Dan Rather = Dumbass

[sonofbarcelonabob]

www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/20/cbs.documents/index.html

[Barefoot In Kailua]

CBS Apologizes, Says They Were Duped
Monday, September 20, 2004

Apologizing for a "mistake in judgment" in its story questioning President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News said Monday it was misled by the source of documents that many experts have singled out as fakes.

The network said it would appoint an independent panel to look at its reporting about the memos. The story has mushroomed into a major media scandal, threatening the reputations of CBS News (search) and chief anchor Dan Rather (search).

It also has become an issue in the presidential campaign. The White House said the affair raises questions about the connections between CBS' source — retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett (search) — and Democrat John Kerry's campaign.

Click here to read the CBS documents (pdf).

Rather joined CBS News President Andrew Heyward in issuing an apology Monday.

"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," Rather said. "It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism."

Rather added: "It was a mistake CBS News deeply regrets. Also, personally and directly, I am sorry."


Almost immediately after the story aired Sept. 8, document experts questioned memos purportedly written by Bush's late squadron leader, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian (search), saying they appeared to have been created on a computer and not on the kind of typewriter in use during the 1970s.

CBS strongly defended its story. It wasn't until a week later — after Killian's former secretary said she believed the memos were fake — that the news division admitted they were questionable.

Burkett admitted this weekend to CBS that he lied about obtaining the documents from another former National Guard member, the network said. CBS hasn't been able to conclusively tell how he got them, or even definitely tell whether they're fakes or not. But the network has given up trying to defend them.

CBS said it approached Burkett initially about the documents. Rather said Burkett was well known in National Guard circles for several years for trying to discredit Bush's military record.

Burkett, in an interview with Rather aired on the "CBS Evening News," said he was pressured by CBS to reveal his source for the documents, and "I simply threw out a name that was basically, I guess, to get a little pressure off for the moment."

He said he didn't fake or forge any documents.

"I didn't totally mislead you," he said. "I did mislead you about one individual."

Burkett said he also insisted that CBS authenticate the documents on its own. Two document experts consulted by CBS later said they raised red flags that network officials apparently disregarded. Rather acknowledged CBS failed to properly determine whether the documents were genuine.

"'60 Minutes Wednesday' had full confidence in the original report or it would not have aired," Heyward said in a statement.

"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. … 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."

Rather himself also issued a written statement, saying, "I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically," adding that airing the documents was an "error in judgment."

"I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers," Rather continued. "That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where — if I knew then what I know now — I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question."

The original CBS report mainly relied on four memos purportedly written by Killian. Dated in the early 1970s, the papers say that Killian was pressured to "sugarcoat" the young Lt. Bush's record and that Bush ignored a direct order to take a physical.

'Someone Needs to Pay the Price'

"It's about time. I think CBS is the last group in America that doesn't understand these are forgeries — and really abusive forgeries," former Republican National Committee Chairman Bill Brock told FOX News after the statement was released. "Hallelujah they are finally admitted they were wrong and I hope they will be very forthcoming about their source and that they were duped."

The president was told about the CBS statement while aboard Air Force One.

"We appreciate that they deeply regret this, but there are still questions to be answered," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with the president, adding that Burkett has in the past been discredited and has had senior-level contacts with the Kerry campaign, which raise serious questions.

"Where I come from, if you make a mistake or spread lies or allegations, you damn well better apologize to the guy you're offending. In my opinion, they owe the president of the United States an apology directly," Joe Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff for then-Gov. George Bush, told FOX News Monday after CBS released its statement.

"They [CBS] were trying to directly, with false information, affect the outcome of this presidential election. Someone needs to pay the price," Allbaugh added.

Top CBS executives huddled throughout the weekend and refined the wording of its correction and apology throughout Monday morning.

"This is a fact of CBS being used by a wide wrap of Democratic operatives," Terry Holt, a senior RNC adviser, told FOX News.

"I think that [Democratic Party Chairman] Terry McAuliffe, John Kerry — they've been at the heart of a wide range of groups over the past several months designed to attack the president and take him down and I think that's unfortunate."

Holt opined that the Kerry camp was "desperate to find any way they could to change the subject" from the Vietnam swift boat tangle it found itself in after some Vietnam vets charged that Kerry exaggerated some stories of valor from the war and that he didn't deserve all his war medals.

