HODGES SAID HE WAS MISLED BY CBS

Noted Now - ABC News The Note ^ | 09/11/04 | ABC News The Note

[Ed Zoekuiper]

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

[longshadow]

Too complicated.

It is for Dan Rather, but not for whomever may be behind this whole thing.

[TX Bluebonnet]

The fit hit the shanblade!

[Texasforever]

I still don't see the point. What do they gain by "misdirection"?

[cookcounty]

Yes indeed, Hodges, while in the Texas National Guard, was flying the F102 in Vietnam when Bush went into the ANG>

Here's just one of many places to find this:

http://www.lincolnheritage.org/About_Us/Resources/Weekly_Magazine/New_Articles/F-102__Vietnam___George_W__Bus/f-102__vietnam___george_w__bus.html

I'm not smart enough to make it into a live link.

The untold part of the whole sorry Bush/ANG smear is that like CBS, the Lamestream press is so narrowly focused on "Digging Up Dirt On Bush" (hereafter called "DUDOB,") that they sail right past lots of other very interesting and easly found contraries.

The F102, according to the figures of the Air Force Safety Center was 3 times as dangerous as today's fighter plains.

Also, SEVENTY pilots were KILLED in crashes or accidents with the Delta series. I could be wrong, but I think that's quite a bit higher than the number of dead Swift Boat Pilots. Yet the subscript for the Lamestream Press remains: "Bush was a coward."

[Congressman Billybob]

Rather admires Clinton (him) because he sees a kindred soul. I submit that his career experience tells Rather he can bluff and lie his way out of any spot, just like Clinton (him). Only Rather couldn't pull it off.

Rather has just lied his way into a situation that he cannot lie his way out of. No one, not even the suck-up Dan-Rathers-in-training, will ever refer to the original Dan as "an honest man," as Dan did to Bill less than a year ago. What goes around, comes around.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "I'm Mad as Zell, and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore."

If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.

[Dolphy]

If we cannot use this fabulous gift of freedom and spread this gift not only to help others receive this joyous and most important lifestyle, but to ENSURE a better, safer world in doing so...then WHAT ARE WE?

Keep on ranting, Republic, you are thrilling the audience...well at least me:)

[gswilder]

I think Rather is somewhat like Kerry. When pushed and shoved and questioned, he just looses it.

[Mensius]

Check this out.

It is a common misconception that the Air National Guard was a safe place for military duty during the Vietnam War. In actuality, pilots from the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, as it was called at the time, were actually conducting combat missions in Vietnam at the very time Bush enlisted. In fact, F-102 squadrons had been stationed in South Vietnam since March 1962.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Uncle Walter said that? Do you have a link?

"Outlaw"?!? What a tool.

[Flamenco Lady]

Don't forget Fox, ABC, CNN, MSMBC too. We need to make sure all CBS Competitors have this information to run with. Maybe we'll at least get some reports in the MSM too!

[Texasforever]

It is for Dan Rather, but not for whomever may be behind this whole thing.

I see. So you believe that they have handwritten letters to be sprung at the appropriate time. They then create bogus "typewritten" letters and commit the crime of forgery by placing a dead man's signature on them and then they run a story using those forgeries just so someone would discover the forgery and then produce the handwritten letters as proof of.........what?

[gswilder]

Folks, Dan is NOT going to be fired or retire in the next 2 weeks. If this gets bad enough, I think he will retire after the election in Nov. Then he will spend his remaining days shilling for the dems and saying how a VRWC of internet bloggers unfairly brought him down.

[Reverend Bob]

If you're a Cubs fan there can only be one answer:

B-A-R-T-M-A-N

[sinkspur]

yeah, well that doesn't matter, because the ORIGINALS were handwritten, those things you are calling forgeries were just WP versions of the originals, to make it easier to read them.... thus all the forgery claims are now moot, and the original handwritten documents prove Bush lied..."

Then they'd have to produce the originals.

Your theory only works if CBS had told us, up front, that the originals were handwritten.

Pulling that out of the hat now looks like a shell game, and CBS would look even slimier than it does now.

[Congressman Billybob]

No, if Rather covers Ivan they will tell him to wear his trenchcoat. They'll drop him in the eye of the hurricane and tell him to report quickly on his way down.

Billybob

[longshadow]

Even if everything in the memos were true, I still don't see anything that would be fatal or even damaging to Bush. Nothing makes him a liar and there isn't anything that can't be explained.

That's true, but the Democrats aren't envisioning these documents as the final blow that does Bush in. These are just the "setup" documents, which they will spin to raise doubts about Bush's integrity and truthfulness, etc. Once that have instilled doubt, they then unleash a veritable mountain of unverifiable accusations against him, and he suffers the death of a thousand cuts.

They don't need to burn Bush, they only need to make lots of smoke, because the average voter thinks that lots of smoke = fire.

[igoramus987]

from link

DOCUMENT AND HANDWRITING EXAMINER MARCEL MATLEY ANALYZED THE DOCUMENTS FOR CBS NEWS.

HE SAYS HE BELIEVES THEY ARE REAL...BUT IS CONCERNED ABOUT EXACTLY WHAT IS BEING EXAMINED BY SOME OF THE PEOPLE QUESTIONING THE DOCUMENTS....BECAUSE DETIORATION OCCURS EACH TIME A DOCUMENT IS REPRODUCED.....AND THE DOCUMENTS BEING ANALYZED OUTSIDE OF CBS HAVEBEEN PHOTOCOPIED, FAXED, SCANNED AND DOWNLOADED.... AND ARE FAR REMOVED FROM THE DOCUMENTS CBS STARTED WITH WHICH WERE ALSO PHOTOCOPIES.

Note that the documents that everyone is analysing are the pdf documents that CBS put on their website.

Their own document expert tells CBS that he has concerns about authenticating a document that has deteriorated, yet instead of first getting a copy of the original memos and authenticating them, CBS and Dan Rather unprofessionally and unethically decide to air the story based on copies of the memos that CBS say are [deteriorated] photocopies.

[Gator113]

Although I find it intriguing, I don't buy your theory on this, as I don't see where the facts support it. However, in this dirty world we live in, there's nothing, absolutely nothing would surprise me. The worst mistake that any investigator can make, is to get tunnel vision and lose objectivity.

[Oztrich Boy]

General Hodges was born in 1930,

So that makes him 74, the median age of grumpy old men you don't want to pi$$ off.

[Azzurri]

How do we know Dan Rather didn't pick up the phone last night and call his friend Marcel Matley (HANDWRITING expert) to bail him out? I would like to see proof that Matley examined the documents BEFORE the segment aired on 60 Minutes and not afterward as a CYA for CBS. There should certainly be a contract of some sort between the parties. I've got a vibe that Matley did no such examination before the fact.