Crying for Dan Rather, CBS and others

Michelle Malkin calls attention to the "crocodile tear-shedding, lip-quivering meltdown" of former CBS News anchor Dan Rather during a speech Monday night in which, according to ABC News/Reuters, he "complained of a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career."

A climate of fear in newsrooms? Really?

And what does Rather think ran through the minds of tens of millions Americans, including millions who had trusted him and CBS to tell them the truth, when they learned the identity of the anonymous source of the forged documents Rather and CBS used in the Texas Air National Guard story?

For more than 10 days Rather and CBS assured us their anonymous source was "unimpeachable." And they wouldn't lie. They were news professionals.

Then a year ago tomorrow, Sept. 21, the Washington Post told us the name of their "unimpeachable source" and something about him:

The man CBS News touted as the "unimpeachable source" of explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turns out to be a former Guard officer with a history of self-described mental problems who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings."

Over the past three years, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett has given dozens of newspaper and television interviews accusing the president and his aides of destroying documents and stealing elections. In e-mail messages to an Internet chat group for Texas Democrats, he has also said that the "Bush team" sent "goons" to intimidate him at his ranch in Baird, Tex.

"They can go to hell," the retired officer, 55, wrote in a March 29 posting. "I'll continue to defend the freedom of this nation -- not the liars who have wrested its helm."

There's much more. Read the whole thing.

Rather's crying for himself, CBS, and those in the news business like them.