Opinion

‘60 Minutes’ apologizes for errors in Benghazi story

That was instructive.

Within two weeks of its bombshell report on the night the US ambassador to Libya was killed in Benghazi, CBS’s “60 Minutes” offered a public retraction. Correspondent Lara Logan appeared on air Sunday, where she said, “The truth is, we made a mistake.”

The problem was that the main source for the story proved a fraud, a British contractor who appeared under the pseudonym Morgan Jones.

He claimed to CBS he’d scaled the compound wall and fought off the enemy in an effort to help the Americans under siege. The “60 Minutes” account broke down when other news organizations reported his real name — Dylan Davies — and that he’d told the FBI he’d been at his home all night.

We make no excuses for “60 Minutes.”

Clearly its team ought to have been far more thorough in checking out its top source before going to air. Even so, we are struck by the contrast between a private news organization’s admission of error and a White House that continues to keep us in the dark about what went down that night.

Remember, the Obama administration first tried to pin the whole thing on a spontaneous attack sparked by an anti-Muslim filmmaker rather than admit what was obvious to all on the ground: a terrorist attack.

There remain many unanswered questions about this attack, which led to Christopher Stevens’ becoming the first US ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979. Meanwhile, the president still refuses to make the survivors available to Congress, a move that has led Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC) and John McCain (Ariz.) to vow to hold up approval of Obama nominees until they do so.

“60 Minutes” gave America a false and misleading account of that terrible day, but when it learned the embarrassing truth, its lead correspondent didn’t say to the American people, “What does it matter?” She said: “We will apologize to our viewers, and we will correct the record.”

We’re still waiting for President Obama to stand up and do the same.