Posted on 09/20/2004 10:42:31 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In one of the highest-profile retractions in the history of broadcast news, CBS admitted Monday that documents it used for a story accusing President Bush of receiving preferential treatment during his Vietnam-era service in the National Guard may have been forgeries.
''We should not have used them,'' CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. ``That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.''
CBS anchor Dan Rather, who for the past two weeks claimed that critics of the documents were merely disgruntled Bush supporters, added his own apology.
''If I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question,'' Rather said. ``We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry.''
CBS promised an independent investigation of its use of the documents after the source who provided them -- a longtime harsh critic of Bush -- admitted he lied about how he got them. The White House said the controversy raises the question of whether CBS was manipulated by the Kerry campaign.
''There are a number of serious questions that remain unanswered and they need to be answered,'' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
Regardless of the truth of that accusation, the CBS retreat on the documents -- which came only after two weeks of mounting criticism -- seemed certain to inflict serious damage on the credibility of both the network and Rather, who have become lightning rods for conservatives who claim the media have a pervasive liberal bias.
''It's huge, it's a big deal, you can't deny that,'' said Al Tompkins, a 25-year TV news veteran who now teaches at the Poynter Institute, a media research center in St. Petersburg, Fla. ``It hurts, and it doesn't just hurt CBS and Dan Rather. It hurts journalism.''
The storm that broke Monday began building on Sept. 8, when CBS' 60 Minutes aired a story accusing Bush of pulling political strings to get an easy assignment when he served in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. The story was backed up with several memos from the ''personal files'' of Bush's former squadron commander, now dead.
But literally within hours of the telecast, CBS was under attack from Internet diarists who argued that the memos were written in typefaces from modern computers rather than 1970s typewriters.
Soon, other major news organizations -- including The New York York Times and The Washington Post -- were chiseling away at the story's foundation.
The squadron commander's family and his secretary said the documents were forgeries.
Most damagingly, ABC reported that CBS' own document experts warned the network that the memos were dubious.
Through it all, Rather insisted the criticism was nothing but political spin. ''Powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can't deny the fundamental truth of the story,'' he said last week.
But the CBS defense collapsed after a weekend interview with the source who provided the documents, now identified by the network as Bill Burkett, a former Texas Air National Guard colonel who blames Bush for cutting off his benefits.
Burkett, who originally claimed he got the documents from another National Guard official, now says they were handed to him at the Houston Astrodome by an anonymous man. He says he told CBS all along that he didn't know if they were authentic.
''And I insisted that they be authenticated,'' Burkett said in an interview that aired Monday on the CBS Evening News.
It was a stunning turnabout that, some observers say, could cost the 72-year-old Rather his career.
''He's fallen on a big enough sword that he may be gone,'' said Jim Upshaw, a former NBC reporter who teaches journalism at the University of Oregon. ``It's ugly stuff and you hate to speculate, but given the circumstances, it's certainly possible.''
The circumstances include Rather's long history of spats with prominent Republicans. He exchanged sarcastic barbs with President Nixon at a broadcasting convention in 1974 and got into a nine-minute on-air shouting match with then-vice president George Bush in 1988.
Several conservative websites -- notably including www.ratherbiased.com -- monitor Rather and criticize his every move.
Rather's critics were openly gleeful about Monday's turn of events. ''Anybody who was remotely involved in the production of this story should be fired,'' said Matthew W. Sheffield, a Web designer and writer who helps run ratherbiased.com.
Don't hold your breath.
Gleeful? No, Cheering is more like it... It's not like being happy about someone you don't like falling on hard times, but more like cheering that someone who, through malice of intent, has attempted harm through the pretense of "objective journalism" has finally been flushed out and exposed... Gleeful? No, doing BACKFLIPS!!!!
Couldn't agree more. It's like a guy after he's had an affair and he tells his wife, "Gee, babe, I'm sorry you're upset."
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