CBS's Unreal Investigation

Once again, we're proud to have our byline on the same page as Joe Hagan's. Hagan, the Observer's TV writer, is way, way deeper into the CBS/Dan Rather/Bush National Guard story than any other reporter, and this week he's reporting from Texas with an antidote to the official version in which blameless corporate executives were cruelly betrayed by their, perhaps biased, subordinates in the news business. Hagan has come across some taped conversations with the detective CBS hired, supposedly to determine the truth of the mysterious documents and of the whole story. He reports that the detective, Eric Rigler, "went on to say that interviews with former National Guardsmen were leading him to believe the truth of the documents, if not their authenticity." But for a variety of reasons, CBS apparently wasn't that interested in where Rigler was headed. "This is not a real investigation," Rigler said on one tape.