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http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/10/90907.shtml
Media Assault on Bush Collapses in Credibility Meltdown
In a stunning journalistic fiasco from which the mainstream press may never recover, a full frontal attack by two out of the three major broadcast networks on President Bush's reelection bid has collapsed amidst questions about forged documents and fraudulent testimony.

CBS anchorman Dan Rather's already shaky journalistic reputation was in tatters Friday morning, after documents unearthed during his Wednesday night "60 Minutes II" broadcast purporting to show a cover-up of Bush's National Guard record were called probable forgeries by forensic experts.

Memos uncovered and touted by Rather's team appear to have been written in Microsoft Word, the experts said - a computer program that did not exist at the time Bush was in the Guard.

The same documents, purportedly authored by Bush Guard commander Jerry Killian, were challenged by Killian's widow and son, who told reporters on Thursday that the deceased National Guard commander would have never written such memos.

A second portion of Rather's "60 Minutes II" broadcast, featuring allegations against Bush from former Texas Lieutenant Gov. Ben Barnes, was also discredited, when his daughter Amy told a Texas radio station that her father was a "liar" who had changed his story to sell a book.

NBC News was also mired in a credibility crisis, as a spokeswoman for the network's "Today Show" insisted it was going forward with its planned rollout of Kitty Kelley's Bush bashing book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty" - even though Kelley's key witness against Bush has recanted her account that Bush used cocaine and has accused Kelley of fabricating her interview.

"I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever saw him use cocaine at Camp David," ex-Bush sister-in-law Sharon Bush said in a statement issued Thursday.

Instead, the one-time Bush family insider insisted, "When Kitty Kelley raised drug use at Camp David, I responded by saying something along the lines of, 'Who would say such a thing?'"

Still, "Today Show" spokeswoman Lauren Kapps insisted that NBC producers had no plan to cancel or even scale back Kelley's three day mega promotion on the program, touted by the network as the crown jewel of morning TV.

"This was a very competitive interview that all the morning shows were after and, as we do with all of our interview subjects, we'll review the material beforehand and ask all the appropriate questions," Kapps said in a statement issued Thursday.

"This is astounding," one longtime media observer told NewsMax. "You have a major TV network promoting a book with a major news story that has already been discredited. At least in 1999, when St. Martin's Press found out their 'Bush used cocaine' book was false, they had the decency to withdraw it from bookstores."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/10/130050.shtml
Caddell: Dan Rather May Have Cost Kerry the Election

Longtime Democratic strategist Pat Caddell said Friday that if documents aired by CBS newsman Dan Rather Wednesday night turn out to be forged as alleged by experts, the presidential race "is over."

"It would be the end of the race," Caddell told Fox News Live. "It would be the end of the race," he repeated.
"[Democratic officials are] so involved in this," the former Carter pollster worried. "They have gotten themselves so involved in this issue, [in] the last 24 hours, that somebody's going to, if they're not authentic, they're going to be blamed for it. It's incredible to me that they've gotten in this."

Caddell said he wasn't trying be sensationalize the issue, explaining that instead, "I'm trying to save my party, you know, by telling the truth."

He said that forfeiting the presidential race would be the least of his party's problems if Democrats are tied to any forgery scandal.

"The race is over - and we've got bigger problems than that," he warned.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/9/202100.shtml
Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 8:19 p.m. EDT

Ben Barnes' 'Daughter': My Dad Lied About Bush

A woman purporting to be Amy Barnes, daughter of former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, said Thursday that her father had fabricated claims that he used his influence to get President Bush into the Texas Air National Guard 36 years ago.

In a phone call to WBAP's Mark Davis radio show in Dallas, Texas, Ms. Barnes told guest host Monica Crowley that her father was an "opportunist" who had lied about Bush's Guard record during a "60 Minutes II" broadcast Tuesday night.

BARNES: I love my father very much, but he's doing this for purely political reasons. He is a big Kerry fund-raiser and he is writing a book also. And [the Bush story] is what he's leading the book off with. ... He denied this to me in 2000 that he did get Bush out [of Vietnam service]. Now he's saying he did.

CROWLEY: Did he tell you, Amy – and I'm glad I have you on the line with me – did your father tell you that he was prepared to do this on behalf of John Kerry – go after President Bush like this?

BARNES: He told me he was going to do it. In fact, I talked to him a couple of months ago. He told me he was writing the book. He told me that he was going to be talking about this. And he knows that I – we have very diverse political opinions. He knows my opinions and we get into this debate every time I see him. But, you know, he said that he was going to be talking about it.

CROWLEY: Now you're saying, Amy, that he has had two separate stories on President Bush's Guard duty during the Vietnam era?

