Well, duh: They were forgeries
: The NY Times has the story this morning:
After days [try almost two weeks – ed] of expressing confidence about [read: stonewalling on – ed] 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 [read: know they f’ed up -ed] about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.
The officials, who asked not to be identified [hoping they wouldn’t be the ones to take the fall for this -ed], said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents’ origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air. [well, duh -ed]
What they should do is come on the air tonight with Rather apologizing and interviewing those who exposed the forgeries and thank them for getting to the truth. That’s what they should do. But they won’t. (See my NY Post op-ed below. The Post just put it online here. )
: UPDATE: See also Tom Watson’s call for restraint from reflexive back-patting. I don’t fully agree with him; he doesn’t fully agree with me; that’s what makes the ‘sphere go round.
: See also Rex Hammock charting the 10 phases of fan-hitting.
