Dan Rather Sues CBS

The lawsuit comes at a difficult time for CBS. The company's much-publicized hiring of Today Show star Katie Couric as the anchor of the CBS Evening News has yielded low ratings, and the company recently settled a lawsuit with Don Imus, the radio shock jock who was fired after making derogatory comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Rather's lawsuit alleges that he was little more than a narrator in the Texas National Guard story because his superiors directed him to focus on other stories. The report presented flawed evidence that Bush's father pulled strings to arrange preferential treatment for him in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War.

The suit says the public apology Rather offered to viewers and to Bush on his newscast on Sept. 20, 2004 was written by a CBS corporate publicist, and that he delivered it "despite his own personal feelings that no public apology from him was warranted."

Shares of CBS closed up 60 cents, or 1.9%, to $32.74.