Is the CBS report a whitewash? Yes and no. No, it is not because it documents cases of bias. Yes because it refuses to make judgments about them.

I've seen arguments for and against declaring your biases up front. The theory is that a trained reporter will only report what actually happened. In this case, what happened ran up against a brick wall. Mary Mapes is certain that she knows what happened - so certain that she ignored a host of red flags. To this day she still maintains that the memos are accurate, even if they are not original. In other words, she is so certain that Bush got preferential treatment that mere facts will not dissuade her.

And there is the problem with fair and balanced reporting. Mapes is certain that she is reporting the unbiased truth.

That's why I named my blog "The Truth According to Mark". I could be wrong. I admit it. My own biases tell me that Bush didn't need favors to get into the Guard. They were short on pilots at the time. Being a pilot required significantly more time than other duties, not even counting the college degree. Outright draft dodgers preferred to take their chances with a waiting list rather than signing up to be pilots.

Mapes, on the other hand, sees the open slots as something sinister. Places that were kept open for favored sons.

We both have biases but she reported hers as the unvarnished truth on national TV during the presidential campaign.

Anyway... The report shows all of this. Mapes' biases are there for anyone who reads the report. But they never come out and say that she is biased.

Maybe they are right. Maybe she just got caught up in the hunt for a big story. Or maybe the panel's own biases are showing and they went overboard in giving her the benefit of the doubt.

It is also possible that CBS insisted that they take out explicit mentions of bias. In this case it would be a whitewash.

In any case, as the panel sees it, Mapes got a hot story and was afraid that someone else would break it first so they rushed through the vetting process. Along the way she totally misunderstood what the experts were telling her about the authenticity of the documents. She insisted that document experts were like medical experts in a court case - you hired one who would say what you needed said. To her, it was more important that people who knew Killian agreed that he might have written the memos than that the memos themselves were authentic. Even here, she heard what she wanted to hear. The people she quoted did not have personal knowledge of the memos.

She also insisted and continues to insist that the memos mesh perfectly. She is wrong here, also. The report has a section on this.

One big problem that come out in the report is that Mapes makes up facts in order to keep her story going. There is nothing in the record to suggest that pilot seats were reserved for VIPs or that General Staudt had any influence 18 months after his retirement but the report quotes her making these assertions.

Mapes is history now, at least at CBS. The report also shows massive problems in CBS's response to challenges to the story.

The first wave of challenges was dismissed as being from biased right-wing sources. This was balanced against the number of congratulatory emails the story received. Even the report dismisses the initial attacks although that is what fed the mainstream media stories.

It is interesting that all of the points that bloggers first picked up on were also pointed out by one of the document experts. She even noticed how easy it was to reproduce one of the memos in Word. Mapes covered this up.

CBS's response to the challenges was to stonewall. The producers were supposed to come up with more experts. Instead they re-edited footage already shot and represented it as new. They made other statements that came close to outright lies.

The closest the report comes to saying that the documents are forged comes on page 184 when it discusses Peter Tytell. Tytell is a typography expert and is convinced that the memos were forged. The report admits that, had Tytell talked with the right people at CBS then the 60 Minutes Wednesday management probably would not have continued to support the story.

Instead though, CBS shopped for experts who supported their story. If someone came forward as a sympathetic expert they were put on the air with little vetting. The fact that CBS News was allowed to act this way shows a lot of institutional problems. The report had specific recommendations for remedies. Time will tell.

None of this will eliminate bias. As I said at the beginning, if you are convinced that you are telling the truth then you don't see your biases.

All of which argues in favor of announcing your biases up front and letting your audience decide.