Tom Shales, on Dan Rather's final departure from CBS:
As most of those who follow such events know, Rather was removed as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" a year short of his 25th anniversary after the airing of an apparently flawed "60 Minutes II" report on George W. Bush's alleged special treatment while in the Texas National Guard. Rather was the correspondent on that report. One producer lost her job, others are suing.
Emphasis added.
Look, we don't need to rehash that day when we all watched update after update attach to the bottom of the Sixty-First Minute. This report wasn't "apparently flawed," it wa a piece of hack journalism that failed because the story was too good to check out.
Still, Shales has defended the memos before on Mary Mapes's terms, that they have never been "proven" forgeries, whatever that means, so perhaps this is progress for him.