"They had motive, they had opportunity and they definitely had desperation," Holt added.

CBS went into a "defensive crouch" and should have acknowledged sooner the possibility they were duped, Richard Cohen, a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, told FOX News on Monday.

But "I essentially think it's a tempest in the teapot — it was a mistake … all news organizations make mistakes … if they're aggressive and really care about covering the news … it's part of the business."

Some Democratic insiders, however, point out that despite the source of the documents, CBS is standing by its contents and the fact that few are disputing the inconsistencies described in Bush's military record.

"There's still a ton of unanswered questions by this president about his military service," such as whether he got enough points for an honorable discharge, as questioned by The New York Times in a Monday article, said Democratic consultant Jenny Backus.

"I think the thing that we need to look at … is the pattern inside this White house and this president in terms of their credibility … and how they're talking about this Guard story and how they're talking about the war in Iraq today … he has not answered any questions about where he was that year" or in Iraq today, she added.

Adding more fuel to the fire, Burkett, who lives in Abilene, Texas, has now also said that he passed the documents on to former Sen. Max Cleland (search), a Georgia Democrat and triple amputee from Vietnam, who is working with the Kerry campaign. Burkett also has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks."

Burkett's had a long-running feud with Bush over health benefits and the Texas National Guard. Bob Hunter, a Republican legislator who investigated Burkett's charges, told FOX News he found them to be groundless.

Over the weekend, Bush commented publicly on the issue for the first time.

"There are a lot of questions about the documents, and they need to be answered," he told The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H. The president has continued to maintain that he is proud to have served in the Guard.

The Bush-Cheney campaign has maintained that Kerry campaign staffers are behind the memo snafu.

"The timing is not in question and the coordinated effort by the Democrats and the Kerry campaign to use these old recycled attacks is not in question," McClellan said.

FOX News' Liza Porteus, Major Garrett and Kelly Wright and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Gorf]

Yup.

Rather again comes off looking like a clown.

Still, Kilian's former secretary claims the content of the documents reflected his beliefs at the time so Bush ought to be held accountable for his actions.

I wonder if Bush would claim under oath that the claims made in those documents are false.

Then we could get Kenny Starry to investigate him.

[Barefoot In Kailua]

CBS' possible source trusted in Texas town
Retired officer in National Guard has criticized Bush

THE WASHINGTON POST

BAIRD, Texas

For six years, Bill Burkett has lived an uneventful life in this tiny West Texas town. He "visits," as people like to say in these parts, with other ranchers over coffee at the Callahan County Farmer's Co-Op. And like other locals, he drops in on elected officials to introduce himself.

He is, by most accounts, a nice man who, in an overwhelmingly Republican-voting area, might be seen as somewhat eccentric for his Democratic bias.

"I've made comments to him like I think there's only two Democrats left in Callahan County and I'm both of them," said Pete Mendez, 65, a retired federal firefighter. "'It's three of us if that's the way you look at it' is kind of what he's said."

Despite several requests, Burkett has said nothing publicly since Wednesday, after he was named in news reports as a possible source of the disputed documents that 60 Minutes used in a Sept. 8 broadcast that said President Bush received preferential treatment while in the Texas Air National Guard.

In adjacent Taylor County, which includes the city of Abilene, Burkett is viewed as an activist by Democratic officials - a crusading voice against what's wrong with the Republican Party in general and with President Bush in particular.

"He's very bright; he's not a hayseed," said Royse Kerr, the chairman of the Taylor County Democratic Club, which last spring invited Burkett to speak to the members about the "state of politics in America" today.

Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, mentioned then what he had told several reporters last winter - that he believes Bush aides ordered the destruction of portions of the president's National Guard record because they might have been politically embarrassing.

The authenticity of the 60 Minutes documents has been disputed since they were broadcast. After Burkett was named as a possible source of the records, The Washington Post reported yesterday that the documents faxed to CBS bore markings indicating that they had been sent from a Kinko's in Abilene, 21 miles east of here. The day after, no one who knew Burkett here would comment about whether he could have been the source.

"I have no individual knowledge about that," said David Haigler, the chairman of the Taylor County Democratic Party. "All I know is that I trust Bill Burkett. He's been a citizen soldier who decided to stand up and say what is on his mind, and he's got nothing but grief for it."

