Dan Rather: I may be a fool, but at least I'm not bitter...

Dr. Asten: I'd say you were both...

You should have known that with the death of Walter Cronkite, we wouldn't hear the last of Dan Rather, his successor on the CBS Evening News. For those who aren't aware, Dan spent 25 years in the anchor desk and was fired from his job for pushing a story specifically designed to change the presidential election of 2004, the Bush AWOL story. In Rather's mind, John F'n Kerry was better suited to be the next Commander-in-Chief because of his 4 month service in VietNam. Kerry won Purple Hearts, and Bush came away from his service with nothing. Again, it's funny how the qualifications for president changes every four years, because the veteran didn't win the last time, the person who viewed the military as an anathema did. Anyway, because the documents Rather used to push the story were forgeries, despite Rather's insistence that independent investigations concluded the opposite, Rather was removed from his cush job at CBS. He, like the producer of the story, Mary Mapes, believes he was the scapegoat.

Rather filed suit against CBS a few years later claiming that his career was damaged by a political junket against him. The suit seemed dead, but recently, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that Rather's lawyers have access to over 3,000 documents, some of which contain emails between the suits at CBS and 11 former employees, who were prohibited from discussing the Bush AWOL story upon their departure. From what I have read about the lawsuit, Rather is not concerned about whether the documents he used to prove the case were forgeries, he's upset that politics may have been used in deciding who would be on the investigative panel, and why he may have been used as the scapegoat. However, that won't stop the anti-Bush crowd from intimating that Bush was AWOL, based on the same documents that were forgeries. But try all they might, Bush was reelected, and the documents are still forgeries...

If Rather was used as a scapegoat, then he has a case against CBS. But if we review his actions during the almost two week long episode, he fought tooth and nail against those who claimed that the documents CBS used to "prove" Bush was AWOL in the 1970s were forgeries. He said the documents had been independently authenticated by experts retained by CBS. The investigative panel did not consider CBS News' failure to authenticate the documents, but instead concluded that CBS made several mistakes in trying to scoop other news outlets. It is unclear whether Rather's resignation in 2005 was directly caused by his performance in Memogate. On that last note, he's gonna have a helluva time explaining why he resigned a year earlier than he planned AND why he took responsibility for his part in the charade, if he still stands by the story.

Liberals want to have this both ways. First, many proclaim that the documents used by CBS could have been produced with typewriters from the 1970s, but since no one has conclusively proven the documents to be authentic, they claim KKKarl Rove did it to distract the media from reporting on Bush's performance in the National Guard. But they didn't mind John F'n Kerry embellishing his own military record. We all know what came as a result of Memogate, liberals then invented the "chickenhawk" defense to shut down debate. At least Dan's effort didn't go to total waste...

Have a great day...