First, the "investigators" did not have the spine to do their job with regard to the forged memos. They needed to determine and state clearly that there could be no reasonable doubt that the memos were forged. Instead, they weaseled out:
"Although the panel said it couldn't prove conclusively the documents were forged, it said CBS News failed to authenticate them...."
That just doesn't cut it. It sounds like: "Gee, the memos could POSSIBLY be real...."
Second, even though CBS was caught red-handed trying to fix a Presidential election by using forged military memos to support a one-sided, Bush-bashing, hit-piece interview with a known Kerry fundraiser and political operative, CBS and "The Panel" maintain that there was no political agenda behind CBS's attempt to fix the election for Kerry. Say WHAT? That conclusion is incompetent and zany on its face.
Again, 'The Panel' failed miserably to investigate the liberal activist political histories of Rather and Mapes (among others) and state clearly what is obvious to nearly everybody - - that yes, "political bias" certainly WAS at the root of CBS's airing of the segment. But 'The Panel' not only didn't have the spine to say it, they actually concluded the opposite. That is utterly inexcusable.
My theory is that CBS and 'The Panel' needed to orchestrate the report/whitewash in just the right way so that they wouldn't give any ammo to the Justice Department and other law enforcement authorities. I'm sure there was a lot of hand-wringing, numerous conference calls, and maybe even some "gratuitities" exchanging hands during the "months, not weeks," that it took to finally produce the piece of rubbish.
Well said...