WP: Rather Talks of Questions on Papers

Controversy About Bush and Guard 'Not About Me'

By Howard Kurtz
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.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24633-2004Sep15.html

...it sounds to me that Rather is continuing to stick by a story that they started to research about five years ago.

Sounds to me like Rather is telling Kurtz that if by some remote chance he and CBS is wrong, he will be the first one to let people know.

Kurtz also knows that there is NO "shift in tone" being manifested by Rather and CBS.

Why does no one get it? The longer Dan is the central issue, Bush isn't. This is purely a smokescreen.

Unfortunately, the average American's attention span CAN be distracted by as little as bright, shiny objects. Repugs are only more than happy to take advantage of that (though though one of the unintended consequences of that is Bush being the easiliest distracted "Yes, Mr. President... my cufflinks are shiny. No sir... they do not gleam magically, they're made out of gold. No sir, they are not an optical illusion...").

If this continues to drag on, things are going to get very, very bad for John Kerry. And 285 million other Americans.

But is he going to-hell no.

before he took the oath for stealing the election....

see much of a "shift in tone"...he seemed to be laying the groundwork for something else...Maybe I'm totally wrong, but he seems to be projecting
a cool, methodical approach to all this...

They never said he was on assignment or on vacation. Maybe he was personally going down to his home state of Texas to nail this sucker down.

Rather seems to be presenting pieces of a puzzle that CBS is laying out for the American public. I could be way off base, but perhaps this document scandal was a forgone conclusion and CBS went with the story to draw attention to the network's even bigger upcoming stories. I don't think they are finished with Abu Graib, either. The tone with which Rather promised they would continue to aggressively investigate Bush...

They've got something else to reveal. This all seems pretty orchestrated. I can't help but wonder if they are going to break something about Plame, as well.

Ratings must be rocketing. I, for example, never bother to watch 60 Minutes...but I am now.

I'm almost positive that there was something like that going on with him and he had to make some public apology or something about it.

it had to do with his wife, who is also a reporter. Bartcop.com had that story.

he said that it has not been determined

whether they are real or fakes, then obviously, they should not have gone on air until it is determined that they're real.

editors and pulishers of the WP see the war in Iraq as the war to make the middle east safe for Zionist Settlers to occupy the "Holy Lands" in the West Bank. TheWP bigfoots are like a fleet of B2 bombers against anyone or anything that stands in the way of that war succeeding.

If this is allowed to continue they will be complicit in getting a million Americans killed.

"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.

As long as he's employed by the machine, he has to answer to the brass. They might try to put him out to a side pasture, but they wouldn't dare fire him outright.

His wife is a very active, high level Karl Rove political operative. Everybody in DC social circles knows about Howie. Unfortunately when this type of directed disinformation spreads outside the beltway that connection is lost on the general public.

look at the link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128478,00.html

"Will President Bush get a bounce from the Republican National Convention? Jamal Simmons, Democratic strategist, and Sherri Annis, Republican strategist, join the debate."

by referring to the documents as proven fakes and thus requiring an immediate retraction. He also dismissed all allegations about Bush's dereliction as if these documents were the only substantiation of them.

For once in her vapid life, Paula Zahn was actually being a real journalist, trying to get Sullivan to admit that possibly being duped about documents didn't render all attendant charges baseless, but Sullivan effectively barked her down, and Kurtz covered for it, while seeming to be impartial.

It was a disgusting moment, and portends of things to come.

The secretary told plenty. She has a very good memory, and said that the content of the documents was accurate, and that the content of the documents was exactly what her boss was thinking.

She also elaborated about how the other pilots were resentful about Bush being to get out of duty and disobey a direct order from his commander to take his annual flight physical. The interview was quite damming for anybody who watched it.

The men who served with Kerry on his boat came forward as a group to endorse Kerry.

Where are the other National Guard pilots from Texas who served with Georgie?

"Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network.

The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to explain how the documents came to light after more than three decades.

There is only one Kinko's in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents.

Robert Strong, who was one of three people interviewed by "60 minutes," said he was shown copies of the documents by CBS anchor Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes on Sept. 5, three days before the broadcast. He said at least one of the documents bore a faxed header indicating it had been sent from a Kinko's in Abilene."

Who is Bill Burkett?

"A retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard complained to a member of the Texas Senate in 1998 that aides to Gov. George W. Bush improperly screened Mr. Bush's National Guard files in a search for information that could embarrass the governor in future elections.

The retired officer, Bill Burkett, said in the letter to Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, a Democrat from Austin, that Dan Bartlett, then a senior aide to Governor Bush and now White House communications director, and Gen. Daniel James, then the head of the Texas National Guard, reviewed the file to "make sure nothing will embarrass the governor during his re-election campaign."

A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by a lawyer for Mr. Burkett to support statements he makes in a book to be published this month, which Mr. Burkett repeated in interviews this week, that Mr. Bush's aides ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr. Bush's military personnel files.

Mr. Bartlett denied on Wednesday that any records were altered. General James, since named head of the Air National Guard by President Bush, also denied Mr. Burkett's account. But Mr. Bartlett and another former official in Mr. Bush's administration in Texas, Joe Allbaugh, acknowledged speaking to National Guard officials about the files as Mr. Bush was preparing to seek re-election as governor.

Mr. Burkett's letter to Senator Barrientos was part of a running battle that he waged with the National Guard after retiring in January 1998. In it, Mr. Burkett complained of "severe retaliation" from General James for what he said was reporting "illegal acts" within the National Guard. He also complained about the government's failure to pay for his medical care after suffering from a tropical disease after a military assignment to Panama in 1997. Before finally winning medical benefits in July 1998, he said, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression. "

The above is from tomorrow's NYT. Lets find out who faxed the docs. Any DU folks in Abilene? Get down to Kinko's and lets dig this one out. I would love to see one of Rove's boys in the security cam footage.

"...another former official in Mr. Bush's administration in Texas, Joe Allbaugh, acknowledged speaking to National Guard officials about the files ..."

Do we have a disgruntled former employee on our hands ?? :shrug:

Anyone have the scoop on this guy ?

home in Baird is the one in Abilene. The town of Clyde is between Baird and Abilene but I can assure you that though Clyde is bigger than Baird they've got no public fax service either.
I'm at work right now about five miles from the Kinko's in question.

that Bush actually served his duty. END OF STORY