Adding Up Accountability

Thank you for publishing Margaret Carlson’s Jan. 13 column, “The Truth Shall Set You Back.” That the Bush administration highly approved of CBS’ move is hardly surprising, but one can’t help but be slightly taken aback that President Bush saw fit to almost simultaneously award medals to those in his administration who also provided erroneous documentation. Is it somehow more forgivable to provide false information that promulgates a bloody war than that which might denigrate Bush in any way?

Joan Lee

St. Charles, Mo.

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As pundits find an easy target in Dan Rather and CBS about fake documents, we have ended our search for weapons of mass destruction. I would redraw and rephrase Michael Ramirez’s Jan. 13 editorial cartoon with a departing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on a horse with the caption, “Evidence, schmevidence, I didn’t know nothing. I am just a talking head reporting the facts.... And, I still believe they’re accurate.”

As Carlson accurately illustrates, there is one major difference: No one ever seems responsible for the current administration’s mistakes.

Tim Kearney

Laguna Niguel

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I found it interesting that on the same day the search for the infamous weapons of mass destruction was officially called off after two years of futility, Michael Ramirez reminds us of Dan Rather’s retirement over the Bush memo fiasco.

The cartoon is, of course, a lesson to anyone that the consequences are severe for whoever uses a position of trust to pass off false evidence as fact to the American people.

I still have two questions: Has anyone died because of the CBS story? And, more important, has anyone been fired for Bush’s repeated contentions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that have led to more than 1,350 U.S. military deaths?

Eric Burgess

Monrovia