The Pack Has Found Fresh Prey

PoliPundit asks "What's the Source?" of the forgeries used by Dan Rather to "document" Bush's dereliction of duty while in the Texas Air National Guard. I say it must be Bush's fault:) Isn't everything? Dan Rather thinks so, and he's an objective journalist:)

Actually, a good sign that Rather's story has absolutely no credibility -- except as a rallying point for rabid Bush-haters -- is Howard Kurtz's column in today's WaPo. Two paragraphs of professional courtesy toward Rather precede 20 paragraphs that mostly damn Rather's story with straightforward observations about the flimsiness of it.

And Kurtz doesn't even get into Rather's interview of former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes, in which Barnes claimed to intervened with the head of the Texas Air National Guard to secure a position for Bush at the request of a Bush family friend. Barnes's daughter has said publicly that the story flatly contradicts what Barnes had told her only four years ago, when Bush's national guard service became an issue in the 2000 presidential race.

That omission notwithstanding, Kurtz's objectivity about the matter signals other serious journalists that they can dump on old Dan, at will.