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[Tyrone Slothrop]

from Tapped (internal links omitted):

ROPE-A-DOPE. Here's an interesting part of the Washington Post's most recent report on the CBS memos (which, according to The New York Times, will be the subject of some sort of retraction or apology later today):

• In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York.
  White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.
  
  Half an hour later, Roberts called "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes with word that Bartlett was not challenging the authenticity of the documents. Mapes told her bosses, who were so relieved that they cut from Rather's story an interview with a handwriting expert who had examined the memos.
  
  At that point, said "60 Minutes" executive Josh Howard, "we completely abandoned the process of authenticating the documents. Obviously, looking back on it, that was a mistake. We stopped questioning ourselves. I suppose you could say we let our guard down."
  
  CBS aired the story eight hours later, triggering an onslaught of criticism that has left Rather and top network officials struggling to explain why they relied on a handful of papers that even some of Rather's colleagues now believe to be fake.

There's little doubt in my mind that the White House is in posession of every relevant document from George W. Bush's National Guard record, and knew more or less as soon as CBS provided its memos that their authenticity was questionable. Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove knew what they were doing. It was quite smart of the White House to let CBS shoot itself in the foot, because it shifted attention away from the indisputable evidence that Bush pulled strings to get into the Guard and then skipped out on his obligation. Thanks in part to the media's obsession with itself and individual reporters' eagerness to take 60 Minutes down a notch, the controversy over whether CBS relied on fake documents has received far more ink and attention than the rather more interesting questions regarding Bush's Guard duty. The irony is that the rap on Bush's service doesn't really rely on anything aired during the 60 Minutes segment.