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Latest revelation of CBS stupidity
In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush's National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same "60 Minutes" broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! The journalistic juggling at CBS provides an ironic counterpoint to the furor over apparently bogus documents involving Bush's National Guard service. One unexpected consequence of the network's decision was to wipe out a chance -- at least for the moment -- for greater public scrutiny of a more consequential forgery that played a role in building the Bush administration's case to invade Iraq. A team of "60 Minutes" correspondents and consulting reporters spent more than six months investigating the Niger uranium documents fraud, CBS sources tell NEWSWEEK. The group landed the first ever on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who first obtained the phony documents, as well as her elusive source, Rocco Martino, a mysterious Roman businessman with longstanding ties to European intelligence agencies... Some CBS reporters, as well as one of the network's key sources, fear that the Niger uranium story may never run, at least not any time soon, on the grounds that the network can now not credibly air a report questioning how the Bush administration could have gotten taken in by phony documents. The network would "be a laughingstock," said one source intimately familiar with the story. Would be a laughingstock? They already are. One good thing, though: This article goes on and on, trying to make the case that ALL the evidence on yellowcake from Niger was faked. We know that's not true. At least now, maybe, this slanted report won't get aired and do damage. Posted by: growler 2004-09-23 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=44032 |