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George Tenet's "60 Minutes" appearance on Sunday was the kickoff to a media tour seemingly designed to rehabilitate his reputation and sell his book.

Based on the reaction that has greeted that appearance, however, the former has not been happening. (We'll just have to wait and see how the book does.)

In a piece yesterday, Howard Kurtz wrote about his difficulty in finding a Tenet fan in the wake of the media blitz. "Somewhere out there, there must be someone defending George Tenet. I'm just having trouble finding that person (or persons)," he writes. Check out his piece for a roundup of the comments of the Tenet critics, who come from both sides of the political spectrum.

Kurtz adds this: "Whatever Tenet's strengths and weaknesses as CIA director, he quit three years ago. He accepted a presidential medal of freedom and then remained silent--until now, when he's peddling a book. If he felt so strongly about these intelligence issues, about the rush to war in Iraq, about the way he says he's been besmirched, why didn't he speak out before now? How does he justify having remained silent?"

(Tenet's defense, incidentally, was that he needed time to get his thoughts together. Quips Kurtz: "A lot of time, apparently.")

It's common for prominent figures to tie media tours to products they are trying to sell, whether they are books, movies, or even foreign policy. As "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Jeff Fager told me in Oct. 2005, "It's the way a number of stories are done these days."

When you're someone like Michael Jordan, who, according to Ed Bradley, only agreed to a "60 Minutes" interview to sell his book, there's little risk in that strategy. But when you're a political figure like Tenet, waiting to come clean until you've got something to hawk can damage your credibility.

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Last night's "60 Minutes" featured Scott Pelley's interview with former CIA director George Tenet. I've posted the full segment, in two parts, below.








In the interview, as well as in his book, Tenet talks about an encounter with Pentagon advisor Richard Perle outside the White House, which he said took place on Sept. 12, 2001. In a piece posted yesterday, the Weekly Standard's William Kristol wrote that this could not be the case, since Perle was stranded in France until Sept. 15.

In an interview this morning on "Today," Tenet said he "may have been off by a couple of days." But he insisted that the conversation took place. Said Tenet: "I may have gotten the days wrong, but I know I got the substance of that conversation correct."

The situation left "60 Minutes" and CBS News with a decision to make. Should the interview, available to all on the Internet, be recut to reflect these developments? Should the text version of the story be edited? Should nothing be changed?

Ultimately, "60 Minutes" Executive Editor Patti Hassler, after consulting with "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Jeff Fager and CBS News Senior Vice President Linda Mason, decided to leave the story unchanged – but with an editor's note added to summarize the new developments. CBSNews.com Director of News and Operations Mike Sims discussed this course of action with "60 Minutes" as well.

"The reason that we decided to add the editor's note is because Richard Perle had disputed what George Tenet said in his book and also said to us, and we wanted to include both Richard Perle's version and George Tenet's response to that," Hassler told Public Eye. "The video is the story that we aired, so to change that would not be transparent."

After the jump you can read the editor's note, which was added at the beginning of the Web version of the story, as well as in the portion of the story in which Tenet discusses his alleged meeting with Perle.

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