"CBS Evening News" with Katie Couric is languishing in third place in the ratings. The show is doing worse now than it was during the waning years of Dan Rather.
CBS radio a few weeks ago paid Don Imus $20 million to calm him down after they fired him over derogatory remarks he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team. (That's according to Imus sources. CBS claims it was substantially less than that.)
Comes now Dan Rather with a lawsuit against his former employer seeking $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages over his firing.
Rather was canned 15 months ago for reporting an unsubstantiated story questioning W's Vietnam-era National Guard services.
Rather claims the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on "60 Minutes" after forcing him to leave the anchor job on the "CBS Evening News."
Rather's suit also claims, according to a report in the New York Times, that the network committed fraud by commissioning a biased and incomplete investigation of the flawed broadcast and, in the process, seriously damaged his reputation.
Honestly, how could anyone possibly damage Dan Rather's reputation any more than he has over the years?
But anyway, the thing I find curious about the lawsuit is the way Rather portrays himself.
One would think the ardent journalist Rather was a hard-nosed, independent, investigative reporter leaving no stone unturned in a relentless quest for the truth, wouldn't one?
Nah, he was just a patsy in a suit reading whatever the producers handed him.
In the lawsuit, Rather characterizes himself as nothing more than a narrator of the disputed broadcast.
He says he didn't evaluate or approve the script for the guard story, he just read it.
He also says he was pressured by the producers to focus more on stories about Hurricane Frances and Bill Clinton's heart surgery.
Rather also claims that the apology he delivered was written by a CBS corporate publicist and that he read it "despite his own personal feelings that no public apology from him was warranted."
Sure gives you a new view of the tough-minded Rather, doesn't it?
CBS, of course, says the suit is without merit.
C'mon, CBS, just write the check already. You know you're going to eventually anyway. After all, you were paying the guy $6 million a year when he was your "Evening News" talking head.
Rather can say all he wants to about his reputation, but what it really boils down to is he wants one more big, fat check from CBS.
He'll probably get it.
Darth Cheney
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was speaking at a $100-a-plate fundraiser at Town Hall near New York's Times Square.
She was talking about Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to the Capitol earlier in the week to shore up support among Republicans for W's Iraq plans.
"Vice President Cheney came up to see the Republicans yesterday. You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President's motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges," Hillary said.
Ah, what a brilliant riposte. Hillary is a veritable paragon of the art of civil public discourse.
She went on, "I'm not invited to their meetings and I don't know what he says or does, but all the brave talk about bringing our troops home, and setting deadlines, and getting out by a certain date just dissipated."
She was referring specifically to Senator Jim Webb's legislation to limit troop deployments, which failed Wednesday in the Senate by a vote of 56-44.
It must be tough for Hillary these days with her party having a majority in both houses of Congress and all.
Perhaps she can explain why the only political entity with lower approval ratings than W's is the U.S. Congress.
O.J.
I think this time the Juice might be in a little trouble.
Orenthal James Simpson got himself arrested in Las Vegas after he and some of his thug buddies burst into a hotel room.
Published reports say at least one of them was brandishing a weapon.
Simpson faces numerous felonies, like armed robbery and kidnapping.
Simpson was caught on tape uttering phrases like, "You think you can take my sh**?" over and over.
Editorial cartoonists were quick to respond.
One really good one I saw had a ridiculous caricature of O.J. standing outside a ransacked hotel room holding a bloody glove. The caption read, "O.J. retrieves memorabilia from a Las Vegas hotel room."
But my favorite, which ran in this newspaper, carried the phrase, "If they take my sh**, you must acquit."
Honestly, I laughed out loud.
All this over a lousy 100 grand worth of memorabilia, which Simpson alleges was stolen from him.
Simpson is worth about $4 million. He gets a $400,000-a-year NFL pension.
Advice to O.J.: If you make it through this without spending a number of years in prison, just chill out in your Florida mansion and play golf every day.
