Posted on 09/19/2004 9:40:13 PM PDT by LibWhacker
After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.
Those officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins, and that it was mounting an intensive news investigation of where they came from.
But these people cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement. Officials were meeting last night with Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to go over the information it has collected about the documents one last time before making a final decision.
People at the network said it was now possible that officials would open a formal internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report, which officials now say they are beginning to believe was too flawed to have gone on the air.
The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.
Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings, but that the documents' authenticity is now in grave doubt.
The developments last night marked a dramatic turn for CBS News, which for a week stood steadfastly by its Sept. 8 report as various document experts asserted that the typeface of the memos could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.
The seemingly unflappable confidence of Mr. Rather and top news division officials in the documents allayed fears within the network and created doubt among some in the news media at large that those specialists were correct. CBS News officials had said they had reason to be certain that the documents indeed came from the personal file of Colonel Killian.
Sandy Genelius, a network spokeswoman, said last week, "We are confident about the chain of custody; we're confident in how we secured the documents.''
But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they were misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.
Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos came from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.
It was unclear last night whether Mr. Burkett told Mr. Rather that he had been misled about the documents' provenance or that he had been the one who did the misleading.
In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Burkett declined to answer any questions about the documents.
Yesterday, Emily J. Will, a document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents had said they were obtained anonymously and through the mail.
During an interview last night she declined to name the producer who told her this but said that the producer had been in a position to know. CBS News officials have disputed her contention that she warned the network the night before the initial "60 Minutes'' report that it would face questions from documents experts.
In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine.
Ms. Will is one of two documents experts consulted by the network who said they raised doubts about the material before the segment was broadcast. Another expert, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he had only vouched for Colonel Killian's signatures on the records and not the authenticity of the records themselves. Mr. Matley said he could not rule out that the signatures were cut and pasted from official records pertaining to Colonel Killian.
In examining where the network went wrong, officials at CBS News were turning their attention to Ms. Mapes, one of their most respected producers, who was riding particularly high this year after breaking news about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the network.
In a telephone interview this weekend, Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes'' Wednesday edition, said he did not initially know who was Ms. Mapes' primary source for the documents but that he did not see any reason to doubt them. He said he believed Ms. Mapes and her team had appropriately answered all questions about the documents' authenticity and, he noted, no one seemed to be casting doubt upon the essential thrust of the report.
"The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day,'' he said, "and the reporting that was done in it was by a person who has turned in decades of flawless reporting with no challenge to her credibility.''
He added, "We in management had no sense that the producing team wasn't completely comfortable with the results of the document analysis.''
Ms. Mapes has not responded to requests for comment.
Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was "the icing on the cake'' of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents that had been presented by a credible news organization.
Several people familiar with the situation said that they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts.
One person close to the situation said the critical question would be, "Where was everybody's judgment on that last day?''
I hear their new Fall catch-phrase is"
"I CBS, You CBS, We ALL CBS."
We know that Burkett has been like a pit bull in his attacks on President Bush for years. If CBS makes Burkett mad, then Burkett may take the rest of his life trashing Rather/CBS.
"We win"
Remember, these guys don't just give up. They get even.
This whole thing is a smoke screen to keep Kerry out of the public eye. The Kerry campaign, along with Moveon, the DNC and CBS conspired to bring this out to address Bush's TANG service. They realized that Kerry cannot win on his 19 year senate record and Bush cannot lose on his four years as CIC so they had to concoct something to threaten Bush's credibility and his ability to command troops during war time.
It is designed for people to look at and say, hey, Bush skipped out on his TANG service. But wait. Kerry served in an active duty role. Then the Swifties came along and blew up the SS Kerry.
They should trade him to Fox News for a 4th round draft pick.
You know, for "salary cap considerations".
I'm not to sure about that. Those 8.1 Million viewers on CBS's 60 Minutes Wednesday Edition saw Dan Rather, the "host", and not Mapes, the "producer", on their TV. Another 6 to 7 million saw Dan, the "anchor", on the CBS Evening News still go after Bush43 night after night and explain those docs were real. Then a few more million viewers see another CBS's 60 Minutes Wednesday Edition with Dan Rather, the "host", and not Mapes, the "producer", interview an old lady any no one else over the fake document.
