Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

THE "New" CBS BUSH DOCUMENTS: Let's do some investigating
www.freerepublic.com | September 9, 2004

Posted on 09/08/2004 9:16:02 PM PDT by Howlin

These are the NEW documents "discovered" by CBS with conjunction with their Ben Barnes expose/confessional tonight regarding George Bush's National Guard service.

They've gotten some interesting comments on the Live Thread, so I thought I'd give them their own thread so you people out there with the knowledge can dissect them for their accuracy/truth/existence.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Free Republic; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Alabama; US: District of Columbia; US: Georgia; US: Texas; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 2004; alabama; barnes; bush; cbs; danrather; dubya; edwards; election; gwb; kerry; killian; ltbush; memogate; napalminthemorning; rather; rathergate; texas
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 641-656 next last
Memorandum, May 4, 1972

Memo to File, May 19, 1972

Memorandum For Record,
Aug. 1, 1972


Memo to File, Aug. 18, 1973

Read a transcript of Dan Rather's interview with Ben Barnes:
1 posted on 09/08/2004 9:16:04 PM PDT by Howlin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 1Mike; 3catsanadog; ~Vor~; ~Kim4VRWC's~; A CA Guy; A Citizen Reporter; abner; Aeronaut; AFPhys; ...

Document ping.

Do your thing!


2 posted on 09/08/2004 9:17:53 PM PDT by Howlin (I'm mad as Zell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Where was Lt. j.g. sKerry during the time in question?

Wasn't this about the same time he was making his pilgrimages to Paris to meet with leaders of the nation we were at war with...while he was still an officer in the Reserves???

3 posted on 09/08/2004 9:18:43 PM PDT by intolerancewillNOTbetolerated (Misunderestimated Again Bush/Cheney '04)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Buckhead; Texasforever; ambrose; Travis McGee; backhoe; MizSterious
Would those of you who have posted opinions concerning these documents on other threads, please post them here, too, so we can keep them all together? (Copy and paste at will!)
4 posted on 09/08/2004 9:19:26 PM PDT by Howlin (I'm mad as Zell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Howlin; Buckhead
I'm going to copy Buckhead's previous post to Howlin in another thread over here, so it doesn't get lost:

Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.

In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.

The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.

I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.

This should be pursued aggressively.

I think Buckhead is right on target. These documents don't pass the smell test.

5 posted on 09/08/2004 9:21:40 PM PDT by NYCVirago
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYCVirago

Copy yours, too.......

I was just looking for people who've posted to me; I know nothing about this (among other things....LOL) and thought it would be good if we can get this information to people on here who do know!


6 posted on 09/08/2004 9:22:33 PM PDT by Howlin (I'm mad as Zell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Howlin

I think the first order of business is who actually wrote those document and who gave them to CBS. I still can't come up with a rational reason for the supposed author to write himself "CYA" memos and not send them to anyone else.


7 posted on 09/08/2004 9:23:16 PM PDT by Texasforever (Kerry's new slogan "IT'S NOT THE STUPID CANDIDATE SO STOP SAYING THAT")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Hmmmmmmmm...maybe we need to send CBS all of the proof to the contrary FREEPEWRS haves dug up and posted over the past 4 years. :-)
8 posted on 09/08/2004 9:24:22 PM PDT by nopardons
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Live Thread: Ben Barnes and CBS Attempt Another Bush Smear (60 Minutes)
9 posted on 09/08/2004 9:24:32 PM PDT by hole_n_one
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: All

One other thing: It also doesn't pass the smell test that these documents, which are essentially personal memos to oneself from 1972, would be around in 2004, 20 years after the person's death. Family members do not keep those sort of paperwork around for a dead person.


10 posted on 09/08/2004 9:24:36 PM PDT by NYCVirago
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
I also posted this to Buckhead:

You're absolutely correct. I just looked at the files, and they don't pass the smell test. Most typewritten items from that era would have been in Courier font. And why would these items be copies, anyway, if these memos were for the guy's own personal file? They wouldn't have that run through the copy machine a zillion times aura to them in that case.

