Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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The conversation with Hugh went well and interesting last night - he wants congressional hearings into the matter. If the primary players in this drama are put under oath, will they give the same answers that they gave to Thornburgh/Boccardi?

(The same question will arise in any wrongful-termination suits, but several readers point out that these suits are most likely to be settled out of court — at this point, CBS almost certainly wants this whole issue to just go away.)

Hearings during the presidential election would have been a mess, with many Democrats and media commentators rushing to defend CBS, and attempting to turn this into a First Amendment issue. It’s not; it’s a truth v. lies issue.

What is animating much of this "the story isn't over yet" attitude is the suspicion that the DNC’s ‘Fortunate Son’ advertising campaign was a direct result of the Mapes story - that the conversation between Mapes and Democrats went further than either side admitted. Hugh thinks that e-mail and phone records would indicate a much more extensive collusion between the two.

A Congressional panel subpoena for DNC e-mails would probably prompt Democrats to fight back with everything they have. But a subpoena for all CBS e-mails related to this story would be perceived as a undeniably legitimate avenue of investigation. Someone perpetuated a hoax in an attempt to sway the election, and some Congress would be following the trail wherever it leads.

I personally am skeptical that the DNC or the Kerry campaign had much to do with these memos — for starters, the memos were too amateurish and the Kerry camp was not that foolish. But Congressional hearings would be worthwhile so that some day political historians and journalism professors could definitively say, ‘the hoax was perpetuated by [this person].’

[Posted 01/14 10:57 AM]