February 4, 2005

CBS News and the law

By Steven Zak
Charles Krauthammer calls it "disgraceful." James Pinkerton says it "reeks" of "coverup." Hugh Hewitt labels it "a whitewash that can be summed up this way: 'Blah, blah, blah, blah.'" All apt descriptions of CBS's "independent" investigation of its own behavior in Rathergate. But is this a surprise? Did anyone really expect an inquiry initiated by CBS and overseen by its law firm to unambiguously declare the mendacious memos to be counterfeits? Or to find that the presentation of such fakes was not, as CBS head Leslie Moonves would have it, a "screw up," but a cold and calculated fraud?  Except at the end of Perry Mason episodes, people don't usually cop to criminal behavior. And criminal behavior there was if Rather and company acted with malice aforethought. But can malice, an intangible state of mind, be ascertained other than through the method employed by the CBS Panel —— simply asking the accused? Of course it can; jurors make such determinations all...(Read Full Article)