The Rathergate Investigation
According to the New York Times, the investigative panel looking into the fraudulent CBS National Guard documents will submit its report to CBS early next month.
The inquiry’s two panelists, Louis D. Boccardi, a former top executive of The Associated Press, and Dick Thornburgh, a former United States attorney general, have interviewed dozens of people - from the highest echelons of CBS News to its rank and file, as well as outside it - and are expected to submit their report to senior network executives early next month. Among the central questions they are examining is why Mr. Rather, who anchored the segment, and Mary Mapes, the producer who shepherded it, were so convinced of the authenticity of four memorandums purportedly drawn from the personal files of Mr. Bush’s Vietnam-era squadron commander.
Shouldn’t they be investigating whether Rather or Mapes actually perpetrated the fraud, instead of simply asking “why they were so convinced?” It still amazes me that these documents were not instantly recognized as fakes, even though many people had to have seen them before they were shown on 60 Minutes II.
Interestingly, no one from the panel has contacted LGF or Power Line.