1 Boring Old Man

Dan Rather stands by his story
^{His lawsuit will attempt to show that CBS tried to suppress the report on Bush’s National Guard Service and the Abu Ghraib abuses.}
By Sidney Blumenthal

Dan Rather’s complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as "CBS Evening News" anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They’ve said that the former anchor is "sad," "pathetic," "a loser," on an "ego" trip and engaged in a mad gesture "no sane person" would do, and that "no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true."

If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather’s suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization’s intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.

In making his case, Rather will certainly establish beyond reasonable doubt that George W. Bush never completed his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. Moreover, Rather’s suit will seek to demonstrate that the documents used in his "60 Minutes II" piece were not inauthentic and that he and his producers acted responsibly in presenting them and the information they contained — and that that information is true. Indeed, no credible source has refuted the essential facts of the story.

Most cases of this sort are usually settled before discovery. But Rather has made plain that he is uninterested in a cash settlement. He has filed his suit precisely to be able to take depositions. In his effort to demonstrate his mistreatment, Rather will detail how network executives curried favor with the administration, offering him up as a human sacrifice. The panel that CBS appointed and paid millions to in order to investigate Rather’s journalism will be exposed as a shoddy kangaroo court.

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The opaque story was partly illuminated by a piece in Salon, [Bush’s Missing Year] written by Mary Jacoby, on Sept. 2, 2004. Offering extensive documentation, including photographs and letters, Linda Allison, who had housed Bush during his missing year, explained that his drunken misbehavior was creating havoc for his father’s political aspirations and that the elder Bush asked his old friend Jimmy Allison, a political consultant from Midland, Texas, now living in Alabama, to handle the wastrel son. "The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy’s wing," Linda Allison told Salon. During the time the younger Bush was under the watchful eye of the Allisons, he never went to a National Guard base or wore a uniform. "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way," said Allison. She did, however, remember him drinking, urinating on a car, screaming at police and trashing the apartment he had rented.

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Rather could have simply allowed the statute of limitations to run out, lived off his millions, and faded away. But the incident ate at him. On one level, the Bush National Guard story is about Bush and the National Guard. On another, of course, it is about Rather’s reputation. But on yet another it is about CBS’s overwhelming desire to please the Bush White House and censor itself. The White House campaign against Rather has been so successful that many in the national press corps behave as though in mouthing its talking points they are demonstrating their own independent thought.

On Sept. 20, the day after he filed his suit, Rather said, "The story was true." Rather’s suit may turn into one of the most sustained and informative acts of investigative journalism in his long career. He is not going gentle into that good night.

It was George Bush who officially informed the international diplomatic community of Nixon’s March decisions. Bush addressed a letter to the Presidency of the UN Security Council in which he outlined what Nixon had set into motion.

"The President directed that the entrances to the ports of North Vietnam be mined and that the delivery of seaborne supplies to North Vietnam be prevented. These measures of collective self-defense are hereby being reported to the United Nations Security Council as required by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter." Bush went on to characterize the North Vietnamese actions. He spoke of "the massive invasion across the demilitarized zone and international boundaries by the forces of North Vietnam and the continuing aggression" of Hanoi. He accused the north of "blatant violation of the understandings negotiated in 1968 in connection with the cessation of the bombing of the territory of North Vietnam." "The extent of this renewed aggression and the manner in which it has been directed and supported demonstrate with great clarity that North Vietnam has embarked on an all-out attempt to take over South Vietnam by military force and to disrupt the orderly withdrawal of United States forces." Bush further accused the north of refusing to negotiate in good faith to end the war.

The guts of Bush’s message, the part that was read with greatest attention in Moscow, Peking, and elsewhere, was contained in the following summary of the way in which Haiphong and the other harbors had been mined: "Accordingly, as the minimum actions necessary to meet this threat, the Republic of Vietnam and the United States of America have jointly decided to take the following measures of collective self-defense: The entrances to the ports of North Vietnam are being mined, commencing 0900 Saigon time May 9, and the mines are set to activate automatically beginning 1900 hours Saigon time May 11. This will permit vessels of other countries presently in North Vietnamese ports three daylight periods to depart safely." In a long circumlocution, Bush also conveyed that all shipping might also be the target of indsicriminate bombing. Bush called these measures "restricted in extent and purpose." The US was willing to sign a cease-fire ending all acts of war in Indochina (thus including Cambodia, which had been invaded in 1970, and Laos, which had been invaded in 1971) within four months, as well as the Vietnams) and bring all US troops home within four months.