Reply #14: I still don't get the whole "Rove F'd Rather" thing... [View All]

[hughee99]

I mean, I understand how Rove could have set up Rather, but in the end, it seems like if Rather and his producer had done the kind of background checking and research that we would expect, then Rove's deception never would have worked. They would have found the report to be suspect at best, and not put it on the air until they were able to authenticate it. CBS has put unintentionally false reports on before, only later to find out that information was not accurate. Producers and reporters were not usually fired in the past for this. I'm sure that someone in the * administration put pressure on CBS, and certainly they pushed the "scandal", but I think the much of the pressure came internally from those at CBS who felt that Mapes didn't do enough checking on this before airing it, and that it would hurt their reputation as a reliable news organization. Rove may have set them up, but Mapes and Rather are not blameless in this.