RHF wrote:

DRUDGE REPORT . Com
EXCLUSIVE // Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
SOURCE= http://www.drudgereport.com/

STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of
documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about
President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News
vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—
vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public
know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have
the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue
vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on
the key question of how our source for the documents came into
possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions
that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point
where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with
the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the
documents in question.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for
that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith
and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of
investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust
in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

'Fairly and truthfully'? I've been LMAO ever since I read the statement.

dxAce