Dan Rather's decision to sue CBS may have been dismissed as Quixotic, but he's getting results. As this update story in the New York Times recounts, Rather is putting his money where his heart is, pursuing the story.

In this case, the story is his own. And as discovery proceeds, yet another tawdry example of the BushCo Republican style of iron-fisted and self-serving rule...with the knowing complicity of top media executives...begins to emerge.

It's simple enough...report a story that shows George W. Bush in a less than favorable light and you will be destroyed. And what message does that send? One that makes other reporters hesitate to follow controversial stories? Or how about, give a wink and a nod and dance backup, eh, Dave?

There will be many legacies of the Bush era. The meta-legacy for George Bush and Karl Rove and their political minions is a litany of examples of coercion and intimidation. That is their thuggish hallmark, one seen in the common threads of the imprisonment of Alabama Governor Siegelman and the end of Dan Rather's career at CBS.

And a cozy crony of the meta-legacy of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and their ilk.

Damn them all.

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(crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)