[jhouston]

WP's latest contribution.

[jhouston]

Rather and CBS now blame the White House. If the White House had just called them liars and forgers they would have never...

[12 Gauge Mossberg]

Dan Rather: "It's raining harder than emails from angry conservatives to the CBS website."

[js1138]

Later, Bartlett would explain why he did not challenge the documents with a question: "How am I supposed to verify something that came from a dead man in three hours?"

As us. We did it.

[hispanarepublicana]

bump

[vbmoneyspender]

Half an hour later, Roberts called "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes with word that Bartlett was not challenging the authenticity of the documents. Mapes told her bosses, who were so relieved that they cut from Rather's story an interview with a handwriting expert who had examined the memos.

If anything, this indicates that CBS knew there were problems with the memos and then acted like plaintiffs' trial lawyers when the White House did not object to the memos.

[EternalHope]

The article is basically an attempt to absolve CBS and Dan Rather from malicious intent. Nice try, but it won't fly.

The article also had a few accidental laugh lines:

Howard said he believed some of the outsiders' questions about superscript and proportionate spacing were "kind of silly."

[counterpunch]

Mary Mapes had been trying to get her hands on the rumored documents for five years.

Burkett started the rumor and Mapes has been chasing it for 5 years. Finally, he just manufactured the evidence she was looking for. So funny how it all comes full circle.

[ajf0]

If the documents were hand-delivered, why did the CBS fax header appear on the documents that the White House distributed to the rest of the media?

[jhouston]

This story has a lot of new details. It's notable because it shows that WP and NYT now have people talking at CBS. It won't be long before they cultivate the same kind of sources at the Kerry campaign.

Of course Howie had to get in a dig in the last couple of sentences. Has to repeat the "but the story is true" line.

[Elvis van Foster]

This is great. Not only is Rather destroyed by this, his groomed lefty replacement Roberts has his hands dirty too. He was an anti-Bush hack out of the same mold as his boss.

[holdonnow]

One of the revelations here in the middle of the story is that Rather has known Ben Barnes for 30 years. Many of us suspected Barnes and he were acquaintenances, if not more. And he never revealed this during the program.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[68skylark]

What a bizarre story. Thanks for the post.

[68skylark]

CBS is behaving just like the Clinton White House during the Lewinsky-Willey-Broaderick scandals -- deny, evade, argue, lie, stonewall, shift blame, act like a victim, then go back to the beginning and start over.

[knuthom]

"This gave us such a sense of security at that moment that we had the story," Howard said. "We gave the documents to the White House to say, 'Wave us off this if we're wrong.' " But Bartlett said CBS never asked him to verify the memos and that he had neither the time nor the resources to do so.

Wave us off this if we're wrong? If the White house had objected, Dan Rather would have been MORE sure he was on the right track.

[68skylark]

This must be a confusing time for the MSM -- they don't want to turn on one of their own family, but they don't want to be splashed with all the crap either. Time to choose, fellas!

[fightinJAG]

I love the question at the end about "as CBS been hoaxed." No, CBS fell short of every standard of journalistic integrity that exists.

The "kind of silly" guy is kind of silly. And they talk about Republicans being out of touch?

Finally, I am struck again by the fact that this was a non-story from the git-go. No one would have cared about a young lt who was transitioning out of the Guard missing a physical.

[counterpunch]

During the Republican National Convention in New York, Rather got a call from Ben Barnes, a onetime Texas lieutenant governor and veteran Democrat who has known the anchor, a former Houston TV reporter, for 30 years. Barnes said he was ready to say before the cameras that he had pulled strings to get Bush a coveted slot in the Texas Guard in 1968. Mapes had long been urging Barnes to tell his story.

On Friday, Sept. 3, the day after the convention ended, Mapes hit pay dirt. She told Howard her source had given her the documents.

Previously CBS told us that Ben Barnes came forward to give his testimony only after CBS has obtained these "documents".

But now we learn that Barnes -- Kerry's Texas campaign co-chair -- was the one who contacted Dan Rather.. a couple days before CBS recieved the documents!

Why is this significant?
Because that means Barnes saw the documents BEFORE CBS did. The source had to have shared the documents with the Kerry campaign first meaning it was the Kerry camoaign itself who most likely was the middle man in the hand off. At the very least the Kerry campaign co-ordinated it.

[traviskicks]

"So much of this debate has focused on the documents, and no one has really challenged the story. It's been frustrating to us to see all this reduced to a debate over little 'th's."


What is left of the story? What are the allegations? This CBS story is the shoddiest piece of journalism I have EVER SEEN. I cannot believe it. If I was the CEO of a company that were this incompetant I would fire the lot.

[savedbygrace]

After the show, one colleague asked an elated Rather whether he was sure the documents were real. "I have never been more confident of a story in my life," he said.

Bwahahahahahaha.