Posted on 09/20/2004 9:34:42 AM PDT by SmithPatterson
CBS Regrets Bush Memos Story
NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2004
(CBS/AP) CBS News on Monday said it regretted broadcasting a story about President Bush's military service based on documents whose authenticity is in doubt, saying the source of the material had misled the network.
CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, the reporter of the original story, apologized.
In a statement, CBS said former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."
The network did not say the memoranda — purportedly written by one of Mr. Bush's National Guard commanders — were forgeries. But the network did say it could not authenticate the documents and that it should not have reported them.
"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
"Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting," Heyward continued. "We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."
Additional reporting on the documents will air on Monday's CBS Evening News, including the interview of Burkett by Rather. CBS News pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken."
In a separate statement, Rather said that "after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically."
"I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers," he said.
"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," Rather added.
The authenticity of the documents — four memoranda attributed to Guard commander Lt. Col. Jerry Killian — has been under fire since they were described in a Sept. 8 broadcast of 60 Minutes.
CBS had not previously revealed who provided the documents or how they were obtained.
Burkett has previously alleged that in 1997 he witnessed allies of then-Gov. Bush discussing the destruction of Guard files that might embarrass Mr. Bush, who was considering a run for the presidency. Bush aides have denied the charge.
In the statement, CBS said: "Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point."
Questions about the president's National Guard service have lingered for years. Some critics question how Mr. Bush got into the Guard when there were waiting lists of young men hoping to join it to escape the draft and possible service in Vietnam.
In the Sept. 8 60 Minutes report, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes — a Democrat — claimed that, at the behest of a friend of the Bush family, he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Guard.
Other questions concern why Mr. Bush missed a physical in 1972, and why there are scant records of any service by Mr. Bush during the latter part of 1972, a period during which he transferred to an Alabama guard unit so he could work on a campaign there.
The CBS documents suggested that Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order to attend the physical, and that there were other lapses in his performance. One memo also indicated that powerful allies of the Bush family were pressuring the guard to "sugar coat" any investigation of Lt. Bush's service.
Skeptics immediately seized on the typing in the memos, which included a superscripted "th" not found on all 1970s-era typewriters. As the controversy raged, CBS broadcast interviews with experts who said that some typewriters from that period could have produced the markings in question.
Other critics saw factual errors in the documents, stylistic differences with other writing by Killian and incorrect military lingo.
Some relatives of Col. Killian disputed that the memos were real. His former secretary said the sentiments regarding Mr. Bush's failures as an officer were genuine, but the documents were not.
Some document experts whom CBS consulted for the story told newspapers they had raised doubts before the broadcast and were ignored. CBS disputed their accounts, pointing to the main document expert the network consulted, Marcel Matley.
Matley insisted he had vouched for the authenticity of the signatures on the memos, but had not determined whether the documents themselves were genuine.
Last week, CBS News stood by its reporting while vowing to continue working the story. The network acknowledged there were questions about the documents and pledged to try to answer them.
Mr. Bush maintains that he did not get special treatment in getting into the Guard, and that he fulfilled all duties. He was honorably discharged.
On Saturday, a White House official said Mr. Bush has reviewed the disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972, and did not recall having seen them previously.
In his first public comment on the documents controversy, the president told The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., "There are a lot of questions about the documents, and they need to be answered."
The Bush campaign has alleged that their Democratic rivals were somehow involved in the story. John Kerry's campaign denies it. In an email revealed last week, Burkett said he had contacted the Kerry campaign but received no response.
Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about Mr. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.
The White House and Defense Department have on several occasions claimed that they had released all the documents only to make additional records available later on.
©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
What insult?
You do know what a wag is don't you?
Okay. Thanks. I made that the first night of the DNC Cornvention.
Regrets? Really? Who got fired? What does it take to get fired at CBS? Oh, that's right, we know the answer to that one: Question Dan Rather's judgment, integrity or sanity.
Yikes, I have been keeping track of this story fairly closely (although work is in the way today) and I didn't know the CBS memos were in an ad made in July. Last I had read the memos were received by CBS rather late.
The fact that they were faxed from the Abilene Kinkos makes it virtually certain that CBS is telling the truth about Burkett giving them the memos. That doesn't mean that the Kerry campaign wasn't involved (the release of the memos and the start of the Fortunate Son offensive occuring at the same time is too much coincidence for me) it just means that Burkett did the faxing.
