CBS and Dan Rather now want us to believe they were “misled.” And it’s likely they were misled in the days and hours before they aired the forged documents claiming, among other things, that George W. Bush disobeyed a direct order from his superior in the National Guard.

But when Rather & Co. refused to accept that the documents were forgeries when every rational person on the planet who had spent 10 minutes looking into the matter could see they were the crudest of forgeries, they were no longer “misled.”

Nor were Rather & Co. “misled” when they continued to say that nobody had challenged the underlying basis of their story – though in fact every single aspect of their disgraceful pseudo-journalism had been called into powerful question.

They were not “misled” when Rather said the day after his appalling pseudo-story aired that the people challenging the validity of the story and the authenticity of the documents were all “partisan operatives” – when in fact one of his principal challengers is a California jazz musician and Web site designer who has never voted Republican.

They were not “misled” when CBS News President Andrew Hayward and “60 Minutes II” producer Josh Howard both said they were sure the story was accurate because the White House hadn’t challenged their authenticity – though they knew the White House had been informed of the existence of the documents only three hours before they interviewed communications director Dan Bartlett about them. (In any case, as The Washington Post reported Sunday, “Bartlett said CBS never asked him to verify the memos and that he had neither the time nor the resources to do so.”)

They were not “misled” about anything that happened after the story aired. They were dishonest. They were deceitful. They stonewalled. They trashed the motives of those who were properly outraged by the story. Now that they can no longer stand by their journalistic crime, they are seeking to weasel their way out of even minimal responsibility.

Rather has the gall to put it this way: “We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.”

Rather has no business asserting his “good faith” here. Neither he nor CBS showed good faith in any way. After they checked with several experts who told them the documents were problematic at best, Rather & Co. decided to shop around until they found an expert who would tell them otherwise.

And I think there’s reason to believe that their consultation with Dan Bartlett at the White House wasn’t in good faith – despite their despicable efforts to claim that Bartlett’s refusal to challenge the validity of the documents served as a confirmation of their accuracy.

Consider the case of handwriting expert Marcel Matley, who wrongly (and unprofessionally) verified the authenticity of a signature on one of the memos. CBS did not air its footage of Matley saying the signature was authentic in the original story. Why? Because CBS didn’t have anybody on camera saying the documents were frauds.

Rather waited until his first report on the controversy over the documents to use the footage of Matley, who stood beside magnified versions of the signature and said the CBS memo was a match.

Now, you can bet your house on the fact that Rather & Co. would have used the Matley footage if Bartlett had questioned the documents’ authenticity in an on-air interview.

If that had happened, the Matley footage would have been the giant “gotcha,” the classic “60 Minutes” slam dunk. It would have gone something like this:

Bartlett: These documents are forgeries.

Rather: Oh? Not according to our expert, Marcel Matley . . .

This is speculation, to be sure. But I’ve been watching “60 Minutes” for 30 years now, and I know and you know how they do what they do. Do you really think my speculation is implausible?

I don’t accept the apologies of Rather and CBS News, in part because they haven’t really been offered. They’re trying to get themselves out of a hole, and they’re only digging it deeper.

And what Rather did yesterday was beyond forgiveness. He is continuing to argue that the airing of a patently fraudulent effort whose purpose was to change the results of a presidential election was an act of “good faith.”

You know what I hope? I hope Rather doesn’t quit. I hope he isn’t fired. He is indeed the CBS anchor – and now that the boat is taking on water, his dead weight is going to sink it for good.

E-mail:podhoretz@nypost.com