Tick, tick, tick. . .flip, flop, flip
According to the updated paperback edition of David Blum’s 60 Minutes expose, Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick . ., Dan Rather threatened to take his "fake but accurate" story about President Bush's national guard duty to the New York Times if CBS didn't promote the broadcast. But after the story was shown to be based on forged documents, Rather claimed he had doubts about veracity of the memos all along.
After the show was in the can, Rather reportedly asked why the network wasn't promoting it. When told that it couldn't because (a) the head of CBS hadn't seen it, (b) CBS's lawyers hadn't seen it, and (c) the White House had not yet been contacted for comment, Rather reportedly threatened to go to the Times. He later backed down.
According to Blum's book, though, on the night before his on-air apology, Rather confessed to a CBS executive producer that he’d had doubts about the veracity of the memos all along. “I knew when I did the [document consultant Marcel] Matley interview that something wasn’t right with all this,” Responding to Blum's claims, a CBS spokesperson said, “I have no way of verifying this, these were private conversations.” The spokesperson also noted that this material wasn't in the 224-page report of the CBS investigation. Rather himself was overseas and unavailable to comment.
Via Little Green Footballs.
JOHN adds: Brent Bozell has more at Human Events: "Lame Attempts to Rehabilitate CBS".
