Posted on 09/20/2004 9:34:42 AM PDT by SmithPatterson
CBS Regrets Bush Memos Story
NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2004
(CBS/AP) CBS News on Monday said it regretted broadcasting a story about President Bush's military service based on documents whose authenticity is in doubt, saying the source of the material had misled the network.
CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, the reporter of the original story, apologized.
In a statement, CBS said former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."
The network did not say the memoranda purportedly written by one of Mr. Bush's National Guard commanders were forgeries. But the network did say it could not authenticate the documents and that it should not have reported them.
"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
"Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting," Heyward continued. "We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."
Additional reporting on the documents will air on Monday's CBS Evening News, including the interview of Burkett by Rather. CBS News pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken."
In a separate statement, Rather said that "after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically."
"I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers," he said.
"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," Rather added.
The authenticity of the documents four memoranda attributed to Guard commander Lt. Col. Jerry Killian has been under fire since they were described in a Sept. 8 broadcast of 60 Minutes.
CBS had not previously revealed who provided the documents or how they were obtained.
Burkett has previously alleged that in 1997 he witnessed allies of then-Gov. Bush discussing the destruction of Guard files that might embarrass Mr. Bush, who was considering a run for the presidency. Bush aides have denied the charge.
In the statement, CBS said: "Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point."
Questions about the president's National Guard service have lingered for years. Some critics question how Mr. Bush got into the Guard when there were waiting lists of young men hoping to join it to escape the draft and possible service in Vietnam.
In the Sept. 8 60 Minutes report, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes a Democrat claimed that, at the behest of a friend of the Bush family, he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Guard.
Other questions concern why Mr. Bush missed a physical in 1972, and why there are scant records of any service by Mr. Bush during the latter part of 1972, a period during which he transferred to an Alabama guard unit so he could work on a campaign there.
The CBS documents suggested that Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order to attend the physical, and that there were other lapses in his performance. One memo also indicated that powerful allies of the Bush family were pressuring the guard to "sugar coat" any investigation of Lt. Bush's service.
Skeptics immediately seized on the typing in the memos, which included a superscripted "th" not found on all 1970s-era typewriters. As the controversy raged, CBS broadcast interviews with experts who said that some typewriters from that period could have produced the markings in question.
Other critics saw factual errors in the documents, stylistic differences with other writing by Killian and incorrect military lingo.
Some relatives of Col. Killian disputed that the memos were real. His former secretary said the sentiments regarding Mr. Bush's failures as an officer were genuine, but the documents were not.
Some document experts whom CBS consulted for the story told newspapers they had raised doubts before the broadcast and were ignored. CBS disputed their accounts, pointing to the main document expert the network consulted, Marcel Matley.
Matley insisted he had vouched for the authenticity of the signatures on the memos, but had not determined whether the documents themselves were genuine.
Last week, CBS News stood by its reporting while vowing to continue working the story. The network acknowledged there were questions about the documents and pledged to try to answer them.
Mr. Bush maintains that he did not get special treatment in getting into the Guard, and that he fulfilled all duties. He was honorably discharged.
On Saturday, a White House official said Mr. Bush has reviewed the disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972, and did not recall having seen them previously.
In his first public comment on the documents controversy, the president told The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., "There are a lot of questions about the documents, and they need to be answered."
The Bush campaign has alleged that their Democratic rivals were somehow involved in the story. John Kerry's campaign denies it. In an email revealed last week, Burkett said he had contacted the Kerry campaign but received no response.
Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about Mr. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.
The White House and Defense Department have on several occasions claimed that they had released all the documents only to make additional records available later on.
©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
*BUMP* This is important information.
Notice they are blowing off the lies told by Ben Barnes.
The memos aren't the only lies in this hit piece, and 60 Minutes isn't over until is ovah!
Burkett needs to be squeezed - he is not the "unimpeachable source".
Well, he didn't even say "I'm sorry" to the President.
Well, at least we all seem to agree on one thing here... we're ALL waiting to get to the bottom of this smelly mess.
Complete BS. Rather said the source was "unimpeachable". So was he referring to Burkett--a self-acknowledged liar, dim partisan hack, paranoid refuge from the looney bin? Or was he referring to the unknown "former guardsman" as his "unimpeachable source"?
In any event why is the new "unnamed source" any less "unimpeachable" than the unknown former guardsman or nut-case Burkett?
Even though cBS continues, apparently, to stand by what is in the forgeries and does not, in fact, admit them to be forgeries, I'm sure the rest of the lame stream media will give a little tsk-tsk and talk about the people at CBS as "victims". This is not enough--the contacts between cBS and the DNC must be revealed. This was an INTENTIONAL fraud, start to finish-- and it ain't finished as far as I am concerned.
No apology to President Bush from Rather. No peace for SeeeeBS!!!!!I noticed that too. That is exactly as I had expected before reading it.
"This used to be called treason, now it is called forgery."
Rather is trying to "Sugar Coat" his complicity.
Where and with whom did the documents originate? Inquiring minds want to know - - but apparently CBS News isn't interested. (so much for its journalistic instincts)
Rather is an accomplice and Burkett is guilty as sin.
Come on TEXAS RANGERS...time to do your job!!!
Well CBS uses her in their statement and no one is questioning it!So again they lie and get away with it
I'm sure CBS is hoping to find something, anything, that kinda sorta vaguely points in that direction.
He may as well of said, if I had done my homework, done these interviews in the first place, perhaps I would have had a clue! And .. funny it took the right wing pj clad wacko's to figure it all out. No way is Burkett the only source, its gotta be Barnes and/or Cleland. I hope some real energetic journalist out there gets to the bottom of this. I still can't believe they could have been duped by Burkett alone. He is simply taking he heat off the main source. Its the only reason I can imagine they would drag out the interview with him. This interview is such that it purportedly shows his lack of credibility.
And by the way.....CBS should apologize to FOXNews as well as their viewers, the family of LTC Killian, and President Bush.
What in the heck does this mean, translated into English? What "false account" did Burkett give? What is the TRUE origin of the documents? Who is their source? Because they're phony, CBS shouldn't have any legitimate claims of confidentiality to protect.
Absolutely they are forgeries. It's a matter of just finding out who did the dirty work.Burkett lied to See BS regarding who gave them to him. I wonder if he lied to them again about the source of the documents? I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Mark for later - what a day to have to work!!!
There are so many canidates of who the source is .. but one this in for sure imo .. it goes to the DNC/Kerry Camp
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.