A detailed look at the CBS/Dan Rather/Bush memo fiasco from the Washington Post, a government controlled/Liberal media source owned by a large corporation (sic).
A fascinating read on how to screw up a story.
Because the White House had never seen the Bush Memo's, allegedly from a private file and outside the military loop, a Bush spokesman did not challenge their authenticity.
Later, Bartlett would explain why he did not challenge the documents with a question: "How am I supposed to verify something that came from a dead man in three hours?"
With the White House not challenging the documents, CBS reasoned they had to be worth gold.
At that point, said "60 Minutes" executive Josh Howard, "we completely abandoned the process of authenticating the documents. Obviously, looking back on it, that was a mistake. We stopped questioning ourselves. I suppose you could say we let our guard down."
The Washington Post with a great exhumation of the facts, also naming Bill Burkett, a Texas Democrat, as the likely source of the memo's, an unproven allegation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6039473/
Cowperson