On Rathergate

I apparently haven't posted it on my blog, and quite likely nowhere else on the net either, but my theory as to how Dan Rather and others at CBS justify the publishing of forged documents (as well as how various liberals who defend them choosing to publish justify the publication) is that they feel that the content of the notes were true, so it doesn't matter whether those notes were genuine or not.

In other words, it's like a cop who plants evidence, but feels that the person he arrested was guilty, he just couldn't prove it, so planting evidence to make certain that the correct verdict is obtained is OK.

Obviously, this is a morally bankrupt position, because determination of the truth needs to be based on the evidence. Once evidence is determined based on what someone feels the truth is, in essence evidence itself becomes worthless, as it is simply a tool for propaganda rather than a means of confirming or refuting claims. In other words, if someone is willing to manufacture evidence to support a predetermined conclusion, on what basis can the conclusion have been made?

Bill Press, on WorldNetDaily, defends Dan Rather using the argument I outlined previously: we all know that Bush dodged the draft, so what difference does it make whether we found the actual documents or used forged ones? After all, the forged ones were probably what hte real documents looked like, so what harm was done?

The harm, Mr. Press, is that "everyone knows" is not a substitute for evidence, and the conclusion should follow the evidence, not the evidence follow the conclusion.

To be honest, the Byzantine intricacies of whether or not Bush did his duty in the guard bore me. Some feel that he was given special treatment and let out of some requirements, others insist that whenever he appeared to get away with shirking, he was within regs (e.g. he didn't complete a flight test, but the proper plane, the type he had trained on, was not available at the time).

I don't care. I have nothing against anyone who did anything (short of violence) to get out of being enslaved by the military and Shanghaied (or Saigoned) to Vietnam.

Moreover, I am not particularly upset about the use of the forged documents; networks make mistakes, and sometimes jump the gun and don't check their sources. Not that the documents should have been used, but I am willing to forgive it if it was an honest mistake.

However, I am deeply disturbed by the attempts to justify the use of the forged papers, and by Rather's unwillingness to admit that he had been duped (assuming that he was not complicit in the fraud). To use a fraudulent paper unwittingly is one thing, and understandable; to refuse to retract anything or apologize after it has been discovered that the paper is false is something altogether different, and outrageous.

That is all.