The program was lauded by critics and helped revive CBS's documentary tradition. But nearly everything in the report was a lie. There were no 16-year-old Navy SEALS. In any case, Steve Southards was never a Navy SEAL at all and spent a good deal of time in a Navy brig for going AWOL. Burkett used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the service records of each of the veterans CBS profiled and discovered that some had not served in Vietnam at all, and others had never been where they said they were, never held the rank they claimed, and never received the medals of which they boasted. Burkett shared this information with Rather and CBS. But the response in 1988 was a total stonewall. The CBS president proclaimed that "this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."
The falsehoods and libels about American servicemen in Vietnam did not originate with Rather or CBS, but both played huge roles in legitimizing those lies.
Just as in the case of the forged National Guard documents, Dan Rather did not just commit an error or get duped, he led with his chin. It was a matter of a simple FOIA request to discover the service records of those bogus vets. But Dan Rather and CBS liked the story of savage Americans sent abroad to commit atrocities by their venal government. It was too delicious to check.
This time, on the National Guard story, there is a reckoning. The Internet, talk radio, Fox News and conservative print journalists have risen up like ghosts to haunt Dan Rather. CBS cannot get away with the stonewall this time. The same forces that have humbled the Kerry campaign -- the formerly silenced Vietnam Veterans, conservatives and bloggers -- have taken a huge bite out of CBS. And one has a gratifying sense of justice about the whole thing.