Dan Rather is going ahead with his very expensive lawsuit against CBS, his former employer. Rather claims that CBS ran a politically biased investigation into his airing of the famed/infamous story involving the questioned Texas Air National Guard documents. Here's the truly interesting revelation:

Another memorandum turned over to Mr. Rather’s lawyers by CBS was a long typed list of conservative commentators apparently receiving some preliminary consideration as panel members, including Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan. At the bottom of that list, someone had scribbled “Roger Ailes,” the founder of Fox News.

Roger Ailes? Why would CBS ask help from FOX?

Arguably, Drudge helped create the environment that allowed the TANG story to hit the air prematurely. Years earlier, Drudge hit pay dirt when he ran the Lewenski story at a time when no-one else would touch it. This episode arguably caused other newsfolk to rethink, and to loosen, their standards. Since then, Drudge has -- with impunity -- published a fair amount of crap, including the "Kerry and the intern" tale which helped give birth to this humble blog.

I took some interest in the document controversy; see, for example, here and here. The mystery of the documents was never fully resolved, although I remain convinced that the things were not created on Microsoft Word, as the rightists believed. Alas, back when I addressed the issue, blogger did not make it easy to publish images, so I could not present illustrations to buttress my argument. (Skimming those old pieces reminded me of the days when the hate-spewers inhabited the political right, not the left.)

One question still haunts. If, as many right-wingers alleged, the docs were forged by Rather's source, Bill Burkett -- then why was Burkett not prosecuted?