Rather Fails to Admit Forgery or Apologize for Impugning Critics --9/21/2004

1. Rather Fails to Admit Forgery or Apologize for Impugning Critics
On Monday's CBS Evening News Dan Rather refused to describe the memos as forgeries, offered no apology for impugning critics, who turned out to be accurate, as "partisan political operatives" and "partisan political ideological forces," conceded CBS approached Bill Burkett despite Burkett's well-known Bush-hating animosity and devoted much less time to the clarification than to two CBS Evening News stories which insisted upon the authenticity of memos.

2. In Exchange for Memos, CBS Asked Kerry Campaign to Call Burkett
Dan Rather denounced the "partisan political operatives" who dared to question his fraudulent reporting, but USA Today on Tuesday revealed that a CBS News producer helped advance a partisan political agenda by agreeing to hook up Bill Burkett with the Kerry campaign in exchange for him providing the forged memos to CBS. USA Today disclosed that Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign "said a [CBS News] producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents." USA Today laid out the quid pro quo: "Burkett told USA Today that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign."

3. ABC Frets Memos Distract from Bush Record, Confirms Liberal Bias
Noteworthy aspects of ABC and NBC coverage Monday night of CBS's backtracking: On World News Tonight, ABC's Dan Harris failed to mention how, in an exclusive interview with ABC, Walter Staudt denied applying any pressure of George W. Bush's behalf or of having any pressure applied to him to accept Bush into the Guard, yet Harris concluded by fretting about how "this document debacle has almost completely overshadowed questions about George Bush's service in the National Guard, questions that remain unanswered." Over on the NBC Nightly News, Lisa Myers further undercut the only document expert CBS put on air, Marcel Matley, as she revealed that "Matley is a former librarian whose only formal document training was a mail-in correspondence course." Later, wrapping a Nightline piece, Jim Wooten lamented how since Dan Rather's concession "probably won't do much to change the minds of those who are throughly convinced" that the media "are hopelessly liberal...CBS and all the rest of us are now casualties of what he calls a 'self-inflicted wound.'"

4. The Father of the CBS News Producer Calls Her "Typical Liberal"
The father of Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer who reportedly spent five years trying to prove George W. Bush received special treatment in the Air National Guard, a quest which culminated in her eager acceptance of the forged memos, described her as "a typical liberal" who "went into journalism with an axe to grind, and that was to promote radical feminism," FNC's Brit Hume relayed Monday night.

5. Late Show Mocks CBS: "We Report 9 Real Stories and One Fake One"
Before John Kerry sat down with David Letterman on Monday's Late Show, the CBS program made fun of the CBS Evening News under Dan Rather's tutelage. Over the actual CBS Evening News graphic and video clips of news events, an announcer plugged the newscast: "We report nine real stories and one fake one. Can you guess which is which? You may be surprised..."

Rather Fails to Admit Forgery or Apologize
for Impugning Critics

Dan Rather remained in denial Monday night about the transgressions committed by himself and CBS News as he refused to state outright on the CBS Evening News that the memos were forgeries, going only so far as "we can no longer vouch for their authenticity," and though he said he was "sorry" for the "mistake" of not adequately scrutinizing "the documents and their source," he offered no apology for repeatedly impugning the motives of those who questioned CBS's reporting and he neglected to retract the premise of his original story now that its underpinnings have been discredited by the forged memos and retired Colonel Walter Staudt's contention that he applied no pressure on Bush's behalf and felt none himself to let Bush into the Guard.

(See the September 20 CyberAlert for the views of Staudt, whose pressure was cited in one of CBS's made-up memos. The item includes a still shot of him from Saturday's Good Morning America: www.mrc.org )

In short, Rather did not address the political agenda CBS had in pursuing the anti-Bush story while showing no such aggressiveness about John Kerry's record. If someone in Massachusetts handed CBS an old memo which purported to illustrate how a Navy commander fretted about pressure to award medals to Kerry which he had not earned, do you think CBS would have raced to get it on the air to validate the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?

