Veteran New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta got Dan Rather to speak publicly on the Memogate scandal and its conclusions. And, surprise surprise, it does not look like Rather thinks he did anything wrong.

The New Yorker’s press release for the March 7 issue offers some interesting snippets from Gunga Dan and those who knew him:

“To people who have been so loyal and true, I’m not going to give up on them,” Rather says, referring to Mary Mapes, who was fired immediately after the release of the critical report, and three others, who were asked to resign by CBS’s co-chairman, Leslie Moonves. “I appeared before the panel two times for a total of eleven hours. Both times, I told the panel that if I had to move this afternoon on a big story, one that had the potential of being controversial, I’d be very happy to go on that story with the same people, each and every one.”

Rather is either oblivious or just plain losing it. If you accept the Memogate investigation and Moonves’ statements regarding Rather’s departure as gospel truth, then you accept three things with regard to Mapes and Rather:

1) Rather was just too busy with a news-packed summer and placed his future in Mapes’ hands.
2) Mapes believed what she wanted to believe about the memos and committed numerous journalistic sins to convince herself and her superiors that the memos were authentic.
3) Mapes, in short, was the catalyst for Rather’s fall and gave CBS the ammunition necessary to force their anchor, who for years has been a ratings disaster, into early retirement.

Okay, Dan, listen up — the memos were fakes and your three friends screwed you blue. The fact that you would want any of them in another journalistic foxhole with you is proof positive that the time is now to put you out to pasture.

Auletta also reports that Rather was puzzled that the fact that the panel declared that it could not prove that political bias motivated CBS’s journalists or that the documents were fake did not make headlines.

Maybe they didn’t make headlines because other newsrooms and the American public found such conclusions to be wishful thinking. Besides, while Dick Thornburgh and Lou Boccardi did not conclude that the memos were fakes, they could not prove they were real. Seeing as how good journalism is all about solid fact, aren’t the memos fakes by default?

Other gems from Auletta’s interview:

* Walter Cronkite states that Moonves was not hard enough on Rather or News President Andrew Heyward.
* Cronkite, Mike Wallace and “60 Minutes” creator Don Hewitt admit that they do not watch Rather’s broadcast.

Now, I do a lot of bellyaching about media sloth and bias here, but let me give credit where it’s due. I believe Auletta’s interview and everything in it. The New Yorker is one of the most seriously fact-checked publications around. It employs full-time fact checkers to scrutinize every inch of a story and examine the written and audio notes of its reporters. Auletta, if you remember, puclicly blasted CBS for not asking Mapes who her anonymous, “unimpeachable” source was.

Auletta is a shining example of what CBS News used to be.