So while CBS was misled by its source, now known to be Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel also widely known to have issues with the Bush family, the network misled itself into believing what it clearly wanted to believe.
Here's how we reach that conclusion even in the face of more-charitable theories that CBS just got swept up by a hot story. It wasn't a hot story and never was. Every issue raised by CBS has been raised every time George Bush has run for any office, and he keeps getting elected, from which lip-readers might infer: No one cares.
Bush has a four-year record as president of the United States during which time the country has been attacked by terrorists and engaged in war in two theaters. His actions 30 years ago are eclipsed by more recent and far more important events.
Given that the story was tepid at best, the only explanation for CBS's gung-ho-ness in airing it despite misgivings is bad bias, not bad judgment.
Rather, who has lent his name to at least two Democratic fund-raising events in recent years, has allowed his political interests to color his judgment.
His apology, meanwhile, is what one might expect from a teenager when he gets caught smoking in the garage: "I used bad judgment, and for that I'm sorry." How about this instead: "I knowingly used questionable documents to damage a president during an election, and I have no excuse."
Or this, which is what Americans have a right to expect from adults whose powerful position can sway the course of human history: "These events occurred on my watch. I am accountable for them, and I take full responsibility." Doubtless it was painful for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to speak those words before the Senate Armed Services Committee last May following the story about prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, which Rather also broke on "60 Minutes II."
You'd think Rather might have taken notes.