Rather also revealed that not only did CBS get the documents from a left-wing, anti-Bush political activist with a questionable record for accuracy, CBS approached him, namely Bill Burkett. Rather admitted: "He did not come to us. We went to him and asked him for the documents." Rather conceded foreknowledge of Burkett's political agenda, what should have been a red flag from the start: "Burkett is well known in National Guard circles for a long battle over his medical benefits and for trying for several years now to discredit President Bush's military service record."

That's putting it mildly. See more below on Burkett's agenda, including how he pedaled his claims to the Kerry campaign, another red flag, and compared Bush to Hitler. (Tuesday's USA Today reported that Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign "said a [CBS News] producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett." See item #2 below.)

Burkett informed Rather that he had insisted to CBS's producer, presumably Mary Mapes, that the documents "be authenticated." If you can believe him, then CBS ignored a warning from a man with a self-interest in having them be real.

Rather allocated just 3:35 to his Monday night correction, much less time than the nearly six minutes he consumed of the Friday, September 10 CBS Evening News defending his story and impugning those who doubted it as "partisan political operatives" who were avoiding the real questions, such as, "Did Lieutenant Bush refuse a direct order from his commanding officer?"; or the little more than four minutes on the Monday, September 13 CBS Evening News Rather devoted to his then-new defense, that the memos "could have" been created in the 1970s, a line of reasoning he fortified with two "experts" who a few days later denied to the Washington Post that they were "experts."

For his September 13 lame rationalizations: www.mrc.org

Now, more on how over the last ten days Rather has impugned those who questioned his use of forged documents to advance a dirty trick hit on a presidential candidate, followed by an overview of Burkett's agenda of revenge against George W. Bush:

# Rather over the past ten days or so impugning or casting aspersions upon those who dared doubt his reporting:

-- Rather, Friday, September 10 CBS Evening News: "Today, on the Internet and elsewhere, some people, including many who are partisan political operatives, concentrated not on the key questions of the overall story, but on the documents that were part of the support of the story."

For a full rundown of Rather's September 10 dissembling: www.mrc.org

-- Rather on a Manhattan street, caught by CNN's cameras, September 10: "I do want to underscore with you that the White House, which took their shots at us today, the Bush/Cheney campaign took their shots at us, they have not answered the question of, did or did not the President obey a direct order from his military superior while he was a Lieutenant? Did he or did he -- was he or was he not suspended for failure to meet performance standards of the Air Force and Texas Air National Guard? If he didn't take the physical, why didn't he take the physical?"

And, on whether he might apologize or offer a retraction: "Not even discussed, and nor should it be. I want to make clear to you. I want to make clear to you, if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don't like the story would like to put the emphasis. The more important question is, what are the answers to the questions raised in this story which I just gave you earlier?"

See: www.mrc.org

-- Rather insisted to Joe Hagan of the New York Observer, for a story posted on September 15, that "powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can't deny the fundamental truth of the story." He added: "If you can't deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it's change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents....This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth."

Rather also equated the attacks on CBS to the "heat" CBS News took "during the McCarthy time."

-- Rather to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz for a September 16 article: "I don't back up. I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces."

For excerpts from the Hagan and Kurtz stories, see the September 16 CyberAlert: www.mrc.org

-- From Peter Johnson's September 16 USA Today story, an excerpt:

"People who are so passionately partisan politically or ideologically committed basically say, 'Because he won't report it our way, we're going to hang something bad around his neck and choke him with it, check him out of existence if we can, if not make him feel great pain.' They know that I'm fiercely independent and that's what drives them up a wall."

He said he expected to take heat on the story from Bush supporters and the right wing, which has long accused him of being liberal and pro-Democrat. Those camps "can't deny the message so they have to discredit and destroy the messenger," he said. "Anybody who has been around for a while understands that's going to happen. It goes with the territory."

Since the buildup to the war in Iraq, Rather said, the nation's news media have turned timid. "An awful lot of people in journalism have laid down and said: 'I'm not going to ask the tough questions. I'm not going to tell any tough truths' because when you do that, you're going to pay too heavy a price, and so a lot of people just walk away."

