Dan Rather Death Watch: Gil Schwartz On The Line?

In the wake of Dan Rather's memo gaffe (you did hear about that, right? It was on "The Daily Show" or something), CBS brass is looking to place blame wherever they can. When you're a pissed network exec, canning Dan Rather isn't satisfying enough, you know? You need to behead as many people as you can! As such, we hear they've turned their attention to PR flackster Gil Schwartz.

Schwartz was the architect behind the original defense of the "60 Minutes" story and those precious documents behind the current shitstorm. Schwartz advised CBS News head Andrew Heyward and Rather on their frequent media appearances defending the story —that is, in the days before the network and Rather were finally forced to apologize.

Apparently, Schwartz (famous as pseudononymous author "Stanley Bing," who — giggle — writes about corporate strategy) blew the strategy on this one, thinking the story would go away if CBS and Rather just stonewalled the public long enough. Oopsies!