What we should be seeing now, both on American television and television abroad, are programs which put in perspective the looming question of whether the U.S. and its allies should use force to stop Bashar al-Assad from using chemical weapons and further committing war crimes and crimes against humanity (e.g. bombing or using artillery against civilian neighborhoods). These programs should be putting before the public the factual record of what has occurred in Syria since 2011, in all its bloody detail.

Instead, the coverage is like the coverage of a horse-race: Will Obama receive authorization for military action or not, which Senators and House Members are leaning this way or that way, and what do they have to say?

There is very little coverage of what has actually happened in Syria. This may be based on the premise that it has all been reported before. But the brutal fact about public memory in the age of mass media in 2013, when people don’t read the newspapers much any more, is that people don’t remember what they may have seen on TV a year or two ago, or a month ago. All of the past, all of the facts, are lost in the media in what may be termed “the infinite expansion of the present moment.”

So, we now hear that Charlie Rose has interviewed Bashar al-Assad, and CBS is going to broadcast excerpts from the interview on CBS News on Monday morning, and evening, across all of CBS’ news platforms, and PBS will broadcast the full interview in a special edition of the Charlie Rose Program on Monday night at 9:00 p.m.

For those who live outside of the Washington-New York media and political bubble, like the Trenchant Observer, some developments are so jaw-dropping that one must pinch oneself in the arm to make sure what one is seeing is not just a bad nightmare.

Now, Charlie Rose and CBS News have sounded the death knell for any idea that CBS or Charlie Rose is engaged in objective news reporting, as opposed to the immoral chase of ratings at whatever the cost—the moral cost, the cost to national security, the cost to the democratic process itself, which depends on an informed citizenry and the votes of their elected representatives.

Bashar al-Assad, in the interview, denies that his government was behind the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta on August 21, 2012.

Charlie Rose, who used to have a fairly interesting interview program on PBS, has long since evidenced the lack of preparation necessary to ask difficult questions, as his ambition has led him to also serve as an anchor on the CBS Morning News. His programs are now characterized by interventions which aim to show he knows everyone and everything, while allowing his speakers to say whatever they want without any sharp questioning, particularly any sharp questioning that would require preparation and a deep knowledge of the facts.

CBS News has itself entered the fray now, giving a voice to Syrian propaganda at a critical moment which may affect the Congressional vote on whether or not to authorize military action against Syria.

We can all see now that CBS’ News’ analysis is worthless, or sidelined by commercial considerations which manifest in essence a disloyalty to the United States, which amounts to the same thing.

What were they thinking?

Has CBS News formed no judgments as to what has been going on in Syria in the last two and a half years? Have they reached no conclusions regarding who has been responsible for the commission on a massive scale of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of chemical weapons?

Do they understand they are placing al-Assad on a platform of moral equivalency to the President of the United States by broadcasting the interview with him on Monday, the very day President Obama is seeking to make the case to the American people for military action in Syria, and one night before he formally addresses the nation on the subject?

This is one of the most most shameful spectacles in the history of CBS News, which as we all know has become but a shadow of its former self.

How can outstanding correspondents such as Bob Schieffer and Lara Logan continue to work for such a company, which is now willing to offer its airwaves for the propaganda of one of the greatest war criminals of this or the last century?

I can imagine that CBS News—the 2013 version and not the Edward R. Murrow or the Walter Cronkite version—would broadcast an interview with Adolf Hitler denying the existence of Auschwitz and the gassing of the Jews, as Allied forces closed in on Berlin in 1945.

The promotional ads might sound something like this:

“On the one hand, we have the reports of intelligence and military officials who have confirmed the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and how they were used. On the other hand, German Leader Adolf Hitler denies these allegations, maintaining that they are fabrications of the Allied Powers’ propaganda machine.

Now, here, we present an interview with Mr. Hitler taped earlier today. You can listen to his arguments, and you yourself can decide which side has the stronger case.”

This action is so offensive that Charlie Rose, and CBS News, can now count on the permanent loss of this viewer. In fact, a boycott of the Charlie Rose program and of CBS News would not be a bad idea for others to consider.

And let us bear in mind, to understand how utterly immoral the Washington political-media complex has become, that the brother of Ben Rhodes, one of Obama’s top foreign policy advisers, is the President of CBS News.

Instead of presenting documentaries on what has occurred during the last two and a half years of the civil conflict in Syria, and citing the UN and other reports which have documented in great detail the barbarism and atrocities committed by the al-Assad regime, CBS News and the Charlie Rose Program on PBS give us…SYRIAN PROPAGANDA!

The head of CBS News, and everyone else responsible for this atrocious decision, should be immediately sacked. Charlie Rose should depart CBS News. And PBS should drop the Charlie Rose program forthwith.

What is involved is the nation’s security, at a delicate moment in which the electorate is uninformed, or trying to second guess the decisions of the commander in chief as to what specific military means and objectives should be pursued to safeguard the vital national interests of the country.

Here, the timing is everything, and reveals the utter lack of moral bearings of Charlie Rose and CBS News alike.

The Trenchant Observer