Rather’s ‘sorry’ … Is that all?

On Monday, CBS News Anchor Dan Rather finally admitted that the network could not authenticate the documents he aired on “60 Minutes Wednesday” to impugn President Bush’s record in the Texas Air National Guard.

“We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry.”

So, Danny Boy, what now? You have done your dead-level best to trash the reputation of the president of the United States with a story based on phony documents, while members of your staff were having close encounters with the Kerry campaign and all you can say is, “I’m sorry.” Is that it?

Dan Rather’s boss, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, went further and announced that the network is commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and to determine what actions need to be taken consisting of former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Louis Boccardi. Presumably, Michael Moore, Joe Lockhart, James Carville and Kitty Kelly were all unavailable.

Seriously, how can CBS or anyone in the nation trust Thornburgh? After all, he is a Republican! With a little digging, I’m quite sure that CBS will discover he has – horrors – donated to one or more GOP candidates’ campaigns.

Isn’t that the standard by which the media elite systematically dismissed the concerns raised about John Kerry’s war record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that contains every single one of Kerry’s former commanding officers?

Oh, forgot! In the interest of fairness, Kerry’s commanding officers would have to be dead for several years and have their statements meticulously copied and recopied at Kinko’s before they could be considered airworthy.

We now know that CBS received copies of the disputed documents critical of Bush’s Air National Guard service from Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard – not even the same branch of service – who has an ax to grind with Bush.

No red flags were raised at CBS because Burkett, after all, is not a Republican.

After telling CBS he got the documents from a former National Guard colleague, who works for the U.S. Army (still wrong branch of the service) in Europe, Burkett now claims he got them from a woman named Lucy Ramirez. Who is this woman and why would she have access to the private files of the late Lt. Col Jerry Killian? No one seems to know.

And, what happened to the originals? You will love this. Burkett told USA Today that after making the copies at Kinko’s, he burned the originals in Kinko’s parking lot. If only Monica had burned that blue dress!

In the interest of fairness, what can Dan Rather, “60 Minutes Wednesday” and CBS now do to undo the damage done to Bush?

To borrow some words from Frank Sinatra:

What can I do to prove it to you that I’m sorry

I didn’t mean to ever be mean to you …

Why should I take somebody like you and shame you …

So what can I say dear after I say I’m sorry

Rather could begin by explaining to his viewers that perhaps, just perhaps, all this airtime spent on the fact that Bush may have missed a flight physical while assigned to a National Guard post in Alabama, was straining at a gnat.

The unit in Alabama had no F-102s – the plane Bush was qualified to fly. There was no need for him to take that physical because, at that time, the only thing Bush was flying was a desk. Furthermore, if your flight physical expires (as mine does at the end of this month) as soon as you take it, you’re good to go back to the wild blue yonder. There is no harm, no foul!

B.G. Burkett, the author of the definitive book on Vietnam vets, “Stolen Valor,” pointed out that between 1968-1972, the fuel budget for these pilots had been cut 75 percent. There simply was not enough fuel to keep all pilots proficient. Also, the F-102 was being phased out. Could Bush have been retrained to fly another aircraft? Of course. However, it takes months to train a pilot to fly these high-performance jets and, since Bush was nearing the end of his six-year commitment, it made more sense to keep him on the ground and give the younger guys the fuel and new planes.

So, CBS, what do you do after you say, “I’m sorry”?

Here’s your big chance to prove you are something other than “Rather” biased.