CBS is totally, fully, completely hosed. They can't produce the originals. They can't verify authenticity without the originals, and now they can't even say who was their source!
The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again!
Posted on 09/12/2004 9:28:38 PM PDT by nyconse
While CBS news anchor Dan Rather can say there is no internal investigation under way over the alleged forged documents used as the foundation for an investigation into President George W. Bush's National Guard service, you wouldn't have been able to tell from the 15 or so 60 Minutes and CBS News" staffers working away feverishly on Friday and Saturday to try to nail down their story.
On Friday, according to CBS News sources, Rather spent the day on the phone and dealing with CBS suits who were nervous about the fall out from the story. "All Dan could say was that this was an attack from the right-wing nuts, and that we should have expected this, given the stakes," says a CBS News producer. "He was terribly defensive and nervous. You could tell."
All day Friday, Rather, his producer on the story, Mary Mapes, and other 60 Minutes staffers were scrambling to shore up support from their sources on the story. That effort didn't go so well. By Saturday, one of their key sources, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, had said that CBS misled him, and that he had never been shown the memos in question.
"We pulled the trick of only calling some sources at the last minute to reconfirm," says the CBS producer. "Someone called Hodges, I think, on Monday night and read him parts of the document. The late contacts are a standard practice so we don't tip off the competition or our sources."
Hodges is a critical loss for CBS News' credibility. He was the superior officer of the man CBS claims wrote the memo, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.
MEANWHILE, OVER THE WEEKEND journalists from around the country were attempting to track down the original source of the documents. "We're having a hard time tracking how we got the documents," says the CBS News producer. "There are at least two people in this building who have insisted we got copies of these memos from the Kerry campaign by way of an additional source. We do not have the originals, and our sources have indicated to us that we will not be getting the originals. How that is possible I don't know."
One individual several news outlets were looking at was Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer. Burkett in the past has cooperated with both press and Democratic Party opposition researchers in slinging mud at President Bush. Burkett gained some national attention earlier in the campaign when he claimed he was at National Guard headquarters in Austin 1997, when he overheard Guard officials and a representative of then Governor Bush discuss how to sanitize Bush's files. That story was fully discredited. Nonetheless, Burkett sat down for at least three different interviews with CBS News for the story now at the center of the controversy. One of those interviews was with Rather's producer, Ms. Mapes.
"There are rumors here that if there are any real documents, they are hand-written notes from Killian that someone like Burkett was holding, and that instead of using the hand-written notes, someone typed them up to look more official," says the CBS News producer. "They would look better on TV and posted on line if they were typed, but on a number of levels, that story just doesn't hold up. There are too many inconsistencies factually with what is in the memos."
THE MOST GLARING ISSUES now are the seemingly phony P.O. Box addresses used in the headers of at least one of the memorandums. Such post office box addresses were not used by the National Guard at that time, let alone a box with a number "34567," as in the memo.
Yet another issue: the 18-month gap between the retirement of Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt on March 1, 1972, and August 18, 1973, when the Killian of the disputed memos claimed that Staudt was putting pressure on him to sugarcoat an evaluation of Bush. Almost everyone involved in the National Guard in Texas says Staudt would have had virtually no influence in the active units nearly a year and a half after leaving the service.
PERHAPS MOST TROUBLING to the CBS News staff looking into how its story went off the rails is the timing of the memos' appearance. "Some 60 Minutes staffers have been working on this story for more than three years off and on," says the CBS News producer. "There have been rumors about these memos and what was in them for at least that long. No one had been able to find anything. Not a single piece of paper. But we know that a lot of people here interviewed a lot of people in Texas and elsewhere and asked very explicit questions about the existence of these memos. Then all of a sudden they show up? In one nice, neat package?"
This CBS New producer went on to explain that the questions 60 Minutes folk were asking were specific enough that people would have been able to fabricate the memorandums to meet the exact specifications the investigative journalists were looking for. "People were asking questions of sources like, 'Have you ever seen or heard of a memo that suspended Bush for failing to appear for a physical?' and 'Have you heard about or know of someone who has any documentation from back in the 1970s that shows there was pressure to get Bush into the National Guard?' It was like they were placing an order for a ready-made product. That is the biggest problem I have with this. It's all too neat and perfect for what we needed. Without these exact pieces of paper, we don't have a story. Dan has as much as admitted that. Everyone knows it. We were at a standstill on this story until these memos showed up."
REPORTERS ARE ALSO LOOKING at staff and associates of Sen. Tom Harkin, who enthusiastically held a press conference on Thursday morning using the forged documents as the tent pole for attacks against President Bush. Harkin called Bush a "liar."
