Let me be candid.
I am inclined to believe the young George W. Bush got into the Texas Air National Guard because he was the son of a rich and powerful man and somebody pulled strings to keep him out of the meat grinder of Vietnam. I am also inclined to believe the future president did not always take his service seriously and refused an order to submit for his annual physical.
The one thing I’m not inclined to believe is that a recent story by CBS News proved any of the above.
As you surely know, the network was forced to apologize Monday for the use of fake documents by its anchor, Dan Rather, that questioned President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard commitments. Since the broadcast, a number of other news organizations cast doubt on the authenticity of the documents.
For instance, the Washington Post found that the signature of Bush’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, was at odds with that seen on previously authenticated papers, and the typeface on the documents was more consonant with modern word processing programs than with the electric typewriters of the 1970s. Perhaps most damning is that two document experts said they warned the network beforehand that there were problems with the memos, but that their concerns were ignored.
So apparently, these weren’t just fakes, but bad fakes.
Which suggests not only that CBS was hoaxed, but that it rushed to judgment. That it was blinded by a predisposition to believe.
I suspect that under oath, even President Bush’s most ardent supporters would admit that he seems to have once been the stereotypical rich man’s son–spoiled, dissolute, irresponsible. And it’s certainly not hard to believe somebody would bend the rules to do favors for such a man, especially when his papa’s a congressman. So it’s not hard to understand why CBS was apparently inclined to believe dubious documents.
But understanding is not the same as excusing. Frankly, you and I deserve better.
You expect such shoddiness from those “news” organizations that exist to serve as mouthpieces for a given political party or philosophy. But, the howling of its conservative detractors aside, that’s not what the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite is supposed to be about.
CBS’ failure represents another body blow to journalistic credibility, which can hardly afford new hits. In recent years, we’ve seen more people abandon mainstream news outlets, choosing instead those fringe outlets that reliably validate a preferred world view. Nowadays, people want their opinions echoed, not questioned.
It’s a troubling development, suggesting as it does a future in which there is news for you, news for me, news for that race, creed or sexual orientation over there, but no common truth, no such thing as objective, verifiable fact.
We saw an example of that last month with the swift boat mess. The accusations against John Kerry were quickly discredited by mainstream news organizations, but they lived on when they were uncritically adopted by organizations with more partisan agendas.
As appalling as that was, this might be even worse, precisely because–at the risk of repetition–some of us expect better from CBS. Some of us still believe that in the search for truth, you have to be even more skeptical when dealing with things you’re predisposed to believe.
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E-mail: lpitts@herald.com
