INSIDE THE BUNKER AT CBS, Dan Rather must be finally feeling some sympathy for Richard Nixon. Rather is caught in a cover-up begun during a presidential campaign, the cover-up is unraveling, and a baying pack of critics greets his every utterance with disdain, as mockery begins to replace analysis. Cries of resignation are everywhere. No matter how well he closes, Rather’s reputation is in tatters. When 60 Minutes went with the fraudulent docs story last week, it went over a cliff.

To complete the parallel, all we need are some timely Congressional hearings, best conducted by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, or the Subcommittee on Communications of the Senate’s Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Conrad Burns of Montana. CBS president Les Moonves would be a wonderful witness, as would Rather, and while the subject of “sources” would be a touchy one, either subcommittee could provide some information on the workings of a major broadcast network confronted with a juicy story that has been discovered to have been cooked.