Haigler said that Burkett has received several death threats since his name surfaced as a possible source for 60 Minutes. "There's just a lot of crazies out here, but Bill Burkett is not one of them.," Haigler said.

Kerr also called Burkett a person of integrity, who, he believed, would not fabricate information.

"I describe Col. Burkett as a person I would trust with my life or my wife," Kerr said. "The people that know him would pretty much agree with that assessment. He's a very devout Christian and a preacher's son."

[Barefoot In Kailua]

CBS Can't Vouch for Bush Guard Documents

Monday, Sept. 20, 2004
NEW YORK – CBS admitted Monday that it could not vouch for the authenticity of documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story that questioned President Bush's Vietnam War-era service in the National Guard, after several experts denounced them as fakes.

Chief anchorman Dan Rather apologized for "a mistake in judgment."

The network said it was wrong to go on the air with a story that it could not substantiate.

"We should not have used them," CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. "That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
CBS said it was commissioning an independent review of the incident, and would shortly announce the names of the people conducting the review.

The announcement was a major blow to the credibility of CBS News and its chief anchor, Dan Rather, who reported the story and also apologized Monday.

Almost immediately after the Sept. 8 story aired, document experts questioned memos purportedly written by Bush's late squadron leader, saying they appeared to have been created on a computer and not a typewriter that was in use during the 1970s.

CBS strongly defended its story, and it wasn't until a week later, after the military leader's former secretary said she believed the memos were fake, did the news division admit they were questionable.

Even then, Rather said no one had disputed the story's premise: that the future president had pulled strings to get a relatively cushy National Guard assignment and failed to satisfy the requirements of his service.

Rather this weekend interviewed Bill Burkett, a retired Texas National Guard officials who has been mentioned as a possible source for the documents. His interview will be on "CBS Evening News" this evening.

CBS said Burkett acknowledged he provided the documents and said he intentionally misled a CBS producer, giving her a false account of their origin to protect a promise of confidentiality to a source.

The Associated Press could not immediately reach Burkett for comment.


'A CBS News Tradition'


Rather said if he knew then what he knew now, he would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired.

"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," he said. "It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism."


The documents were said to be written by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, indicating he was being pressured to "sugarcoat" the performance ratings of a young Bush, then the son of a U.S. congressman from Texas, and that Bush failed to follow orders to take a physical. Killian died in 1984.


© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Barefoot In Kailua]

CBS Steered Forged Doc Source to Kerry Campaign

In what may be the most damaging revelation yet in the Rathergate document scandal, CBS News is admitting that it steered the source of forged military records damaging to President Bush to the Kerry campaign.

In exchange for the meeting with Kerry communications director Joe Lockhart, that source - former National Guard Commander Bill Burkett - agreed to give CBS copies of the Bush records.

USA Today is set to report in Tuesday editions:
"Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the "60 Minutes" program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett."

"At Burkett's request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign," Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president, confessed to USA Today.

Late Monday, CBS said it was investigating the role of "60 Minutes" star producer Mary Mapes in setting up the contact between Burkett and Lockhart.

"The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election," the paper said.

Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said the collusion between CBS and the Kerry campaign to damage President Bush "poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization."

The White House reacted sharply to the Lockhart development, with Communications Director Dan Bartlett complaining, "The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Sen. Kerry's campaign to attack the President is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation."

[Barefoot In Kailua]

www.ratherbiased.com/

www.rathergate.com/

[Gorf]

GWB, Cheney and their campaign staff:

"We didn't know one of our Florida offices was handing out fliers for donations to the Swift Boaters!"

"We didn't know another of our Florida offices had a link to the Swift Boater's web site on our campain site!"

"We didn't know one of the workers in our DC office appeared in the Swift Boater ads!"

"We didn't know our religion advisor had been sued for having sex with one of his teenage students!"

"We didn't know the numbers were originally put out about how much we'd reduced the level of terrorism around the world were 'accidentally' fudged with erroneous data and significantly lower than the actual numbers!"

GOP slogans: "We didn't know!" and "Its not our fault!"



For claiming to be doing so well and never doing anything there sure seems to be a lot of things they don't know about their own campaign let alone what's going on in our country and around the world.

