'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake

[Symmetry]

More wonderful news. Seems the first two document experts CBS consulted said the memos were fake, but they ran with the story anyways.

[jegs2]

From the American Spectator:

While CBS news anchor Dan Rather can say there is no internal investigation under way over the alleged forged documents used as the foundation for an investigation into President George W. Bush's National Guard service, you wouldn't have been able to tell from the 15 or so 60 Minutes and CBS News" staffers working away feverishly on Friday and Saturday to try to nail down their story.

On Friday, according to CBS News sources, Rather spent the day on the phone and dealing with CBS suits who were nervous about the fall out from the story. "All Dan could say was that this was an attack from the right-wing nuts, and that we should have expected this, given the stakes," says a CBS News producer. "He was terribly defensive and nervous. You could tell."

All day Friday, Rather, his producer on the story, Mary Mapes, and other 60 Minutes staffers were scrambling to shore up support from their sources on the story. That effort didn't go so well. By Saturday, one of their key sources, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, had said that CBS misled him, and that he had never been shown the memos in question.

"We pulled the trick of only calling some sources at the last minute to reconfirm," says the CBS producer. "Someone called Hodges, I think, on Monday night and read him parts of the document. The late contacts are a standard practice so we don't tip off the competition or our sources."

Hodges is a critical loss for CBS News' credibility. He was the superior officer of the man CBS claims wrote the memo, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

MEANWHILE, OVER THE WEEKEND journalists from around the country were attempting to track down the original source of the documents. "We're having a hard time tracking how we got the documents," says the CBS News producer. "There are at least two people in this building who have insisted we got copies of these memos from the Kerry campaign by way of an additional source. We do not have the originals, and our sources have indicated to us that we will not be getting the originals. How that is possible I don't know."

One individual several news outlets were looking at was Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer. Burkett in the past has cooperated with both press and Democratic Party opposition researchers in slinging mud at President Bush. Burkett gained some national attention earlier in the campaign when he claimed he was at National Guard headquarters in Austin 1997, when he overheard Guard officials and a representative of then Governor Bush discuss how to sanitize Bush's files. That story was fully discredited. Nonetheless, Burkett sat down for at least three different interviews with CBS News for the story now at the center of the controversy. One of those interviews was with Rather's producer, Ms. Mapes.

"There are rumors here that if there are any real documents, they are hand-written notes from Killian that someone like Burkett was holding, and that instead of using the hand-written notes, someone typed them up to look more official," says the CBS News producer. "They would look better on TV and posted on line if they were typed, but on a number of levels, that story just doesn't hold up. There are too many inconsistencies factually with what is in the memos."

THE MOST GLARING ISSUES now are the seemingly phony P.O. Box addresses used in the headers of at least one of the memorandums. Such post office box addresses were not used by the National Guard at that time.

Yet another issue: the 18-month gap between the retirement of Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt on March 1, 1972, and August 18, 1973, when the Killian of the disputed memos claimed that Staudt was putting pressure on him to sugarcoat an evaluation of Bush. Almost everyone involved in the National Guard in Texas says Staudt would have had virtually no influence in the active units nearly a year and a half after leaving the service.

PERHAPS MOST TROUBLING to the CBS News staff looking into how its story went off the rails is the timing of the memos' appearance. "Some 60 Minutes staffers have been working on this story for more than three years off and on," says the CBS News producer. "There have been rumors about these memos and what was in them for at least that long. No one had been able to find anything. Not a single piece of paper. But we know that a lot of people here interviewed a lot of people in Texas and elsewhere and asked very explicit questions about the existence of these memos. Then all of a sudden they show up? In one nice, neat package?"

This CBS New producer went on to explain that the questions 60 Minutes folk were asking were specific enough that people would have been able to fabricate the memorandums to meet the exact specifications the investigative journalists were looking for. "People were asking questions of sources like, 'Have you ever seen or heard of a memo that suspended Bush for failing to appear for a physical?' and 'Have you heard about or know of someone who has any documentation from back in the 1970s that shows there was pressure to get Bush into the National Guard?' It was like they were placing an order for a ready-made product. That is the biggest problem I have with this. It's all too neat and perfect for what we needed. Without these exact pieces of paper, we don't have a story. Dan has as much as admitted that. Everyone knows it. We were at a standstill on this story until these memos showed up."

[Darth Wong]

As I expected, the right-wingers are pretending that the DoD documents don't exist, and are trying to smear them out of existence by acting as though they can't be separated from the "60 minutes" documents.

