Rather Sticks To His Story Tighter Than The Rusted Lugnuts On A '57 Chevy
Topic: politics

Dan Rather To Bush: `Answer The Questions'

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, 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.

Man, this is straight out of the Clinton playbook - deny, deny, deny. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming statement just says, "This is all old news - we need to stop being distracted and get back to the important business of reporting on GWB's failure to serve his duty in the National Guard". Too bad Joe Lockhart is busy.

But here's the real CBS defense:

Mr. Rather said he was well aware of reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that had finely detailed examinations of inconsistencies in the memos. And he said he took those reports seriously and appreciated the "competitive response" of other news organizations. But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."

"Fake But Accurate", as the NYT put it. Not quite as catchy as "We Report, You Decide", but what are you gonna do?

Here's an oral bowel movement that you knew would come out of Rather's mouth eventually:

These are unpleasant truths. But they are truths. There was and is no joy in reporting them. But part of what reporters are supposed to do is ask questions, dig for facts and, when truths are found, share them with the public and, when called upon to do so, speak truth to power. This we did.

Some people might say that's what the bloggers did.

Marc