Posted on 09/15/2004 6:13:25 PM PDT by ambrose
GOP Slams CBS On Bush Memos
CBS News Continues To Defend The Story
Sep 15, 2004 6:47 pm US/Mountain
Congressional Republicans turned the high heat on CBS News, charging that last week's revelations about Lt. George Bush, which aired on 60 Minutes, were based on fake documents and demanding that 60 Minutes and Dan Rather retract the story.
"It's very clear the documents were forged. They were laid on him and this time he bit," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.
Forty members of the House signed a letter accusing the network of deception--in a letter asking CBS if the documents are authentic, why won't the network say how it got them, reports CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews.
"I think at the very least CBS should characterize the source," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri. "I think it's amazing that they haven't already done that."
In a related development, CBS News released a statement renewing its defense of the story. The network also released letters from two document examiners who reviewed the memos.
The dispute involves memoranda 60 Minutes says it got from the personal file of Lt. Bush's Air National Guard commander, Lt Col Jerry Killian. The memos that accuse Mr. Bush of disobeying an order and of using connections to have Killian "sugarcoat" Mr. Bush's record.
However, some experts doubt the authenticity of the memos. Killian's secretary -in an interview with 60 Minutes, tells Dan Rather she too believes the memos are fake, but accurately reflect KIllian's view of Lt. Bush.
"I know that I didn't type them. However, the information in those is correct," Marian Knox said.
Knox said Col. Killian liked Mr. Bush, but not his attitude.
"Killian was very friendly with Bush. They had fun together. And I think it upset him very much that he was being defied," she said.
CBS News officials said the memo came from a confidential source, and that they remain certain the content of the story is true.
"We would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe in every aspect of it," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward.
However, Heyward also said the network will try to resolve what he calls the unresolved issues.
"Enough questions have been raised that we are going redouble our efforts to answer those questions," he said.
Some at this network believe the backlash against the 60 Minutes report is pure politics. But that's the critics' point as well -- that fake, or real, the fact that 60 Minutes got these documents during an election year was no accident.
Last week 60 Minutes reported that documents from Killian indicated Mr. Bush didn't follow orders to take a physical and that Killian was being pressured to sugarcoat his performance ratings. Mr. Bush's father was a Texas congressman at the time. The network has not revealed how it obtained the documents.
Questions were immediately raised about the documents' legitimacy, with some believing they were produced by a computer not available at the time.
CBS News says the original report used several different techniques to make sure the memos were genuine, including talking to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have been created on a typewriter in the 1970s ? as opposed to a modern-day word-processing software program.
CBS has also said its story about Mr. Bush's guard service relied on much more than documents. Featured in the segment was former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat who claims he pulled strings to get Mr. Bush into the Guard in 1968.
CBS News has said the report by did not rely on assessments made by the two examiners quoted in the ABC report, and found it notable the secretary affirmed the content of the documents.
"We continue to believe in this story," said CBS News senior vice president Betsy West.
Emily Will, a documents examiner from North Carolina hired by CBS, said she told the network before the report aired that she questioned handwriting in the documents she was shown and whether it could have been produced by a typewriter.
Her main concern was that she was not provided a known sample of the signature to use for comparison.
Will said she e-mailed a CBS producer and urged her the night before the broadcast not to play up that a professional document examiner had authenticated the papers.
"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News.
Another expert hired by CBS, Linda James of Plano, Texas, told ABC that "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it understood that I did."
James told AP late Tuesday she raised similar concerns about signature samples.
"I really pressed that because I knew that other document examiners looking at the same documents would have a real problem authenticating these," she said.
West said Will did not contact the network the night before the report aired.
"I am not aware of any substantive objections raised," she said. "She did not urge us to hold the story."
James told CBS News that she needed to know more about the documents before rendering any judgments, West said. CBS contacted five document experts before the report aired and two since, and continues to report the story, the network said.
CBS News said that Will and James played only a "peripheral role" in assessing the documents, and had seen only one of the four used in the report. Ultimately they deferred to another expert who has seen all four documents, Marcel Matley, and who continues to back up CBS' account.
However, Matley has told CNN, The Washington Post and other media organizations that his work was limited to verifying that the signatures on the memos came from the same source. He did not, he says, claim that the documents themselves were authentic.
Questions have been raised for years about Mr. Bush's entry into and service in the Guard, especially a period from mid-1972 to mid-1973 for which there is conflicting evidence Mr. Bush performed his duties. It is known that he missed a flight physical during that time.