END of Excerpt

For a longer excerpt, see the September 17 CyberAlert: www.mrc.org

# Burkett's agenda and wrath:

-- "Questions Surround Man Who Provided Documents: CBS's 'Unimpeachable Source' Is Ex-Guard Officer With History of Problems and of Attacking Bush." An excerpt from the top of a September 21 Washington Post story by Michael Dobbs:

The man CBS News touted as the "unimpeachable source" of explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turns out to be a former Guard officer with a history of self-described mental problems who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings."

Over the past three years, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett has given dozens of newspaper and television interviews accusing the president and his aides of destroying documents and stealing elections. In e-mail messages to an Internet chat group for Texas Democrats, he has also said that the "Bush team" sent "goons" to intimidate him at his ranch in Baird, Tex.

"They can go to hell," the retired officer, 55, wrote in a March 29 posting. "I'll continue to defend the freedom of this nation -- not the liars who have wrested its helm."

Burkett's allegations against Bush and leaders of the Texas National Guard were featured prominently in a controversial book, "Bush's War for Reelection," by a former reporter, James Moore, that was published in February. The book led to Burkett's briefly becoming a TV talk-show celebrity, with his allegations of corruption and favoritism in the National Guard.

Stories about Burkett appeared in dozens of newspapers, including the New York Times, along with outraged denials from former Bush aides. Burkett said he overheard a conversation in 1997 between Joseph M. Allbaugh, who was then Bush's chief of staff, and the commander of the Texas National Guard on how to "sanitize" National Guard files to prevent any political embarrassment to Bush, who was running for reelection as governor of Texas.

A Feb. 13 story in the Boston Globe noted that a former Guardsman cited by Burkett as a key corroborating witness denied that he led Burkett to a room where Bush's records were being vetted. "I have no recall of that whatsoever," said George O. Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's. "None, zip, nada." Burkett later said that Conn, a civilian employee of the U.S military in Germany, recanted his story because of political pressure from the White House....

END of Excerpt

For the Dobbs story in full: www.washingtonpost.com

-- In a September 18 New York Times story, "Texan Involved in CBS Report Tried to Help Kerry Campaign," reporters David D. Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg documented how Burkett tried to peddle his claims to the Kerry campaign:

Bill Burkett, the former Texas National Guard officer who has been caught up in the mystery of how CBS News acquired memos that seem to question President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, unsuccessfully offered information and advice to help the Kerry campaign attack Mr. Bush, according to a posting Mr. Burkett wrote in an e-mail newsletter.

"I spent some time on the phone with the Kerry campaign seniors yesterday," Mr. Burkett wrote on Aug. 21 in an e-mail letter circulated to a list of about 600 Texas Democrats.

He complained that he had to "get through seven layers of bureaucratic kids trying to get a job after the election."

"I talked with Max Cleland," Mr. Burkett continued, referring to the former senator from Georgia who has been supporting Senator John Kerry's Democratic presidential bid.

Alluding to advertisements by a veterans group that deprecates Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service, Mr. Burkett continued, "I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. He said counterattack."

"So I gave them the information to do it with," Mr. Burkett wrote. "But none of them have called me back."

END of Excerpt

For the New York Times story in full: www.nytimes.com

-- In a March of 2003 Web posting on the Veterans for Peace Web site, Burkett outlined his claim that by "angering George W. Bush by refusing to falsify readiness information and reports; confronting a fraudulent funding scheme which kept 'ghost' soldiers on the books for additional funding George W. Bush and his lieutenants were mad. They ordered that I not be accessed to emergency medical care services..."

He predicted a big Iraq ruse: "Weapons of mass destruction will be discovered in great quantities; but the entire affair will stink to high heavens because it will be as staged as the White House press conference you just viewed. The human death toll will publicly not be mentioned, yet in truth, it will far exceed 120,000."

