Here We Go Some More

The American Spectator ^ | 09-13-2004 | Washington Prowler

[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.

[Tom_Busch]

I should correct that, it doesn't say the DNC, it says the Kerry Campaign.

[batter]

Speaking of advertisers, who are they? I saw a list of them on another thread a day or two ago, but forgot to index bump it. Do you know who seeBS news' main advertisers are?

It is fine to send stuff to Dan, but if you really want to cause panic, let the advertisers know you're fed up.

[plushaye]

Yes, that article was extremely good. William Safire is calling on colleague Dan Rather to come clean about the documents. This is on a peer level now. This may work.

[RJL]

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.

I am sure I read that at least one time Barnes was under oath when he said he did not help get GWB into the Air Guard.

[bayourod]

"campaign director Mary Beth Cahill suggested to the candidate that he try to buck up the troops, since the media onslaught against him, .."

"...media onslaught against him..."
According to my new translator program, when used by Democrats the phrase "media onslaught against him" translates into "media unable to save his arss this time."

[Koblenz]

Aaargh, when an article brings up the PO Box as evidence that CBS didn't do their research, that kind of destroys their credibility, because we all know by now that that PO Box was a legit PO Box. Perhaps it wasn't protocol to use it for this type of memo, but that doesn't make the PO Box phony.

The other big content issue is that the general retired a year and a half before this memo. But CBS's claim that he still exerted influence was ludicrous. CBS is in total denial here.

Is it possible to create this document on a typewriter, specifically an IBM Selectric. Well, it's probably possible, but that doesn't mean it's likely. The superscript is the easiest thing for people to talk about, but I think that the perfect, and I mean perfect, centering of the text is a bigger deal. Some typewriters may have had "nd", "rd" and "th" as raised superscript special keys, or perhaps the guy writing these memos was really like the TV character Monk, and had an extra ball with smaller fonts, and he moved the platen.

Centering, however, really would have been a bitch of a job. Especially for an internal memo. Sure, it's theoretical that someone could do that, but not reasonable. Someone may be able to make a document that is fairly close on a typewriter, but only if they spend 10 hours doing it. Whereas with Word, you can duplicate that doc in about the same amount of time as it takes you to retype that document.

[P-Marlowe]

I just ran a test. I turned kerning on and off and typed the same sentence. In both sentences the documents had kerning. So even though it is supposedly off, it appears that with the Times New Roman font it automatically kerns. I think it is inherent in the True Type Font characteristics.

Tell your liberal friend to type two documents using Times New Roman with Kerning on and Kerning off and see if he can see the difference. I sure couldn't.

[Howlin]

Oh, yeah. That's a fact!

[Khan Noonian Singh]

Here's what I'm afraid of. Everybody with one-third of a brain knows this is a forgery, but they also know that if the forger had typed the document on an old type-writer from a thrift-store and if he had attended more carefully to his facts, he might easily have eluded detection.

Consequently, when the Swifties or somebody come up with some damning doc about Kerry from, say, Paris in 1971, or may-be a military report from Viet Nam documenting something horrific he participated in, its credibility will automatically be in question and doubt. Even if it looks real. Because now everybody sees how easy it would have been to forge the Killian stuff right.

[shadowman99]

""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."

That would still be forgery because 1) CBS and the original source attempted to represent these documents and genuine. 2) it means somebody re-produced Killian's signature on these documents to add to their credability.

If CBS had said "these documents have been re-typed for reading clarity" the damage would be greatly reduced. We would still be picking apart bogus information, but we wouldn't have a case of CBS putting forged documents on the air.

[Kryptonite]

Guess McAwful's "ask Karl Rove" BS didn't carry the day LOL!

This is wonderful. Even Effin's volunteers are jumping from his boat. BUSTED

[Boundless]

> "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.

TAS/Prowler keep telling the world that CBS got the
memos from the kerry camp. CBS officially won't
confirm or deny, last I knew. And we need to keep
in mind this separate story ...

