Dan Rather is back in the news, thankfully not reporting it. It seems Mr. Rather thinks he was treated badly in the aftermath of the story CBS ran about President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard. To salve his bruised ego he is asking for $70 million. When I heard the news I almost sucked my nose right off of my face I snorted so hard.

Soon after the disputed story ran bloggers looking into it discovered something amazing. The memos that were supposedly written by his superior, Jerry B. Killian, proved to be forgeries.

Rather stood by the report and to this day says that it has not been proven beyond a doubt that his reporting was wrong. I'm sorry but that isn't the standard by which you judge articles. Besides, it has been proven that several of the memos that were a basis for the story were produced on computer equipment not available (because it hadn't been invented yet) at the time they were supposedly written. How much more proof does Dan the man require?

I have to admit to a long history of not believing Rather's stories. Back in the day when Dan was on 60 Minutes they ran a story on a pesticide that I felt was less than accurate. I wrote a letter to them but it didn't make the spot at the end.

A few years later I received a letter from the executive producer saying that they were going to put out a book, Dear 60 Minutes, of letters from people that weren't shown on the program but which the producers found interesting. They offered me $10 to let them use the letter and I agreed.

In due course I got my $10 and pretty much forgot about it until I found a paperback copy of the book for 75 cents at a yard sale. Since I figured I'd still come out $9.25 ahead I bought it and searched through it until I found my letter. It had been so long since I wrote it that I'd forgotten what I said. It has been another several years and my memory of it isn't getting any fresher.

Without going to the trouble of looking through tons of boxes of books to the best of my memory the story they ran was full of incidents of people ignoring the warnings on the packages and using the pesticide in an unsafe manner. I said that saying the pesticide was unsafe was like saying typewriters were unsafe because Andy Rooney threw a typewriter off the top of a building onto a group of people below and not blaming Rooney for the action instead.

If I were a snarky individual I'd say it seems fake but accurate was a hallmark of Rather's reportage for years. But I'm above that, I'll leave it to others.