CBS admitt the Bush Guard Documents are a fake....

source? link?

CBS: Bush documents can't be verified
'We shouldn't have used them,' executive states MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:59 p.m. ET Sept. 20, 2004

NEW YORK - CBS on Monday said it cannot vouch for the authenticity of documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service after several experts denounced them as fakes.
The network said that while it was "deliberately misled," it was wrong to go on the air with a story that it could not substantiate.

"Based on what we know now, CBS News can't prove the documents are authentic," CBS President Andrew Heyward said in a statement. "We shouldn't 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."

'Full confidence' initially
The statement began with this explanation of events:

"'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 week's 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."

CBS said Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, had provided the documents. In a press release accompanying Heyward's statement, CBS said that Burkett "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."

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

Rather issues own statement
CBS also said it was commissioning an independent review of the incident, and will announce the names of the people conducting the review shortly.

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

In his own statement Monday, Rather said:

"I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. 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.

"But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. 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."

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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6055248/?gt1=5100

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040920_856.html

I accept that it is true I found some sources on my own after reading this thread. It was the first I heard of it.

The secretary claimed that she never typed the documents, but that the content was true nevertheless. Now, is she lying on both counts or telling the truth.

It doesn't matter. The old lady has an opinion about another guy's opinion from 35 years ago.

The story is Rather is a Dem hack, who manipulated a news org (and the American public) to try to get his guy in office.

I bet there are Federal charges. And there should be. You can't libel/slander people with no consequences.

Certainly a difference between the title of the thread - and what it's about.

Its exactly what its about. What are you talking about?

Mr. Burkett stated he asked Cleland ''if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money.'' Burkett reported that Cleland told him that they wanted to counterattack. Bill Burkett states he then sent what he had to Max Cleland, and that was the last Burkett heard from anyone involved with the Kerry campaign. The implications of this report are enormous. If these forged documents can be traced from Bill Burkett to John Kerry via Max Cleland, members of the Kerry campaign--if not Kerry himself--could be under criminal investigation for passing forged government documents.

Link

Good idea, husker. Let's arrest Kerry for investigation of this. Set the trial for after the election.

Remind me what country we're in...

If Fox News had done this crap to Kerry, you'd be screeching for their heads, and Bush's.

Just give a semblance of looking at this objectively...

I can't recall anyone asking for Bush to be arrested over the Swift Boat BS, Lash. Or did I miss something?

Because Bush didn't front a fake document to Fox News, who then tried to convince the world it was real.

This is serious, d'art. We can't have news orgs weighing in with politicalpropaganda, and fake documents right before an election. Whatever semblance of journalistic ethics we had left has just sailed out the window.

They were already gone, Lash. You didn't know that the job of the media has nothing to do with truth anymore?

The job of the media is to make money. Don't ever forget that.

Cycloptichorn

A quarter century after Watergate rocked the government to its foundations, Americans remain deeply divided over the scandal's real import, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey.

A surprising 44 percent of Americans think the Watergate affair was "just politics," while 52 percent say it was a serious matter, according to the survey

Please, Lash. With the amount of play the media have given the Swift Boat crew, it's a bit late to be getting alarmed about the big media's credibility.

They have none. As Cyclo says, it's all about $$$.

what's out responsibility in helping it be a "serious matter"
or "just politics"?

I cannot remember the last time I even saw a Swiftboat ad - it's part about money and it's alot about power.

Is money power? ask bill gates

Okay, the RNC has thrown down the gauntlet now. Dan Rather and CBS "60 Minutes 2" put out an inflammatory, accusatory news magazine piece in prime time and ?'stood behind their story' for days allowing it as much damage to the President as they could muster.. As they have now admitted the story was based on purely fabricated documents, will they do the right thing, conduct a full investigation to expose fully the person/people committing the fraud, and give an equal prime time magazine slot to expose this criminal activity? Even if that activity winds up in the lap of the Kerry campaign? Is anybody taking bets?

That's my point. They didn't have to run the ads after a while, because the media kept the story in the news after the ads were over. Mainly Fox, but others, as well. The ads were no longer necessary.

As for Gates, I have no idea what his relevance is to this issue...