Live Thread: Ben Barnes and CBS Attempt Another Bush Smear (60 Minutes)

www.freerepublic.com | September 8, 2004

[Howlin]

Have at him!

[mcg1969]

Watching only improves their ratings

Not unless you're a Nielsen family.

[faithincowboys]

I think the Republicans should lock and load now.

[jveritas]

This will have zero impact my friend. People will realize how the Democrats are so desperate to keep going with the same crap again and again and again.

People will judge President Bush on his record as the Commander In Chief in the last four years and his record is very good.

[cyncooper]

Our house joins your house.

[noexcuses]

those documents Dan Blather presented...

What were they supposed to be?

[bitt]

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=43213


"Hotline: Busted! FCC to levy $550G fine for Jackson's flash
By Sandra Kent from Herald staff and wire reports
Wednesday, September 8, 2004

The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to levy a $550,000 fine against CBS-owned stations for Janet Jackson's Super Bowl ``wardrobe malfunction.''

The nation's broadcast watchdog will announce the fine in the next week or two, according to several news reports. All five commissioners are expected to approve the fine, although some on the panel believe the penalty isn't harsh enough. Jackson's brief breast flash, which came at the end of the Super Bowl halftime show, spurred both houses of Congress to consider giving the FCC greater power to penalize broadcasters. The House has passed a bill increasing maximum fines, and the Senate is working on a similar measure.


:"Hey CBS - SCR$W YOU!"

[tapatio]

oops!

[ArmyBratproud]

Barnes is a fraud. Greg Knap on KLIF pointed that out today...he also interviewed Will Campenni who flew with Bush.

I am doing a write up of that and will post soon.

AS FAR AS BARNES....

Earlier today...Hannity said that Barnes swore under oath in 1999 that he did not help Bush get into the Guard.

ALSO...It seems that in the past...Barnes has claimed that he helped Bush get into the Guard when he was LT Gov.

The radio made the point that Bush went into the Guard in 68......Barnes was not Lt. Gov until 1969.
(digging up confirmation on that)

The liberal college prof that they showed...has actually done work with the DNC and is friends with Hill Clinton.

I thought it desperate that 60 minutes would say...they had an expert look at the supposed documents to see if a guy really wrote them. THEY WERE TYPED DOCUMENTS.

They guys who they said had the documents...has come out in the past and admitted they were not real. He is dead not...so Rather thought...why not try it again.

[mystery-ak]

What documents are you referring to?

[Laverne]

I got a request also; will be giving them some more money later this evening.

[cyncooper]

Hello.

For those of us in a time zone where the program has not aired yet and, at any rate, have no plans of watching this thing, could you be so kind as to explain what "these memos" purportedly say?

[ride the whirlwind]

That's a good point about JfnK.
I watched most of Rather's blockbuster interview just now, and really wished I could've smacked the smug look off of his face. Then I turned to Fox in time to hear Nader harping on the same stuff. Grrrrrrrrr

[Theodore R.]

Ben Barnes, who represented Comanche County in the legislature in the 1960s while still in his twenties, says that his mentor, the late John B. Connally, Jr., tried to persuade him to switch parties in 1973, when Connally made the bolt. Barnes said that he told Connally he could not do so because he disbelieved in the principles of the Republican Party and was a liberal Democrat at heart.

[Shortstop7]

I just sent an email also, before I came here to read posts.

Asked if Rather/CBS would be asking Kerry why he wouldn't sign Form 180? What were the atrocities Kerry admitted to commiting in Vietnam? Also why they don't challenge Kerry about lying about being in Cambodia, flipflopping on Iraq. The list goes on and on.

I won't hold my breath. No wonder their news ratings are in "the crapper".

The amazing thing to me is that MSM just gets worse and worse in their blatant campaigning for Kerry. Disgusting.

[Shqipo]

My contributions are going strictly to the Swifties until the Bush campaign starts mocking the medias shameless bias and calls all of them journalistic girley-men for not asking Kerry ONE STINKIN DIRECT question about Cambodia, not signing Form 180, his campaigns direct connections to Moveon.slime., etc.,

[GOPrincess]

Didn't Kerry try to get a deferment to study in France? When it was turned down he joined the Navy.

[Hayzo]

Yah! And you have legs too! So use them and go back to DU!

[Donna Lee Nardo]

Do they disclose for all to see that barnes is a kerry contributor/supporter/asp licker?

[faithincowboys]

And did folks use CYA back then?

I wasn't around back then, but I always thought that was a somewhat new thing.

Did they go into other people's files too?

And isn't it funny, everybody's dead. Maybe that makes sense. It was a long time ago, but everybody but Barnes is dead.

Don't you think, if Barnes was making these allegations against Kerry, that we would have heard all about Barnes long running problem with following the law. Oh, Heavens, Barnes would have had to pull a Boorda by now.

I really think CBS News should strap a crotch camp with Dan when he is interviewing people to screw Bush. I suspect Dan had a Hell of a boner during this interview. It almost look like he reached completion during this interview. It was nauseating.

