True. But I can't remember any "journalist" ever apologizing to anyone for anything. All I'm saying is - this is as much as I can expect from the Dan-o-saur. And look, he's what, 72?, probably kind of set in his ways, and on his way out. Imho, this probably cut him bad to do any kind of apology (which is good). All about setting expectations for the liberal media. Baby steps.
How it could have gone down:
'Someone' creates the memos, uses Clealand to get them to Burkett and also arranges for the information to get to CBS that Burkett has a 'smoking gun'.
Mapes goes to Burkett, gets the memos, ID's Clealand as his source. CBS calls Clealand, confirms, and runs with the story.
Story falls apart, CBS asks Burkett to change his story about who gave them to him (or just agree to say he changed his story), Burkett agrees.
CBS ditches the memos on the chain of custody excuse rather than the forgery excuse, and avoids revealing either chain of custody beyond Burkett, thus covering for the 'someone' who started it all.