The problem with CBS is that they didn't even try to do the proper due diligence to verify the memos. They dismissed people like Staudt and Killian's relatives as "GOP ideologues," while using the testimony of a "Yellow Dog" Democrat pool typist as their witness. Rather believed what he wanted to believe, and tried to convince everyone else to believe the same thing. All parties, including Rather, and the entire Viacom management need to go down for this.
yeah and the SBVT stuff was, of course, too hot to handle and could not be "verified" so they ignored it.
Their own experts told them they were fakes, so they intentionally put them out knowing they were false---which is why they put so much emphasis on the idea that they acted in good failth, and were misled. Burkitt is still lying as the patsy, fall-guy,cut-away, to stop digging. But the real question is why were the forgeries so crude, anyone could do a decent job with an old typewriter. I belive that the freeper theory (which thread I don't rember) that the burkitt's post that the files were being reassmbled, then the originals are being kept, until Bush denies their authencity.