In the end the story didn't change many minds about who to vote for. The main impact was in the week after Memogate when it because clear that Rather had presented phony documents. Kerry & crew were all set to run on the story and had to scramble desperately for about 10 days to recover. It set them back considerably in their race.

I can believe anyone gets fired at CBS . . . the moment when I see it happen.

They "stonewalled," then they "commissioned," and now they're "burying."

CBS needs to clean house or face the slow, practical extinction of its news division.

CBS faces so much competition from new media and has so much egg on its face that a decline in viewership and consequent decline in revenue make its fate inevitable regardless of house cleaning efforts.

I doubt CBS will take any significant action. They just don't believe that what they did is all that bad.

They "know" Bush pulled strings - or had them pulled - with TANG, they just couldn't prove it.

The punishment will come from the public as CBS "News" (can't see using anything but scare quotes on it anymore) dries up by people voting with their remotes.

Public, Shmublic. Let's face it, we want the visceral satisfaction of watching Rather get his arrogant ass fired. OK, I can't speak for anyone else. I want the satisfaction. I want to see his career end in disgrace. I want him to die a broken man.

I'm not proud of this, but Rather has brought out the dark side in me. Normally I'm a pretty nice guy. Tolerant even.

Michael (a/k/a FormerTexan)

Unfortunately Americans have the attention span a purple tube sponge.

The Eye of Sauron knows this too, Rather will skate.

...OH don't get me wrong, Dan Rather isn't worthy of a purple tube sponge's nut sack. but he'll still skate .)

It's unfortunate, but there are still those at CBS who feel that the News Division is better off with Rather than without.

My guess is that the independant review board will release their findings soon, possibly as soon as the end of this week. The big revelation will be how much CBS has really cooperated with the board. It has already been announced that the interviews will be voluntary, this to allow individuals to protect themselves from lawsuits. There can be no confidentiality guarantees by the board, all information is subject to discovery in a civil suit.

Have Rather's and Mapes phone records been made available? This is the telling information and both probably have fought their release. Has CBS backed the board on this, or just allowed unsworn testimony.

I think the result will be similar to the CNN/Time/Warner Tailwind fiasco (Peter Arnett's story on poison gas being used in Laos to kill US deserters). In that one the board determined correctly that the story was factually untrue, but that the participants believed it was true. The Time folks prticipated out of the corporate desire to take advantage of the synergistic clout of the print/cable combination. It was reported that there was a great deal of reluctance from some at Time to run the story. And it was probably from their presure that heads rolled.

The upshot of Tailwind was that the two producers were fired, but there was no mention of Arnett's discipline. He simply never appeared on air again at CNN, and when his contract expired a year and a half later, it was not renewed. How National Geo and MSNBC ever gave him life again in the second Gulf War I'll never know. But they learned to regret it after he, as their correspondent, gave an anti-American interview to Iraqi TV at the height of the fighting. He was fired, but only after the heat of massive indignation from the public overruled NBC's original decision to keep him.

My guess is that the board will state that the story was untrue, the documents forged by unknown people, but that Mapes and Rather believed them to be valid. Mapes will be canned, not so much from her role in the forged documents, but because of her contact with the Kerry campaign. This is documentable even without her testimony. I think Rather's fate will be much like Arnett's--no announcement, but sometime in 3 or 4 months a replacement for him will be announced and the takeover immediate.

Too bad, I'd like him to go in total disgrace.

Crosby Boyd
Sanibel FL