“Look, I don’t want to be some Don Quixote out here tilting at windmills, without even a Sancho,” says Rather. This is Dan Rather’s last big story, his crusade to save his reputation as one of the late-twentieth century’s great TV newsmen. “My opinion,” says Rather, “is that Redstone is the heavy in this.” He hopes that depositions and subpoenas can complete the unfinished business of “Rathergate,” proving not only that he was right all along, that his National Guard story was accurate, but also that CBS buried him so Sumner Redstone could shield Viacom’s corporate interests in Washington from White House blowback. But like Rather himself, it’s charged with hurricane-force drama, draped in a larger tale of conspiracy and corruption. The core of Rather’s lawsuit is a mundane contract dispute over whether he received the airtime he was promised in his final year on CBS. He’s suing CBS and its former parent company Viacom-along with Viacom’s chairman, Sumner Redstone CBS chief Leslie Moonves and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward-for $70 million.
What a fix.’ ” He nearly spits the word fix. What pure, unadulterated bullshit this whole thing is. Of that report, Rather says, “When I read through it, all I could say to myself, on each page, is, ‘What bullshit. He’s recalling January 10, 2005, when he first received the 224-page report commissioned by CBS that excoriated his infamous 60 Minutes Wednesday segment on President Bush’s National Guard service. “Monday morning, about 8:49-and I think that is the time precisely,” he says. And the memories of the battles that undid him are still fresh on his mind. When Dan Rather sits on a bench in Central Park to tell how his 44-year career at CBS News ended in ignominy and humiliation, he is in fact still waging a war, a bitter and personal one. If he weren’t famous, he’d be mistaken for a veteran of a long-ago war: khaki safari shirt on his back, scuffed combat boots on his feet, that wiry crest of a brow, rheumy eyes under heavy lids, lower lip jutting out like an ornery fish resisting a hook.
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