The New York Times has a story on Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS with the shocking revelation that the names of some potential outside investigators were vetted with Republicans. This was an (apparently scandalous) attempt both to be fair and to be seen as being fair.

If Rather's CBS group treated Republicans unfairly in its story, and if CBS wanted Republicans to think that their outside investigation fairly examined their complaints, then it would have been irresponsible for CBS NOT to have picked at least one committee member who would be seen by Republicans as ensuring a fair investigation of their complaints.

In other words, in its investigation of Rather's fraudulent report, CBS did not want to repeat the error that led to Rather's mistake -- relying on an ideologically monolithic, left-leaning investigative team.

I read the CBS outside report when it came out. I thought they bent over backwards to be fair and generous to the Rather team.

The only even marginally embarrassing revelation in today's New York Times story is this one sentence:

Other documents, meanwhile, suggest that Ms. Mason, who reported to Mr. Heyward [at CBS], was getting updates from panel investigators on some of their findings, at a point when CBS News was telling outsiders that the network was staying out of the investigation.