BARNES: Yes, yes. This came out in 2000 and I asked him then, at the time, if he [helped get Bush into the Guard]. He said: "No, absolutely not. I did not do that." - CROWLEY: So, I hate to put you in this position, but I will ask you, do you think your father, Ben Barnes who was on "60 Minutes II" with Dan Rather last night – do you believe that he lied on the air to the American people last night about President Bush?

BARNES; Yes, I do. I absolutely do. And I think he's doing he's doing it for purely political, opportunistic reasons – trying to get John Kerry elected and trying to make Bush look like the bad person. ... Like I said, he's going to be trying to promote his book that he's got coming out. [End of Excerpt]

Crowley's colleague, WABC Radio's Mark Levin, aired a tape of the exchange in New York after confirming that Barnes does indeed have a daughter named Amy.


Hmmmmm...

Hog

Is there Media Bia here? I am truly shocked

BWAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Now this makes sense... listening to and reading the transcript on Rushs show...

The Real Bush Guard Record
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_090904/content/truth_detector.guest.html


Hog

Herr Rabbit

because they appeal to the lowest of the masses, people without any intellect, and there are so meny of you.

Cigarick

oh yeah!

Do remember, you republicans do not represent the majority of Americans......if it were not for the BS electoral college, ol' GW wouldn't even be a thought. And, we thought every vote counts......wtfe.

BTW, Russ, why do put any stock in a know felon (by default) and drug user?!

"BTW, Russ, why do put any stock in a know felon (by default) and drug user?!"

The ONE alleged witness to Bush using Coke, denied ever saying it, and WHAT felony? Bush won the popular vote in FLA by 537, and if the government could ever compare the voting record in Fla, to the absentee votes in NY, the margin would open to several thousand!

I say turn them over to Bo Dietel and his investigation group and I will bet on them being proven to be forgeries, CBS News has been had and is to damn arrogant and proud to admit it!

Charlie

PS Besides who the hell cares anyway....let this mess die along with JfK and his war record and get on with the debates,e tc.

Gee, if those docs are authentic, then how is it 111th is superscripted in one? There wasn't a typewriter in existence in the '70s that could do that. Oh, can anyone guess the odds on the PO Box being 34567?

DId anyone note that if Fox is taking viewership away from ABC,CBS, NBC, then they must be taking some of the intellectuals the Left so pirzes there. Afterall, they don't just materialize from thin air.

Mr maven is suggesting, although he doesn't think very well, that these people must be making a stupendous transformation to idiocy by a quick click on a remote. One can only assume they regain their brilliance by another click on the magic tuner.

So, what the main media has left are Ricky and others like him swooning over "Survivor", "The Swan", "Big Brother". He's in good company with the people there that think just like him.

I wonder if the integrity of CNN is in any question to the Left, what with their still employing 2 campaign managers for Kerry as "commentators". CNN, now that's fair and balanced.

And still coming...

'60 Minutes': Witness Who Contradicted Forged Docs Was Too 'Pro-Bush'

In its controversial report on President Bush's National Guard record, CBS "60 Minutes" anchorman Dan Rather failed to include accounts from witnesses who challenged the content of memos now believed to have been forged because they were deemed too "pro-Bush."

Gary Killian - son of the late Jerry Killian, who commanded Bush in the Guard and who CBS claims had authored the suspicious documents - said Friday that he was interviewed two weeks ago by "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes.

In addition to challenging the central premise of the CBS report - that his father felt pressured to cover up Bush's allegedly subpar Guard performance - Gary Killian urged Mapes to interview Dean Roome, who roomed with Bush during his time in the Guard.

Ms. Mapes explained that "60 Minutes" had already conducted the interview but was unlikely to include Roome's account in its report, telling Killian Jr.: "We think he is pretty pro-Bush."

Killian detailed his interview with Mapes to ABC radio host Sean Hannity on Friday, explaining that both he and his stepmother had been contacted by "60 Minutes."

But like Roome, their comments wound up on the cutting room floor.

"She wanted to interview me about my dad and how he felt about George Bush," he told Hannity. "Then she proceeded to ask me about documents."

Killian quoted the "60 Minutes" producer as saying, "We're trying to get our hands on some documents that your dad supposedly wrote that were not very flattering towards then-Lieutenant Bush."

Killian recalled that he immediately questioned whether his father would have written the critical comments, telling Hannity that he knew his father actually admired Bush because "we talked about it."

Killian Jr. even warned "60 Minutes" that any documents purporting otherwise were likely to be of questionable origin.

"I don't know of any such documents. Dad didn't keep any home office or anything like that. ... There were no secret files, there were no off-campus files. Any files that my father would have kept would have been in his office."

"60 Minutes" also contacted his stepmother, Killian said, who told Rather's crew that her late husband had great admiration for Bush.

Mrs. Killian has since challenged the authenticity of the CBS documents, saying her husband didn't even know how to type.

