Your Olympian leaps of logic and tortured inferences are sometimes, as in this instance for example, absolutely astounding.

Jer

You're falling into the same trap that Dan fell into.  You're taking the credibility of Bush's "guilt," the idea that he received preferential treatment, on faith, not on actual evidence.

You BELIEVE that something is true even tho there's no evidence that it is true. You said it yourself, you believe that there are parts of this that are true, and provable, yet fail to offer any evidence AT ALL that it is true, or provable. 

Even after YEARS of people combing through the documentation, even after Bush posted his records for all to see, even after Dan Rather himself admitted that he spend 5 and a half years "investigating" this, there still is NO credible evidence that the allegations are true, but, yet, you still believe them to be true.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution

Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court

It was journalistic fraud, pure and simple.  Not a wilfull and deliberate fraud in the sense that Rather knew he was relying upon  specious documentation, but a fraud nevertheless.

Jer, unfortunately, Rather's state of mind at the time of the fraud can never be proven, so it will be left for speculation whether his fraud was intentional or inadvertent.  Many of us on the right believe it establishes a pattern of bias that we always suspected existed but never had concrete evidence beforehand to prove...a bias that compromised the execution of his journalistic responsibilities.  In other words, it kind of opens up a journalistic "Pandora's Box", for if he was capable of this (at best) incompetent journalism in 2004, just how much of this shoddy work did he get away with over the years when there wasn't technology in place to keep him honest?  Did he get away with countless other examples of journalistic fraud before?  Otherwise, what possessed him to believe that he would get away with it this time?

In response to your initial pertinent question, I can only state, in my opinion, there are significant elements of the story which are true and provable, parts which are credible but unverified--and perhaps unverifiable--and parts which are so speculative (or thinly sourced) that they should never have been aired as part of a "serious" newscast/investigative report. 

Fair enough.  But do you actually believe that the story was neutralized simply because Mapes and Rather were caught?  If there was really more to the story, don't you think another news organization would have picked up the useful elements of the story and pursued the necessary proof either to save Rather's reputation or to capitalize on his failure to gain a competitive advantage for getting the story right?  I believe that if there was more to it than idle speculation based on Rather's Captain Ahab-like obsession with the Bush family, someone would have breathed new life into it, for the payoff potential was huge.

Regarding your exit [and more pertinent] question:  They could have run a story, but not the story with the demonstrable evidentiary gaps, which Rather/Mapes erroneously believed--and desperately wanted to believe--had been filled by the faked documentation.

And therein lies the problem.  The Burkett documents served as the lynchpin for the "sexier" story.  Without it, the story is largely speculation and inference absent proof.  If Rather and Mapes were really interested in getting the facts and reporting the story instead of simply submarining Bush's re-election bid, they would have waited to secure the definitive smoking gun (whatever the timing of its discovery) instead of trying to fast track a sloppy story.  In rushing to get this to air, they created the impression that the timing and effects of the "revelations" were more important than the factual substance.  If they were truly concerned about reporting the news, they could have waited as long as it took to secure the smoking gun...but timing was more important than accuracy.

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."  -George Best

It was journalistic fraud, pure and simple.  Not a wilfull and deliberate fraud in the sense that Rather knew he was relying upon  specious documentation, but a fraud nevertheless.

Sort of wrong, again. Dan, himself, and the people he worked with, willfully and deliberately failed to do the things necessary to verify and cross-check/be-absolutely-sure about the documents they had, before running with the potentially and immensely damaging story.

You're giving Dan a pass, and it's unfortunate.