[Glocksman]

As I expected, the right-wingers are pretending that the DoD documents don't exist, and are trying to smear them out of existence by acting as though they can't be separated from the "60 minutes" documents.

Pretty much, though the news about forged docos is new, while Bush's being AWOL has been known for awhile. The forgery has backfired in that its overshadowing the legit AP FoIA documents.


I don't think Rove or the Republicans had anything to do with it as reportedly the forgeries have been circulating for months.

My guess is that a fringe Kerry supporter, who is unaffiliated in any way with the Kerry campaign and was not acting on any orders from the campaign, is the guilty party.

For all we know, it was the stereotypical 19 year old geek sitting in his underroos at his keyboard with Word fired up.

[MKSheppard]

Wasn't the CBS press release supposed to be out at noon? You can almost hear the ticking of the 60 Minutes stopwatch.

[Durandal]

As I expected, the right-wingers are pretending that the DoD documents don't exist, and are trying to smear them out of existence by acting as though they can't be separated from the "60 minutes" documents.

Pretty much, though the news about forged docos is new, while Bush's being AWOL has been known for awhile. The forgery has backfired in that its overshadowing the legit AP FoIA documents.

As I said in the other thread, the only thing that these memos really say is that George W. Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

[Master of Ossus]

CBS says that the person who typed memos like those ones thinks the documents in question look like forgeries, and that she did not type them. However, she also says that the information in them was genuine.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The growing controversy over President Bush's National Guard records, and whether some of the memos aired on CBS were fake, took another turn Wednesday night.

CBS News reported that the documents it first broadcast last week on "60 Minutes II" appear to be forgeries to the woman who would have typed the original memos in 1972 and 1973.

But Marian Carr Knox, a former Texas Air National Guard secretary, said she did type similar documents for her boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

"I know that I didn't type them. However, the information in those is correct," Knox told CBS anchor Dan Rather.

Knox, 86, had previously told the same story to the Dallas Morning News in a report that was published Wednesday morning.

The newspaper said Knox "spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events."

She told the Morning News, "I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it."

In the memos, the author complained he was being pressured to "sugar coat" the future president's performance evaluations and that Bush failed to meet performance standards, including getting a required physical exam.

The author also wrote that Bush -- whose father was a Texas congressman at the time -- was "talking to someone upstairs" to get permission to transfer to the Alabama National Guard to work on a Senate campaign.

The legitimacy of the memos came under fire almost immediately as people posted doubts on a conservative Internet bulletin board. Soon, a number of document experts suggested the memos were not written on a typewriter in the 1970s but generated on a computer at a later date.

Both Killian's former wife and son also questioned their authenticity.

Rather defended his reporting on air Wednesday saying the controversy that followed last week's report did not challenge the "heart" of the story.

He said that a body of reporting, not just the memos in question, show the future president received preferential treatment to get into the Texas Air National Guard and then failed to fulfill his obligations while an airman.

Bush received an honorable discharge, which has not been in dispute.

Knox told Rather that Killian was "upset" that Bush did not obey his order to have a physical, and she said the young lieutenant showed disregard for the rules to a degree that irritated other pilots.

Knox said the information about Bush in the memos was familiar and that she had typed documents for Killian with similar complaints. She also said the colonel did keep private "cover your back" files.

But, she said she did not type the memos that were aired by CBS because they were written in a format she didn't use and there was Army terminology not used in the Air National Guard.

Knox suggested that the memos obtained by CBS News might have been recreations made by someone who had seen the other documents, although she conceded that was "supposition" on her part.

Earlier on Wednesday, CBS News President Andrew Heyward said the network "would not have put the report on the air if we did not believe in every aspect of it." However, he also said CBS News would try to resolve "unresolved issues" related to the report.

"Enough questions have been raised that we're going to redouble our efforts to answer those questions," Heyward said.

The response followed intense criticism from Republicans.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said he collected signatures from 39 colleagues on a letter sent to the network, calling for a retraction and asking CBS News to reveal the source of the documents.

"Clearly, their sources aren't what they need to be, or they're not willing to reveal even the nature of who their sources are," Blunt said. "It's hard for me to believe ... that CBS, an organization with a long and distinguished history in journalism in the past, would be willing to stand by this story when virtually everybody else has questions about it."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "The one thing that is not under question is the timing of these orchestrated attacks by the Democrats on the president's service."

