If Dan Rather had put a tiny fraction of the effort he’s expending on his lawsuit against CBS into verifying those fraudulent Bush National Guard documents, he might not be in this predicament: Rather Wins a Round in Lawsuit Against CBS.

Dan Rather won significant victories Tuesday in his suit against his former network, CBS. He won access to more than 3,000 documents that his lawyer said were expected to reveal evidence that CBS had tried to influence the outcome of a panel that investigated his much-debated “60 Minutes” report about former President George W. Bush’s military record.

Mr. Rather also won an appeal to restore a fraud charge against CBS that had been dismissed. Martin Gold, the lawyer representing the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” called it “a very successful day for us; we got everything.” Mr. Rather called it a “good day” for his side and — referring to the name for the CBS headquarters — “a bad day for Black Rock.”

Jim Quinn, the lawyer representing CBS, called it “a minor skirmish in a long battle” and predicted that the fraud charge would be dismissed again because “it’s frivolous.” He added of Mr. Rather’s day in court, “Was it favorable for him? Yes. Was it meaningful? No.”

CBS said in a statement: “Today’s rulings by Judge Gammerman were on technical and procedural issues, not on the merits of Mr. Rather’s allegations. Most of Mr. Rather’s claims already have been rejected by the court and that has not changed. We are similarly confident that Mr. Rather’s re-pleaded fraud claim will be dismissed once the court reaches the actual merits. We also await the appellate division’s decisions on pending motions which, we believe will further curtail his claims.”

There’s something pathetic about Rather pursuing a fraudulent suit against CBS (for fraud), after trying to tilt a presidential election with fraudulent documents — when neither Rather nor CBS have ever admitted the documents were obviously faked. They’re all scoundrels.