[Gorf]

"President Bush spoke to a meeting of the National Guard in Las Vegas. Boy, a lot of those guys were excited to see him. Well, sure, a lot of them have been waiting since the early '70s." -- Jay Leno

[Gorf]

"Over in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using terrorism to increase his power and erode his people's civil liberties. It's nice to see the American way of life catching up around the world." -- Jay Leno

[Gorf]

.J. Dionne / Syndicated columnist

Yes, Mr. President, there are questions to be answered

WASHINGTON — It is to be welcomed that President Bush wants to clear up questions about his National Guard service. He wants more details out there, and good for him. This story should be laid to rest, and the one person who can do it is named George W. Bush.

Up to now, Bush has been interested in a rather narrow aspect of the story. He wanted Dan Rather and CBS News to come clean about whether they used fake documents in reporting on the president's guard service back in the 1970s.

"There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered," Bush told The Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., last week. "I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out."

I couldn't agree more. And apparently CBS came to the same view. CBS messed up, and on Monday, Rather fessed up. He said the network could no longer stand behind the documents. There will be much hand-wringing about the media in the coming days, and properly so.

But what's good for Rather, who is not running for president, ought to be good for George Bush, who is. "There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered." Surely that presidential sentiment applies as much to Bush's guard service as to Rather's journalistic methods.

The New York Times put the relevant questions on the table Monday in a lengthy review of Bush's life in 1972, "the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen," as the Times called it.

The issues about Bush's National Guard service, the Times wrote, include "why he failed to take his pilot's physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the guard."

Oh, I can hear the groaning: "But why are we still talking about Vietnam?" A fair question that has several compelling answers.

First, except for John McCain, Republicans were conspicuously happy to have a front group spread untruths about John Kerry's Vietnam service in August and watch as the misleading claims were amplified by the supposedly liberal media. The Vietnam era was relevant as long as it could be used to raise character questions about Kerry. But as soon as the questioning turned to Bush's character, we were supposed to call the whole thing off. Why? Because the media were supposed to question Kerry's character, but not Bush's.

And please, none of this nonsense about how Kerry "opened the door" to the assault on his Vietnam years by highlighting his service at the Democratic convention. Nothing any candidate does should ever be seen as "opening the door" to lies about his past. Besides, Vietnam veterans with Republican ties were going after Kerry's war years long before the Democratic convention.

But most importantly, there is only one reason the story about Bush's choices during the Vietnam years persists. It's because the president won't give detailed answers to the direct questions posed by the Times story and other responsible media organizations, including The Boston Globe. Their questions never depended on the discredited CBS documents.

Bush could end this story now so we can get to the real issues of 2004. It would require only that the president take an hour or so with reporters to make clear what he did and did not do in the guard. He may have had good reasons for ducking that physical exam. Surely he can explain the gaps in his service and tell us honestly whether any pull was used to get him into the guard.

But a guy who is supposed to be so frank and direct turns remarkably Clin-tonian where the guard issue is concerned. "I met my requirements and was honorably discharged" is Bush's stock answer that does old Bill proud. And am I the only person exasperated by a double standard that saw everything Bill Clinton ever did in his life ("I didn't inhale") as fair game, but now insists that we shouldn't sully ourselves with any inconvenient questions about Bush's past?

I'm as weary as you are that our politics veer away from what matters — Iraq, terrorism, health care, jobs — and get sidetracked into personal issues manufactured by political consultants and ideological zealots. But the Bush campaign has made clear it wants this election to focus primarily on character and leadership. If character is the issue, the president's life, past and present, matters just as much as John Kerry's.

Dan Rather has answered his critics. Now it is Bush's turn.

[Gorf]

"What's the difference between Hurricane Ivan and President Bush? We know for certain that Ivan was in Alabama."
-- Jay Leno

[Minx]

why is it that some republicans get all nasty with dan rather when at least he owned up to getting faulty information but not get all nasty on bush, cheney, rice, powell, and rumsfeld for using just as faulty information on saddam trying to get nukes which made them want to invade iraq??

[Deleted]

And, of course (and unfortunately), all this means no one is paying attention to the important issue: the memos accurately summed up the situation.

Anyhow. There is much more to this. Just wait.

[Barefoot In Kailua]

Dan Rather is a lying hypocrite. He only fessed up to save himself the embarrassment of looking like an even bigger ass. Interesting to see the outcome of the investigation between the realtionship bewteen the Kerry campaign and Rathergate.