported to a CBS executive that "he was of the opinion that the Killian Documents were most likely authentic," but that Rigler's conclusion was covered up in the report of the CBS Investigatory Panel, and that CBS then prevented Rather from having any further contact with Rigler.

Well, this further supports the whole idea that discovery will prove to be quite entertaining because CBS will have to show exactly how they came to the conclusion that the documents were not authentic. Heck, CBS expressed reservations about the authenticity of the documents even before the segment ran. Their limited investigation, resulting in the Thornberg report, was not nearly as conclusive as it should have been, and that's probably due in part to limiting the collateral damage to only those immediately affected by Rather, and not the CBS News division or CBS at large.

Discovery may show just how far down the rabbit hole things went, and CBS might have to revisit the authenticity of the documents once again - this time to conclusively show that they were frauds as part of their case.

After the Bush documents segment ran, all heck broke loose, as the documents were examined closely by a bunch of pajama clad bloggers, who discovered among other things - problems with the lingo contained in the documents that suggest that whoever wrote them was not familiar with policies and practices of the Texas Air National Guard, the documents themselves appeared to match fonts and spacing common to a Microsoft Word document using default settings, and not a typewriter common to the era (1970s).

As it is, Rather has managed to find a lawyer just as delusional as he is. His lawyer, Martin Gold, believes that the documents were never proven to be frauds. Right.

Rather and his cronies at CBS never authenticated the documents despite his claims to the contrary and there are so many questions about where and how he came to obtain them that verification is dubious at best. The means and methods by which Rather claims to have verified the documents is dubious - giving only selected portions to experts, or giving them photocopies of the originals, rather than the original copies.

The fact that one of the document matches up perfectly with a Microsoft Word document, when Microsoft was a mere flicker in the eye of Bill Gates suggests that document was nothing more than a poorly crafted fraud.

Still, I expect one of two possible scenarios at this point: 1) CBS to craft a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action; or 2) a settlement without this every going beyond the filing of the complaint.

Rather probably looked at what happened with Don Imus and figured that he had a shot at cashing in, and therefore larded up a farcical complaint in the hopes that it might cow CBS into doling out a few bucks to keep things quiet. He may be right, but that will not change the authenticity of the documents - they're just as bogus today as they were when they were first presented.

UPDATE:
From Kurtz's WaPo piece, which lays out the history of Rathergate:

Several document experts hired by CBS said later that they had not authenticated the memos, as the network originally claimed, and the commander's former secretary said she did not type them. The source who gave CBS the documents, Bill Burkett, initially said he got them from a fellow National Guardsman. But Burkett later admitted he had lied to the network and could not establish that the papers came from the commander's files.

CBS aired the story on Sept. 8, 2004, at the height of the presidential campaign, hours after White House official Dan Bartlett did not challenge the authenticity of the memos when asked about them by CBS. Bartlett said later that he had no way of knowing on such short notice whether the memos were real.

Gold, Rather's lawyer, maintained that "nobody's proved the documents were forgeries. The way we look at it, it's more than likely the documents are authentic."

An outside panel, appointed by CBS and headed by former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Lou Boccardi, accused the network of having "failed miserably" to authenticate the memos and of making false and misleading statements in defending the story afterward. Three top executives resigned under pressure, and Rather's producer, Mary Mapes, was fired.

Gold is claiming that this is all to restore Rather's name and reputation. I don't think so. I think it's about seeking filthy lucre and cashing in because the facts and law do not support his position. He's left to pounding on the table, not unlike a petulant two-year old who has just been caught lying.