ratherbiased.com reports that Michael Moore is smarter than Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings combined: Moore: I Was Offered Memogate Documents.

Michael Moore, director of the movie Farenheit 9/11, said Sunday that he was given the same phony documents used by CBS News in its infamous Sept. 8 “60 Minutes” story but that he rejected them for inclusion in his film because his staff did not believe they were authentic.

“Back when I was making Fahrenheit, I was offered the documents that were given to CBS but I didn’t use them because we couldn’t verify them,” Moore said following a speech at the University of Central Arkansas.

Dr. Rick Scott, the university’s honors program director, told RatherBiased.com that Moore said he had a three-tiered-system of fact checking which led him to believe the documents were not valid. He did not say if his source was Bill Burkett, the disgruntled former Texas Army National Guard Other university officials confirmed this account.

The anti-Bush filmmaker said that he was unhappy with CBS for using the fakes in a report, implying that the Memogate controversy had aided the president’s reelection campaign. He added that he had turned down other too-good-to-be true scoops, including one from a woman who claimed to have attended a dinner attended by both the Bush and family of Osama bin Laden.