11 posted on 09/08/2004 9:25:57 PM PDT by NYCVirago
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Frankly I cannot even begin to imagine this is worth the time spent on broadcast.

I'd like to see just one lamestream reporter ask one of these Dems why they are making such a big deal about this Bush national guard thing when they gave Clinton a completely free pass.

I mean, assuming the worst, that favors were bandied about re admission to the guard, how is that worse than avoided any military service at all? Assuming the word "worse" is even applicable as that war was so badly fought that plenty of young men were doing everything to get out of it.

The Dems are desperate and frankly are beginning to get annoying. Yet the media plays along. Dan Rather should be ashamed.

12 posted on 09/08/2004 9:25:59 PM PDT by Fishtalk (Once a liberal and victim of all the spin. Ask me to interpret.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Col. Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

I'd like to know how CBS got documents from a man that has been dead for 20 years

13 posted on 09/08/2004 9:26:48 PM PDT by Mo1 (FR NEWS ALERT .... John Kerry over dosed on Botox and thinks he's Bob KerrEy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
During the Christmas break of my last year of High School, they decided to go to an "Hours Credit System" to determine your status towards graduation. (so as to mimic the system colleges used)

As it turned out, under this NEW system I had enough credits to graduate without having to pass a single remaining course.

Since I had already been accepted to West Georgia College, I took 3 "F's" and had a great looking tan by the time I arrived on campus.
14 posted on 09/08/2004 9:26:52 PM PDT by eddie willers
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Memo to File is bull. All official record keeping would be on US Paper.

Memo should have a visible watermark to id this as official letter paper. This paper is used for Memos and for letter head. If this was a copy of the original, you would still see the water mark of the eagle and shield in the middle and a US on the lower right hand corner.

There are not identifying marks on this Memo to file, military requires certain markings on memos that are written to a service member's file on the top and/or the bottom. These marks indicate from which command the memo is coming from and who (title and Name) the memo is being added. You may not add records to a service member's file unless you have a need to know, Bush would have to be below you in your chain of command or Bush would have had to add this document himself.

Service records are not kept by your commander, he has people to take care of these records. I non-professional memo like this wouldn't be inserted.
15 posted on 09/08/2004 9:26:58 PM PDT by dila813
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYCVirago

they are obvious forgeries written on a word processor.


16 posted on 09/08/2004 9:27:02 PM PDT by spyone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
the may 4 memo was an order to show up for a physical by may 14. the may 19 memo showed that bush and his CO were still discussing the physical and that bush had told his CO that he would get the physical in alabama if he intended to keep his flight status

while his CO was concerned about the investment they had made, it is obvious from the second memo (and the fact that the CO never made any official complaint about bush's decision) that the CO was in fundamental agreement with Bush's decision.

Otherwise, were are the court marshall records for bush disobeying a direct order?

17 posted on 09/08/2004 9:27:18 PM PDT by rocklobster11
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Howlin
Here is some good dirt about Barnes' association with the Sharpstown scandal in the '70s.

The Handbook of Texas Online


SHARPSTOWN STOCK-FRAUD SCANDAL. Texas went through one of its traditional and periodic governmental scandals in 1971-72, when federal accusations and then a series of state charges were leveled against nearly two dozen state officials and former state officials. Before normalcy returned, Texas politics had taken a slight shift to the left and had undergone a thorough housecleaning: the incumbent governor was labeled an unindicted coconspirator in a bribery case and lost his bid for reelection; the incumbent speaker of the House of Representatives and two associates were convicted felons; a popular three-term attorney general lost his job; an aggressive lieutenant governor's career was shattered; and half of the legislature was either intimidated out or voted out of office. The scandal centered, initially, on charges that state officials had made profitable quick-turnover bank-financed stock purchases in return for the passage of legislation desired by the financier, Houston businessman Frank W. Sharp. By the time the stock fraud scandal died down, state officials also had been charged with numerous other offenses-including nepotism and use of state-owned stamps to buy a pickup truck.