"And these are old, recycled attacks," McClellan added. "The Democrats have made it clear that they intend to try to tear down the president and throw the kitchen sink at us because they can't run on John Kerry's record and because they see him falling behind in the polls."

[Beowulf]

Last week, Knox said she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time with the Texas Air National Guard, although she did recall a culture of special treatment for the sons of prominent people, such as Bush and others.

Strange how suddenly she remembers things...

[Talon Karrde]

As I expected, the right-wingers are pretending that the DoD documents don't exist, and are trying to smear them out of existence by acting as though they can't be separated from the "60 minutes" documents.

These two arguments don't have anything to do with each other. The "right-wingers" have every right to disprove and "smear" these if they are false and forged documents. Interesting how you give those who "smeared" the Swift Boat Vets a free pass because the Swift Boats were "proven wrong," yet when 60 minutes airs an innacurate program, you claim it's the right-wingers trying to dismiss the entire issue taking blame off of those who made the decision to air such shotty reporting in the first place.

[Master of Ossus]

These two arguments don't have anything to do with each other. The "right-wingers" have every right to disprove and "smear" these if they are false and forged documents. Interesting how you give those who "smeared" the Swift Boat Vets a free pass because the Swift Boats were "proven wrong," yet when 60 minutes airs an innacurate program, you claim it's the right-wingers trying to dismiss the entire issue taking blame off of those who made the decision to air such shotty reporting in the first place.

No, he's claiming that the right wingers are trying to destroy the entire argument by focusing on a single piece of evidence used to support that argument (the forged memos), and ignoring the rest of the argument (the presumably genuine DoD documents that showed other potentially damaging aspects of GW's ANG service). What part of this is escaping you?

DW is NOT claiming that the right doesn't have the right to attack the forged documents, and to smear them. However, he IS saying that it's irresponsible to focus on the forged memos TO THE EXCLUSION of the other materials, which are still presumably genuine articles.

[Durandal]

"And these are old, recycled attacks," McClellan added. "The Democrats have made it clear that they intend to try to tear down the president and throw the kitchen sink at us because they can't run on John Kerry's record and because they see him falling behind in the polls."

Replacing all instances of "Democrats" with "Republicans", "president" with "senator", "McClellan" with "Kerry's spokesman" and "John Kerry" with "George W. Bush" ...

"And these are old, recycled attacks," Kerry's spokesman added. "The Republicans have made it clear that they intend to try to tear down the senator and throw the kitchen sink at us because they can't run on George W. Bush's record and because they see him falling behind in the polls."

Eerie ...

[Darth Wong]

Does it even matter whether the documents are authentic when we now have Killian's secretary coming forward to testify that the information in them is accurate, and that there was a huge brouhaha in the office about Bush getting away with bloody murder when he was a pilot?

[DPDarkPrimus]

Does it even matter whether the documents are authentic when we now have Killian's secretary coming forward to testify that the information in them is accurate, and that there was a huge brouhaha in the office about Bush getting away with bloody murder when he was a pilot?

Of course it does.

[Phil Skayhan]

Yes it matters. The story was that CBS used fake documents as the centerpiece of their story. How does "fake but accurate" absolve them of that? 60 Minutes did not put one document expert on the air that disagreed with the authenticity of the memos, even ones that they had used. These dissenters, who went on ABC News, were only given a paragraph in the official press release from CBS which stated, "Two others, Ms. Will and Ms. James, appeared on a competing network yesterday, where they misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News."

So CBS comes out only with one person, Marion Knox, who can only factually state that she did not type the memos in question. Conviently for CBS, she says that she did type memos like the ones in question.

Knox comes across as a credible witness. However, I have a few questions about her interview with Rather.

Knox, 86, had previously told the same story to the Dallas Morning News in a report that was published Wednesday morning.

The newspaper said Knox "spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events."

Yet specific dates and people, aside from the names Killian and Bush, were absent from the 60 Minutes broadcast. Where were the followup questions? For example:

"You recall typing a document ordering Bush to take a physical, when was that (approximately)?"

"What other memos for Killian did you type on this subject and what were their contents?"

"If these were personal memos to document Killian's concerns over pressure from above to 'sugarcoat' a record, where would these have been kept?"

"Who was pressuring Killian on Bush?"

She also said that Killian's son had no way of knowing about the situation. This despite being his son and serving with him in the TANG? Interesting speculation on her part.

