To the Associated Press, Dan Rather’s Future is a Complicated Question.

To most people with a conscience and a sense of ethics, it’s a mystery why he still has a job.

NEW YORK - In Kansas City, Mo., it’s Kirk Black’s job to answer for Dan Rather. The station manager of KCTV, like his colleagues at many other CBS affiliates, is facing a flood of calls and e-mails from viewers angry at Dan Rather for relying on apparently fake documents to suggest President Bush’s National Guard service record was less than stellar.

Whether Rather rides out this storm depends on many factors, including ratings, his specific culpability in the shaky Guard story, a potential successor and even, perhaps, the results of a presidential election.

The opinions of people like Black, whose stations give Rather his national platform, may be most crucial.

“He’s part of the face of my television station,” Black said, “and people who aren’t in the business, they don’t separate my local anchors from him. They just see it as CBS. It’s very difficult as you talk to viewers and try to explain what your position is and that you had nothing to do with what happened.”

Viewers of WIVB-TV in Buffalo, N.Y., are more understanding — to a point.

“My experience has been, (people say) `It’s not you guys, I know. It’s those guys in New York. But isn’t there anything you can do?’” said Chris Musial, the interim station manager.

He’s counted some 1,300 e-mails in the past week. Most are part of a national campaign against Rather from conservatives who have hated him since he covered the Nixon White House.

Oh really? And how does the Associated Press reach this conclusion? Did each email have a disclaimer saying, “Sent by the national conservative campaign against Dan Rather, all of whom have hated the bastard for years?”

Distortion, thy name is AP.