Dan Rather's Revenge

by: Paul Rosenberg
from OpenLeft
Sun Jul 26, 2009 at 17:00

What do the following people have in common?
• William Buckley
• Robert Novak
• Kate O'Beirne
• Nicholas Von Hoffman
• Tucker Carlson
• Pat Buchanan
• George Will
• Lou Dobbs
• Matt Drudge
• Robert Barkley
• Robert Kagan
• Fred Barnes
• William Kristol
• John Podhoretz
• David Brooks
• William Safire
• Bernard Goldberg
• Ann Coulter
• Andrew Sullivan
• Christopher Hitchens
• PJ O'Rourke
• Christopher Caldwell
• Elliot Abrams
• Charles Krauthammer
• William Bennett
• Rush Limbaugh
• Roger Ailes

If you said, "CBS considered them to sit in judgment of Dan Rather's story on Bush's special treatment by Texas Air National Guard", then you get a cookie! In the end, CBS went with former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who owed that title--the highest job he ever held--to George W. Bush's dad. So, CBS went with cronyism over wingnut hackery. It was probably a good call, since as it turned out, many people actually believed that its "independent review" of Rather's report was legit. If they'd let Ann Coulter run it, probably not so much.

But eventually, Rather had had enough, after it became clear that CBS had shafted him. And so, in September 2007, Rather decided to sue. Last November, there was a rather interersting development, as the NY Observer reported:

(Continued here.)