"Harkin has been pushing this story for a while," says the CBS producer. "Not this specific story, but the 'Bush is a liar about his record' story. His people seemed particularly interested in making sure they could keep their boss up to date on what was going on."
That Harkin was the individual selected to be the attack dog on this particular issue was an interesting one, give that Harkin himself has a checkered history about telling the truth about his involvement in the Vietnam War.
WITH MORALE AT WHAT some Kerry campaign insiders consider an all-time low, Sen. John Kerry, who unlike Tom Harkin did serve in Vietnam, did what any true leader does. He sets up a conference call. During the Labor Day weekend, during meetings with senior staff, campaign director Mary Beth Cahill suggested to the candidate that he try to buck up the troops, since the media onslaught against him, as well as the dipping poll numbers, were affecting staff in Washington and in satellite offices around the country. Kerry acknowledged their concerns by gathering the Washington staff into the central office space in their McPherson Square suites and speaking to them via speaker phone. Kerry told them that things were going well on the road. The crowds were enthusiastic, and he could feel the campaign was moving in the right direction with the new senior staff additions.
"He actually said that he felt the campaign had turned the corner," says a Washington-based staffer. "Some of us couldn't help but laugh given that he's made fun of Bush for saying the same thing. You hear stuff like that and you just feel sick. You look over at people like [Joe] Lockhart and Cahill and they seem to understand it too."
Kerry further undercut his own efforts, when he hung up his side of the call before any questions could be asked by staff members.
"[Kerry] doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that he has problems," says the staffer. "I'm low level, but there are a few people here who have stopped coming in to work or to volunteer. We've got some issues, and the guy who should be trying to help fix it doesn't seem to care."
Cahill seems to understand this. On Thursday, since the candidate wouldn't face his own staff, Cahill pulled out the big guns. She invited her old boss, Sen. Ted Kennedy down to the Washington offices to further raise the morale of Kerry's staff.
Kennedy actually said little about Kerry, beyond the fact that he was a fighter who would continue fighting. After mentioning Kerry, Kennedy then went on a 10-minute diatribe about President Bush. "His face was turning red, he was really getting into it," says the Kerry staffer. "Then the next day we saw him make the same speech on the floor of the Senate. Guess we were the dress rehearsal."
THERE ARE OTHER PROBLEMS with the Kerry campaign. According to several Kerry and DNC sources, Kerry advisers have been furiously holding focus group meetings in an attempt to find some issue of national concern that might cut their way in the coming weeks. But nothing they've looked at seems to be working. Of course, even if they were to find something there is no guarantee their man would run with it.
For example, some media types thought having his old pal John Sasso along on the road would help focus Kerry a bit more on his stump speeches. Judging by Kerry's performance last Thursday in North Carolina, they're not sure anymore. While talking about the economy, health-care policy, Kerry went off speech and began stumbling immediately. Kerry said that he would always tell the public the truth, and if the audience didn't believe him, they could "[g]o to a web site. It can be johnkerry.com or go some other place. Go to truth.com, if there is one, and find out what's really happening," Kerry said.
I just know this is going to go back to the DNC or some Dem partisan like Harkins-Dem=liars. Someone knew what CBS wanted and like a good samaritan supplied...the fake memos.
CBS is totally, fully, completely hosed. They can't produce the originals. They can't verify authenticity without the originals, and now they can't even say who was their source!
The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again!
I've read several posts that the PO box addresses are real and not an issue. ????
Yup, they are so dead. With the caveat and we must keep up the pressure.
Nice try. Add that to the line about "we aren't going to be getting the originals", and you get one sum: Dan Rather planning retirement.
I would love to see Harkin taken down by this scandal, he's one of the sorriest bastards to ever walk the floor of the Senate, down there on a level with Robert Byrd and Pat Leahy.
I'm not sure why the P.O. Box issue is still being talked about. It was on the official letterhead for the Fighter Group on one of the real documents from Bush's file, and on a letter from Bush to Killian.
But the fact these memos are not on letterhead--now that's a real indicator of forgery. No other documents in the files are like that.
This is an interesting take on the controversy ... namely, so many anti-Bush investigators have been asking and looking so long for specific memos that accuse his of specific things that someone could forge a document that exactly fits the bill for them. In other words, they ordered custom-made evidence and got exactly what they asked for.
It's also interesting that they go through a list of problems with the documents, yet missing from their list of problems is the whole forgery and "Word Processor-like" appearance of the memos. It's like saying, if we can resolve all the internal inconsistencies in these documents, then we'll accept them, even if they seem to have been written in 2004, not 1973.
