This Is Journalism? Read Bill Safire's piece on the latest CBS "Bush Guard Duty" flare up. After he lays out all the reasons to disbelieve the documents that "prove" Bush was given soft treatment (and there are a lot of reasons), he segues into Dan Rather's defense of the story:

The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics' "motivation."

Yep, you heard right. The new standard of journalistic ethics at CBS can be expressed thus: We'll run what we damn well please until someone has "definite proof" that it is erroneous.

This Just In: Dan Rather is a secret vegisexual who has been carrying on an orgiastic, decade-long affair with two turnips, an eggplant, and a wilted bunch of watercress suspected of pro-Saddam sympathies.

We'll run with that until we get "definite proof" to the contrary.