Rather and CBS are desperately trying to prove they're not crooked---by demonstrating they're stupid.
Halberstam is talking about the reasons they are stupid, although he makes it a matter of process, not of sheer lack of brainpower.
Well, if they think being stupid is better than being caught trying to subvert a presidential election based on known lies, good luck to them.
Halberstam provides faux-reasonable cover.

Funny, when talking about RatherGate, Halberstam fingers "process" as the culprit. When talking about the administration's approach to war and re-election, as he did in "Vanity Fair" this month, he ignores process to go straight to motive.

Further thoughts on this at:
http://paragraphfarmer.blogspot.com/2004/09/halberstam-on-war-and-presidents.html

Richard Aubrey--your comment reminds me of Sam Spade's great line from the Maltese Falcon, roughly: Oh I get it. I'm not bad, I'm just stupid.

Now, there's a CBS slogan eh?

So does CBS now stand for "Choose: Biased or Stupid?"

Well, Tom, I don't see any other option for these guys, nor, apparently, do they.
If they could think of something less damning, I can't imagine they'd pass it up.
I have made the same observation to other media outlets. Their defense against accusations of screwing the pooch is that they screwed up. But to do so requires several layers of professional journalists to miss the same thing at the same time. Hard to believe.
But if they want us to believe they're stupid--or, more generously, frequently incompetent--maybe we will.
To use the stupid defense when caught may look like a decent idea in a single incident.
Have they considered the cumulative effect?

I'm most eager to read the inevitable post-election books that will ponder the effect of blogs on both the election itself and the legacy media. What strikes me most about the legacy folks at this point is that they truly don't have a clue as to what is happening, and in particular what is happening to them. "CBS News stands by its story" is not going to be heard much in the future, and indeed is rapidly becoming something of a punch-line. And by God I love it all.