Comparing Bush to Hitler, he concluded his rant: "We must now revert to the history of Europe to discern what to do. We must study the nemesis of France and how Napoleon was felled before understanding the damage a tyrant does to a nation and society. We must examine the ruthless and dictatorial rise of yet another of the three small men -- one whose name is not spoken out of fear of reprisal, but his name was Adolf."

That's online at: www.veteransforpeace.org

Burkett's anger and paranoia should have been well known to CBS News -- if they cared.

-- Burkett came up with a dry hole in trying to find Killian memos harmful to Bush. In a Friday profile of Burkett in the Houston Chronicle, "Texan has a history of attacks on Bush: Possible CBS source has had his credibility questioned before," Michael Hedges revealed:
"One month ago, in an essay posted on a progressive Web site, Burkett theorized that Killian would have been a likely person to know more about Bush's service. But, he conceded, 'I have found no documentation from LTC Killian's hand or staff that indicate that this unit was involved in any complicit way to...cover for the failures of 1Lt. Bush...' Burkett went on to say, 'On the contrary, LTC Killian's remarks are rare.'"

For the September 17 Houston Chronicle article: www.chron.com

-- In an August 25 rant for the OnlineJournal.com, noted by James Taranto in his "Best of the Web" column for OpinionJournal.com ( www.opinionjournal.com ), Burkett spouted:
"George W. Bush, you may be the president [sic]. But I know that you lied.
"I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not fulfill your oath, taken when you were commissioned to 'obey the orders of the officers appointed over you.' I know that you not only lied to the American people in 1994, but have lied consistently since then....
"This is all bad enough, but to continuously lie to the American people for years is outrageous. One can easily see how this "slick Willie" act of falsity could potentially carry over into policy, such as weapons of mass destruction, an attack on Iraq, the price of a prescription drug program, your close insider working relationship with Ken Lay at Enron, or Vice President Cheney's [sic] personal relationships and dealings with Halliburton. Mr. Bush, you've forgotten what the truth is. You have attended so many of your own "closed town hall" meetings, that you've begun to believe the briefing cards of those hand-selected people in attendance."

"Sic" in brackets in original.

For the OnlineJournal posting: www.onlinejournal.com

For a look at how several media outlets in February treated Burkett's claims as credible: www.mediaresearch.org

# A full transcript of Rather's September 20 CBS Evening News story, as taken down by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth:

With a graphic of "CBS News" stylized lettering on top of a spread of memos with "Document Investigation" beneath, Rather began from the anchor desk:
"Now, news about CBS News, and the questions surrounding documents we aired on this broadcast and on the Wednesday edition of 60 Minutes on September 8th. The documents purported to show that George W. Bush received preferential treatment during his years in the Texas Air National Guard. At the time, CBS News and this reporter fully believed the documents were genuine. Tonight, after further investigation, we can no longer vouch for their authenticity. The documents were provided to CBS News by a former commander in the Texas Air Guard, Bill Burkett. He did not come to us. We went to him and asked him for the documents. Burkett is well known in National Guard circles for a long battle over his medical benefits and for trying for several years now to discredit President Bush's military service record. Burkett initially told CBS News he got the documents from a fellow Guardsman. But when we interviewed Burkett this past weekend, he changed his story and told us he got the documents from a different source, one we cannot verify. Why did Burkett tell CBS News something he now says is not true? We put the question to him."

Cut to taped interview set with a brownish background:
Rather to Burkett: "Why did you mislead us?"
Bill Burkett: "Well, I didn't totally mislead you. I did mislead you on the one individual. You know, your staff pressured me to a point to reveal that source."
Rather: "Well, we were trying to get the chain of possession-"
Burkett: "I understand that."
Rather: "-and you said you had received them from someone-"
Burkett: "I understand that."
Rather: "-and we did press you to say, well, you received from someone and that someone was whom?"
Burkett: "Yes."
Rather: "And it's true. We pressured you because it was a very important point for us."
Burkett: "And I simply threw out a name that was basically, it was a, I guess, to get a little pressure off for a moment."
Rather: "Have you forged anything?"
Burkett: "No, sir."
Rather: "Have you faked anything?"
Burkett: "No, sir."
Rather: "But you did mislead us?"
Burkett: "Yes, I misled you."
Rather: "You used the word lie?"
Burkett: "Yes, I did."
Rather: "You lied to us? Why would I or anyone believe that you wouldn't mislead us about something else?"
Burkett: "I could understand that question. I can't. That's going to have to be your judgement or anybody else's."
Rather narrated: "Burkett still insists the documents are real, but says he was in no position to verify them."
Burkett: "I also insisted when I sat down with your staff in the first face-to-face session, before I gave up any documents, I wanted to know what you were gonna do with them, and I insisted that they be authenticated."