An astonished Hannity asked, "You said this to '60 Minutes' and they didn't include any of this in their report?"

"That's correct," Killian responded.

Ironically, while Gary Killian was on the air with Hannity, CBS issued a statement that claimed interviews conducted by Rather's team "with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking" corroborated their questionable documents.

herr rabbit: actually there were typewriters used by the military that time that could superscript type face; that's incorrect. the issue is whether or not the superscript type face matches the font of the regular type. :)

Herr Rabbit

i ususally watch fox news and you don't personally know didily squat about "There wasn't a typewriter in existence in the '70s that could do that." except what was reported for you to repeat.

"Mr maven is suggesting, although he doesn't think very well, that these people must be making a stupendous transformation to idiocy by a quick click on a remote." no mr maven thinks very clearly that the click of a remote does not cause idiocy, but that the belief that watching fox will inform, is in itself a sign of idiocy.

Mr maven has heard of ""Survivor", "The Swan", "Big Brother" but does not watch them. for comedy i watch good old bill o'reilly. i love arrogance which when compounded with narrow mindedness, makes for smugness.

"As Fox's ratings go up(MENY more people watching), he means those people are too stupid to realize the truth only he and his kind holds."

bingo!

Rick,

Where Rather is in the $hitter is a lack of explanation as to how proportional spacing was used in the document. Something as simple as technology is going to bite CBS on the ass and there isn't anything you, CBS, John Kerry or the Democratic Party is going to be able to put forward that can rewrite technology.

It's funny that the document examiner Sandra Lines was able to make an exact copy on Microsoft Word as was I. Proportional spacing and all. And something else no one has mentioned but is the lack of hyphenation in the documents. When I took typing in school, we would hear the typewriter ring and then we would have some words already started that we would have to hyphenate. If you go back into old typed documents from this era, you will see hyphenations in most text. Just another shadow on the authenticity of this stuff.

It is also ironic that Terry McAuliffe is already setting this up as a Republican ruse conceived by good ole Karl Rove.

I feel sorry for all you Democrats. You can't field a candidate who can win (that would be Kerry)... so your only alternative is to sling mud at the other party (that would be Bush) hoping you'll make Bush look worse that your candidate already looks. Now that's good ole American ingenuity at its best.

Cheers,

grond

Just found this on another forum and thought everyone might find it interesting. It does a good job of pointing out the problems I've already addressed in my prior post.

http://img41.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img41&image=60minbusted.swf

Cheers,

grond

PS: see my post Kerrys UCMJ charges, it's full mof possible violations and definite violations that he got away with, never having been charged while on duty, but were in fact chargeable offences!

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/12/180141.shtml
Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004 5:56 p.m. EDT

Newsweek: CBS Source Was Disgruntled Guard Officer

NEW YORK – A principal source for the CBS story about President Bush's National Guard duty was Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former Guard officer who lives in Baird, Texas, who says he was present at Guard headquarters in Austin in 1997 when a top aide to then-Gov. Bush ordered records sanitized to protect the boss, Newsweek reports in its current issue.

Typed memos from the early '70s suggesting officers were pressured to give Bush special treatment and "sugarcoat" increasingly negative evaluations were a central part of the CBS report.

Other Guard officials disputed Burkett's account, and the Bush aide involved, Joe Allbaugh, called it "absolute garbage."

Burkett may have a motive to make trouble for the powers that be. In 1998, he grew gravely ill on a Guard mission to Panama, causing him to be hospitalized, and he suffered two nervous breakdowns. He unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses.

Still, in theory, Burkett may have had access to any Guard records that, in a friend's words, "didn't make it to the shredder," reports Chief Political Correspondent Howard Fineman and Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff in the Sept. 20 issue of Newsweek.

Fellow officers say Burkett wasn't a crank but rather a stickler for proper procedure – a classic whistle-blower type.

Burkett was impressive enough to cause CBS producer Mary Mapes to fly to Texas to interview him.

"There are only a couple of guys I would trust to be as perfectly honest and upfront as Bill," said Dennis Adams, a former Guard colleague. The White House, through Communications Director Dan Bartlett, called Burkett a "discredited source."

Newsweek also reports that a hard-core group within the John Kerry campaign is setting up a new "oppo" squad aimed at countering what they perceive as Republican-backed smears against Kerry. Tentatively called Sealords II – Kerry's Mekong Delta mission in Vietnam was known as Sealords – the group has a $1 million budget and will be housed at the Democratic National Committee, where, one of its members says, the mission will be "message, debate prep, attack, attack."

Hog

Sorry, I meant to ask you, Ricky, as you failed to tell us your bona fides on typewriter nomenclature? Please illuminate us idiots, if you would?

