http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05012/440801.stmWhat happens when you base a big project on questionable information?
Well, if you work for CBS News, you get a pink slip. If you work for George W. Bush, you get a promotion or a medal.
It's telling that this should be so, given that the stakes in the cases at hand are so wildly uneven.
The use of unverifiable documents for a story about Bush's National Guard service 30 years ago was a huge blunder, to be sure, and CBS did what it had to do for the sake of its damaged credibility. It sought an outside investigation by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press President Louis Boccardi; the network adopted their recommendations and also fired the four people it held most accountable.
Yet in the hierarchy of screw-ups with serious repercussions for the country, that incident pales next to the bad intelligence and flawed assumptions that have informed our war in Iraq and all the fruit of its poisoned tree.