The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘I Believed at the Time That the Documents Were Genuine and I’ve Never Ceased Believing That They Are Genuine’

Posted on | April 16, 2012 | 19 Comments

Dan Rather still refuses to accept the truth that he was bamboozled by Bill Burkett and, with characteristic narcissism, offers his own belief in the authenticity of the Texas Air National Guard document as evidence of their actual authenticity, saying in effect: “If I, Dan Rather, believed they were authentic, therefore they must be authentic.”

No one that I know of ever accused Rather of being a conscious collaborator in Burkett’s hoax. Nobody said that CBS News published the phony documents knowing that they were phony.

Without having read the entirety of Joe Hagan’s Texas Monthly article, it would appear to be an effort to rescue the “fake but accurate” narrative of the RatherGate scandal, to say that — without regard for the authenticity of the Burkett papers — the crux of the CBS story was true: George W. Bush did indeed receive favorable treatment in the National Guard, so that he was, in effect, an overprivileged draft-dodger.

Let us stipulate the obvious: Membership in the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group was not allotted randomly, and it isn’t difficult to imagine what kind of string-pulling may have been involved in Dubya getting that coveted assignment. But (a) National Guard service is not dishonorable; (b) the alleged incidents of Dubya being AWOL from Guard duty occurred when the war was winding down, long after there was any danger of Bush being drafted and sent to Vietnam; and (c) suspecting favoritism toward the scion of an affluent family is not the same thing as proving such favoritism.

Nevertheless, liberals always believe the worst of Republicans and so are notoriously gullible in accepting anything as “proof” of their suspicions. Hence, we are hardly surprised to find discredited Dan piously confessing his continued credulity to Joe Hagan:

Rather says he remains “optimistic” that somebody, somewhere, will one day come forward and reveal the truth of what happened. “They’re out there,” he says. “Let’s set the record straight.”

Yeah, Dan: The truth is out there!

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Category: CBS, Military, Texas

Comments

  • A Guy From Lithia Springs

      “with characteristic narcissism”

    You gals getting a “bounty” for the number of times you mention the other “n” word?  

  • PGlenn

    Dan Rather worked for (what?) four+ decades in the service of the reality-based community; it’s only fair that reality pays him back for all his hard work by magically authenticating his discredited RatherGate report.

    Rather is confident that his rightness will prove him right again.

  • SDN

    Given the accident rate of the aircraft he was flying, “avoiding danger” doesn’t mean what the Left think it means.

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

     Are you just stupid?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Rather and Mapes suffered from the typical leftist “news” reporters’ syndrome with such frauds:  it was “too good to check.”

    Of course, even the slightest bit of checking would have caused any serious journalist to scrap the tip early.  COME ON!  The mysterious hand-off of the purloined letter by the enigmatic “Lucy Ramirez”?  The fact that Burkett was a well-known idiot with an axe to grind against the Bushes?

    Had NO ONE on the 60 Minutes staff ever been in the military?  The phony letter had dates and closing centered, military was all flush left margin.  They never even bothered to ask Killian’s secretary, who was still alive, about it.

    The blogosphere’s discovery of the problems with the letting and font, first brought up by a reader at Free Republic, should never have been necessary.  There was NO reason at all to believe the document was genuine other than Rather and Mapes wished it were with all their filthy little leftist hearts.

  • Adobe_Walls

    He is a liberal.

  • G Joubert

    “Let us stipulate the obvious: Membership in the 147th Fighter
    Interceptor Group was not allotted randomly, and it isn’t difficult to
    imagine what kind of string-pulling may have been involved in Dubya
    getting that coveted assignment.”

    From what I’ve read, this particular billet required a minimum commitment to 6 years of weekend drilling duty, and, as such, (1) WAS NOT all that “coveted, and (2) DID NOT require string-pulling to get into.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Yes, we have a set amount as a target goal. I have them all in my cross hairs, just waiting for the right moment to shoot.

  • DaveP.

    Rather has to believe the documents were genuine, otherwise he either has to admit to himself that he was quite that easy a dupe… or that he was quite that thouroughly in the tank for the Dems. Admitting either one would wreck his carefully constructed self-delusion of being The Great Newsman, so he can’t.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    The truth is out there!

    But only Kenneth knows it…and he ain’t telling.

  • http://alanye.com/ daialanye

    They believe the faked Dubya documents, and also the photoshopped birth certificate.

    Do I detect a pattern here?

  • PGlenn

    What’s the frequency?

  • scarymatt

    You should be more concerned that the ads are now at odds.  Weight loss vs freeze drying food for the apocalypse.  Is there any better weight loss program than the apocalypse?  What if you don’t freeze those secret foods?  How can we know?

  • Adobe_Walls

    You do realize you’re confusing the issue with facts don’t you?

  • Dandapani

    Libs never learn the Law of Holes.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YWCTNWLSOY5PSSBOXIKMTI7ZJY Laurence

    Somebody might actually have an original document but it was never offered to Dan Rather. At best, Dan Rather used a photocopy of a retyped copy of that not submitted document as evidence. How do we know it was retyped? Because it was done in MS Word which did not exist when the supposed original was written. That is a very low standard for journalism.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Evans/100000212944591 Robert Evans

    You think Charles Johnson at this point regrets having made his famous photoshop that proved the documents were probably fake?