The only one I can think of that could come close would be the IBM Selectric types. But if you think the NG was a repository for the best equipment, especially in war time, think again. The Guard/Reserve always acquired the cast offs of the “real” Army/Navy. Why would they even need such a machine, for the monthly meetings?

Anyway, it would be unusual for an officer to do his own typing, they have the NCO/EM clerks to do that. Can’t they find the men who typed these? Wouldn’t that settle the matter?

What branch were you in that you became so acquainted with the typewriters of the US Military?

I’ll check my old military file and see if there were any superscripted items. Usually, it was that funky font found only in the military, you vets know which one I mean. I can’t describe it, the one the orders and DD214 were always written in.

Not saying anything about the validity or lack there of for the note, asking what typewriter somebody used 30 years ago borders on ludicrous.

Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004 7:28 a.m. EDT

Only One Expert Sided With '60 Minutes'

CBS anchorman Dan Rather claimed Friday that his "60 Minutes" team thoroughly authenticated a document purporting to show a cover-up of George Bush's National Guard record, but produced only one expert to back his finding.

And by Saturday, even that testimony had come into question.

Rather's lone expert, Marcel Matley, "is primarily a handwriting expert whose expertise in document evaluation has been challenged by the head of the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners," reported the New York Post.

What's more, the document in question was a photocopy, not an original, something Matley himself once said precluded any conclusive authentication.

In an essay for the American Law Institute unearthed by RatherBiased.com, Matley wrote:

"Do not passively accept a copy as the sole basis of a case. Every copy, intentionally or unintentionally, is in some way false to the original. In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries."

In fact, by the time of Rather's Friday broadcast, an array of document experts had spoken out on his earlier report. So, why didn't the CBS News star cite any of their analysis?

Because almost none of it backed his reporting.

Sandra Ramsey Lines, for instance - a forensic document expert who edits the Journal of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners - told the Associated Press that she "could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."

Lines told the AP that she was "virtually certain" that the memos were written on a computer, not a Vietnam-era typewriter.

Beyond the particulars of Rather's dubious documentation, new details emerged on Saturday strongly suggesting that the evidence in question had been fabricated.

The memo - a complaint by Bush's Guard commander, Jerry Killian, that he was being pressured by his own boss, then-Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, to "sugarcoat" Bush's record - had a 1973 date.

According to the Dallas Morning News, however, Staudt retired in 1972.

Courage, Dan.

CBS hates Republicans and will do anything they can to have an Eastern Elite President, doesn't matter that he would be a bigger bumble than Elmer Fudd hunting "wabbits" just that he is a Liberal Democrat!

Charlie

" "ludicrous"
why do you say that AVB? it is a valid question that needs to be investigated...

Hog"

Let me give you an example. You always get gas at your local station. What was the price of gas on August 19th, 1984 at your local station? You use that station all the time so this should be something you remember.

If the secratary was a Reservist, he or she would use that typewriter once a month, plus wouldn't know exactly from one month to the next if it was the same typewriter or one similure to the one used previously. If a full time person the typewriter becomes invisible tool to do their job just like the model number of the computer monitor you are looking at to read this.

See my point?

AVB,

Your ignorance is showing. Reserve posts have active duty personnel in most clerical positions and, having a mother who was one of these personnel in the era of 1968 - 1972, I can tell you that not only could she tell you every model and type of every single typewriter she used from 1945 - 1972 but also the type of paper, forms, duplicates, carbons, etc. that were required.

Find Killians active duty or civil service clerk who worked in that office and this issue will be done. She will likely state that they didn't even have electric typewriters on the post in 1972 (my mother moved to electric in 1971 on the main base of the 8th Air Force in Westover Air Force Base and the Guards are normally years behind the active military, but, there are people out there that can answer that question.

Your comments give the impression that you really don't want these answers AVB. What sickens me is that I just watched Dapper Dan defend his investigation again even while ABC, NBC, Fox and CNN are all acknowledging the serious concerns that these documents are highly likely forgeries. Dan.... bend over and bark like a dog. :)

Cheers,

grond

AVB, the reason you find it ridiculous is that the typewriter would prove once and for all whether these memos are real are fake. I sense fear in your postings.

I also appreciate being called a liar. If my mother were still alive, I would have her post here to confirm what I've said but she's been dead since 2000.

Your TV analogy doesn't hold up. Would you not agree that the guy who would work on your TV would not know what the make and model of the Circuit Board Tester he had. Heck, he would probably know how to service it if it broke. He could probably give you a time line of the technological advances he had seen in his equipment over the last ten years proudly stating different makes and models. What were the secretary's main tool before the advent of the modern day computer?? That would be her typewriter, her steno pad and her trustee fountain pen. I would wager that if you found 20 secretaries who worked in the 60's and 70's, you would find that each of them knew all about their typewriter.

Cheers,

grond