Fine Dan; now quit.
"We regret that we were caught."
1. Burkett calls Cleland and offers the docs. Cleland says he'll get back to him, does, and they coordinate the release of the memos with the release of the Dems Fortunate Son material and anti-Cheney ads.
2. Burkett calls Cleland and offers the docs. Cleland says he'll get back to him and never does. Frustrated as Kerry sinks in the polls, Burkett decides to take matters into his own hands and call CBS. Hearing about the upcoming 60 Minutes broadcast and believing Burkett might actually have something, the Dems decide to strike with Fortunate Son while the iron is hot.
Here's the fun part: Even if option 2 is the truth and the Kerry campaign wasn't working hand in hand with Burkett, we already have a "web of connections" between him and the Kerry camp with as many strands in it as the "web" connecting Bush-Cheney 04 with the Swiftees. Further investigation will only reveal more.
Check it: Swiftee to Bush "connections:"
Rich GOP Texas donor (What was his name, Rick Perry?)
Ken Cordier worked for the campaign and was in the "Sellout" ad.
Minor campaign lawyer also worked for Swiftees.
Burkett-Kerry-CBS web:
Burkett contacts Cleland about memos, and tells other Dems Cleland is interested.
"Killian's secretary" is a Bush-hating Dem.
Ben Barnes is a Kerry campaign Vice Chairman.
Rather raises money for Texas Dems.
Fortunate Son debuts right at the time the memos are used by CBS.
And some may not call this a "connection," but:
CBS ignored several people close to Killian and several of Dubya's squadron mates to run this story, and they did not employ a single accredited document expert. This means that they were going to run the story ASAP and without caring much about the facts. That means to me that they are de facto Kerry campaigners whether there is real coordination or not.
Yeah, J.G. Burkett caught them on another Vietnam thing, they ran a documentary about Vietnam vets, portraying them as the dregs of society, and it turned out that only one of the nine featured vets had actually been in Vietnam. All Burkett had to do to confirm this was file a FOIA request. CBS said, "We stand by our story."
Well hi, Onyx, how the heck are you?! Good to hear from you. I agree with your point of view: Rather and CBS were not duped. They were willing, malicious participants. It's hardly the first time a news organization has done such a thing, and it won't be the last. The difference with this particular case is: (1) the target was a popular president in the middle of a reelection campaign, and (2) the internet, which has finally leveled the playing field somewhat between average people and the so-called mainstream news media.
CBS and Rather still have not outright admitted that the documents are forgeries. Not even Burkett is telling the truth. He claims he got the memos from some unnamed source. How convenient. So everyone was duped. You'd like they'd all descend on the original source (if it isn't Burkett) like a pack of jackals, but they won't.
You're right, I hadnt thought that far ahead. Maybe gomer made the contact, and had burkett fax it in ?
Definitely possible. It would not surprise me at all if Cleland had a meeting with Burkett when he was down in Texas to do his publicity stunt at the ranch in Crawford, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was no contact. But this needs to be investigated further...
I think Cleland got had by Burkett in the same way General Hodges got had: Somebody on the other end of the phone tells him, "I've got these great, absolutely authentic documents that prove Bush was AWOL" and he doesn't even think to doubt it. In Hodges' case he didn't doubt it because CBS is a top news organization. Cleland probably didn't doubt it because he hates Bush and was ready to believe the guy was a coward, not anything like the endlessly brave and picked-on Max Cleland.
I've got to admit, the same thought occurred to me.
Hey does that come in a wallpaper size??? LOL
CBS finally HAD to admit it lied. According to Blow O'Reilly's comments the other day, he said "what Rather did is no different than what Bush did with the WMD."
There is a HUGE difference and BLOWRIELLY KNOWS that!!!
The last year or two, I don't recognize Bill O'Reilly anymore.
That is why I didn't include him inTHIS pic.I think someone has hijacked his mind.
I like EVERYONE in that pic, Meek....they truly represent what FOX is about at its core.
And I don't recognize blowReilly anymore, either. His mind has been hijacked by his pride and overcome by his arrogance, IMHO.
In other words, they know who the source is but they have not gotten (or, more likely, will not get) a confirmation of who the source is.
Very slippery ground here; they can hide behind the 'need to verify' the identity of the source, but if they choose not to ask for verification from a second or third party, they can't name the source.
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