POOR DAN - REALITY HAS SLIPPED HIS GRASP

Good ol' Dan Ra^ther still can't bring himself to admit that the story on Bush's national guard service was wrong, flawed, forged, incorrect, fictional, fabricated.

He maintains that even though the supporting evidence was forged (FORGED!) the story was accurate.

In an interview with Marvin Kalb carried live by C-SPAN from the National Press Club on Monday night, Dan Rather made quite clear that he believes in the accuracy of his Bush National Guard story based on what everyone else realizes were fabricated memos. Rather argued that "one supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was brought into question.

To this day no one has proven whether it was what it purported to be or not." Kalb pressed for clarification: "I believe you just said that you think the story is accurate?" Rather affirmed: "The story is accurate." Rather soon maintained that the public recognizes the "hidden hand pressure" politicians exert on media executives and so "they understood that what we reported as the central facts of the story and there were new insights into the President's, were correct and to this day, by the way have not been denied which is always the test of whether," and he moved on before finishing his sentence. Later, talking about using "courage" as a sign-off in the mid-1980s, Rather rued: "There's part of me, it says, you know, 'damn I wish I hadn't caved, I wish I'd stuck with it.'" That prompted Kalb to ask: "Do you think your network showed courage last fall?" Rather answered by remaining silent for seven seconds.

I can see Dan standing on the street outside of CBS headquarters singing, a tear gently rolling down his cheek...

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again