CBS Evening News: Questions Linger Over Bush Memos

CBS News ^ | Sept. 13, 2004 | Dan Rather

[Henchman]

We all know the reasons the documents are false. CBS News called around for years until they got the documents conveniently supplied by one of the "sources" who, most likely said they thought they could be located. (Hope they paid them big $, too). The CBS News idea of tests etc. did not match the generally accepted industry standards. In essence, they were negligent because they were arrogant, the documents met their predetermined perception and agenda, and the wanted the documents to be real, sooo badly.

The printed media is on their case, the TV networks are extending professional courtesy (a pass); the FReeper are CREAMING THEM!

The latest from CBS dissected in part.
"...other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have been created in the 1970s. " LIE OF OMISSION: Highly unlikely

"The new papers are in line with what is known about the president's service assignments and dates, CBS said. ... date matches the one on a memo given to CBS New" LIE BY DECEPTION: No one said the forgers were stupid - sloppy, yes.

"CBS News said last week the memos it received about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard came from "solid sources." " LIE BY DECEPTION: Breaks the Chain of Custody to prove authenticity. Equates to "Trust Me and My Agenda". Deprives Pres. BUSH of his right to be confronted by his accuser per US Constitution, 5th Amendment I believe, while CBS claims Constitutional First Amendment.

"At question are memos that carry the signature of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who was the commander of Mr. Bush's Texas Air National Guard fighter squadron."" LIE OF OMISSION: The signatures are different from known signatures of Killian, the title is not in accordance with authentic memoranda. The forgery is obvious to all who look at the document and has been so stated by forensic examiners. Well you know the rest of the story, false addresses, retired Generals, Pentagon says the memos are false etc.

Don't forget, in those days, men didn't type. Killian's family said he doesn't type. I still use hunt and peck. I make mistakes like crazy. There are no typos or white outs, and if there were, the 15th generation copies would eliminate any possibility of proving them real by any standard. Where are Killians typists, orderlies etc to say they typed, were told to type or file these papers? CBS was GROSSLY NEGLEGENT!

In essence, they lie and now must cry.

[dalight]

You know.. this is very much sounding Nixonian.. Friday was jarring.. twi1ight zone.. sort of odd behavior.. but I tuned in today fu11y expecting to see them throw in the towe11.

I was shocked to see Dan attempt to get answers again to the Bogus questions raised by these fraudu1ent documents..

Which it seems this is the on1y purpose of revisiting this issue.. but..

Where are the CBS executives? Where are the shareho1ders? I was ta1king to another FReeper.. who ca11ed and ta1ked to our 1oca1 paper about basing an artic1e on the o1d story today.. and they get it.. and wi11 be pub1ishing stuff about the prob1ems tomarrow.

a11 of this hanging on a not being ab1e to use a "1" as an e11 in a "modern" document..

Pro11y have to give Rush credit for his theory about Dan becoming everything he supposed1y hates.

Oh by the way.. must be getting near Christmas.. no e11.. Bwa Ha Ha Ha...

[dep]

I saw Dan in person not long ago. Passed him on a narrow hallway.

ah -- drop by 524?

[dfwgator]

1o1!!!!

[pepsi_junkie]

Does anyone else find it telling that CBS finds memos it thinks contain the long sought but never seen smoking gun that Bush was a foul up and then claims that the content (that same long sought but never actually seen) itself proves that the memos are legit. It's like me searching the web and finding posts saying Clinton had people killed, and then saying that since I had expected to find that, it has to be true. Such obvious bias!

[John Thornton]

..strongly insist that the documents could have been created in the 1970s.

Yeah, and I guess Hitler *could* have written the secret Hitler diaries. After all, did anyone ever get Hitler under oath saying he didn't write them?

[RetSignman]

No matter what happens to Rather and/or Cbs "news", two members of this forum, have taken a HUGE false story about President Bush and threw it in back in the face of discredited MSM, it is now a POSITIVE story favoring our President.

That is no SMALL feat and those responsible for this discovery and exposure should be very proud what they have done and have earned the gratitude of all who seek truth.

The further exposure of the bias of network news and ,in particular Rather and his 'network', and what becomes of them, is just going to be icing on this cake. It's not going to go away silently and it's going to very rewarding to just sit back and enjoy the process.

WELL DONE, FREEPERS

[MplsSteve]

I don't think the Weekly World News is really interested in getting lumped into the same category as CBS, do you?

