CBS/Rather announcement
Posted by Peter W. Schramm
Here is Dan Rather’s apology. This is CBS’s statement on the memos. And this is the CBS story on its own story. "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."
2:23 PM / September 20, 2004
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Well, after lots of obfuscating language, I think we did get an honest, open apology from him. Thank you, Dan. It sounded very Clintonian for some time.
I’d disagree, the press has no problem asking a question like "Thank you, Mr. President. Two weeks ago, a former counterterrorism official at the NSC, Richard Clarke, offered an unequivocal apology to the American people for failing them prior to 9/11. Do you believe the American people deserve a similar apology from you, and would you be prepared to give them one?" in a Presidential Prime Time Press Conference, yet they offer an aplogy not to the defamed party, but to themselves? "We have been mislead", why not say "We did not accuratly investigate the documents".
John
"Thank you, Dan. It sounded very Clintonian for some time"? Sorry, no dice.
When Rather got a hold of these documents I am quite sure he felt as if they had hit the mother-lode. Why? Because without those documents, their Bush bash falls upon the third party memory of an 86 year old base secretary, who is an obvious partisan. Without those documents Rather had nothing but innuendo and a baseless charge.
Now they simply confess that the mother-lode contained nothing but fools gold (oh, silly us), but they still want us to but the Bush bash story because the old lady says it’s still true. Well, Rather would have been laughed out of town had he done the original story without the forged documents, and rightly so. No doubt partisans Democrats are gonna swallow Rather, and CBS’s, latest Clintonian slight-of-hand attempt to have their cake and eat it too. But I ain’t buying it.
Rather must disavow his phony Texas Guard story, hunt down and expose the source of the forgery, and offer Bush a sincere public apology. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, Rather and CBS themselves are nothing by political hacks who carry the Democrat dirty water on America’s airwaves!
"CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic"? That is not enough. The documents are clearly forgeries. To say we "cannot prove" them authentic is to leave open the possibility, however small, that they are authentic. CBS needs to say "we admit they’re forgeries".