Rather, back at the anchor desk: "The failure of CBS News to do just that, to properly, fully, scrutinize the documents and their source, led to our airing the documents when we should not have done so. It was a mistake. CBS News deeply regrets it. Also, I want to say personally and directly: I'm sorry. CBS News President, Andrew Heyward, has ordered an independent investigation to examine the process by which the report was prepared. The results of that investigation will be made public. This was an error made in good faith as we tried to carry on the CBS News tradition of asking tough questions and investigating reports. But it was a mistake.
"Now, some reaction to our revelations today. It comes from a spokesman for President Bush, Scott McClellan."
Scott McClellan, in a field: "Obviously there's still a number of questions that need to be answered. We look forward to seeing the results of the investigations that other media organizations have undertaken and that CBS says that they are now undertaking. And we appreciate the fact that they have said they deeply regret it, but we still want to see those questions answered."
Rather concluded, and yes this is what he said even though "insistence" should have been "insisted": "As Scott McClellan repeated, the White House insistence that President Bush fulfilled his obligation to the National Guard, and he noted again the President was honorably discharged."

# For the written statements released Monday from CBS News President Andrew Heyward and Dan Rather, as posted by Yahoo: biz.yahoo.com

The statements as posted by CBSNews.com in a gray sidebar at: www.cbsnews.com

Direct address for CBS News statement of September 20: www.cbsnews.com

Direct address for Dan Rather's statement: www.cbsnews.com

# For the MRC's coverage of CBS's "memogate," check the MRC's home page and the CyberAlert archive page: www.mediaresearch.org

In Exchange for Memos, CBS Asked Kerry
Campaign to Call Burkett

Dan Rather denounced the "partisan political operatives" who dared to question his fraudulent reporting, but USA Today on Tuesday revealed that a CBS News producer helped advance a partisan political agenda by agreeing to hook up Bill Burkett with the Kerry campaign in exchange for him providing the forged memos to CBS. USA Today disclosed that Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign "said a [CBS News] producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents."

"CBS arranged for meeting with Lockhart," read the September 21 headline over the article by Kevin Johnson, Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, who added that though "Lockhart couldn't recall the producer's name," CBS "said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart."

USA Today laid out the quid pro quo: "Burkett told USA Today that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign."

The reporting trio pointed out: "The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican President in the midst of an election. This 'poses a real danger to the potential credibility...of a news organization,' said Aly Col'n, a news ethicist at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies."

An excerpt from the remainder of the USA Today article:

Burkett said his interest in contacting the campaign was to offer advice in responding to Republican criticisms about Kerry's Vietnam service. It had nothing to do with the documents, he said.

"My interest was to get the attention of the national (campaign) to defend against the...attacks," Burkett said, adding that he also talked to former Georgia senator Max Cleland and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean during the past 45 days. "Neither the Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign had anything to do with the documents," he said.

Lockhart said he phoned Burkett at the number provided by CBS. Lockhart also said that the documents never came up in his conversation with Burkett. Lockhart said the conversation lasted just a few minutes. "It's possible that the producer said they had documents" before his conversation with Burkett, he said....

