Earlier, I linked to Peggy Noonan’s farewell to Dan Rather, whom she worked for from 1981-1984. Ms. Noonan is quite forgiving of Dan Rather and cuts him some–make that, a lot–of slack for the political leanings of his journalistic career.

Beldar thinks she is being too kind (emphasis in the original).

Dan Rather and his cohorts didn’t just make a mistake. They didn’t just have a lapse. They didn’t just let their biases color their reporting. They didn’t just make an error in judgment. Instead, they conspired together with should-be felons, with forgers, to pass off as genuine, as truthful “news,” a set of bogus documents that defamed the record and the integrity of the President and in so doing, they fundamentally betrayed the entire reason for their profession’s existence. They actively hid the fact that their own hired experts were telling them before the first broadcast that the documents were fakes. Then they tried to demonize those (including me and my fellow bloggers) who’d helped expose their ploy, and to justify their lies as “fake but accurate.”