"Unimpeachable Source"

Dan Rather didn't just fall for crude forgeries, but he declared on the air that the source of the documents was unimpeachable and that he had witnesses who saw the documents as they were created. Every word of it was BS, and he obviously knew it.

Now the network is clearly planning to burn a producer at the stake. But, Dan Rather deserves at least a much blame.

The problem in this case is that before yesterday CBS never gave its viewers even a hint that its entire controversial story hinged on the word of someone who has made it one of his main goals in life to defeat Mr. Bush. Even after the documents on Mr. Bush's National Guard service were called into question, CBS refused to let viewers in on the secret of its source's motives.

This is the real scandal here, and it makes us wonder if Mr. Burkett is the end of this story. It isn't as if Mr. Burkett's motives were hard to discover. On August 25, addressing Mr. Bush in the second person, Mr. Burkett wrote in a Web posting, "I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not fulfill your oath, taken when you were commissioned to 'obey the orders of the officers appointed over you.' "

I don't agree. As big as this is, it will be the coordination with the Kerry campaign and the Democrat Party that will ulimately be the big story.