So, Dan Rather and the suits at CBS News have decided to fold after all, but with a pack of weasel words instead of candor. The words "fake" and "forgery" never pass their lips. So much for journalistic "integrity."
CBS News claimed a source had misled the network on the documents' origins. The network pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken."In a statement, CBS said former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."
The network did not say the memoranda — purportedly written by one of Mr. Bush's National Guard commanders — were forgeries. But the network did say it could not authenticate the documents and that it should not have reported them.
"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.
After spending weeks and months re-living 1971 and the Vietnam War (thanks to John Kerry and his allies), now we are re-living 1973 and the Watergate denials and coverups. Dan Rather and the management of CBS News have become the Nixon Administration. Such self-serving, carefully shaded non-apologies call to mind a vintage Nixon-era "modified limited hang out."
CBS's battered stonewall won't last (where did the documents come from, Dan?), but what hellish version of Peabody's Wayback Machine are we trapped in?
Posted by Alan at September 20, 2004 11:51 AM