CBS Public Statements on the Killian Memos Troubling

9/11/04 | The Bandit

[The Bandit]

CBS officials have been insisting that the network had done due diligence in checking out the authenticity of the Killian memo's with independent experts over six weeks. If this is true, than why did CBS wait till two days before the broadcast to contact retired Col. Bobby Hodges about the authenticity of the memos?

Dan Rather was quoted as saying "We wanted to take the documents to him and do an interview and he declined to do that." Well yeah, I would have to with only two days notice!

Col. Hodges further states that he was told during this same phone call that CBS had "just received" four memos authored by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, President Bush's commander at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. What happened to six weeks of "due diligence"?

If we follow the CBS explanation they lead us to believe that by readying selective quotes over the telephone two days before the broadcast without ever showing Col. Hodges the actual memos somehow supports the authenticity of the memos.

This is pure sloppy investigative journalism that is indefensible. CBS News has itself a enormous problem that transcends beyond simply defending forged documents.

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[JPJones]

This is pure sloppy investigative journalism that is indefensible. CBS News has itself a enormous problem that transcends beyond simply defending forged documents.

Agreed. CBS and Dan Rather have made very serious allegations about a sitting president, during a war. It's up to them to prove that there story is true, they're failing, and at some point need to be held accountable.

[Nathan Zachary]

Is anyone interested is seeing what the now famous dan rather forgery would look like if it were in fact typed on the now re-famous Ibm selectric?

Go to this page, he has the letter typed out on a selectric. IT IS NOT A MATCH not even close. The internet is destroying every aspect of Dan Rathers fraudulant story. first go here:

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html

then go here:

http://ratherbiased.com/news/content/view/210/2

[VRWC_minion]

It was premeditated, not sloppy.

[FairOpinion]

And here is Col. Hodges version:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/election2004/9640726.htm?1c

"Hodges says that when he was asked to verify the memos, he believed that the documents were hand-written.

"Without seeing them, I assumed that they were hand-written notes from a personal file that Lt. Col. Killian (who died in 1984) may have maintained without anyone's knowledge," Hodges wrote in a statement he released on Saturday.

Hodges, who retired from the Guard in 1989, said that after he saw the typewritten memos on Friday morning, he believed Killian did not, in fact, write them. "I don't think Killian wrote them - official or unofficial," he said."

[Styria]

I thought the six weeks referred to Ben Barnes rather than this...

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[The Bandit]

LOL that too!

[Williams]

And CBS's totally partisan response is "we believe what we claim Hodges told us the first time." They dismiss the untidy fact that their alleged supporting witness says CBS deceived him and further says the memos are a forgery. Incredible.

[Alouette]

This is pure sloppy investigative journalism

It is much worse than that. It is reckless disregard for the truth. They tried to pull over a fast one but got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

[Dolphy]

I have worked with affiliates of CBS, NBC and ABC as a risk management consultant. If we here could discover that the documents were highly suspicious within an hour of their release, you can bet CBS knew it too. In a professional organization you would have spiked the story or run it with heavy qualifications, including those witnesses that doubted their authenticity. If, on the other hand, you determined you were going with the story no matter what, you would call in the lawyers and have them shape your broadcast to insulate you from lawsuits. It's my guess that they either did this or they know of some developing story that will confirm the spirit of the documents, if not the documents themselves.

I just a while ago watched Eric Burns show on Fox (Media Watch or whatever it is) and was shocked that there was absolutely no attention paid to this aspect. In fact the two left leaning panelists passed on it completely and chose to deal with the charges which they believe to be true. I think we should go after every major network and demand they cover and expose this or risk their reputations as being tacit supporters of this standard of journalism.

[lainie]

I agree it's worse than just sloppy. Three days ago it was sloppy. They've been spinning and rationalizing their lack of journalistic integrity since. Now, they've gone so far, they can't just about-face and say they got Punk'd. It's beautiful.

[Ichneumon]

To copy the following list of links and send them, 1. Highlight the list below with your mouse and pointer 2. Use the keyboard keys + to copy

That won't work. It'll just copy and past the visible text into the email (horribly formatted, at that), and lose all the link URLs.

[Bob]

If, on the other hand, you determined you were going with the story no matter what, you would call in the lawyers and have them shape your broadcast to insulate you from lawsuits. It's my guess that they either did this or they know of some developing story that will confirm the spirit of the documents, if not the documents themselves.

If their lawyers did 'shape' the broadcast, it seems to me they should get themselves some new lawyers. The least bit of honest vetting should have been able to determine that the documents were forged.

Confirming the spirit of the documents isn't sufficient. They presented fraudulent documents as being genuine; they need to confirm the documents themselves.

[tkathy]

IMHO this was to be the "October surprise", coming out in early October, and they rushed it to come out now since Kerry's poll numbers were in the tank.

[planekT]

If only it were just sloppy journalism.

If only it weren't so obvious.

If only a "panel" on Larry King's show this evening didn't consist of one republican, one rino from connecticut, two democrats, and Larry himself, making the panel three and a half to one when you include Larry. This was supposed to not be a political show tonight out of respect for it being 9/11 and all, but one of the dem looney's brought up the assault weapons ban issue. So much for respect. And before that came out, Larry brought out Cheney's comment about making the right choice at the polls this year 2 seconds after his Republican guest said he wasn't going to discuss politics and Larry had hurumphed "right" in approval. How could anyone respect him?

Day in and day out, in every major newspaper, on every broadcast network, on every cable news outlet (Fox is somewhat of an exception) people in this country are bombarded with a bunch of liberal fabrication. "Bush Lied"
to the tenth power. That is all you hear from them, and I am sick of it.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but if you watch, what you will see is that when a republican is pitted against a democrat in a debate (assuming the demorat stops screaming long enough for the republican to get a word in edgewise) the democrat is easily defeated and exposed for what the vast majority of their party is now composed of, a bunch of malcontents who don't have a clue about this country and who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are. Nearly to a fault, the republicans are winning the arguments day in and day out.

Fox news ain't perfect (they'd have to stop allowing idiots to speak on their shows, and then they wouldn't be "fair and balanced" anymore because they'd have a high ratio of republicans to democrats getting airtime) but the reason that they are more succesful then CNN and MSNBC and the broadcast networks is simply because they are not so completely, pitfully, hopelessly, unscrupulously biased towards the liberal agenda.

CBS ain't sloppy. They're liberal.

Lie and die, you fakes.

[Nathan Zachary]

Another thing I noticed, there are 6 documents, but only 4 signatures.

Two documents have signatures completely different than the other four, and of those other four, they share 2 identical signature patterns. They have been cut and pasted.

It would be impossible for team 60 minutes not to notice this with all those doc lined up on the table. so they knew this was forged stuff.

[Dolphy]

The least bit of honest vetting should have been able to determine that the documents were forged.

Confirming the spirit of the documents isn't sufficient. They presented fraudulent documents as being genuine; they need to confirm the documents themselves.

Yes, I agree, they had to know the documents weren't authentic, or at least very likely not authentic. So they looked for other ways to authenticate them. They did this by deciding the source would have had access to such documents, a handwriting analyst and interviews with Killian's contemporaries. If something else were to be revealed that confirmed the spirit of these documents it gives more weight to CBS' approach. Lastly, the lawyers aren't there to maintain standards of journalism as such. They are there to facilitate their objective and help them avoid lawsuits.

[NYCVirago]

CBS also told the WaPost on Friday that they had four document experts review the documents. Yet they only featured one on the air, he's only a handwriting expert, and he only reviewed one document. And he was previously quoted as saying that you can't verify signatures on a photocopy.