Dan Rather Seeks Lost Reputation in Courtroom

Just when it looked like Dan Rather was going to wind down his career with quiet dignity, he goes and opens a industrial-sized can of crazy on CBS.

The former Evening News anchor filed a $70 million lawsuit against his old network this afternoon, saying it sacrificed his career to angry right-wingers and violated his contract by denying him airtime.

Check out the skepticism in the normally-neutral New York Times's write-up, here:

Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him "a scapegoat" in an attempt "to pacify the White House," though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect.

and here:

The portrait of Mr. Rather that emerges from the 32-page filing bears little resemblance to the hard-charging, seemingly fearless anchor who for two decades shared the stage with Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings as the most watched and recognizable journalists in America. By his own rendering, Mr. Rather was little more than a narrator of the disputed broadcast.

But the saddest part has to be where Rather, now an anchor on HDnet, complains that CBS wouldn't even let him go to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina. According to his lawyers, "Mr. Rather is the most experienced reporter in the United States in covering hurricanes." Apparently no one told them "Hurricane Dan" was not a nickname bestowed out of respect.