Anatomy of a Forgery

The American Spectator ^ | 9-10-4 | Washington Prowler

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Anatomy of a Forgery

By The Prowler

Published 9/10/2004 12:09:06 AM

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian. The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign. "More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity." The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from." The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush's personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them. According to a Kerry campaign source, there was little gossip about the supposedly hot documents inside the office of the campaign on McPherson Square. "Those documents were not something anyone was talking about or trying to generate buzz on," says the staffer. "It wasn't like there were small groups of people talking about this as a bombshell. I think people here weren't sure what to make of it, because provenance of these documents was uncertain." A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story. "The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.' And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different." The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program. Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries." ABC News' political unit held a conference call at 7:00 p.m. Thursday evening to discuss the memo and its potential ramifications should the documents turn out to be a forgery. That meeting took place around the time that the deceased Killian's son made public statements questioning the documents' authenticity. According to one ABC News employee, some reporters believe that the Kerry campaign as well as the DNC were parties in duping CBS, but a smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the opposition.

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[jwalsh07]

CBS-Kerry-DNC COLLUSION!!!!!!!!

Like Grammy's Apple Pie with a big dollop of home made whip cream, so good it's got be sinful. :-}

[Jim Robinson]

LOL. Y'think Kerry will be accepting any more help from the Clintons?

[Jhensy]

I've been following this breathlessly all day on FR, not daring to believe it could really be a forgery. Now I will make my first contribution.

What happened here on Free Republic today was nothing short of historic. We've been reading a lot about about the role "new" media, blogs, etc., have been playing lately, but NOTHING has proven this dynamic shift more than today's events. It will take a little bit of time for us to get perspective, but we saw a seismic shift today.

Power to the people, indeed.

[bray]

Ohhhhhh Yaaaaaawn, you got some more splainin to do!!! At this rate he may have a tough time carrying Boston. Now if this is true, who would have enough authority to go ahead with this potential nuclear explosion??

Pray for W and Our Troops

[tapatio]

I guess CBS never heard of something being to good to be true.

Or the old saying, you get what you pay for!

[Henk]

Would not CBS revealing the source be against MSM rules?

I doubt they feel honor bound to protect a source that supplied forged documents.

I realize "honor" is not the right word to use when dealing with the dims and msm.

[atomic conspiracy]

Rove would not have any way of knowing that the DNC and CBS would fall for such obvious forgeries.
It took the blogosphere less than 12 hours to tear them apart and demonstrate their recent origin.

[Kozak]

but a smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the opposition.

Wait till Rove has W trot out Osama on a dog leash for the second debate.....

[christie]

.
My money is on Kerry. He has a history of leaking, coercion, and lying.

Check out the John F. Kerry Timeline.

Here is one of the articles I have linked, which says a lot of Kerry's character or lack thereof: Kerry's Disloyal Nicaraguan Journey
.

[badgerlandjim]

...Are we talking strategery or what???

It's all so... so... uh... nuanced. Yeah, that's it! NUANCED! HAR! HAR! HAR!

[Publius]

Let's build a backward chain.

CBS -- Texans for Truth -- moveon.org -- George Soros -- Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

It goes all the way to the candidate's wife.

[gobucks]

Bottom line ... this helps hillary for 2008, once again.

So, who is the closest 'retired military officer' to the Clintons? Who has the most to gain? Some think that source will be outed by CBS as payback for making them look so bad. Not a chance ... they still have the goodies of the future to look forward to w/ Mrs. Clinton .... they dare not offend her.

Thus, we'll never know the source in my view...

[Mo1]

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story

I wonder what stories the Kerry Camp dumped on ABC's lap that they reported on?

[rocklobster11]

can anyone forward this to the DNC?

[TX Bluebonnet]

the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up ...

This is particularly amazing to me

[jwalsh07]

Osama's dead. I'd bet a large amount of money on that. But his head will do.

[Thane_Banquo]

Coordination between CBS and Kerry folks?

CBS will now turn on the Kerry camp for giving them forged documents and making them look like fools. They will run stories harmful to Kerry, and may out his campaign as the source of the documents in order to pay Kerry back for making them look stupid. Sure, they're lefties, but this is business, and politics is thrown out the window when someone threatens your profits.

[Kozak]

but a smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the opposition.

You know from a tactical point of view if we can encourage this belief in the omnipotence of Rove, we can paralyze the opposition. They just won't be able to know if they should bite on something or not. Hell maybe we can convince them that Fat Man Moore is a sleeper agent of the VRWC.

[Henk]

So, who is the closest 'retired military officer'

Don't get too wrapped up in identifying the "retired military officer". That could just be the cover story that DNC/Kerry used to sell the (known) forged docs to CBS.

[Hattie]

The real tipoff that the memos were fakes was the fact that Killian emailed them ..

No, no, no....the guy couldn't even type remember?