Rather's commentary is both infuriating and hysterical. The White House, understandably, wants Kerry to knock it off with fantasies about litigating his way to victory, but Rather characterizes this as some sort of nefarious strategy. Meanwhile, as the Democrats talk of spending one or two weeks in Florida style recounts, Dan Rather assures us that "we'll just have to wait."

He's telling us that we need to go through with this bullshit, and that we should all be happy to do so. Is news or opinion, Document Dan?

But it turns out the White House won't be making these crazy demands alone. Oh, no. It will be employing its propgaganda organ, something called "The Blogging Machine," to agitate for an unconstitutional end to the election.

After Ed Bradley explains to Dan that if there are only 175,000 votes outstanding, but John Kerry is behind by about 175,000, then there's no realistic chance Kerry could win (which difficult math Dan seemed perfectly baffled by, incidentally), Dan the Document Man offers us all a new reason to hate his partisan guts:

DAN RATHER: One would expect that the blogging machine which the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign has used for any number of purposes over their four years will start now, if it hasn't started already, to say, listen, Kerry-Edwards, for the good of the country, need to concede.

ED BRADLEY: I'm sure it's started already. If we could tune into the Internet [ummm.. can't they? -- Ace] we'd see that people are already saying that now. That's certainly the drum the White House is beating.

Emphasis mine.

We're the ones coordinating with political parties, you asshole? I'm sorry, did I rush on a story backed by transparent forgeries delivered to you by a seethingly partisan Texas Democrat?

Now, Dan: When you malign thousands of amateur analysts and writers, each of whom acts independently and without pay, as being in the service of the White House and under its control ("used... for any number of purposes," you say), and without any evidence whatsoever to prove that:

Would that be fact or opinion, Dan?

I know you want to believe it's a fact, because we embarassed your tired, senile partisan ass so badly and so thoroughly. But is this "fact" backed up by any, you know, facts?

Or perhaps it's just something Bill Burkett told you, dear?

Say it about me, personally, Danny, and I'll slap you with a libel suit.

I don't know anyone at the White House, and they don't "use" me. I have political opinions, Danny, just like you do, and also like you do, I use the means at my disposal to convey them. Of course, I merely have a keyboard and an internet connection, whereas you have a major news organization with which to push your leftist bias down our throats.

I think of this stupid shit all on my own. (Well, okay, I get a lot of it from Drudge and Instapundit, and they get it directly from the White House, but still.)*

Unbelievable.

They still don't get it. They never will.

By the way, Dan Rather actually says "the Bush-KERRY campaign has used [the blogging machine] for any number of purposes," but that was clearly just a verbal typo; in context, he clearly meant Bush-Cheney, and said Bush-Kerry accidentally. After all, the Bush-Kerry campaign doesn't exist, and it certainly hasn't existed for four years, as Rather specified.

* Just kidding about that, of course.