NEW YORK (AP) – Station managers at several CBS affiliates said Thursday they appear to be a target of a national e-mail campaign placing pressure on the network to oust Dan Rather as anchorman of the “CBS Evening News.”

A Maine CBS affiliate is hearing from viewers following the flare-up over Rather’s role in a “60 Minutes” report on President Bush’s service in the National Guard.

“I know about them,” said WGME/Channel 13 News Director Dave Kapler. The Portland, Maine, station hasn’t been deluged to Kapler’s knowledge, but he added that he wouldn’t see those going directly to Station Manager Alan Cartwright. Cartwright couldn’t immediately be reached.

“I’ve received some, not a lot, maybe a couple of dozen” e-mails regarding the controversy, said Kapler on Thursday evening. “It’s a mixed bag. Not all of them have been negative,” he added. “Some have been supportive.”

Most, though, rap Rather and CBS, he said, alleging the anchor and network have a liberal bias.

Kapler said as far he as knows, the station isn’t taking any action in terms of calling on CBS to fire Rather.

He said an investigation of the network’s news operations is under way, and WGME will wait to see its results. Channel 13 will air the story as well, Kapler noted, “as we have all along.”

CBS has apologized for reporting on documents critical of Bush’s service, widely assumed now as fakes, and appointed a panel to investigate what went wrong.

Many e-mailers offer the same message: I will not watch CBS News again until Rather is gone, said Bob Lee, president and general manager of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va., and head of the CBS affiliate board.

“To be honest, I’m most concerned when the e-mail is coming from a local viewer,” said Gary Gardner, vice president and general manager of WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Fla.

Lee said he can’t recall any other issue getting such a big response from viewers.

Station managers take such a response very seriously. They are, in effect, Rather’s constituency and several said they’re eager to see what former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Louis D. Boccardi turn up in their probe of CBS News operations.

The campaign appears to originate from a blogger on the Web site, Rathergate.com, who is forwarding e-mails to stations around the country.

Sun Journal staff writer Doug Fletcher and The Associated Press contributed to this report

“The buck has to stop,” said Mike Krempasky of Falls Church, Va., who works for a political advertising company and set up Rathergate.com, as well as the conservative-oriented Web site, Redstate.org.

“He’s certainly the face of the story,” he said. “He’s the one who sneered at anyone who dared criticize him on the story for 10 days. He’s the one who put his credibility on the line when he said he believed in the story.”

Meanwhile, Rather was not commenting Thursday on a story in The New York Times, quoting sources that requested anonymity, that he was unhappy that Thornburgh was appointed as half of the two-man panel investigating CBS News. Thornburgh is a Republican former governor of Pennsylvania and was attorney general for the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

He was the attorney general when Rather conducted a memorably combative interview with Bush as he was running for president.

A Rather spokeswoman said the veteran anchor will cooperate fully in the probe.

In the same Times story, Rather was quoted as pointing out that his boss, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, was fully involved with him in the handling of the story.

Sun Journal staff writer Doug Fletcher contributed to this report.