As the “fake but true” meme makes the rounds today, it’s worth noting that serious people examine and evaluate facts qua facts–regardless of any meta “truths.” As Exhibit A, I offer Matt Continetti’s analytical defense of John Kerry’s disputed purple heart.

Howie Kurtz pulls this quote from Michelle Cottle on his blog: “To be fair, the thought of four more years of The George and Dick Show is enough to terrify anyone outside of John Ashcroft’s immediate family. But if anti-Bushies insist on wallowing in their doubts, fears, and premature recriminations, they should do so beyond the earshot of the bloodthirsty political media. Publicized angst just plays into Republicans’ message that Dems are a bunch of weak, self-doubting girly men.”

Well D.S., I stand by my brief for Richard Cohen. I love writers who surprise me. From today’s column: “This is not the place to examine why Bush is so hated by some people, though the war in Iraq surely takes pride of place. But even before that particular war, I heard people denounce the one in Afghanistan, that Taliban-controlled horror that harbored Osama bin Laden. These people are infected with a corrosive doubt about their own country. A recent Pew Research Center poll found, for instance, that 51 percent of Democrats agreed with the proposition that ‘U.S. wrongdoing’ contributed to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (only 17 percent of Republicans agreed). Those are astounding numbers, an indictment not really of America (for what?) but of those people who compulsively blame their own country for the faults of others. You can believe that U.S. support of Israel and the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, but the term Pew used was ‘wrongdoing.’ In this respect, these people and Osama bin Laden are in agreement.”

Go have a look at this ad from El Pais. It features two pictures of the New York skyline, one with the World Trade Center, one without. The caption: “You can do a lot in a single day. . . . Imagine what you could do in three months.”

I’m not quite sure what to say.

Update 9/16/04, 10: 57 a.m.: Here’s a better link to Barcepundit, with more information on the ads origins.

This defense is enough. Dan Rather isn’t going anywhere and CBS is not going to admit that the memos are forged. Not today, not tomorrow, and probably not the day after tomorrow, either. The CBS stonewall is permanent.

Why? Several reasons

(1) IF they admit the docs are forged THEN they have to answer two other questions which make matters much, much worse for them. (Question 1: Why didn’t you realize these were obvious fakes? Question 2: Where’d you get them?) The answers to those questions are likely to be much more injurious to CBS News than the current perception–that the network simply got snookered.

(2) CBS can’t afford to lose their franchise anchor six weeks before a presidential election. If CBS were to admit that the memos were forged, it would be difficult not to require Rather to fall on his sword. CBS needs Rather to cover the election for them; without his presence, their ratings would likely crumble during the crucial election period.

(3) The Law of Diminishing Returns. With every day that passes, CBS spends more and more ethical capital in the defense of the documents. At the same time, the reward for coming clean becomes smaller and smaller. At some point, their defense will have made them look so bad, and a capitulation will look so pathetic, that it would actually hurt them to admit the truth. Some people think that break point is in the near future. I think it came around 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 14.

(4) They now have a working defense. The September 14 Dallas Morning News story about Marian Carr Knox was a tactical defeat for CBS, but a strategic victory. Her testimony allows them to sidestep the issue of forgery. The CBS line in the sand is now: There are experts on both sides. You can’t prove they’re fake. Killian’s secretary says they’re true enough.

No, Dan Rather is entrenched and, as an analytical matter, it’s difficult to see why CBS would crack now.

Update 11: 30 p.m.: Of course I could be totally wrong: There are two things which could break CBS. (1) Internal revolt. If someone at CBS gets fed up with the situation, they could come out and force Rather and Heyward’s hands. (2) Someone discovers and outs the forger.

Well, this interview with Robert Strong doesn’t make him sound like the guy who forged the documents. (Actually, he sounds like a really sympathetic gent.)

It also doesn’t help CBS. He says: “It was just background is what it was. I can’t authenticate the documents; I never attempted to authenticate the documents. They look like they could be real. Based on what they showed me I didn’t see anything that said these couldn’t be real. I’m not saying these are real. Just, they could be.”

The other interesting development from ABC and Kurtz is the emergence of the CBS Mystery Expert. The network told ABC that Will and James “played a peripheral role and deferred to another expert who examined all four of the documents used.”

CBS used the same language in their denial to Kurtz. Kurtz asked James if the expert CBS is referring to if Matley: “James said she did not defer to Matley and merely recommended him to CBS.” Then Kurtz tells us “The network says it relied on two additional document experts, whose names have not been made public.”

So is it one Mystery Expert, or two?

Here’s the problem CBS now has: At first it looked like they had been duped. Now, in order to defend themselves against that charge, they have to actively try to dupe everyone else. Howie Kurtz’s piece this morning has excellent reactions from CBS about the new denials from two of the experts they hired, Emily Will and Linda James.

Kurtz reports: “CBS News Senior Vice President Betsy West said last night: ‘As far as I know, Linda James raised no objections. She said she’d have to see more documents to render a judgment.’ As for Will’s account, West said: ‘I’m not aware of any substantive objection she raised. Emily Will did not urge us to hold the story.'”

Note CBS’s lawyering here:

Will told ABC that “she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.”

CBS seems to be denying this but isn’t: “Emily Will did not urge us to hold the story.” [emphasis added]

No, she didn’t urge them to hold the story, she urged them not to use the documents.