MAYOR OF TELEVISION BLOG.

Byline: > DAVID KRONKE

Cry me a river, Danny boy

Dan Rather wept.

That was the vivid image at last year's summer TV press tour. Rather, there to tout his impending newsmagazine show on Mark Cuban's HDNet, choked with emotion when asked about his legacy and damning the corporate mentality's influence on network news.

It's obviously still gnawing away at the guy, as he filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS last week for wrongful termination, kowtowing to the Bush administration, torpedoing his own reputation and giving conspiracy theorists everywhere more grist for their paranoia mills.

There are three avenues of thought in this sorry turn of affairs: 1) Dan's lost it; 2) Dan has a case; 3) some combination of 1) and 2).

Rather was ignominiously bounced from the "CBS Evening News'" anchor chair (for Katie Couric, whose ratings are even lower than Dan's were, so that's worked out well) after a 2004 "60 Minutes II: The Reckoning" story on just what George W. Bush may have been up to during the Vietnam War, which included a forged document as part of its reportage. The right argued that this proved the entire story was bunk rather than debate it on its merits; CBS held back another story critical on Bush until after that year's presidential election.

CBS ordered an internal investigation that should have pleased no one: It exonerated CBS News of everything but being "zealous" in its reporting and utterly neglected to look into whether Rather's report was true. Heads rolled, including Dan's.

So Dan, in some last-ditch effort to restore his nominally good, if fairly eccentric, name, is suing CBS. CBS is responding by rolling its corporate eyes and saying, "See? This is what we had to put up with."

Rather told the Washington Post, "I'm surprised someone in government hasn't said, 'We have a wartime president whose military records are missing, can't be found. Let's use the power of government to find out exactly what happened.' "

Fair point; can't argue with that. But Rather's also backpedaling from the amount of research he personally put into the story and, more bewilderingly, if amusingly so, the Post adds:

"Rather wades deep into the weeds, talking about how a private investigator he hired dug up information on a 'mystery man' 7/8 an ex-FBI agent retained by CBS to look into the story once it came under fire. Rather said the network ignored this consultant's allegedly supportive findings and, more recently, accused the former anchor of 'harassing' the man."

Needless to say, this behavior isn't exactly winning Rather any new fans. MarketWatch's Jon Friedman takes CBS' side:

"I always suspected CBS was showing Rather respect by letting him continue to preside over a show that had apparently outlived its usefulness. Rather had too many wacky episodes to recount."

Rather's suit argues that CBS scapegoated him in order to make nice with the White House, with which it had a rather (can't decide if the pun is intended or not) contentious relationship.

Does Dan have any proof of such a conspiracy?

"Well, I'd like to gather more evidence. ... One way to find out is to put people under oath," Rather told the Post. Sounds like that would be a "No."

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Dan Rather