On Tuesday, a private anti-Bush group called Texans for Truth offered a $50,000 reward for "anyone who can prove Bush's claim that he fulfilled his service requirements."
The White House contends Mr. Bush received no favorable treatment and fulfilled his duties. The president on Tuesday addressed the National Guard Association of the United States conference in Las Vegas, Nev. He honored the sacrifice of National Guardsmen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and expressed pride in his stateside stint in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. He did not address the controversy over his service.
Newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Mr. Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972, The Associated Press has reported.
The Boston Globe newspaper has reported that on two occasions while serving in the Guard, Mr. Bush signed documents in which he pledged to fulfill training commitments or else face an involuntary call-up to active duty.
This is DIRECTLY COUNTER to the statement by CBS tonight:
From this article
- Matley says the signatures are, indeed, Killian’s. (attachment 1)
All Matley has said is that they are from the SAME PERSON.
Not "allegations", "revelations"!
"The old saw says, "Let sleeping dogs lie." Right. Still when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it."
"We would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe in every aspect of it," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward.
The operative word here is "did".
Mr. Heyward, do you now believe?
Well, at least certain things are abundantly clear by now.
CBS are lying liars who tell lies. They are beyond the pale. They hold their audience in utter contempt. They are the enemy of truth.
Somebody needs to get to the secretary and get on record what type of typewriters were available in the Col's office. I mean she used them everyday so she must know.
Somebody did do just that. Try to read one of the 10 or so different interviews she gave yesterday.
She used a manual Olympia & upgraded to a Selectric sometime in the early 70's. She did not say she upgraded to a Selectric Composer. The Selectric does not do proportional spacing & I haven't been able to find out if any of the Olympia's of that era did.
Does anyone know where I can get the President's ANG records so I can pick up that $50K? I heard Phil Valentine read a story about Bush earning more than enough points to satisfy his requirements. I really need the money.
Thanks..Well there you have it typewriter that may have been able to do the memos is non-existent in his office. So that means that they are a forgery. Somebody needs to let Dan boy know its not about the content of the memos its about the forgery of the memos stupid....
"Somebody needs to let Dan boy know its not about the content of the memos its about the forgery of the memos stupid...."
Shoot. Even the content is bogus. Based upon only one thing, let alone the other internal inconsitencies. The one guy the memo was referring to had been retired for more than a year and a half...
yep, James Baker should have that as #1 item on the top of the debate list.
Replace Face the Nation host with Britt Hume.
The next step would be to completely ignore any reporter's question or provide any sourcing for CBS stories.
Let them have to print in every story, "The White House was not available for comment".
CBS Guard Documents Traced to Texas Kinko's...
WASH POST: Documents allegedly written by deceased officer that raised questions about Bush's service with Texas National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Texas... Developing...
Thanks for the links...unfortunately they only show his '72 and '73 records. I know that with all the active duty flight training, etc. '68-'71 should show he earned about 6 times the points needed for those years but I would like to find copies of those years as well. I want to show those idiots that he was required to earn 52 points per year and he earned that much and more.
>I really need the money.
Don't hold your breath.
Just the teensiest tidbit to add on "unbiased" Rather's dogged pursuit of possible W drug use:
RatherOnDrugs
http://www.ratherbiased.com/drugs.htm
"I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with heroin so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to 'smack,' and quickly."
--Dan Rather in Ladies' Home Journal, July 1980 edition.
"I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas."
--Dan Rather in Ladies' Home Journal, July 1980 edition.
Asked how he kept such long hours in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Rather offered this explanation:
"I knew from going through long periods on the air before—following the Challenger explosion, for instance—that this wasn't going to be one day but day after day. Early on I remember saying to myself, 'You have to pace yourself.' Keeping your energy up is not hard in a situation like this, but I did rely on something I call "zoom juice," a heavy protein mixture that's whipped up in a blender. Frankly I don't know what's in the damn stuff—someone on my staff makes it—but it's good for a few reasons: It gives you a burst of energy, you can gulp it down quickly, and it's liquid, so you're not chewing when you come back on the air."
--Dan Rather in an interview for Texas Monthly, November 2001.
"I have a great passion for news. And I know that it can be more addictive than crack cocaine once you get into it,"
--Dan Rather to host Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's Booknotes, January 25, 1999.
"I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes."
--Dan Rather in an interview for Brill's Content, October 1998.
Dan Rather spoke to college students at Boston University who were considering reporting careers:
"Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance."
--Quoted in the Boston Herald, October 22, 2000.
It's also time to cancel White House press credentials from anyone at cBS.
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