Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick (60 Minutes/Dan Rather investigation nears another anniversary)

Yahoo News ^ | 12/30/04

[Libloather]

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick
Thu Dec 30, 7:00 PM ET
Ibd

It 's been nearly 3 1/2 months since former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press chief executive Louis D. Boccardi were named to an independent panel to investigate the "60 Minutes" story that used forged documents to allege Bush shirked his duties when in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s.

The panel was named Sept. 22, 14 days after the story aired and two days after Rather finally stopped denying that the documents were bogus and admitted the story was a mistake. The probe was supposed to get at how the story came to be.

In most newsrooms, that would take about 14 minutes, not 14 weeks, and those involved would by now have found new employment in the food-service or hospitality industry.

This screw-up, however, must be really complicated. Indeed, Mary Mapes, the story's producer, reportedly delivered a "60-plus-page defense" of the piece to investigators -- as if that's a lot to pore over.

Or is it that CBS thinks last month's announcement that Rather would be stepping down as anchor of CBS Evening News has effectively taken Memogate off the public radar screen?

If so, it should think again. Yes, we realize that holding people responsible for their actions -- think Sandy Berger or George Tenet -- was passe in '04. But CBS' transgressions date back much further than one story or one year.

As we've often said, and as one of its own, Bernard Goldberg, has damningly laid out in two books, CBS' problem is deep-seated political bias. Any investigation that doesn't address that problem will be dismissed -- at least in this newsroom -- as no investigation at all.

[Chode]

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I don't think he admitted a "mistake."

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP

[Lancey Howard]

Thornburgh and Boccardi's mission is obviously to whitewash the whole mess for CBS (and by extension, the rest of the dying "old" news media). That they have dawdled and screwed around for so long speaks volumes about how deep the corruption at CBS must run. Apparently, Thornburgh and Boccardi are just as corrupt as CBS. This whitewash should have been wrapped up long ago.

I hope nobody has been holding their breath.

[ImphClinton]

You are absolutely correct.

It amazes me that even the informed people on the right seldom have the guts to suggest these WMD's might just be in Syria. That is far more likely than them having been destroyed. That or their burial right in Iraq.