I hope that she will be available for other news organizations to interview. If people are finally beginning to talk about Bush's service one way or the other, maybe we can at last resolve the issue.

Add to that the info that Beowulf posted above

Last week, Knox said she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time with the Texas Air National Guard, although she did recall a culture of special treatment for the sons of prominent people, such as Bush and others.

So in the space of a week she goes from not having first-hand knowledge to remembering typing documents that reflect the content of the fake memos CBS put on air. That could happen but it nees to be explored further. More interesting is that CBS will put a peson on whose story changes to support their argument (Knox) but will not put someone on whose statements change to refute them (Hodges).

Is this honest, complete, and transparent reporting?

Or is this CBS's own version of a CYA memo?

[Darth Wong]

Yes it matters.

In an argument about the professionalism of CBS, yes. Not in an argument about whether George W. Bush is lying. And in late September 2004, George Bush's lies are more important than CBS's incompetence.

"You recall typing a document ordering Bush to take a physical, when was that (approximately)?"

"What other memos for Killian did you type on this subject and what were their contents?"

"If these were personal memos to document Killian's concerns over pressure from above to 'sugarcoat' a record, where would these have been kept?"

"Who was pressuring Killian on Bush?"

You don't seriously figure that if she isn't grilled in sufficient detail about the exact dates and places, the story can be dismissed, do you? 15 years after the fact, I can still easily remember which guys in my office were unpopular because they were assholes (especially the rich boys who floated by on family connections), but that doesn't mean I can remember where I left the binder.

[Phil Skayhan]

Yes it matters.

In an argument about the professionalism of CBS, yes. Not in an argument about whether George W. Bush is lying. And in late September 2004, George Bush's lies are more important than CBS's incompetence.

And I'm arguing about CBS. Bush's lies are are separate matter to me and the DoD files as they stand now are enough for me to believe that Buch's Guard service is questionable at best.

Now the charge that Bush disobeyed a direct order from his commanding officer to take that physical originated nowhere but the memos that CBS put out last week... until Knox's statements last night.

You don't seriously figure that if she isn't grilled in sufficient detail about the exact dates and places, the story can be dismissed, do you?

Dismissed? Absolutely not. It simply that every source CBS has comeout with to support the memos and their content had either, been discredited, withdrawn their support and/or come out against the memos and their content. It seemed to me that in an effort to save their ass, CBS did a less than complete interview of Marion Knox.

I think that I am being a bit over-skeptical here, but given the past week with CBS and their continuing support of these forged memos, I'm not quite ready to recieve my personalized tin-foil hat.

Yet.

[MKSheppard]

Washington Post

Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect
CBS Anchor Urges Media to Focus On Bush Service

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01

CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."

"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.' "

Rather spoke after interviewing the secretary to Bush's former squadron commander, who told him that the memos attributed to her late boss are fake -- but that they reflect the commander's belief that Bush was receiving preferential treatment to escape some of his Guard commitments.

The former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, is the latest person to raise questions about the "60 Minutes" story, which Rather and top CBS officials still defend while vowing to investigate mounting questions about whether the 30-year-old documents used in the story were part of a hoax. Their shift in tone yesterday came as GOP critics as well as some media commentators demanded that the story be retracted and suggested that Rather should step down.

"This is not about me," Rather said before anchoring last night's newscast. "I recognize that those who didn't want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that."

For Rather, 72, it is an all-too-familiar role. In his CBS career, he has survived an impertinent exchange with President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, a clandestine trek through the mountains of Afghanistan, an on-air confrontation with George H.W. Bush over Iran-contra and a much-debated sitdown with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Now, on the final leg of a career launched by a Texas hurricane, Rather is trying to weather his biggest storm. And some of his closest friends and associates are concerned.

"I think this is very, very serious," said Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent. "When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries." Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS.

In her interview with Rather yesterday, Knox repeated her contention that the documents used by "60 Minutes" were bogus. Knox, 86, worked for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian while he supervised Bush's unit in the early 1970s.

"I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the Killian memos. "However, the information in there is correct," she said, adding that Killian and the other officers would "snicker about what [Bush] was getting away with."

Rather said he was "relieved and pleased" by Knox's comments that the disputed memos reflected Killian's view of the favorable treatment that Bush received in the military unit. But he said, "I take very seriously her belief that the documents are not authentic." If Knox is right, Rather said, the public "won't hear about it from a spokesman. They'll learn it from me."

