On Sept. 8 of this year, Dan Rather reported that President George W. Bush had received un-due consideration from his commanding officer in the Air National Guard and had not served his time in the Guard satisfactorily. When Mr. Rather and CBS were challenged on the story, they insisted upon its veracity until enough members of the general public came forward and forced the network and its star news anchor to reconsider their position. Thanks to the Internet, copies of two memos, one Mr. Rather referred to in his story and another that had been carefully authenticated, were available to anyone with a computer and Web connection. If you haven't seen them, I've posted them here.
After comparing these two dosuments, I must say that only the most incompetent observer could miss the glaring differences in typography, language, punctuation and form. If Mr. Rather genuinely believed that this document was legitimate, he would better serve his audience in general and CBS in particular by cleaning up its public restrooms. Anyone who could not immediately spot the painfully obvious differences in these documents does not have the intellectual acumen or proper eyesight to anchor a major news service. If Mr. Rather's intellect and vision are not to blame, one must then question his bias. It is sad to think that a man with as much to lose as Mr. Rather would be so driven by an apparent bias against President Bush that he would not only prostitute his sense of professional ethics to attack the President, but that he would base his attack on 'evidence' that is so lame. (Perhaps Mr. Rather's judgment was (or is) impaired and he really is a helpless, foolish victim in all of this.) If, as I strongly suspect, he was attempting to damage the President for his own selfish reasons, he should own up to that and restore CBS's reputation by resigning immediately. Other senior executives and producers who followed Rather's lead in airing this story, including Mary Mapes, should join him in the unemployment line.
In any event, CBS News' strident defense of the indefensible has now eroded its credibility so seriously that I will only consider watching any of its so-called 'news' programming when I can't find re-runs of 'Frasier' or 'Seinfeld' or when I'm unable to purchase a copy of 'The National Enquirer.' While I'm not too keen on these as sources of news, they, at least, don't insult my intelligence by pretending to be unbiased, rigorous and professional.
Very truly yours,
Pete Grubbs
