CBS News President Andrew Heyward, via Allah:

We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing.

I'm going to give Heyward the benefit of the doubt here and presume he means that the questions he wants answered are those about the authenticity of the memos rather than the questions raised by the phony memos.

Not so long ago, it would have taken weeks or months for a retraction. In an even earlier time, no retraction would ever have come, and the lies would stand as part of the historical record.

Looks like the truth on this story will have to wait a while, too.

Questions remaining for CBS and Dan Ra^ther: How long will you continue to support this fraud? Who gave you the forgeries?

We're waiting.

Update: Hey! That does say "accurate," not "authentic." I retract my "benefit of the doubt" statement, based on their weasel-words.

Somehow, I get the impression that CBS is doing its utmost to turn Rather into television news' version of Walter Duranty.

Update 2: That's what I meant to say. Really. I was gonna... but... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. It wasn't my fault!

Posted by Russ at 06:30 PM, September 15, 2004 in Politics