Rather and Regan: A Parallel of Paranoia

A towering media figure files a breach-of-contract suit after being forced out of a job, claiming the ouster was part of a conspiracy to curry favor with top Republicans.

Sound familiar? That's the picture Judith Regan painted in her $100 million lawsuit filed earlier this week, and it's the same one Dan Rather depicted in his $70 million complaint against CBS.

Regan thinks News Corp. wanted to tar her as a louche anti-Semite to discredit anything she might have to say about Bernie Kerik and limit its effects on Rudy Giuliani's presidential prospects. Rather contends Viacom offered him up as a sacrifice to appease the White House after calling attention to George Bush's spotty National Guard record during the 2004 election.

What's so bizarre about both lawsuits is the superfluousness of the conspiracy theories they contain. Rather says he was denied regular airtime on 60 Minutes; Regan says she has a witness who swears she never said boo about the Jews. If they can prove those claims, they win. End of story. As for why their employers chose to hustle them out prematurely, how is wanting to turn the page on a corporate humiliation not an adequate motive?

If anything, the inclusion of paranoid theories about the corporate media/Republican party axis actually discredits both complaints. If Rather and Regan had stuck to the provable facts, they'd be seen as wronged workers out to get their contractual due. Instead, they look like angry, delusional obsessives desperate to get even with The System for the way it allowed two long and distinguished careers to end in a pair of punchlines. Unfortunately, there's no legal remedy for public disgrace.

UPDATE: Here's a fantastic close reading of Regan's suit. "The complaint is signed by attorney Brian Kerr, of New York's 175-lawyer Dreier firm, but it has an astoundingly unfiltered quality to it." Also, it "reads like one of those humor pieces in The New Yorker, where it not-so-gradually dawns on the reader that the narrator is out of his gourd. Even though you're hearing only one side of the story, that's enough to make up your mind against the griper."

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