What Did Dan Rather Know, And When Did He Know It?
<p>Dan Rather&#8217;s just-released statement just begs to be fisked:</p>
<blockquote><p>
Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of<br />
documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about<br />
President Bush&#8217;s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed<br />
to re-examine the documents in question—and their<br />
source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American<br />
public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Where was your skepticism about the four documents you ran with<br />
when your own experts told you two of the original six were bogus, Dan?</p>
<blockquote><p>
Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the<br />
confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching<br />
for them journalistically.
</p></blockquote>
<p>And why did you ever &#8220;have confidence&#8221; in those four when you withheld them<br />
from your own experts, Dan?</p>
<blockquote><p>
I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for<br />
the documents came into possession of these papers.
</p></blockquote>
<p>So, you&#8217;re still not admitting that your &#8220;source&#8221; passed you crude<br />
forgeries that anyone with the nerve to call himself an investigative<br />
journalist should have spotted in thirty seconds flat?</p>
<blockquote><p>
That, combined with some of the questions that have been<br />
raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew<br />
then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it<br />
was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in<br />
question.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Do you know that the memos were forged?  Are you prepared to state for<br />
the record that your source was not a Kerry partisan engaged in a fraudulent<br />
attempt to manipulate a presidential election?</p>
<blockquote><p>
But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for<br />
that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith<br />
and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of<br />
investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Ah, the nebulous &#8220;we&#8221; &mdash; favorite weasel-word of<br />
responsibility-evaders.  Will you take responsibility for that<br />
decision, Dan?  If you won&#8217;t, whose decision was it?  If you will,<br />
where is your resignation?</p>
<blockquote><p>
Please know that nothing is more important to us than people&#8217;s trust<br />
in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Oh, we believe <em>that</em> all right.  After all, if you don&#8217;t<br />
have peoples&#8217; trust, how can you manipulate them?</p>
<p>No admission that the documents are forgeries.  No disclosure of<br />
the source.  Dan, given your history of appearing at Democratic<br />
fund-raisers and donating to left-wing causes, can you give us any<br />
reason at all to believe you are not shielding John Kerry&#8217;s oppo<br />
researchers?</p>
<p>UPDATE: CBS <a href='http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml'>claims</a><br />
that disgruntled ex-Guardsman Bill Burkett was the source of the<br />
documents, and misled CBS about them to protect the actual source.<br />
Who is the &#8220;actual source&#8221; of this fraud against the American<br />
electorate?  Why didn&#8217;t CBS validate the documents before broadcasting<br />
an unfounded attack on the President of the United States during a<br />
time of war?  Inquiring minds want to know!</p>
<p>AND MORE: This just keeps getting better!   Burkett has not only<br />
admitted that the forged memos passed through him to CBS, he says<br />
he <a href='http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132906,00.html'>gave them<br />
to Max Cleland</a>, John Kerry&#8217;s triple-amputee token Vietvet.  Burkett<br />
has already changed his story at least once about who his source was.</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t be the only person thinking Burkett has been set up as the<br />
fall guy in order to make politically-motivated collusion between CBS<br />
and the Kerry campaign deniable.</p>