After seeing all of this, I think the millions of viewers made up their collective minds last week what they thought by tuning out in the millions. They identify Rather with bogus information and not the producer. A few, like me, might also conclude that this is a man who was trying to unsit a President during a time of war for political/personal gain (and sadly I suspect only a few would figure that out). Thus, Rather is now not "quality" TV for many millions of viewers since he cannot be trusted. And, as an anchor, that is very fatal - kinda like the Martha Stewart issue where she was what the company relied on.
As such I suspect Rather is burnt toast.
This is a time for CBS to expose a creep who lied to bring down a sitting President -- not a time to give Burkett a new platform. How many times does CBS have to be lied to before they realize liar's aren't credible?
It's insulting to those of us who aren't "hate Bush at all cost" people. Is CBS brain-dead? Can they really afford to tick-off half the people in the country? Do their advertisers want them to give us the finger?
Allowing this liar to continue lying in prime-time is like allowing a broadcaster who showed kiddy porn on TV to show more in his defense. Enough of the CBS pornographic hatefest -- no more "hate Bush" stuff -- not even as part of the excuse. Treat the man as a forger or give up the so called "news" department.
John Kerry is STILL alive?
Those officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins, and that it was mounting an intensive news investigation of where they came from.
But these people cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement.
This stikes me as someone on the inside at CBS that badly wants this announcement, and is using the NYT to apply pressure.
"Man the Lifeboats",shrieked the @$$wipes @ SeeBS (forget the Women & Chil'ren :)
..we all knew this would happen...first, blame the public for their disbelief, then, the prep, next, the producer...on up the chain to DNCBS.
"...they're going to hang Burkett out to dry..."
Burkett is not the kind of person who will take this lying down. My guess is that he will say that "someone" (i.e. RNC/Bush/Rove) set HIM up by passing these documents on to him anonymously by mail and he passed them on to CBS. He'll say that since the documents looked "exactly like the documents he saw being thrown away by Bush operatives in the TANG, he assumed they were authentic. CBS will then say "We are going to continue to investigate this further to find out WHO created these forged documents and WHO was trying to discredit this stellar news agency" This is just my guess on how this is going to come out.
"HELLO!, *GRIN* I'm George W. Bush, And I approved this message..."...Indeed, Priceless. :))
This is all they have.
At some point negligence becomes cupable. CBS passed that point looooong before they aired the story.
They are grasping at straws to be able to claim a first amendment protection of their sources. They have be mis- advised, the FACT the documents are forgeries erases first amendment not thier "stupidity" in being fooled.
CBS MUST reveal ALL sources and connections to the story. Ms. Mapes must reveal ALL sources and connections. THERE IS NO FIRST AMENDMENT TO DISTRIBUTE FAKE DOCUMENTS.
Yes indeed, the chance to get out of this with "misled" has long since come and gone! Somebody needs to explain the idealogical bent at CBS News and with Danny Boy himself that so desperately wanted the story to be true, in spite of a mounting mountain of evidence. If there was no political "axe to grind", they would have backed off 10 minutes after other experts confirmed Buckhead & Co.'s (big kudos, by the way!) suspicions and questions.
Also, I'll bet you a shiny new nickle that Burkett takes the entire hit (for a suitcase full of Soros cash?) for this debacle and CBS News has absolutely NO interest in tracking this back to their "unimpeachable sources" in the DNC and Kerry campaigns!
Trouble is, with lib media, EVERYTHING is advertising now. The difference is that product advertising must have at least a fig leaf of truth, or it's actionable. "Editorial" matter is stuffed so full of lies these days that it makes your eyes bubble, but as long as it's not ads, there ain't no law agin it.
______________
Translation: DAMN! We've been caught!
In spite of the forged documents, the top BS at CBS is still hinting that their vile lies about GW and his guard source might be correct.
$crew CBS by boycotting their advertisers across the land.
Ping
He will issue an apology, his regrets, and "offer to take full responsibility".
But that's just it: the Clintonesque "offer to take full responsibility" will only be limited to that apology and his regrets.
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