Mr. Rather recalled that Mr. Burkett had said he had gotten the documents from a former guard member who was now overseas. Mr. Rather said producers had tried to get in touch with him, but had not, though knowing his identity bolstered the team's confidence just the same.
"It was a person who could have had direct access to Killian's files," he said. "That made it believable."
A good con is always believable, you fricking morons.
...The network's executives acknowledge that its team's failure to get in contact with the supposed primary source should have been a red flag.
Ya think? Especially considering that the memos themselves were a bunch of photocopies? You did notice they were photocopies, didn't you? You could have noticed that, even though you missed the fact that they were photocopies of Word documents.
But they said they had remained confident because Ms. Mapes and Mr. Rather had such confidence in Mr. Burkett.
UFB. Mr. Burkett clearly has a bright future in sales.
They also believed their other reporting had affirmed the sentiments Colonel Killian supposedly expressed in the documents.
Sentiments no doubt widely known to be held by Rather & Mapes, which made it all the more likely that evidence would be manufactured to prove them right. But no, that's no reason to actually check the documents or anything. Top flight reporters go on instinct.
"We were completely confident from what we were hearing from Mary, and there was no reason not to trust her," said Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes" Wednesday edition.
Clearly, once Mapes was sold, so was everybody else. So much for the "layers of checks and balances" in mainstream media.
Incredible. You wouldn't expect such a horrendous performance from a college newspaper. From a bad college newspaper.
Every time I say to myself, Burkett couldn't possibly have closed this deal by himself, could he? someone comes along to report, yup, it was Burkett alone, with his absolute sincerity - his absolute sincerity in wishing to harm President Bush, that is.
Just mind-boggling. |
