If you’re looking for a tough, intelligent critique of George W. Bush, search no further than this op-ed column. It’s this writer’s second scathing attack on the Bush administration in as many days and it represents the best case there is to be made against the president.

Here’s the problem: It’s from George Will.

One wonders why so many Democrats and their partisans get wrapped up in “National Guard” and “blood-for-oil” and “he lied!” idiocy when there really is a valid case to be made against Bush that requires neither exaggeration nor dishonesty.

The most stunning thing about tonight’s AP report is this passage:

“Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes. ‘He had some advice on how to deal with the Vietnam issue and the Swift boat’ allegations, Lockhart said, referring to GOP-fueled accusations that Kerry exaggerated his Vietnam War record.”

So a CBS producer was calling a Kerry campaign worker, passing along information, making suggestions, and providing them with oppo research contacts?

As I said, earlier, CBS would have been much, much better off stonewalling and looking merely incompetent.

If it’s Monday, it must be time to look in on the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Campaign Desk.

If you’re an amateur media critic, you might have noticed this little story lurking around today. It seems that 12 days ago CBS News aired a piece attacking the president of the United States–weeks before an election–with documents that looked as though they were forged. As reporters and amateur media critics delved into the story, it turned out that the documents really were forged.

Professional media critics, however, need have higher standards. They don’t go rushing off willy-nilly and jumping to conclusions based on incomplete evidence. As Steve Lovelady, the managing editor of CJR’s Campaign Desk–and a truer professional there never was–said last week, “We’re not in the business of saying, ‘You may be a bad boy; drink your medicine.’ We’re in the business of saying ‘You are a bad boy; drink your medicine.’ And, as of this moment, despite the flurry of charges and counter-charges, it’s not clear whether CBS has been had by some undercover operative intent on smearing the president, or whether the network itself is the victim of a smear campaign.”

Well. This morning there was this teensy-tiny development in the CBS News story. Dan Rather came out and admitted that CBS no longer stands by the forged documents and believes that the network has been “misled.”

It’s medicine time at CJR, baby!

Only not quite. CJR has posted three items so far today. The CBS story is mentioned once. Here is the mention in its entirety: “And Scrappleface seems to be offering his own none-too-subtle advice–to CBS, specifically–in the form of ‘breaking news’ about RatherGate. Seems Scrapple has the inside line on what Rather will say on air this evening–including that Rather will ‘during the broadcast . . . demand his own resignation, along with that of news producer Mary Mapes.’ That’s one we haven’t run across before–“I demand my own resignation!‘”

Some medicine, evidently, is stronger than others.

Mind you, Steve Lovelady, professional media critic, hasn’t been entirely silent. Last Friday he sent a letter-to-the-editor to another professional media critic website–Jim Romenesko’s Media News. It seems that Lovelady doesn’t think the CBS story is a very big deal at all. He wrote:

And as for a relative ranking of “big media stories of recent memory”–is the CBS episode of the magnitude of, say, Jayson Blair deceiving the readers of the New York Times not once, but dozens of times, month after month? Or as big as Jack Kelly deceiving the readers of USA Today not once, but apparently hundreds of times for years on end? Or as big as the systemic failure of the mainstream press to question the fatally flawed rationale for war in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq? Or even as big as the press’s inexplicable delay before it finally began investigating the veracity, or lack thereof, of the charges leveled at John Kerry by the swift boat veterans? . . .

But come on, guys–try to get a grip. It’s not Watergate. It’s not even Rathergate. So far, it’s no more than Fontgate.

Now don’t you silly amateurs feel stupid?

Finally, some mob justice. At last night’s Emmycast, Michael Imperioli won for Best Supporting Actor and Drea de Matteo for Best Supporting Actress, both in The Sopranos. Imperioli has come a long way since getting shot in the foot in Goodfellas (which, incidentally, I just reviewed for The Daily Standard). And de Matteo shows she really can act, despite her current gig on NBC’s Joey.

Amazingly, Helen Hunt did not win a tenth Emmy for Mad About You.

So how does that work? When this entire affair began, it was obvious that CBS was going to end up looking like (a) a dupe; (b) a shill; or (c) a partisan attack outfit. Not for the first time, I’m proven wrong by events.

Here’s Dan Rather’s new problem: He’s admitting the documents are fake. He now has to tell us where he got them.

This line of questioning leads down a dark path for CBS News. The best case scenario is that they were taken in by a high-level political operative. That would mean that they were merely being shills for a political party.

What would be worse, is if it turns out that these documents were given to them by a low-level nut. Combine that with testimony we’ve heard from the experts CBS consulted who said they couldn’t authenticate the documents. And then recall CBS’s claim, on September 11, that the documents came from an “unimpeachable source.” That would mean that CBS was on a partisan witch-hunt, during which they abandoned every last vestige of journalistic ethics.

By coming clean, CBS has started an unraveling which they can no longer control.

Who would have guessed the words “Rick James” and “natural causes” would appear in the same sentence? But sure enough, the recently released autopsy and toxicology report of the late, great funk singer states that an enlarged heart was what did him in–in addition to the “effects of multiple drugs” such as Valium, Xanax, and Vicodin. Oh, and methamphetamines. And, um, cocaine too. But other than that, he was clean.

My long piece on Dan Rather vs. the Blogs is up over at WeeklyStandard.com.

Or, if you want to read real writing, you can go to Andy Ferguson’s genius review of Kitty Kelley’s Bush book. Andy’s tops. There is no finer writer working anywhere in America.

Outstanding piece in the New Republic on how Israel won its war on terror–and at what cost. A must read.