Posted on 09/18/2004 7:27:43 PM PDT by jhouston
In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York.
White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This article is as fair as the Washington Post gets...but I am AMAZED at the total lack of logic by these C BS journalists. They are so surprised that people are focusing on the forgeries and not the story.
HELLLLLOOOOO! If the "new" evidence to support an old, unproven story turns out to be forged, then the story has lost all credibility! And journalists who disregard "red flags" by their experts as Rather and Mapes did deserve to lose all credibility as well.
Yup. This was nothing less than a failed coup attempt. This is what happens when the media bias meter goes so hard over to the left that it breaks the glass and the hatred for a conservative president is so deep that they ignore all the warning signs and blindly forge ahead with intent to maliciously inflict maximum damage to the president's reelection chances before anyone knows what's happening. We also know that both the DNC and the Kerry Campaign were involved at various levels. My question is, how far up into the DNC and Kerry Campaign chain will the trail actually lead? What did Senator Kerry know and when did he know it?
Excellent point and one that I have not heard yet. I have wondered why Barnes changed his story, but your analysis of the "time-line" makes sense.
accept = except
The story closes with CBS maintaining that noone has questioned the story, just the documents. The Post fails to mention Staudt and the Killian family's denying the truth of the story.
Lots of details on Burkett, but no mention that he was in the Army Guard, just that he was in the "Guard." An essential point considering that one of the problems with the memos is their usage of Army lingo in some places.
There are also a few questions not raised in this article. Will CBS reveal their source for the documents if CBS recognizes they are fraudulent? Will anyone at CBS be held accountable? Will anyone at CBS be fired? Was there any contact between CBS and high ranking Kerry campaign or DNC officials? Did CBS pay for the documents? Why do the documents given to the analysts have a Abilene, Texas Kinko's timestamp on them when Rather and Mapes met with the source? If Rather and Mapes met with the source, how come Rather said (another point not in the article) that CBS only had copies of the documents?
Finally, there is no mention of the long awaited statement by Andrew Heyward and why it took so long to release, nor of CBS' own CYA memo and in-house Rather interview sent to their affiliates.
see #81
I don't see how some people can say CBS was set up....I am sorry but this evidence right here tells me they knew damn well those docs were fake and didn't care!!! THEY JUST didn't CARE they knew they were reporting BS to the AMerican Public!! They should lose their air waves I am so sick of the media lying to us !!
Evidence:
Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.
Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/bush_guard_documents_040914.html
CBS was told be three different examiners and didn't listen to them!!! I hope they burn in the fire they started!
Sure, that is a possibility, but these were new forgeries. It's not like they were floating around on the internet. Barnes had direct contact with someone in the chain of custody PRIOR TO CBS. How is that?
Lets say Burkett handed them off to some Kerry staffer, then they were brought back to the Texas Kerry campaign headquarters. Barnes was called up by the Kerry campaign: "Hey, can you make some accusations on national TV for us?"
Then Barnes says: "I can't put my good name and credibility out on the line with unsubstantiated claims!"
Kerry campaign: "Don't worry about it, we've got documents! Proof! You will back them up, and they will back up you."
Barnes: "Well, if you've got documents, then ok, I will."
So Barnes calls CBS. They set it all up, and then a day or two later, the documents are sent to CBS. Who actually sent them is of no relevence to the preceding chain of events. Burkett sent the documents to the Kerry campaign. barnes is part of that campaign. First Barnes then the docs come forward to CBS within mere days.
Either it is an INCREDIBLE, IMPROBABLE coincidence, or there was co-ordination between the Kerry campaign and the forger in giving this story and these forgeries to CBS.
"The source is Burkett and only an idiot or a partisan would refer to him as an unimpeachable source"
True..and no doubt one of the reasons why Rather will never admit the documents are fake..To do so would be to reveal the source (and therefore the fact that Rather is an "idiot")
"...and I'm being beaten on like a rented mule..."
We may soon find out. I get the feeling that this story has attracted the attention of many reporters. Maybe there are some young reporters out there who sense an opportunity to make a "name" for themselves. We can only hope that some of these new reporters have not all drunk from the liberal cool-aid punch bowl. GLTY.
What the hell is THIS? This guy Howard should be horsewhipped. Acting as if the story has not been challenged when it damn well has. What do these jerks take us for anyway? It is because they are STILL trying to weasel out of this that I hope like hell he gets fired and everybody else who had anything to do with this.
And the forger needs to be prosecuted.
In fact, we may discover that Barnes marketed himself and the documents to Rather as a package. Remember, there is still Danny Boy's "unimpeachable source" to be identified.
I can't imagine that Rather was referring to Burkett in this instance. It may be Mapes, but that doesn't ring true -- a journalist wouldn't refer to somebody else in the same organization as a source.
Of all the principles that have so far been identified in this story, only three characters warrant "unimpeachable source" status -- Barnes, Max Cleland and Robin Rather. But, as yet, Robin hasn't actually been connected to the story.
Here's something to chew on. Who fingered Robert Strong as a potential corroborative source? He came into this story out of left field, apparently with only the most tenuous connection to it.
I suggest that, if we knew who volunteered Robert Strong's name to CBS, we'd be one step closer to identifying the "unimpeachable source".
If they're the same copies I've seen, the header is *TO* CBS *from* a phone number which turns out to be the Kinko's print shop in Abilene Texas.
Ummm .. are they trying to tell us that CBS never authenticating before the day they aired the story???
Rather and his producer met the source at an out-of-the-way location.
Oh really .. So Dan does know where they came from
On Friday, Sept. 3, the day after the convention ended, Mapes hit pay dirt. She told Howard her source had given her the documents
That's funny .. wasn't it reported they had the documents for 6 weeks??
for Josh Howard, he embraces the same logic: "So much of this debate has focused on the documents, and no one has really challenged the story. It's been frustrating to us to see all this reduced to a debate over little 'th's."
I'm sorry ... but he is a Numb Nut .. what part of Forged Documents does this nit wit not understand??
Exactly, the media can apologize for the document not being properly examined. The media cannot apologize for Rather using Burkett as the primary source. Rather knows Travis County very well and he knows Burkett better than the Boston Globe did who refused to use him as a source. Burkett pretty much revealed the conspiracy before the story even broke. As far as I am concerned what he had written on the net before the broadcast serves as a full confession. Murderers have been executed on less of a confession than we now have from Burkett on the public record.
What is the date that Burkett contacted Max Cleland?
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