Dan is Rather sorry

CBS has pretty much admitted what bloggers suspected all along, that the Bush/ National guard memos ( see Sunday September 12 post) broadcast on the CBS programme 60 minutes on September 8 were fake. Well, they didn't actually say they were fake, they just can't prove they were authentic.

"CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.”

CBS News President Andrew Heyward, in a statement said, "We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."

60 Minutes host Dan Rather said, "I didn't dig hard enough, long enough, didn't ask enough of the right questions. And I trusted a source who changed his story."

"There are no excuses. This is not a day for excuses. I made a mistake, we made a mistake, and I am sorry for it."

Richard Bennett says it well.

"Dan Rather has plead guilty to Gross Stupidity in order to avoid a conviction for Extreme Bias in the court of public opinion"

The man who gave CBS the documents, retired Texas Air National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, admitted he lied to the network when he told it that a member of the National Guard provided the documents. But CBS still doesn't know how Burkett got the documents.