Photoshop montage of Dan Rather as Humpty Dumpty, illustration by John Tenniel from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Chapter VI
"Rather sees a "core truth" wrapped in a forgery inside his CBS reporting, and he is outraged that his critics won't admit it," writes George Neumayr in "Mad Dan's Noble Lie" in The American Spectator:
On The O'Reilly Factor not so long ago, Dan Rather spoke in defense of public figures who make stuff up. He called Bill Clinton an "honest man" even as he acknowledged Clinton's whoppers. "Who among us have not lied about somebody?" asked Rather. "I think at the core he's an honest person . . . I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."
You can be an honest person and lie about any number of things. This elastic philosophy of honesty must account for Rather's view of himself as a witness to "core truth" while peddling a forgery against the President.
The audacity here is surreal, though typical of the post-1960s ends-justify-the-means moral arrogance Rather imbibed as a Watergate reporter. Presidents can't lie to journalists, according to this ethos, but journalists can lie to presidents, and even demand that presidents answer for the journalist's lies. Perhaps only Dan Rather could get caught out in a forgery and proceed to demand that President Bush answer the questions the forgery raises. According to Rather's moral calculus, forged documents shed light not on his lack of credibility but on the credibility of the president they slander.
All CBS's lawyers and all CBS's men can't put Dan Rather together again.
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