Campaign '04: BLUE TRUTH, RED TRUTH

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For his part, Rather not only defended his reporting but also questioned the motives of those who challenged him, telling USA Today that a "thick partisan fogging machine seeks to cloud the core truth of our story." He denied any political leanings and cast the controversy as a Red Truth jihad. "People who are so passionately partisan, politically or ideologically committed, basically say, 'Because he won't report it our way, we're going to ... check him out of existence if we can. If not, make him feel great pain.'" But under the combined weight of various challenges to the memos, the network eventually said it would investigate their authenticity.

John Kerry supporters were so frustrated at the turn of events, they could only suggest this must somehow be the work of Bush's Dr. Evil, Karl Rove. How could their guy, a decorated war hero, have dropped in the polls after being slimed for a month by unsubstantiated charges about his Vietnam record, while Bush, who has never fully answered questions about whether he performed his duties during five years in the Air National Guard, looked as if he would escape any damage just because CBS had screwed up its fact checking? On the very day of the CBS broadcast, a group called Texans for Truth unveiled its AWOL ad claiming that Bush never even showed up for the Alabama unit he transferred to in 1972; the Democratic National Committee released the video Operation: Fortunate Son, which details the ways in which Bush allegedly received preferential treatment. Now it looked as if Bush had been vaccinated, even if other records supported the substance of CBS's charge. The conspiracy theories were further fueled when the Los AngelesTimes revealed that "Buckhead," the blogger who led the charge, was no phantom font expert but the guy who filed suit to have Bill Clinton disbarred in Arkansas during the Monica madness. "If this is a campaign about who did more 30 years ago, we lose," a senior Bush campaign adviser told TIME. "But it's not about that."

The network's mess served members of the Bush campaign beautifully, and not just by taking the focus off the turmoil in Iraq. It fed their story line that they are once again fighting as outsiders. When you control the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, it's a neat trick to act like an underdog. But to the extent that the Republicans could turn the Liberal Media into the Establishment enemy, liken themselves to Thomas Paine and Martin Luther, nail their charges to the door, distribute their pamphlets, rally their faithful, it was in the interest of giving their base a tyrant to battle. CBS tied its argument up nicely as well when, acknowledging questions about the authenticity of the documents, it said they were true in spirit. Even the pollsters, with their models and metrics, were at a loss to explain where the race had landed: Gallup had Bush 13 points ahead; the Pew Center and Harris Interactive had a 1-point race. At this moment, meteorologists have an edge when it comes to reliability.