"I think the rational is the closest to true you can possibly get from where you are."
The truth is the closest you can get to the truth. Suppose Rob reads the newspaper but then believes that City won because their his team and it would make him happy if they won. His belief would be closer to the truth, but it would not be rational.
That can be patched with editing to "the rational is the closest to true you can justifiably get from where you are".
I'm taking a page from the definition of knowledge as 'justified true belief'. The belief that his team won would be true but not justified. Just as a broken clock is right twice a day but that still doesn't make it a reliable time measurement apparatus.
This was copied from here.
Surely it is obvious that there are lots of examples when one might say this. Consider this:
Rob looks in the newspaper to check the football scores. The newspaper says that United won 3-2, but it is a misprint because City actually won 3-2. In this case, the rational belief is that United won, but the true belief is that City won.
Am I missing something?