Newsbusters notes a New York Post story on an unauthorized biography of Dan Rather, with some choice quotes from CBS executives:

Rather is also raked over the coals by co-workers for the dubious handling of his report on President George W. Bush’s alleged lousy Air National Guard service record. Rather continued to defend the story even after it was found to be based on forged documents. “It’s the same thing he did over and over again. You know, ‘Don’t tell me I’m wrong,’ ” former CBS News president Ed Joyce told Weisman, who himself was a CBS newswriter and producer.

“In my opinion he was guilty of journalistic malpractice,” Joyce says. “To go out on a limb with that sort of thin sourcing and then, when you get caught, go on the ‘CBS Evening News’ defending it in such an arrogant fashion was wrong.”

It was more than wrong, and worse than malpractice, because the intent of that story was not simply to enhance Rather’s reputation or boost CBS’s ratings—those people tried to tilt a presidential election.