Posted on 09/20/2004 10:01:52 AM PDT by rwilliam
(CBS) Below is the text of the CBS News statement on its use of documents purportedly written by President Bush's National Guard commander:
Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bushs service in the Texas Air National Guard.
Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
CBS Statement On Bush Memos
NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2004
(CBS) Below is the text of the CBS News statement on its use of documents purportedly written by President Bush's National Guard commander:
Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bushs service in the Texas Air National Guard.
Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also 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.
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. Burketts interview will be featured in a full report on tonights CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (6:30-7:00 p.m., ET/PT).
In light of this and other developments reported by CBS News and other news organizations, CBS News President Andrew Heyward issued the following statement:
'60 Minutes Wednesday' had full confidence in the original report or it would not have aired. However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents authenticity.
That included an interview featured on last weeks edition of "60 Minutes Wednesday" with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer named as the author of the documents; the interview with Bill Burkett to be seen tonight; and a further review of the forensic evidence on both sides of the debate.
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. 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. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.
CBS News and CBS management are commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken. The names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly, and their findings will be made public.
©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
RatherLate.
Terry McAwful ??? .....
.........chief suspect........
Now, now. The liberal press lemmings would never get duped by the same idiotic propaganda most of them believe. Never. Honest!
And they would never collude with a political campaign to smear a republican president, you know. Liberals really aren't seething ideological fanatics and apes.
This isn't what they wrote. And Rather can spin around all he likes. But the execs at CBS should have written:"We at CBS now believe that the documents used to support a 60 Minutes II story putatively about the President's record while serving in the Texas Air National Guard were fradulent. The admitted source of the documents has been revealed to have had a long history of personal animus towards now President George Bush, and is no longer considered reliable. CBS can no longer vouch for the authenticity of these documents. And that must be the standard for journalism, not that others are required to refute a story by proving the negative. That the staff of 60 Minutes II ignored warnings from its own uncertified experts, misrepresented themselves to others who were then said to be witnesses or approved of the story, ignored the objections of the author's own wife and son, and otherwise proceeded in a manner suggesting journalistic bad faith on their part, these and other questions will be address by an independent investigation just commissioned by CBS management.Now that's what they should have written. But they did not.This entire incident 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. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.
Of course. We get the usual mewling stupidities from their lawyers.
They're all cowards and ingrates. And they have no objectivity. They're stupid liberals.
Thanks for the reality check. I was losing it back there.
WE WON THIS BATTLE.
The Great War is NOT over, though.
The FRAUDcasters and Old Media have still not succumbed, and they are still trying to spin their way into the minds of the people. We must not falter; we must not fail; we must continue to weild our weapons and fight until they have ceased to resist.
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I want to know what role Cleland played in this fraud.
Pshaw... Burkett was linked to sKerry almost ten days ago... we now know Cleland was part of that chain...
A couple days ago, someone said to me that I was "over the top" in saying that. I dare them to say it now. I'll even give odds.
A criminal investigation is due into the conduct of this campaign by the sKerry group and the Old Media FRAUDcasters. Treason is not too severe to be investigated, although it may not be able to be upheld.
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Burkett has been aware of these documents for a dog's age.
.
CBS is so full of crap. This wasn't a "mistake", they were not "misled", and they should not be given a pass with this half-assed quasi-apology. This is like the guy who robs a bank with a rubber gun.
CBS committed fraud in an attempt to influence a presidential election within 60 days of that election, nothing less. Everybody involved should be immediately fired and CBS should be accepting full responsibility instead of hiding behind shadowing stories of being "misled" and "making a mistake". Mistake hell, they committed a crime using forged documents
Also, given that the Old Media demanded that the president apologize for using bad information in his State of the Union address regarding yellowcake uranium, which turned out to be the CORRECT information after all, shouldn't we demand that Rather apologize to the president?
Right. Mapes, Rather, and the rest of the C___BS organization put out the word that they have been looking for people to smear President Bush. They have found a whole slew of them during the past year especially, who they have paid handsomely, whether in publicity or in gold.
C___BS is the lead dog of the FRAUDcasters, but not the only one of the Old Mediots who ahve been complicit with the sKerry campaign and the Demodogs in working to unfairly bring down the President of the United States, and in fact, the United States itself.
/
RIGHT ON!
/
"WE WON THIS BATTLE.
"The Great War is NOT over, though.
The FRAUDcasters and Old Media have still not succumbed, and they are still trying to spin their way into the minds of the people. We must not falter; we must not fail; we must continue to weild our weapons and fight until they have ceased to resist. "
This has been a great year for the truth instead of the MSM Ratherizings posing as truth. From the Jayson Blair/Ny Slime fiasco, to the AP Writer lying about the boos to the Ratherizing to America about GW's Air National Guard service.
Freepers continue to reveal the total dishonesty of the Ratherizing MSM.
The only thing scarier than the knowledge that this idiot could dupe another megalomaniacal idiot into not only embarrassing himself and a major American company, but the realization that this nut-case was a Lieutenant Colonel in our military.
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