For the September 21 USA Today story in full: www.usatoday.com

ABC Frets Memos Distract from Bush Record,
Confirms Liberal Bias

Noteworthy aspects of ABC and NBC coverage Monday night of CBS's backtracking: On World News Tonight, ABC's Dan Harris failed to mention how, in an exclusive interview with ABC, Walter Staudt denied applying any pressure of George W. Bush's behalf or of having any pressure applied to him to accept Bush into the Guard, yet Harris concluded by fretting about how "this document debacle has almost completely overshadowed questions about George Bush's service in the National Guard, questions that remain unanswered." Over on the NBC Nightly News, Lisa Myers further undercut the only document expert CBS put on air, Marcel Matley, as she revealed that "Matley is a former librarian whose only formal document training was a mail-in correspondence course." Later, wrapping a Nightline piece, Jim Wooten lamented how since Dan Rather's concession "probably won't do much to change the minds of those who are throughly convinced" that the media "are hopelessly liberal...CBS and all the rest of us are now casualties of what he calls a 'self-inflicted wound.'"

(See the September 20 CyberAlert for the views of Staudt, whose pressure was cited in one of CBS's made-up memos. The item noted how ABC's World News Tonight skipped the network's own scoop on Friday, a blackout which continued on Sunday and Monday's World News Tonight (there is no Saturday newscast during college football season) and includes a still shot of Staudt from ABC's one and only on-air story which ran on Saturday's Good Morning America: www.mrc.org )

NBC's Lisa Myers asked in her Monday Nightly News piece, as transcribed by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth: "What did CBS know about the credentials of the only expert who stood up for the documents on air, Marcel Matley of San Francisco?"
Marcel Matley, from the September 10 CBS Evening News: "I would say, based on our available handwriting evidence, yes, this is the same person."
Myers explained: "Court documents obtained by NBC News reveal Matley is a former librarian whose only formal document training was a mail-in correspondence course. He has no law enforcement training."

As noted in the September 11 CyberAlert, the September 10 CBS Evening News featured a "handwriting analyst" who declared the Killian signature to be authentic, but who did not address any of the typography issues before he played arrogant martyr. The analyst, Marcel Matley, lamented: "I knew going in that this was dynamite one way or the other, and I knew that potentially it was far more potential damage to me professionally than benefit to me, and I knew that. But we seek the truth, that's what we do." See: www.mediaresearch.org

ABC's Jim Wooten concluded his review of the story for Monday's Nightline, the start of which Monday Night Football delayed until 1am EDT: "What the network discloses about its inner processes probably won't do much to change the minds of those who are throughly convinced that it, and all the rest of us who broadcast the news are hopelessly liberal -- all those who insist there is no other explanation for a bogus story based on phony documents. In that sense, Dan Rather, CBS and all the rest of us are now casualties of what he calls a 'self-inflicted wound.'"

The Father of the CBS News Producer Calls
Her "Typical Liberal"

The father of Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer who reportedly spent five years trying to prove George W. Bush received special treatment in the Air National Guard, a quest which culminated in her eager acceptance of the forged memos, described her as "a typical liberal" who "went into journalism with an axe to grind, and that was to promote radical feminism," FNC's Brit Hume relayed Monday night.

Hume read this item in his "Grapevine" segment on the September 20 Special Report with Brit Hume:
"One person who is not surprised that CBS News producer Mary Mapes was the person behind the story based on the discredited memos is Mapes' own father. In an interview on Seattle radio station KVI this past week, 76-year-old Don Mapes said, quote, 'I'm really ashamed what my daughter has become. She's a typical liberal.' He added, quote, 'She went into journalism with an axe to grind, and that was to promote radical feminism.' Mary's step mother meanwhile says, quote, 'Don and Mary don't really see eye to eye,' and says, quote, 'Sorry Mary's father made those remarks.'"

Late Show Mocks CBS: "We Report 9 Real
Stories and One Fake One"

Before John Kerry sat down with David Letterman on Monday's Late Show, the CBS program made fun of the CBS Evening News under Dan Rather's tutelage.

Over the actual CBS Evening News graphic and video clips of news events, an announcer plugged the newscast:
"Tonight on the CBS Evening News: We report nine real stories and one fake one. Can you guess which is which? You may be surprised. Only on the CBS Evening News."

-- Brent Baker