But he also delivered a message to "our journalistic competitors," including The Washington Post and rival networks: "Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions: 'How do you know this and that about the documents?' "

CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the Guard story. "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said last night. "But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues," including questions about the memos' typography, signatures and format. "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents."

Heyward said the account by Knox is "significant, which is why we're putting it on our prime-time program," "60 Minutes."

As a former Houston reporter, White House correspondent and "60 Minutes" regular, Rather has always taken pride in unchaining himself from the anchor desk to cover wars, political campaigns and various other crises. Determined not to be just a multimillion-dollar news reader like some younger-generation stars, he continued to anchor "48 Hours" before finally giving it up and to contribute pieces to "60 Minutes," even at the cost of being stretched thin. So it was not unusual for Rather to be crashing an investigative piece, as he did last week.

The most controversial of the three broadcast network anchors who took the reins in the early 1980s -- the others are ABC's Peter Jennings, 66, and NBC's Tom Brokaw, 64, who is retiring after the election -- Rather has long drawn the most headlines and the sharpest criticism from conservatives who view him as biased.

"Dan is a lightning rod, compared to Brokaw and Jennings, because of his personality," said Lawrence Grossman, a former president of PBS and NBC News. "He's had some very strange incidents. His colorful use of language makes him a little quirky in many people's eyes. So he's a little vulnerable."

But ABC News executive Tom Bettag, who once produced Rather's evening news, said his friend has been "quite extraordinary" in shouldering the burden. "He is the sort of person who could easily say 'this is a team effort,' but he's one of those anchors who puts it all on his shoulders and doesn't pass it down the line to anyone else," Bettag said.

Bernard Goldberg, a longtime CBS correspondent who has turned sharply critical of his former employer, said he believes that Rather was duped and will survive. But, he said, "CBS News is acting the way the Nixon administration did during Watergate. I'm really sad to say that Dan Rather is acting like Richard Nixon. It's the coverup, it's the stonewalling."

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, said that "if it turns out CBS got this wrong, it's very damaging." He added that Rather "has a 'hot' personality that provokes strong reactions."

That may be an understatement. Rather has a penchant for down-home Texas truisms, the sort of globe-trotting that earned him the nickname "Gunga Dan" for his Afghan foray, and plain old strange behavior -- such as signing off his broadcasts for a time with the word "courage."

In 1986, he was mugged on Park Avenue with one of his attackers shouting, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" In 1987, the network went to black because Rather had angrily walked off the set in the belief that a U.S. Open tennis match would bump his broadcast. In 1988, he got into an emotional shouting match with then-Vice President Bush, who accused Rather of being unfair. In 2001, he apologized for speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Texas in which his daughter was involved.

His career has seemed revitalized in the past year and a half. He landed an interview with then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq and the first sitdown with Bill Clinton about his autobiography. And with producer Mary Mapes, who also spearheaded the National Guard story, Rather broke the news of Iraqi prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib -- after agreeing to a two-week delay at the Bush administration's request.

Once the most watched of the three anchors' broadcasts, Rather's show has been ranked third for several years. Now he is even the target of a new Web site, Rathergate.com.

Some media analysts are already comparing the Guard controversy to the 1993 fiasco in which NBC's "Dateline" apologized for staging the fiery crash of a truck, and the 1998 debacle in which CNN apologized for the "Tailwind" story that accused U.S. troops of using nerve gas during the Vietnam War.

"Dan knows that trying to do a story about a Republican president is immediately going to stir up a hornet's nest from the conservatives who have jumped on him since the Nixon days," Bettag said. "He could have been excused for saying 'I don't need this kind of grief.' But he didn't."

As Rather signed off to rush back into the studio last night, he sounded a defiant note.

"I try to look people in the eye and tell them the truth," Rather said. "I don't back up. I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces."

[Glocksman]

As Rather signed off to rush back into the studio last night, he sounded a defiant note.

"I try to look people in the eye and tell them the truth," Rather said. "I don't back up. I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces."

Bullshit

[Talon Karrde]

Does it even matter whether the documents are authentic when we now have Killian's secretary coming forward to testify that the information in them is accurate, and that there was a huge brouhaha in the office about Bush getting away with bloody murder when he was a pilot?

I think this should be looked into. I honestly do. I also think CBS's credibility is now shot.

[Phil Skayhan]

I earlier stated that my suspicion was raised when I came across PO Box 34567. Well guess what? It is PO Box 34567.

Shoddy work on my part.