Strangely Enough...... #4 (the consecutive numbers in PO Box address) does not appear to be another error that proves the Rathergate documents are forgeries. Not, at least, because the numbers are consecutive.
I'd heard someone mention that on Hugh Hewitt's show the other day so I looked for it when looking at the known authentic documents Josh Marshall pointed to in his last ditch (and subsequently abandoned) effort to salvage his ability to believe CBS. Look at page 10: The P.O. Box really is 34567.
Unfortunately for CBS, P.O. Box 34567 appears to have belonged to the 147th Fighter Group, not the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. I've looked at a lot of those known authentic documents* and have yet to find one that has the 111th receiving mail at that P.O. Box. But wait! There's more... »
* During which foray I also noted that this copy of Bush's suspension from flight status (page 10) appears to be the source of the forger's reference to AFM 35-13. But, as the Clown Posse discovered AFM 35-13 is the manual prescribing the consequences of not taking the physical. The requirement to take the physical is in AFM 160-1 (which uses the term "medical examination", not "physical examination", another error). The latter authority is what LtCol Killian would have referenced in any "In Accordance With" statement "ordering" Bush to take said physical. <Via WizbangM>
Hmmm let's ee...first CBS get's Ben Barnes to purjure himself by now claiming that he "helped" W get into the AFNG. After he said several times 4 years ago that he did NOT help W get into the Air Guard.
The same Ben Barnes who runs the Texas wing of the Kerry campaign, and is a big financial backer of sKerry. The same Ben Barnes who had Dan Rather come to Austin (where Rather's daughter is BIG into Travis County RAT politics)
Now suddenly Dan Rather "breaks" a story on cBS about alleged doccuments showing that Bush was "AWOL".
Now it turns out that possibly the sKerry campaign gave the papers to CBS. Papers tht have turned out to be complete forgeries and fakes. And not investigated fully for authenticity before making them public.
We are wittnessing history folks. The first time in history that a "news" organization has blatently and brazenly attempted to assist in the ouster of an American President. Sure they've tried in the past to do it covertly and with a little more subtlety but this time the covers have been pulled back and the full truth of their complicity is exposed.
We may also be wittnessing the total collapse of any trust in what any reporter from CBS says in a story.
And the backlash against the MSM and sKerry will be tremendous.
And also remember folks, Dan Rather is sticking to his story that the doccuments are legit. The SAME Dan Rather that sais (with a straight face) that Bill Clintoon was an "honest man".
All paths lead to the DNC...and Kerry...Hey there is a new Safire article over on Lucianne that we should post here. Kerry is so dead...all the MSM are covering this story...calling the memos fraudulent. I guess they want to try to retain some credibility. Given the coverage, plenty of people are going to know about this...people are going to (rightly) suspect Kerry. I can not believe the Dems are going to try to use that campaign flyer against Pres. Bush (Duers) are all excited. Kerry should never mention the word Vietnam and service again...it's his only chance. Of course being arrogant and deaf to political nuances (only nuance he dosn't have), he is going to keep hammering Pres. Bush on his service-thinking if Swifties hurt him then this will hurt Pres. Bush; Kerry is an idiot.
"I've read several posts that the PO box addresses are real and not an issue. ????"
The Air Guard, wouldn't use a P.O. Box. The mail would go straight to the unit at the airfield.
This is the most encouraging line in the entire article for us. If less than two months before Election Day, your campaign is trying to discover some supposedly hidden issue that can get the public fired up (which, for the record, do not exist), then you're in big trouble.
There is only one hurdle left for President Bush: the debates. As long as he gets through those without having a complete meltdown on stage (and he will do just fine, as he did in 2000), it's smooth sailing from here on out. Kerry's high negatives (the highest of any presidential candidate in the history of polling) are not going to go away. People that have been swayed by the Swift Boat ads are not going to wake up one morning in October and decide, "Ah, you know, what happened in Vietnam isn't really that important any more." Kerry's lost those voters forever.
"We pulled the trick of only calling some sources at the last minute to reconfirm," says the CBS producer. "Someone called Hodges, I think, on Monday night and read him parts of the document. The late contacts are a standard practice so we don't tip off the competition or our sources."
Or find out your hit piece is a fraud?
Yeah, I don't believe for one minute there are any real handwritten notes.. What do you think?
That was awfully nice of them to destroy themselves.
I just keep reading that one over and over.
Have you EVER???
Don't be focused on the one legitimate part of this. There are too many illegitimate aspects of these memos that must be hammered away on repeatedly.
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