In the 1972 electoral aftermath, incumbent Democrats were the big losers, although at the top level of officialdom it was a matter of conservative Democrats being replaced by less conservative Democrats. Using the scandal as a springboard, less conservative Democrats and Republicans carried the "reform" battle cry and also gained a stronger foothold in the legislature. Democrats, defensively, charged that the whole scandal atmosphere in Texas was a national Republican plot, originated in the Nixon administration's Department of Justice. But before the smoke cleared, Will Wilson, an ex-Democratic Texas attorney general, by then one of the top Texas Republicans in the federal government, was hounded from his position as chief of the criminal division of the Department of Justice because of his own business dealings with Sharp.

The political tumult that was to become known as the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal started out meekly, though symbolically, on the day Texas Democrats were gathering in Austin to celebrate their 1970 election victories and inaugurate their top officials. Attorneys for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, late in the afternoon of January 18, 1971, filed a lawsuit in Dallas federal court alleging stock fraud against former Democratic state attorney general Waggoner Carr, former state insurance commissioner John Osorio, Frank Sharp, and a number of other defendants. The civil suit also was filed against Sharp's corporations, including the Sharpstown State Bank and National Bankers Life Insurance Corporation. But it was deep down in the supporting material of the suit that the SEC lawyers hid the political bombshells. There it was alleged that Governor Preston Smith, state Democratic chairman and state banking board member Elmer Baum, House Speaker Gus Mutscher, Jr., Representative Tommy Shannon of Fort Worth, Rush McGinty (an aide to Mutscher), and others-none of them charged in the SEC's suit-had, in effect, been bribed. The plot, according to the SEC, was hatched by Sharp himself, who wanted passage of new state bank deposit insurance legislation that would benefit his own financial empire. The SEC said the scheme was for Sharp to grant more than $600,000 in loans from Sharpstown State Bank to the state officials, with the money then used to buy National Bankers Life stock, which would later be resold at huge profits as Sharp artificially inflated the value of his insurance company's stock. The quarter-of-a-million-dollar profits were, in fact, made. But they weren't arranged by Sharp, the SEC said, until after Governor Smith made it possible for Sharp's bank bills to be considered at a special legislative session in September 1969, and Mutscher and Shannon then hurriedly pushed the bills through the legislature. (Smith later vetoed the bills on the advice of the state's top bank law experts, but not until he and Baum had made their profits on the bank loan-stock purchase deal.)

The state officials denied all the charges, asserting that they had obtained the bank loans and made the stock purchases purely as business transactions unrelated to the passage of Sharp's bank bills. But as the spring of 1971 droned into summer, political pressure mounted on Smith, Baum, Mutscher, and Shannon-even on Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, who had been connected in several tangential ways to Frank Sharp, his companies, and the bank bills. By the fall of 1971, when Mutscher and his associates were indicted, the politics of 1972 had begun to take shape. Incumbents moved as far away as possible, politically, from the "old system" and the current state leaders. New candidates came forward, some of them literally with no governmental experience, under a "throw the rascals out" banner.

Mutscher, Shannon, and McGinty were tried in Abilene, on a change of venue from Austin because of adverse pretrial publicity, in February and March 1972. The indictment charged the three men with conspiracy to accept a bribe from Sharp, and District Attorney R. O. (Bob) Smith of Austin said during the trial that Governor Smith was an unindicted coconspirator. Prosecutors acknowledged from the start that the case would be based entirely on circumstantial evidence, which produced legal technicalities inexplicable to laymen. But the jury needed only 140 minutes on March 15, 1972, after exposure to hundreds of pounds and hours of evidence, to find the Mutscher group guilty. The next day, at the request of the defendants, Judge J. Neil Daniel assessed punishment at five years' probation.

