Josh's Weblog: CBS Finally Concludes It Was Misled

CBS Finally Concludes It Was Misled

Via Drudge we find CBS's mea culpa in the New York Times.

After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a 60 Minutes report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

It turns out that the earlier evidence of a smoking gun was correct:

But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they had been misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.

And someone has been identified to take the fall:

Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos had come from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.

And one feeble attempt to shift blame:

Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented to them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was “the icing on the cake” of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents being presented by a credible news organization.

I love the White House's quote, however.

Josh Poulson

Posted Monday, Sep 20 2004 06:31 AM