September 15, 2004

Memogate: The CBS Statement

Lame. That sums up all there is to say about the statement CBS News released today about the forged memos it used in a hit-piece on President Bush last week. Here is the statement from
Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News:

We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing.

"We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate..."

Yeah. But you didn't establish their authenticity. In fact, you ignored experts who warned you that the memos were fakes.

And now you're trying to pivot away from the central question of journalistic malpractice, CBS, by asserting that the contents of the memos reflect truth when the memos themselves are forgeries. But without the fake memos, all you have is the uncorroborated claims of Ben Barnes, a Democratic activist who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Kerry campaign, and changed his story repeatedly regarding President Bush's National Guard Service.

"...or we would not have put them on television..."

There's the rub. You wanted them to be accurate so you could put them on television. So you convinced yourself to your satisfaction that they were accurate.

"There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know..."

What people? What evidence? You've produced none. You won't name your source. One of your witnesses has been shown to be a Kerry partisan, another has recanted his statement after learning more about the memos that you wouldn't let him see before you broadcast your story.

"Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing."

Well, good for you. But perhaps you should have listened to the certified, trained, accredited document forensics experts who told you the memos were most certainly fake instead of taking the word of a handwriting spiritualist and a typewriter repairman. Perhaps you should have asked Lt. Col. Killian's secretary if she typed them or asked his family if he typed them. But, then, you might have learned what you didn't want to know - the memos are fakes.

UPDATE: The fine folks over at RatherBiased.com say they "can't help but notice that [CBS'] statement is a backtrack from CBS's prior statements that the disputed documents were undisputedly genuine."

RatherGate.com's summary of the CBS statement and CBS's story on the CBS Evening News tonight:

Attacks are political, "we believe in all aspects of the story" - but NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE ACTUAL QUESTIONS RAISED OF AUTHENTICITY.

More from RatherGate.com:

They just don’t get it. There weren’t just a few questions - there was an avalanche. ... The only doubts still lingering are focused on whether CBS News willfully deceived the American public - or if they're simply a bunch of nincompoops that no one should trust with a teleprompter.

Translation: CBS has played its cards; it holds none. CBS now undertakes efforts to discover evidence bolstering a story that has blown up in its face. Its efforts should be redirected to facing reality and acknowledging culpability. It is now at the least complicit in a fraud of monumental proportions