Ravenwood - 09/20/04 06:57 PM
I watched CBS News tonight to see how they handled the Rathergate memo scandal. Dan Rather downplayed that the documents are obvious forgeries. In his interview with Bill Burkett, Rather said Burkett "misled" CBS about the source of the documents. Now CBS is saying they "cannot verify" the source of the documents, and cannot "authenticate" the documents themselves. Because of this, it was a mistake to air them. (Talk about understated.)
Rather asked Burkett if he forged or faked the documents, and Burkett replied that he didn't. Rather followed up with a tough question asking Burkett to explain why they appear to have been written in a modern day Microsoft Word word processing software. Um.. well, actually, Rather didn't ask Burkett any tough questions. Instead he let Burkett continue to air the fake but accurate Democrat talking points. Rather let Burkett slide and claimed, "Burkett still insists the documents are real." He also failed to ask him about the real source of the documents and simply stated that Burkett wouldn't reveal the source.
Rather then blamed CBS News and himself for failing to "authenticate" the documents, and said they deeply regret their mistake.
Overall, I found Dan's apology to ring hollow. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Rather let Burkett go on record as saying the documents are real, which Rather emphasized. He mounted absolutely no challenge to Burkett's claim, save for a halfhearted 'why should I believe you?' question, to which Burkett replied 'That's gonna have to be your judgment'.
Way to get to the meat of it there Dan. This man made an ass of Dan Rather and CBS and the best Dan can do is "Why would I or anyone believe you won't mislead us about something else?" Overall Rather left me with the impression that he wants me to believe the documents are real but the source is unknown. Instead, I came away from it with the impression that CBS and Dan Rather have zero credibility.
On the up side, the local CBS affiliate provided a flashback to the Bush (41) vs. Dan Rather sparring contest from 1988, when Bush slammed Rather for walking off the set and leaving the network with 7 minutes of dead air.
UPDATE: Allah asks the right question.
USA Today is at least curious enough to mention that two high Kerry people were approached by Burkett, and In Joe Lockwood's case by CBS itself prior to the story being aired. But don't expect CBS to air its own dirty laundry and the other networks are hoping Kerry won't be hurt if they ignore this rather obvious web of connections. The MSM is just absolutely shameless.
Posted by: mikem at September 20, 2004 11:50 PM...the sources source?
Posted by: Marcus at September 21, 2004 9:07 AMThe amazing thing to me is that if CBS would have just owned-up to the "mistake" immediately, the whole thing would be nearly forgotten already by the general public.
Instead, they continue to cling to the belief (hope) that the documents are real, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Amazing. I imagine there's a clinical name for their collective condition...
Posted by: roger at September 21, 2004 9:22 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
