The guys at the Power Line completely bitch-slap Corey Pein of the Columbia Journalism Review over his ridiculous article defending Dan Rather and the "fake, but accurate" Killian Forgeries. Read theirs first.
And, just in case you forgot what a total load of horseshit Bill Burkett's story was, John Hinderaker sums it up nicely:
[...]Pein fails to address obvious problems in the 60 Minutes story. Astonishingly, he tries to shore up Bill Burkett's credibility, quoting someone who described Burkett as "honest and forthright." This might, I suppose, carry some weight with readers who don't know that Burkett never served in the Texas Air National Guard; doesn't know President Bush from Adam; has a longstanding grievance against the Texas National Guard (Army) because of medical benefits he was denied; has suffered a series of what he describes as mental breakdowns, and suffered another mental breakdown while being interviewed by USA Today after the Memogate scandal broke; told a bizarre and obviously false story about the origin of the CBS documents--he got a call from a mystery woman named Lucy Ramirez, who told him to go to the Texas Livestock Show; he went to the show, didn't see Ms. Ramirez, but was approached by a man whom he'd never seen before; the man handed him an envelope and walked away; in the envelope were the National Guard documents; he took them home, made copies, burned the originals--of course, what a natural thing to do--and then presented the copies to CBS.Why is it that so many people can't bring themselves to acknowledge that Rather and CBS News lied to the American people? Lied. Not accidentally misled (because they were misled), but lied. I think it's probably attributable to the trust that CBS News has built up over the decades. They have authority, even now. But in the new world of getting your ass fact-checked in real time and worldwide, that authority has unquestionably been diminished.
Good.