Andrew Heyward Spins In
Statement by the President of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:
“We established to our satisfaction” simply gets back to how low a threshold that level of “satisfaction” was because they were so uncritically and unprofessionally eager to run with a “story” that they thought would damage President Bush.
“…the memos were accurate” – note the substitution of “accurate” for “authentic.” Note also that that is the epitome of question-begging. Since Rather cited these memos in the first place to authenticate his charges against the President, it stands to reason that his charges cannot stand without them. Since the memos have been exposed as forgeries, he no longer has a story – or, “rather,” any more of a story than Big Media ever had in Bush’s three previous campaigns for Texas governor and POTUS, none of which were ever derailed by it. Yet we’re still expected to believe, on the basis nothing other than the credibility that Dan Rather has already forfeited, that these memos are “accurate.”
“There was a great deal of corroborating evidence” has been exposed as a lie days ago. And the “people in a position to know” have all since either retracted what CBS claimed they told 60 Minutes II or asserted that CBS lied to them.
“Having said that,” Heyward then begins, at long last, the Tiffany network’s long, slogging backpedal from this mess, essentially saying that they will “redouble” their efforts to do what they should have done before ever putting this smear on the air to begin with.
Isn’t twice nothing still nothing?
We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing.Ummmm…what’s new in this statement, about which CBS drummed up such melodramatic suspense all the live-long day?
“We established to our satisfaction” simply gets back to how low a threshold that level of “satisfaction” was because they were so uncritically and unprofessionally eager to run with a “story” that they thought would damage President Bush.
“…the memos were accurate” – note the substitution of “accurate” for “authentic.” Note also that that is the epitome of question-begging. Since Rather cited these memos in the first place to authenticate his charges against the President, it stands to reason that his charges cannot stand without them. Since the memos have been exposed as forgeries, he no longer has a story – or, “rather,” any more of a story than Big Media ever had in Bush’s three previous campaigns for Texas governor and POTUS, none of which were ever derailed by it. Yet we’re still expected to believe, on the basis nothing other than the credibility that Dan Rather has already forfeited, that these memos are “accurate.”
“There was a great deal of corroborating evidence” has been exposed as a lie days ago. And the “people in a position to know” have all since either retracted what CBS claimed they told 60 Minutes II or asserted that CBS lied to them.
“Having said that,” Heyward then begins, at long last, the Tiffany network’s long, slogging backpedal from this mess, essentially saying that they will “redouble” their efforts to do what they should have done before ever putting this smear on the air to begin with.
Isn’t twice nothing still nothing?
posted by JASmius at 12:11 PM
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