GOP Slams CBS On Bush Memos

Congressional Republicans turned the high heat on CBS News, charging that last week's revelations about Lt. George Bush, which aired on 60 Minutes, were based on fake documents and demanding that 60 Minutes and Dan Rather retract the story.

"It's very clear the documents were forged. They were laid on him and this time he bit," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

Forty members of the House signed a letter accusing the network of deception--in a letter asking CBS if the documents are authentic, why won't the network say how it got them, reports CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

"I think at the very least CBS should characterize the source," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri. "I think it's amazing that they haven't already done that."

In a related development, CBS News released a statement renewing its defense of the story. The network also released letters from two document examiners who reviewed the memos.

The dispute involves memoranda 60 Minutes says it got from the personal file of Lt. Bush's Air National Guard commander, Lt Col Jerry Killian. The memos that accuse Mr. Bush of disobeying an order and of using connections to have Killian "sugarcoat" Mr. Bush's record.

However, some experts doubt the authenticity of the memos. Killian's secretary -in an interview with 60 Minutes, tells Dan Rather she too believes the memos are fake, but accurately reflect KIllian's view of Lt. Bush.

"I know that I didn't type them. However, the information in those is correct," Marian Knox said.

"Killian was very friendly with Bush. They had fun together. And I think it upset him very much that he was being defied," she said.

CBS News officials said the memo came from a confidential source, and that they remain certain the content of the story is true.

"We would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe in every aspect of it," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward.

However, Heyward also said the network will try to resolve what he calls the unresolved issues.

"Enough questions have been raised that we are going redouble our efforts to answer those questions," he said.

Some at this network believe the backlash against the 60 Minutes report is pure politics. But that's the critics' point as well -- that fake, or real, the fact that 60 Minutes got these documents during an election year was no accident.

Last week 60 Minutes reported that documents from Killian indicated Mr. Bush didn't follow orders to take a physical and that Killian was being pressured to sugarcoat his performance ratings. Mr. Bush's father was a Texas congressman at the time. The network has not revealed how it obtained the documents.

Questions were immediately raised about the documents' legitimacy, with some believing they were produced by a computer not available at the time.

CBS News says the original report used several different techniques to make sure the memos were genuine, including talking to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have been created on a typewriter in the 1970s ? as opposed to a modern-day word-processing software program.

CBS has also said its story about Mr. Bush's guard service relied on much more than documents. Featured in the segment was former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat who claims he pulled strings to get Mr. Bush into the Guard in 1968.

CBS News has said the report by did not rely on assessments made by the two examiners quoted in the ABC report, and found it notable the secretary affirmed the content of the documents.

"We continue to believe in this story," said CBS News senior vice president Betsy West.

Emily Will, a documents examiner from North Carolina hired by CBS, said she told the network before the report aired that she questioned handwriting in the documents she was shown and whether it could have been produced by a typewriter.

Her main concern was that she was not provided a known sample of the signature to use for comparison.

Will said she e-mailed a CBS producer and urged her the night before the broadcast not to play up that a professional document examiner had authenticated the papers.

"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News.

Another expert hired by CBS, Linda James of Plano, Texas, told ABC that "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it understood that I did."

"I really pressed that because I knew that other document examiners looking at the same documents would have a real problem authenticating these," she said.

"I am not aware of any substantive objections raised," she said. "She did not urge us to hold the story."

James told CBS News that she needed to know more about the documents before rendering any judgments, West said. CBS contacted five document experts before the report aired and two since, and continues to report the story, the network said.

CBS News said that Will and James played only a "peripheral role" in assessing the documents, and had seen only one of the four used in the report. Ultimately they deferred to another expert who has seen all four documents, Marcel Matley, and who continues to back up CBS' account.

However, Matley has told CNN, The Washington Post and other media organizations that his work was limited to verifying that the signatures on the memos came from the same source. He did not, he says, claim that the documents themselves were authentic.

Questions have been raised for years about Mr. Bush's entry into and service in the Guard, especially a period from mid-1972 to mid-1973 for which there is conflicting evidence Mr. Bush performed his duties. It is known that he missed a flight physical during that time.

On Tuesday, a private anti-Bush group called Texans for Truth offered a $50,000 reward for "anyone who can prove Bush's claim that he fulfilled his service requirements."

The White House contends Mr. Bush received no favorable treatment and fulfilled his duties. The president on Tuesday addressed the National Guard Association of the United States conference in Las Vegas, Nev. He honored the sacrifice of National Guardsmen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and expressed pride in his stateside stint in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. He did not address the controversy over his service.

Newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Mr. Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972, The Associated Press has reported.

The Boston Globe newspaper has reported that on two occasions while serving in the Guard, Mr. Bush signed documents in which he pledged to fulfill training commitments or else face an involuntary call-up to active duty.

And another thing, the Campaign Finance reform legislation(Feingold McCain) gives magisterial power to network "news" that is not longer allowed to ordinary citizens at election time.
This fraud on the public by CBS demonstrates why giving such power to select groups does violence to the constitution and our rights, regardless how well intentioned. What if there were no bloggers to stand up to CBS?, what if there was no Internet? This entire episode could have been swept under the rug by media collusion. The fraud was clearly intended to effect the outcome of the election and it could have worked. We need more speech, more freedom, not less.

I came across them ago, but could not find them again. Sorry I can't be more help.

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