Posted on 09/12/2004 1:26:31 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A former National Guard commander who CBS News said had helped convince it of the authenticity of documents raising new questions about President Bush's military service said Saturday that he did not believe they were genuine.
The commander, Bobby Hodges, said in a telephone interview that network producers had never shown him the documents but had only read them to him over the phone days before they were featured Wednesday in a 60 Minutes broadcast. After seeing the documents Friday, Hodges said, he concluded that they were falsified.
Hodges, a former general who spoke to several news organizations this weekend, was the latest person to challenge the authenticity of the documents, which CBS reported it had obtained from the personal files of Bush's former squadron commander at the Texas Air National Guard, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who is dead.
The memos indicated that Bush had failed to take a physical "as ordered" and that Killian was being pressured to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance rating because Bush, whose father was then a Texas congressman, was "talking to somebody upstairs."
But they have been the subject of a raging debate, with some forensic document specialists saying they appear to be the work of a modern word processor and others saying they could indeed have been produced by certain types of Vietnam-era typewriters. Some of Killian's family members have stepped forward to question their legitimacy.
CBS News backs its report
CBS News has stood by its reporting, saying it obtained the documents through a reliable source and that a host of experts and former Guard officials, including Hodges, helped convince them of the documents' authenticity. It broadcast an interview Friday night with one of those experts, a handwriting specialist named Marcel Matley, who said the signatures on the documents were consistent with those of Killian on records that the White House had given reporters.
Hodges, 74, who was group commander of Bush's Air National Guard Squadron in the 147th Fighter Group at Ellington Field in Houston in the early 1970s, said that when someone from CBS called him Monday night and read him documents, "I thought they were handwritten notes."
Papers not authenticated
The Arlington resident said he had not authenticated the documents for CBS News but that he had confirmed that they reflected issues that he and Killian had discussed namely Bush's failure to appear for a physical that, military records released previously by the White House show, led to a suspension from flying.
A CBS News spokeswoman, Sandy Genelius, indicated that Hodges had changed his account from Monday night.
"We believed General Hodges the first time we spoke to him," Genelius said.
"We believe the documents to be genuine, we stand by our story, and we will continue to report."
A spokeswoman for the CBS anchor Dan Rather, Kim Akhtar, said CBS had asked Hodges to appear on camera and he had declined. As a result, Akhtar said, CBS simply read him the documents, and he responded by saying "he was familiar with the contents of the documents and that it sounded just like Killian." He made it clear, she added, that he was a supporter of Bush.
'Inconsistencies' noticed
Hodges said he had not spoken with anyone from the Bush administration or campaign about his views and that he was basing his belief that the records were fakes on "inconsistencies" that he noticed in them and, in part, on disavowals by Killian's wife and son.
But the "original" copies that they had were what they faxed to the White House, which put them all on a pdf file and sent it to all the news outlets.
Thus the other news media have copies without DEMCBS talking points superimposed.
I have never seen a slow motion train wreck before. This is fun to watch.
Nobody knows how to spell anymore. Perhaps the originator of the memos claimed they came from his personnel file, not his personal file.
The staffer who didn't know a typewriter expert from a handwriting expert may not know the difference between personnel and personal.
CBS had 6 right along. CBS sent all 6 to the WH, and the WH forwarded them to all the media.
The text of 4 is relevant, because those 4 are the ones that CBS asserts are genuine in a broadcast, and subsequent affirmation of authenticity. CBS chose, for whatever reason, to not use the other 2. Sort of like having reams of documents, and finding one that tells the story. No big deal, unless one is digging for inconsistencies in the bigger picture.
Could have been. Here is a document from an earlier Bush release, it recites PO Box 34567 as an address for the 111st FIS ...
http://www.cis.net/~coldfeet/doc7.gif <-- See for yourself
Agree with everything on this thread, but why do good people like Hodges -- especially those with military experience -- give anyone at CBS or CNN the time of day????
Hasn't anyone in this country learned that these bastards are not to be trusted?
Still seems fishy to me. I'd be surprised that even CBS would put their own marks on documents they wanted to broadcast, especially if they had already sent out unmarked copies to the WH or other outlets.
Are you sure USAT had all 6 memos on their pdf files from the beginning of this story? Again, their "text" file only provides text for the four memos used by CBS.
Hate to beat this to death, but it something doesn't smell right about these "new" memos.
OK. I've got it. Thanks.
No, I think quite a lot of people send their personal effects to the DNC for safe keeping. I suspect we'll see more such "effects" from the DNC/CBS axis in, oh say, October. And probably from many diverse (but very DEAD) prominent individuals.
If you are SeeBS who would be such a RELIABLE source?
DNC?
Klinton?
Kerry?
They didn't mark up their "documents"; they marked copies of their "documents", as they have broadcast rules from their lawyers about showing an address, etc.
Their "documents" are copier copies purporting to be copies of the original memo, but are really copier copies of the fakes.
I have only someone else's word for it that when the White House got the faxes of the copies from CBS, they put them all on one file so the 2 worst of the forgeries were preserved with the 4 best that were broadcast.
Ronin should have read Bias, by Bernie Goldberg, befor making that bet. If he had, he'd know that Dan Rather is far, far too arrogant to immediately resign over something like this. He'll spend the next few months trying to crush anyone who questions him on this issue.
But along the way I think he also became cynical and suspicious of any criticism. "Dan Rather can't distinguish between mainstream, legitimate criticism and criticism coming from extremists. It's all the same to him," is what Heyward told me after my op-ed came out.This character trait, observed in Chapter 15 of Bias two years ago, is precisely what made it utterly impossible for Rather to listen to the people in his own organization who questioned the authenticity of these documents, and what makes it utterly impossible for Rather to back down now.And after the dark days of Richard Nixon, when Dan was constantly under siege, I believe he started seeing even well-meaning critics as enemies. Anyone who said there was a liberal bias on our news broadcasts was an extremist, practically by definition, as far as Dan was concerned. Every critic was a Richard Nixon lining Dan up in his sights. I think a little of Nixon's paranoia rubbed off on Dan.
It seems these folks don't like to feel manipulated. And they tend to not mince words. I like it - I like it a lot.
The rest of the country sees CBS standing in manure up to their knees and they continue to say they smell nothing.
It would be most helpful if SOMEONE could say whether all 6 memos were on the USAT site from the beginning.
So far, I have not been convinced they were. If you go to the "text" file on USAT, it says, "Here are the texts of FOUR memos indicating...". Supposedly, they posted pdf files at the same time which had SIX memos. The text file was posted at 9:45 am on Thursday...long before the media was questioning the authenticity of CBS's docs. I'm just not sure I believe that USAT would have cut down their text illustration merely to match what CBS had reported the night before.
This just doesn't add up.
It would be interesting to see a RATher picture with President Bush (if one exists). I'll bet he is sour faced.
Put them side by side with a caption like.
"Enough Said"
Not to worry. FR can fight wars on many, many fronts. Besides, our allies, the Swifties, are sinking the Kerry campaign's "attack boats" faster than the Kerryites can launch them.
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