These are my favorite paragraphs from the Howard Kurtz story about Rathergate.
“If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story,” Rather said in an interview last night. “Any time I’m wrong, I want to be right out front and say, ‘Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.’ “
Uh, excuse me while I drill this clue into your brainpan, Dan: the story’s been broken. All of those people pointing and laughing at you know this. Indeed, that’s why they’re pointing and laughing.
CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the Guard story. “I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn’t have put it on the air,” Heyward said last night. “But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues,” including questions about the memos’ typography, signatures and format. “There’s such a ferocious debate about these documents.”
No. No there isn’t a ferocious debate about these documents. The ferocious debate is about whether you and Dan Rather should quit to save the reputation of CBS. Or maybe it’s about whether you guys should reveal the source of this hoax. Or maybe it’s about whether Dan Rather is losing his mind. But, as for the documents, I’ve read a lot of the coverage about this and to date, the only people claiming these documents are real are you guys. Even your experts don’t think they’re real. You see, for there to be a “ferocious debate” you need to sides disagreeing about something. Right now, pretty much the whole world thinks one thing and you guys are lying – or in Dan-nial — when you say you think another thing.
And then the last two go together:
“This is not about me,” Rather said before anchoring last night’s newscast. “I recognize that those who didn’t want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that.”
And…
“I try to look people in the eye and tell them the truth,” Rather said. “I don’t back up. I don’t back down. I don’t cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces.”
Now, the irony here is that Rather is saying all of this to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. The Washington Post, needless to say, is not a partisan political ideological force – at least not one allied with the GOP. Indeed, considering that Rather made his bones giving Richard Nixon a wedgie, you’d think he’d might remember which side the Post was on during that brouhaha. This is the most glaring insight into where Rather is coming from. He thinks any criticism of him is partisan. He’s a warrior for truth and the forces of darkness – i.e. conservatives – are arrayed against him. And this formulation becomes syllogistic. If you are against Rather, you are conservative. It’s all so frick’n fascinating!