« CBS Ousts 4 For Bush Guard Story, Mapes Terminated | Main | Shocked, Mapes Stands By Her Story »

Rather Stands by His Claim that the Fake Story is Accurate

The Report on the CBS Rathergate scandal contains this bombshell:

[Rather] told the Panel, that he did not fully agree with the decision [to apologize] and still believes that the content of the documents is accurate. The Panel is troubled by these conflicting statements.

Update:

Mary Mapes, the story's producer, also continues to assert the authenticity of the story and submitted to the panel two different documents arguing her case. The report states the following regarding her arguments:

The Panel observes at the outset, however, that what was at first asserted by Mapes prior to the broadcast of the Segment to be a good meshing without any apparent qualification has now been transformed into an argument that there is nothing in the official Bush records that would rule out the authenticity of the Killian documents. This is similar to statements made by Matley, one of the document examiners, before the airing of the Segment that he could not see anything in the Killian documents that would rule out the possibility that they were authentic. While such an argument may have legitimacy in an advocacy proceeding, the Panel does not find it to be a sufficient standard for journalism, which should not stand on a “nothing to rule it out” foundation.

So, the panel found that there was not basis for Mapes and Rather's belief that their story was true.

Note: here is a link the the full report.

Update:

Hindrocket at Powerline commented about this same issue:

It's also worth noting that both Mapes and Dan Rather continue to defend the 60 Minutes report, and to claim that the documents are authentic. Rather says he believes in the documents because "the facts are right on the money." Given what we now know, this statement is delusional. The Thornburgh report does an excellent job of analyzing the content of the fake documents, and showing that they are, in many respects, at odds with reality as we know it from other sources. And the report discloses for the first time that, during the course of her "investigation," Mary Mapes was told that no influence was used to get President Bush into the National Guard, that there was no waiting list for pilots, and that Bush actually volunteered to go to Vietnam. So one can only wonder in what respect Rather thinks "the facts are right on the money."

Paul at Wizbangblog gives the bottom line: The Panel Found Dan Rather Lied

Posted by tim at January 10, 2005 9:30 AM

Articles Related to CBS Memos:

Shocked, Mapes Stands By Her Story - Jan 11, 2005
CBS Ousts 4 For Bush Guard Story, Mapes Terminated - Jan 10, 2005
Independent Review Panel Examining CBS Issues Report of Its Findings - Jan 10, 2005
Finding Courage in Rathergate - Jan 09, 2005
CBS Report on Fake Memos Set for Release - Jan 06, 2005
Ten Errors in One Paragraph by WaPo - Dec 28, 2004
Fake but True Alert - Dec 20, 2004
Rather Steps Down, Finally - Nov 23, 2004
CBS Credibility Continues Decline - Nov 16, 2004
Texas Attorney Launches Rathergate Probe - Sep 30, 2004

Comments

I enjoy your site and want to thank you for visiting my site and including my link at MD Views in ProLifeBlogs.com. I'm "working" on making a list of blog sites like yours to post on my own blog, but haven't yet figured out how to do that. Blogspot is somewhat sketchy on how that's done.

Anyway, my thanks again.

Matt Anderson

Posted by: Matt Anderson at January 10, 2005 10:03 AM

Anyone that says he believes either Dan or Mary is also not telling the truth.

Posted by: Rod Stanton at January 16, 2005 5:53 AM