> "No one here at the Democratic National Committee had
> anything at all to do with any of those documents,"
> McAuliffe told reporters. "I can unequivocally speak
> for the Kerry for President Campaign Committee, nor
> do they have anything to do with these documents.
> Absolutely not."

This is a message addressed to Dan Rather & CBS.

Translation: Everyone knows CBS got these from Kerry's
people, who got them from the DNC. But if CBS tries to
blame us, we're gonna stonewall just like CBS is doing.
CBS has to fall on the sword for this one, unless they
want to inflict even more harm on their chosen candidate.

So make your choice Dan, who dies over this fiasco:
Rather&CBS or Kerry?

And this is why CBS is stonewalling.

[batter]

I also smell some DNC/Kerry operative behind them. However, it will be very difficult to prove (especially with CBS running cover for them). If it could be proven, wow. But then again, the MSM would still kiss Kerry's butt and tell us it was his advisors screwing up again.

[Howlin]

We don't know who are source is. And the source, even though we don't know who it is, tells us we won't be getting the originals. If they don't know who the source is, how do they know the source is saying no originals are coming

They must have driven me crazy because I undestand every word you said and it makes sense......LOL.

[Unmarked Package]

This whole fiasco shows the contempt these people have for the American people...they think we are absolute idiots and that they can manipulate us-disgusting.

Bernard Goldberg has written a new book about the contempt shown by the elitists in the media. Goldberg knows the arrogance permeating Old Media, and especially CBS, very well. His latest book is titled Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite

[nyconse]

Do you suppose the DNC has hired the best forger they can find and turned up some 30 year old paper-maybae even as we type, they are writing ups some memos...the errors that people have noted on the computer generated copies would be corrected...just typos. LOL This story reminds me of a story (don't remember who did it) where they were trying to prove that GM cars blew up after minor accidents (My hubby works for GM). They couldn't get the car to blow up on it's own so they rigged it with explosives and blew it up. They showed this on TV without mentioning that the car was rigged. GM sued and got an apology...don't know if they got money. The media are such liar.

[Mike Fieschko]

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.

Man oh man.

This is worse than the Goldwater campaign.

(Did he mean Tuesday? I don't remember him being here Thursday.)

[Psycho_Bunny]

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,"

Just cut to the chase and start counting the strawberries, Dan.

[DaveMSmith]

Harkin lies about his Viet Nam service.. is caught and takes heat.. concocts another lie about GWB which is pretty much the same... calls Cheney a 'coward' for his lack of service. He's got the hatred.. he's got the motive.

[Southack]

No, the Kerry Campaign is not leading us into a trap. They are simply repeating Shrum's same tired old smear strategies that have given him an 0 for 7, soon to be 0 out of 8 Presidential Campaign record.

...But Bush is so squeaky clean that they have to *manufacture* dirt on him.

In the process, they are falling into Karl Rove's trap, which is what this election is all about.

It isn't just that we are going to win this year. As I've been posting here on FR on this particular matter since 2002, '04 is about more than winning for us.

We have 3 goals for '04:

1. Win GWB's re-election
2. Smear the mainstream news media, and
3. Burn the Dems' fatcat donors.

To that end, it has been necessary to give the appearance early on that this race was close. But a sitting President in wartime who has delivered two income tax cuts, prescription drugs for seniors, and won two major shooting wars is simply not going to be defeated by an elite NorthEastern leftist priviledged hippie anti-war protesting attorney and a colonialist heiress wife who hides her tax returns.

CFR spawned 527's. 527's sucked in the fatcat Dem donors. GWB being squeaky clean sucked in the mainstream news media, and now everyone is belatedly realizing that GWB has a commanding lead in the polls even before he unleashes the full power of his ad blitz and gets the NRA's massive Presidential endorsement (the AWB is expired, after all).

So the fatcat Dem donors get burned, the news media gets smeared for forging documents, and Senator Kerry loses by a not insignificant margin in November.

In the meantime, to reverse his standing in the polls, Senator Kerry would have to find a way to get his message out (presuming he ever figures such a thing out for himself)...which is impossible to do when the news media keeps revisiting the document forgery and Vietnam scandals of Kerry and his willing minions.

The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again For All Americans!