The conviction of the Abilene Three dramatically advanced the momentum of the "reform" movement, coming less than three months before primary elections, at which more legislative seats were contested than in any year since World War II.qv (Redistricting decisions by the federal courts added to the high percentage of electoral challenges, but the Sharpstown scandal generally was credited as the main factor.) In statewide races "reform" candidates also dominated. The Democratic governor's race saw two newcomers-liberal legislator Frances (Sissy) Farenthold of Corpus Christi and conservative rancher-banker Dolph Briscoe of Uvalde-run far ahead of Governor Smith, who was seeking a third term as governor, and Lieutenant Governor Barnes, whose seemingly inexorable rise to political prominence was ended when his reputation was tainted by the scandal. Briscoe defeated Farenthold in the runoff and later was elected governor; but Republican candidate Henry Grover of Houston and Raza Unida Partyqv candidate Ramsey Muñiz of Waco drew enough votes to make Briscoe Texas's first "minority" governor. For the state's second top executive branch job, voters chose moderate Houston newspaper executive William P. Hobby, Jr., over seven other Democratic candidates as lieutenant governor-also on a "reform" theme. Reform-minded moderate Democrat John Luke Hill of Houston, a former secretary of state, left a successful private law practice to defeat the popular three-term attorney general, Crawford C. Martin,qv who had been criticized for his handling of the stock fraud scandal and for his own relationship with Frank Sharp. The Democratic primary and the general election of 1972 also produced a striking change in the legislature's membership, including a half-new House roster and a higher-than-normal turnover in the Senate. Most of the newcomers were committed to "reform" in some fashion, regardless of their ideological persuasion. The voters simultaneously indicated that their confidence in the legislature had been restored to some extent, because they approved in November 1972 an amendment allowing the legislature to sit as a constitutional convention in 1974. The convention failed by three votes on July 30, 1974, to approve a proposed new constitution for the voters to consider (see CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1974).

The final impact of the stock fraud scandal on Texas politics occurred during the regular session of the legislature in 1973. The lawmakers, led by new House Speaker Marion Price Daniel, Jr.,qv of Liberty, a moderate and son of a former governor, with active support from Attorney General Hill and Lieutenant Governor Hobby and with verbal encouragement from Governor Briscoe, passed a series of far-reaching reform laws. Among other subjects, the legislation required state officials to disclose their sources of income, forced candidates to make public more details about their campaign finances, opened up most governmental records to citizen scrutiny, expanded the requirement for open meetings of governmental policy-making agencies, and imposed new disclosure regulations on paid lobbyists.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Charles Deaton, The Year They Threw the Rascals Out (Austin: Shoal Creek, 1973). Sam Kinch, Jr., and Ben Procter, Texas under a Cloud (Austin: Jenkins, 1972). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Tracy D. Wooten, "The Sharpstown Incident and Its Impact on the Political Careers of Preston Smith, Gus Mutscher and Ben Barnes," Touchstone 5 (1986).

Sam Kinch, Jr.

Recommended citation:
"SHARPSTOWN STOCK-FRAUD SCANDAL." The Handbook of Texas Online. <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/SS/mqs1.html> [Accessed Wed Sep 8 23:21:34 US/Central 2004 ].

18 posted on 09/08/2004 9:28:38 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: spyone
they are obvious forgeries written on a word processor.

Exactly. Who was CBS's "expert analyst" on the authenticity of the documents -- Terry McAuliffe?

19 posted on 09/08/2004 9:29:16 PM PDT by NYCVirago
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Howlin

Terry McAlful quesions, "where were you" of Bush. A reasonable reply: "Along with millions of other Americans I was closely watching my TV, as Kerry committed treason." "And you, Terry?"


20 posted on 09/08/2004 9:29:44 PM PDT by Waco
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 641-656 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson