Oh happy day! Ding dong, the witch is …

National Review, Oct 11, 2004 by Jonah Goldberg

And of course one cannot leave out the exquisitely Shakespearean denials by CBS. More than a week in, Rather was still insisting that his source was "unimpeachable." (Now that we know he got them from Bill Burkett we have to wonder how Rather defines "unimpeachable.") He boasted to the Post's Howard Kurtz that he'd like to be the one to "break" the story that the documents were faked. (Rather's close to breaking a few other stories, including "Lindbergh Baby Kidnapped!" and "Bears Use the Woods as Bath rooms.") Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS, kept insisting, "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents," as if the world were divided between credible people who believed the documents were real and credible people who did not, when in fact the only people--save a few left-wing bloggers--who clung to the authenticity of the memos were the beleaguered bastards at CBS News itself who feared the All-Seeing Eye would activate their pain collars if they broke with the party line.

But I think my favorite part may well be the new meme: "fake but true." First of all, we should note that while CBS never used these exact words--they come from a New York Times headline--they will be indelibly written into CBS's biography, in much the same way that Jimmy Carter never mentioned "malaise." That's because this was and is CBS's position. Rather kept trying to take the focus off of himself by hectoring reporters to deal with the "thrust" of his story--i.e., "Why I Hate George W. Bush, by Dan Rather." He even said in the New York Observer that "the longer we go without a denial of such things--this story is true." To which the only reasonable response is for me to now reveal in these pages that Dan Rather eats a live capuchin monkey for breakfast every morning--and the longer he goes without a denial, this story is true.

What makes the fake-but-true defense so enjoyable is that it's the tip of an enormous iceberg whose base reaches deep into the Left's past. From Georges Sorel on, the Left has nurtured an abiding faith in the vital lie, the myth that speaks to a "higher truth." That Dan Rather could offer the Tawana Brawley defense after decades of righteous bloviation about how he's a just-the-facts kind of guy is too delicious.

When this went to press, Dan Rather had just admitted he was "sorry" that his source lied to him about "one" thing. Next comes the internal investigation, the inquiry into how the memos were made, and the probe into the extent of the involvement of John Kerry's campaign. Normally, when a ship is sinking, you throw the anchor overboard. The good news is that CBS is clinging to theirs. In other words, I'm buying some more popcorn and another case of beer. Because this is the Greatest Story Ever.