Let's play "QUESTION AUTHORITY!"

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn't going to be -- there's no -- what you're saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or...

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

-- Dan Rather on CNN

There's a major reason why Dan Rather and the people like him always get a pass (except in the blogosphere) in situations like this; they never reveal their sources!

CBS has not revealed its source for the documents or the names of experts besides Matley who it said examined the memos before Wednesday's report.

However, it is very, very difficult (if not impossible) to engage in meaningful dialogue with people who lay claim to unsupported assertions, because there isn't any way to refute them.

It's like a child asking "WHY" and being told,

"BECAUSE I SAY SO!"

A few typical examples of this: extreme scriptural literalists asserting the earth is only a few thousand years old, Marxists pronouncing the inevitability of "capitalism's" collapse based on "science," and the Star Chamber and Inquisition (relying on secret undisclosed evidence and anonymous allegations).

Fortunately, under our legal system, unsupported claims don't fly in court, nor should they. If you assert something is true because others said so, but you will not say who they are, if you assert that a document is authentic but provide no basis for that claim, well, then you have next to nothing.

Nothing, I guess, except a claim of "moral authority."

Rather strikes me as behaving like an outraged king -- actually, more like a tyrant/usurper than a king, for Dan can't even lay claim to Divine Right by birth. And never mind that perfectly logical and reasonable people want answers and demand accountability. Like Ceausescu in Timisoara, Rather pouts, sulks, and broods, relying solely on raw power -- and a moral authority which does not exist. (The crowds won't go away this time, Dan....)

In a fit of artistic license yesterday, I compared Dan Rather to Richard Nixon.

On reflection, I see that I was being unfair.

UNFAIR TO NIXON!

That's because, by any reasonable standard, Rather is less accountable than Richard Nixon. Nixon had to run for office and be elected, and no matter what anyone thought of him, at the end of his second term, he'd have been out. Rather was of course never elected, his hold on power as CBS news "anchor" began in 1981 -- years before the fall of Ceausescu. Until the blogosphere came along, there was little to hold his power in check or hold him accountable at all (save some drastic move which might be based on considerations like the price of his company's stock).

Yet it was Rather who wrote books such as The Palace Guard, (analogizing the Nixon adminstration's imperiousness to that of unaccountable monarchs) -- knowing full well of the obvious limitations on the powers of the American presidency. And knowing full well that there really weren't any such limitations on his own power.

You'd think he'd be a little more, er, sensitive.

Moral authority is all Rather's got!

And it isn't much.

I think it's long overdue to question the basis for it.

Funny how posing honest questions has been called "the shot heard round the world." (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Finally, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don't own pajamas.

UPDATE (9/15/04): Speaking of "considerations like the price of his company's stock," via Glenn Reynolds I see that Viacom's stock is taking a modest tumble. (Not that I'd ever question the timing.)