It Wasn't a Mistake, It Was a Lie

For five days now we have seen Dan Rather and CBS try to defend the indefensible. It is clear that they knowingly used obviously forged documents to influence the outcome of a national election.

ABC News reported yesterday that two of the document expert hired by CBS to review the memos did not authenticate the documents and raised concerns to CBS about their authenticity. The one “expert” shown authenticated only a single signature and the Washington Post reports his claim that he never attempted to authenticate the documents themselves.

Despite this, CBS and Dan Rather went ahead with the story and continue to claim that the documents were authentic. This is not the case of journalists being caught out by forged documents but is instead, an out and out fraud perpetrated on the viewers of CBS by Dan Rather and, by extension, CBS News.

When the story began to unravel almost immediately in the blogosphere, Mr. Rather described the critics of the documents as “partisan political operatives.” Hugh Hewitt and the other bloggers at Instapundit and Blackfive are right; we need Congressional hearings on this blatant attempt to influence an election.

I always understood the media’s function as reporting the news, not making it up to fit the political agenda of an over-the-hill reporter who is apparently still angry with the Bush family for his 1988 interview with then-Vice President Bush.

It is quite plain that Mr. Rather needs to resign from his position at CBS and register as a lobbyist for the DNC and Kerry campaign.