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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[Howlin]

I hope they don't try to pin this on Bobby Hodges!

[Doctor Stochastic]

It really doesn't matter who produced the document. CBS as the Media-Who-Published should have checked it out better.

Howard Hughes Will
The Salamander Letter
Hitler Diaries
Report From Iron Mountain
Killian Memos

[Yaelle]

Man, Karl is soooooo clever! He knew the DNC would suspect the fake Bush docs he typed up, but he also knew that Kerry would push them onto a media source. He knew, of course, that the MSM souce would question the authenticity of the docs, but he knew that they were too juicy for them not to make a prime time special out of. Are we talking strategery or what???

[badgerlandjim]

CBS, all your news are belong to DNC!

[Torie]

Just dropping stuff off in the mail. Let's move on.

[okie01]

How reliable is the Prowler?

Have no basis for knowing. But if this report is correct, Kerry could well be taking the MSM and most of the Left down with him.

It took forty years, but maybe we'll win the Viet Nam War yet...

[jbarkley]

Yes, Karl knew the stupidity of all the DNC, Kerry and CBS staffers. He's a puppetmaster extrordinare!

The latest - Karl Rove fired up the weather machine so the jobless claims would fall this month. All that and drugging Zell Miller too!!!

This story has been amazing to watch today. Thank you to all the FReepers who devoted so much time to correcting such a horrendous smear. It's like watching Watergate unravel before my very eyes.

[Mo1]

.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Opinions, anyone...

Who is the most odious?

Michael Moore

Terry McAuliffe

Paul Begala

Kitty Kelly

James Carville

Teresa Heinz Kerry

Dan Rather

If you had to choose only one, it wouldn't be so easy, would it? And of course, I've omitted some obvious candidates...

[Polybius]

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign.

Would John F. Kerry lie to the news media?

Kerry Deceives News Media About His Navy Discharge on JohnKerry.com

[Blue Collar Christian]

"I wonder if there are any conclusions we might draw about how he would behave as president when he makes an impestuous, ill-advised attack based on circumspect inteligence."

You mean like when he voted to let the Pres. attack Iraq after not reading the same intelligence reports the Pres. didn't read before he objected to it?

[Gator113]

You know, this is just one more time for us Bush guys and gals to be proud. If the shoe were on the other foot, the likes of kennedy/kerry would be screaming for a federal criminal investigation, while all the DemocRatic leaders took turns at slandering the President.

[Righter-than-Rush]

Dan Blabber, with a call from Hillary-the-Carpet-Muncher.

[Carry_Okie]

I think Hillary's people fed it to Kerry and he took the bait like the pompous and obsessed idiot that he is.

Shooting the campaign's credibility with the MSM would sink him for certain. Hence, we should be seeking who cleared the memos within the Kerry campaign for whether they are Clinton people. Phone logs are in order.

[boop]

Um, this is going to be WORSE if Kerry or the DNC sent this memo. CBS was pretty much in the back pocket of Kerry. Notice how CBS just couldn't WAIT to air the story, even though it was bogus, because they thought it would hurt Bush. CBS-Kerry-DNC COLLUSION!!!!!!!!

[Nick Danger]

If CBS admits that they got these documents from the Kerry campaign, then two really neat things happen.

The first is that the idea that the Kerry campaign forges documents enters the zeitgeist. People start to wonder what other documents the Kerry campaign might have forged. The Lehman commendation? The DD-214 with the Silver Star with 'V'? It might take a lot of popcorn to watch all the fun this could cause.

The second is that the media being in the tank for Kerry becomes impossible to deny. Here CBS News has literally taken documents from the Kerry campaign and promoted them as "news," with an obvious intent to smear Bush. The media's credibility takes another mighty blow.

This is almost too good to be true.

[Kozak]

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.

This is the key statment. They SUSPECTED the doc's were shakey, but rushed the story out anyway. STUPID.

[Torie]

Would not CBS revealing the source be against MSM rules? I don't expect that to happen, particularly if it would tarnish Kerry. When in doubt, side with the liberal.

[The Bandit]

If Rove duped the Kerry Team then Kerry certaintly isn't qualified to be president. Took me 10 seconds to realize the memo's were phony and you can look up my post 2 days ago of me questioning the fonts when it first appeared on the republic. The memo's are just too obivious to try and pass the buck to Rove on the grounds "we may have been duped."

Someone took a calculated risk to try and smear Bush and got caught. CBS is equally to blame because there were red-flags written all over the doc's.