[prion]

As far as I'm concerned, the weirdest thing about this story is the banality of the lie they tried to tell. The DNC's big story is that Bush served four years enthusiastically and was a goof-off in his last year. Even if it were true...who cares? What do they think is so earth-shattering about that allegation that they have to create false documents to prove it?

If you're going to forge a lie, make it sweet.

[drwiii]

[Flash Bazbeaux]

"CBS said it used several techniques to make sure the memos should be taken seriously"


What does that mean "should be taken seriously"? CBS had been saying they had used several techniques to make sure they were GENUINE. Now they have watered down the criteria to "should be taken seriously", a "passive-voice" construction that begs the question "taken seriously by whom"?

It seems that CBS is trying to lower the bar from "these documents are real" to "it was imporant to let the public judge for itself." Or is "taken seriously" intended to mean "passed off as genuine on network television news?"

[dep]

no, it's not using a 1 as an l. it's using an l as a 1. which was pretty clearly done in the documents. and which is an impediment to -- nothing. just smoke from cbs in an effort to confise and obfuscate.

[Wristpin]

"For instance, CBS said, the official record shows that Mr. Bush was suspended from flying on Aug. 1, 1972"

Another example of distortion. His flight physical expired on 31 July, so he was not "medically cleared" to fly after that date. His other quals should have been intact. "Suspension" is completely different and permanent, requiring a board of aviators to adjudicate.

If he spent a morning over at medical taking a physical, he's back in the airplane.

[GeneD]

To repeat myself from another thread (sorry), the question isn't does Danno have the confidence of his peers, nor is it does Danno have the confidence of his audience. The question is, does Danno have the confidence of SUMNER?

This has been a tough year for VIACON -- the Opie and Anthony fine, the problems with Howard Stern, The Reagans, Ms. Boob, the Spike TV/Spike Lee brouhaha, the resignation of the LEGENDARY Mel Karmazin, the spin-off of the suddenly obsolete Blockbuster, continuing woes at Paramount -- and through it all, like the flag over Ft. McHenry, SUMNER'S STILL THERE. What's one more problem when you've got ATTITUDE? (Never mind that you merely BOUGHT it.) Let us not forget that SUMNER'S as hard-core a liberal Democrat as they come, which means he could well be nodding at Danno's fibs in agreement, provided he doesn't nod off first.

No, we're talking two IMMORTALS. Because of SUMNER, DANNO STAYS.

P. S. Advertiser boycotts WILL NOT WORK. If the recent history of American commercial television says something, it's that ADVERTISERS WILL SPONSOR ANYTHING except the un-PC or after a major calamity. Most of corporate America's CEOs don't know what the heck they're sponsoring, and they want to keep it that way. And more than a few of their ad-vice-president factotums have come to view exercising good judgment as CENSORSHIP, never mind that they can do some heavy-duty censoring of their audience's discontent just by exercising the power of their purse.

[El Conservador]

Ahhh... the celestial sound of CBS on a full-on internal struggle.

Stiffy Dan Ra^ther has the management's boot up his ass in his future...

[Fester Chugabrew]

CBS said it used several techniques . . .

Forgery DOES take several techniques.

[Galena Nevada]

CBS's logic just dumbfounds me. As proof of the legitimacy of these memos, CBS points to the fact that "official record shows that Mr. Bush was suspended from flying on Aug. 1, 1972. That date matches the one on a memo given to CBS News, ordering that Mr. Bush be suspended." Does it not occur to the brainiacs at CBS that the forger was aware of the suspension date (it was a matter of public record), and could intentionally have used the suspension date on the memo for legitimacy. If I wanted to forge a legitimate looking memo regarding a past event, I would most certainly date that memo either on or around the date of the event. The fact that the date on the memo is the same as the President's suspension date would lead me to further question the legitimacy of these memos. Also, it is a bit curious why an order per memorandum was executed on the same day (especially a government memo). Usually, it takes time for the memo to reach subordinates for action. I actually would have expected to see the memo dated a couple of days earlier than the actual date of suspension (if not much earlier).

[Chode]

it's time to FREEP IBM!!! let them know you want THEM to clear up this mess and will hold them ACCOUNTABLE if they don't by never buying anything from IBM ever again!!!

goto IBM.com and ust Contact Us at the bottom of the page.

[PJ-Comix]

So the CBS website is more suspicious of the documents than CBS News is?

Reading this story, I'm getting the feeling that CBS News is trying to distance itself from Dan Rather.