It raises legitimate questions about Mr. Thornburg's impartiality. Why did he get chosen? Did he or some intermediary approach CBS, or did some CBS mucky-muck or advisor know of a possible grudge of Mr. Thornburg's, and thus sent CBS after him?
How CBS decided on this panel, on these two men is itself a fact that is very pertinant towards evaulating the panel's performance. Not that much time should be so spent, for in the end CBS choose them itself and that alone is such a serious compromise as to make any invetsigation by the panel meaningless as to truth and actual fact.
The fact that CBS choose Thornburg for such de-facto compromised panel, and that Mr. Thornburg accepted it is of itself a significant tell-tale of Mr. Thornburg's integrity in this matter.
Therefore I have been removing the final "h" from his name. For in my view, at least, he will have to re-earn his "burgh" -- for now, by his act of joining this mockery of a panel, he is just a another "burg".
"It raises legitimate questions about Mr. Thornburg's impartiality. Why did he get chosen? Did he or some intermediary approach CBS, or did some CBS mucky-muck or advisor know of a possible grudge of Mr. Thornburg's, and thus sent CBS after him?"
I will not disagree. We are talking about CBS and they have demonstrated how they do business, especially the "news" business.
The announcement stated his credibility of having worked in two Republican administrations. However, his position is not to give we the public answers rather to give CBS answers.
Personally the mere fact that CBS is still promoting the story told in the forged documents as being true and are still trying to verify the information is all I need to know that this was a publicity stunt. Nobody has been fired, resigned or any apology to the people they caused deliberate harm to.
My take on the people they chose to do whatever it is they are going to do is more about containing the damage from potential lawsuits.
Quite frankly this was a hoax, a fraud committed on what I continually get told are 'public' airwaves, now that would seem to indicate that the public was defrauded by what they supposedly already own, not to mention President Bush who they know darn well will not crawl down into the sewer with them.