In a rather testy on-air exchange, circa 12:30am PST, between Dan Rather, CBS anchor, and Ed Bradley, long-time corresponent for CBS's 60 Minutes and an election night commentator, Bradley rather roundly criticized both Kerry and his own network for not accepting the obvious mathematics and calling the election for Bush.
Bradley pointed out that Bush leads Kerry by 145,000 votes in Ohio, and even if 250,000 provisional ballots remain (which he considered a high estimate), and that even if all the provisional ballots are valid, Kerry would need 79% of them in order to tie. A result Bradley considered impossible. Rather's reply was basically that "it was the position of CBS News to not call the race." Rather made no attempt to refute Bradley on the facts, except to state and restate that this is what CBS was going to do.
I'd love to see the transcript of the exchange. I do wonder how much Rather's trashing of 60 Minute's reputation had to do with Bradley's willingness to challenge Rather and CBS on the air.
BTW, does anyone know how that Rathergate investigation is going?