"I think the public . . . understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can't deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said.
"If you can't deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it's change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.
"This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.
With all due respect, the fundamental truth of a story is that which can't be denied? The truth of information is independent of the truth of documents that are supposed to establish that truth? And Rather wants to talk about other people's fog?
In the spirit realm where Rather apparently now dwells, truths are simply known as a matter of faith. That's cool. I can travel in the realm of ultimate truths - on my time off. But in my day job here on Planet Earth, at least when making claims against someone else's rectitude, truth has to be supported by fact.
The first rule of journalism is: Get it right. The second is: Own up to a mistake when you make one. As one who has made a few, including falling for an Internet hoax, journalistic schadenfreude is not my game. It's embarrassing and painful to trip in front of so many, but Rather's hubris seems to be what's clouding this particular issue.
It doesn't matter what anyone
believes about Bush's guard service, or what anyone perceives to be true. Questionable documents mean you have no story. Yet CBS ignored several of its own experts who say they raised doubts about the memos before "60 Minutes II" aired.
Given the preponderance of evidence at this point, one can only conclude that Dan Rather and CBS knowingly used documents that were not conclusively authentic to bolster a story intended to challenge the character and credibility of a president during an election year.
That's the fundamental truth of this story.