Dan Rather has had enough of not being a respected elder spokesman and plans to sue CBS for, you know: Stuff. To the tune of a cool $70 million.

Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on ‚Äú60 Minutes‚Äù after forcing him to step down as anchor of the ‚ÄúCBS Evening News‚Äù in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a ‚Äúbiased‚Äù and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, ‚Äúseriously damaged his reputation.”

I always did think that the upper tier network suits got off a little easy with their, “shocked, shocked do you hear” poses after the RatherGate scandal blew up in their faces.

And hey, looking on the bright side, with Gunga Dan back on the investigative beat, maybe now we’ll find out who the mysterious Lucy Ramirez is. As well as who really killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Brown.

Because I can’t be sure? But it seems like maybe OJ’s going to be off the case for a while.