Link to Post #38
http://nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage1.asp
CUT
In an Mad Dan’s Noble Lie
By George Neumayr
Published 9/16/2004.... interview with the New York Observer, Rather also uses the phrase "fundamental truth." This is 1960s babble that amounts to saying: I, as a liberal, can tell lies for the greater good; my surface dishonesty conveys a deeper truth. Rather is falling back on the Noble Lie -- the idea that the enlightened are entitled to heap fables upon the hoi polloi for the sake of preserving proper order.
The transcendent truth that mitigates Rather's faked-up memos is apparently that Bush missed a physical examination over three decades ago -- not exactly the justification for the Noble Lie Plato envisioned in The Republic. Why allegations about a missed physical and truncated National Guard service trouble Rather so deeply when Bill Clinton's draft-dodging did not is another question Rather isn't likely to answer.
If the Noble Lie defense fails, what else can Rather try? The New York Observer article suggests he will try the I'm-on-the-right-side-of-history defense: "I think over the long haul, this will be consistent with our history and our traditions and reputation…We took heat during the McCarthy time, during civil rights, during Watergate. We haven't always been right, but our record is damn good."
Rather sounds a bit like the habitual liar in Whit Stillman's movie Metropolitan who, after getting called out for inventing a story about his archenemy abusing a girl, says, "Okay, so that person wasn't real; she's a composite, like in New York magazine." He then defends his lie on the grounds that it contained a basic truth about his nemesis.