Rather, Beyond Repair

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn echoes my amazement at Rather's curious belief that, were the memos forged, Rather himself would tell-all:

Hel-looooo? Earth to the Lost Planet of Ratheria: You can't 'break that story. A guy called 'Buckhead' did that, on the Free Republic Web site a couple of hours after you and your money-no-object resources-a-go-go '60 Minutes' crew attempted to pass off four obvious Microsoft Word documents as authentic 1972 typewritten memos about Bush's skipping latrine duty in the Spanish-American War, or whatever it was. . . .

By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.

So the only story you're in a position to break right now is: 'Late-Breaking News. Veteran Newsman Announces He's Recovered His Marbles.'

Jonah Goldberg says, "When people are in deep, deep . . . denial about their predicament, you can get a really good sense of how they see the world. Denial, after all, is simply the place where your personal interpretation of reality splits off from the objective facts." By that criteria, Rather and CBS belong in the loony bin.

Tim Rutten in the LA Times calls Ra^therGate "faith-based reporting." Still, the WaPo doesn't quite get it:

How could a program with the sterling reputation of "60 Minutes," which created the television newsmagazine during the Johnson administration, have stumbled so badly? And how could Rather, at 72 the dean of the network anchors, have risked his reputation on such a story in the heat of a presidential campaign?

Because the media's in the tank for the Dems, as usual, that's how! Only thing different this time is that bloggers caught Dan's hand in the cookie jar. (To its credit, the WaPo publishes an excellent side-by-side comparing real and forged Texas guard memos--one of the latter of which purports to be written on a Saturday!) Hugh Hewitt says "The blogosphere is hell on the inauthentic," which--in addition to Rather--includes Kerry:

What he may not know is that it is already over. You can't run for president as someone you are not, at least not anymore, and especially not in the wake of a forgery scandal. . . . You can't pretend to be a centrist, or smart, when you are the spokesman for a party in the left ditch.

Or when the first line of an op-ed, in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, is "The widely repeated myth of "John Kerry, the Vietnam Navy Hero" is one of the most dishonorable and dangerous deceptions ever perpetrated upon the American public."

As I predicted, the blow-back from Dan Rather's on-air seppuku killed Kerry as well. I'm so enjoying this that I'm living Jonah Goldberg's quip: "Is it possible to die of Schadenfruede?"