[bitt]

CBS) Former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Governor Ben Barnes tells Correspondent Dan Rather that he regrets what he calls the "life or death" decision he made to help President Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard.

Rather's report, which will include new information about Bush's military service, will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

---

Following are quotes from Rather's interview with Barnes:

Barnes on his decision to help George W. Bush and others get into the National Guard:
"I've thought about it an awful lot and you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did a few months ago and, I tell you, you'll think about it a long time. ...I don't think that I had any right to have the power that I had to choose who was going to Vietnam and who was not going to Vietnam. That's power. In some instances, when I looked at those names, I was maybe determining life or death and that's not a power that I want to have. ..."

Barnes on his feelings of regret:
"It would be very easy for me to sit here and tell you, Dan, that I had wrestled with this and lost a lot of sleep at night, but I wouldn't be telling you the truth. I...not eagerly, but readily, was willing to call and get those young men into the National Guard that were friends of mine and supporters of mine. ...Reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding. But it happened and it's not...something I'm necessarily proud of."




Thirty years after the fact, Barnes says he is one of many Americans still trying to make peace with what he did during the war.

"I've thought about it an awful lot. And you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did a few months ago, and I tell you, you'll think about it a long time," says Barnes.

"I don’t think I had any right to have the power that I had, to choose who was going to go to Vietnam and who was not going to go to Vietnam. That's power. In some instances, when I looked at those names, I was maybe determining life or death. And that's not a power that I want to have."

"Too strong or not to say that you are ashamed of it now," asks Rather.

"Oh, I think that would be somewhat of an appropriate thing," says Barnes. "I'm very, very sorry."-->

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2004




"Essentially, Bush gamed the system to avoid serving his country the way that most of his contemporaries had to."
Larry Korb, former assistant Secretary of Defense


(CBS/AP) As a fighter pilot for the Texas Air National Guard, then-Lt. George W. Bush was assigned to fly F-102's out of Houston's Ellington Air Force Base. Early on, he received excellent evaluations, say reports released years ago by the White House.

What has never surfaced before, reports CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, are four documents from the personal files of Col. Jerry Killian, Mr. Bush's squadron commander. They could help answer lingering questions on whether Lt. Bush received special consideration during his military service.

The first memo is a direct order to take "an annual physical examination" – a requirement for all pilots.

---

60 Minutes Correspondent Dan Rather has an exclusive interview with former Texas House speaker and Lt. Governor Ben Barnes, about the role Barnes says he played in getting George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard, Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., ET/PT

---

Another memo refers to a phone call from the lieutenant in which he and his commander "discussed options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November." And that due to other commitments "he may not have time."

On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Lt. Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards and for failure to take his annual physical as ordered.

A year after Lt. Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to write another assessment.

Killian's memo, titled 'CYA' reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation; to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

Thirty-one years later, supporters of now-President Bush have been critical of opponent John Kerry's Vietnam record. Now it's the president's turn to answer tough questions about his own service.

It was just what the White House had hoped to avoid – a new examination of the president's military record just as he seeks to reinforce his credentials as a wartime leader. And Republican officials wasted no time taking dead aim at Ben Barnes' claim that he pulled strings to get George W. Bush into the National Guard, reports CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts.

"I chalk it up to politics," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. "They play dirty down in Texas. I've been there. I see how it works. But the bottom line is that there is no truth to this."

Asked if this is dirty politics, Bartlett replied, "Oh, I think it is."

They also undercut the personal notes Mr. Bush's former commander, Col. Jerry Killian, wrote for his own files, saying "it's impossible to read the mind of a dead man."

More difficult to brush off are two official memos that seem to contradict previous White House statements.

One "orders" the president to report for a physical. The White House has said the physical was "not necessary" because the president stopped flying.

And where the White House says the president's flying status was revoked simply for missing that physical, the memo points to both the missed physical and "failure to perform to (USAF/TexANG) standards."

"The official files tell the facts," says Bartlett. "And the facts are President Bush served. He served honorably. And that's why he was honorably discharged."

It's not just the newly discovered memos causing trouble. There are new questions as to why, when he moved to Massachusetts to attend Harvard Business School, Mr. Bush did not sign up with a reserve unit there, as he promised in a letter when he left the Texas National Guard

And why, with his erratic attendance record, he was subject to neither discipline nor active duty call-up as provided for in his contract with the Guard.

Larry Korb, an assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan has reviewed the Mr. Bush's record and believes he did not fulfill his contract.

"Essentially, Bush gamed the system to avoid serving his country the way that most of his contemporaries had to," Korb said.

And on top of all this, the Democrats' answer to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth unleashed an ad Wednesday charging President Bush was AWOL from the Alabama National Guard in the summer of 1972.

But like their Republican counterparts, Texans for Truth has a credibility problem. While the chief accuser, former Alabama Guard pilot Bob Mintz, says in the ad it would have been impossible for Mr. Bush to have gone unnoticed, in an interview earlier this year with CBS News, Mintz admitted he's not a smoking gun.

"I cannot say he was not there," Mintz said. "Absolutely positively was not there. I cannot say that. I cannot say he didn't do his duty."


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