Dan Rather tell you that tale?
No, Ben Barnes stated it publicly, before and after the Rather imbroglio and to my knowledge, he is uncontadicted and not tarred by Rather. I don’t know why Barnes would make it up - puts him in a bad light and he confesses he can’t visit the Vietnam Memorial without feeling shame over using his influence in replacing the sons of the wealthy and influential such as GW Bush with the sons of the middle class. Neither Bush was what they projected, I always viewed the father as Reagan’s biggest mistake and an ungrateful one at that and his son as unintelligent and a disaster for conservatives who also rode on Reagan’s name.