Watching a Train Wreck

12:44 am, 9/11/04

Watching a Train Wreck
Via Instapundit, here's at least one of the precious people "close to Colonel Killian when the memos were written" that CBS interviewed:

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

Judas priest! What are they doing over at CBS?! Then, this comes up again:

The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Bush's service, was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

I've also heard it said that Bush's street address on the memos is two years out of date.

You know, CBS could've fixed this. It would've been simple for Dan Rather to come out and say "We were in error, and in the interest of preserving our journalistic integrity, we're retracting Wednesday night's report. We have launched an investigation to determine how this happened to ensure that it never happens again." No, they sent Rather out to insult every thinking person in the CBS audience and every blogger who has covered this idiocy, to lie.

It's a shame it's come to this, too. The changes in the media could've come by evolution, gradual changes as the "old media" learned how to play with the "new media". Instead, it's come to this, where companies go broke, careers are wrecked and once-great newspapers are reduced to tabloid status. Congratulations, 60 Minutes, on blowing your chance to set this right.