Posted on 09/18/2004 7:27:43 PM PDT by jhouston
In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York.
White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If he senses the DNC or CBS turning on him.....he will bring them down.
Bush made CBS do it!
Michael Dobbs also did the Swift Vet story for the Post. I thought that was well done as well.
Here is a Washington Post chat (live chat where readers post questions) he did a few days ago on Sept 13th:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12330-2004Sep10.html
it links to some of his earlier articles on this story as well.
This scam was designed to be the perfect storm......but those pesky details did them in.
When I worked in journalism, I let my conscience be my guide.
Good inference (not quite proof, but very sound inference), but one little nit. Barnes may have seen the forgeries without necessarily knowing who the forger was.
Ouch!
Hopefully you are "spot-on" - then sit back and watch the DU's spin like you have never seen - i.e. Burkett is looney - cannot be trusted to tell the truth, etc, etc.
Even when he screws up completely (not challenging the documents and somehow thinking the memo's were "pro-Bush"), the left get screwed 100 times over.
And sipping champagne, no doubt.
They are obsessed with the "story". Yet, the only "proof" they have that the "story" is actually true are:
a. A set of demonstrably forged documents.
b. And the word of a political huckster who has testified to the contrary while under oath and whose own daughter has claimed is lying.
These people are no longer able to comprehend reality. Yet, they claim to be competent "newsmen" worth seven-figure salaries.
Dan Rather must step down. Nothing less for that phony.
Nothing in the story about Rather's quote of an unimpeachable source. This is hogwash, if the Post wants to do CBS propaganda then that is just their part of the fraternity of the MSM. The source is Burkett and only an idiot or a partisan would refer to him as an unimpeachable source. The Boston Globe and Newsweek had Burkett nailed as a crazy obsessive Bush hater without a shred of credibility on which to base a major story. From this article CBS is attempting to appear that they were in a hurry, which they were. They were in hurry to take down a sitting President with what could constitute a political drive by. But once the source is known which is undoubtedly the crazy man Burkett, this version does not play at all. I guess this is some substance for the apologists in the MSM to hang onto for the Sunday talk shows. I will take Scaroborough and Buchanan who properly throwing around the term criminal conspiracy when then were not heaping abject ridicule on Crazy Dan. In this article, I do not believe I saw the word forgery or the word criminal or the word conspiracy. Earth to Washington Post, there is some criminal liability here. It is okay to bring in those terms even if you are talking about your MSM brothers.
Burkett is a paroid schizophrenic, and if he feels "sold out" or even "not appreciated enough" then he will turn on those he feels wronged by.
This is exactly what happened with Bush. Burkett started out as a big Bush supporter, but when his paranoid mind began inventing these conspiracy theories of Bush being out to destroy him, he turned on him, and became obsessed with "proving" to the world these conspiracies were real. An augmented sense of self-importance is common with his mental conditions. They typically feel some connection to famous people, and believe they are being stalked, or they are the stalkers. You know the drill.
So if he's sold out by the Democrats, which it seems he already has been, he will quite probably turn on them.
They really messed up big-time getting involved with this nutjob.
Thanks. I will start reading Michael Dobbs. I was very impressed by his article.
You know, I really am surprised by the amateur level of CBS's research and vetting process on this report. It really is astoundingly shoddy when you consider how long they have been working on this story (5 years).
This tells me that Dan Rather's hatred for the Bush family or his arrogance and hubris got the better of him. With a story this explosive he must have known that everybody in the whole world was going to examine every detail of the story but he ran with it anyway. Amazing. And CBS still has not come clean.
Did you notice that George Bush commented on the story today? As long as CBS does not come clean with the forgeries he wants this story kept alive. Rather's colleagues at CBS must be ready to "kill" him.
Thanks again. Take care.
Translation:
Of course we know the documents are forgeries. That doesn't matter though because we're pushing an agenda and we're hoping you are all too incredibly stupid to understand that any allegation found in a forged document is worthless.
The 30-year timeframe also means that they became acquainted in the immediate wake of the Sharpstown Scandal -- which cost Barnes his political career.
Rather thus befriended a known corruptor and corruptee...
Just how stupid are these people on Dan Rather's crew? -- I think, as I read the details of what has gone on in the Rathergate story, that people at CBS have no #^&%#%# competence but are so blinded by bias and rage against Bush that they STILL don't even realize how badly they are screwing up. I know how biased they are, but I still can't believe how INCOMPETENT they are....
Comparison of just two brief documents, one disseminated from the Pentagon and known (or presumed) to be authentic, and the other received by CBS from their 'unimpeachable' source proves just how preposterous the stonewalling by CBS really is. You don't have to know anything about fonts, superscripts, or kerning to be suspicious. The briefest comparison by the untrained eye shows loads of suspicious differences that suggest the document on the right is not an authentic memo from the same office and commander that produced the document on the left (even the signatures don't match!):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/guard_091404.html
That's not to say that on Sept. 7 it was inconceivable that further research somehow could have authenticated the document on the right somehow, but rather that even these idiot reporters and producers should have known instantly that there were gigantic red flags about the document on the right. Not to mention they should have been very suspicious of the source of the documents, except that everything fitted their political agenda so nicely. A very rigorous process of authentication had to be pursued before CBS could even think of using the new memos in any story.
Rather than pursue a truly rigorous process of authentication with the best document experts, CBS was careful NOT to subject the documents to any rigorous screening, showing only isolated and misleading examples to a couple of very dubious document 'experts' (who don't seem to be real forensic document experts, from what I've read) - the one expert who did raise red flags for them was ignored. It's as though they wanted to take no risks
that the documents could be blown out of their story while maintaining the pretence that "we consulted document experts."
This is a very high order of malfeasance and journalistic malpractice - not merely being duped by a forger trying to sway a presidential campaign, but actively helping that forger to try to get away with it.... and now stonewalling when they should be issuing abject apologies, exposing the forger, and launching a major public investigation run by outside experts (real experts).
It's nice to an out of control commie scoundrel like Mary Mapes get her come uppance. Hopefully she'll get the boot.
AAARRRGGGHH (it's talk like a pirate weekend)
There is NO story! A Congressman's son gets preferential treatment in the military??? That's dog bites man. A story would be if a Congressman's son didn't get preferential treatment.
That one politician got another politician to give a good recommendation for his son? That's a news story? The story would be if he got a death row inmate to recommend him.
That a man who has stopped flying doesn't take a flight physical? The story would be if he did take one.
No wonder the White House didn't go ape sh!t over the memos. There wasn't anything in them that was negative. No story accept to someone blinded by hatred for President Bush.
Shiver me timbers, Dan Rather is a bilge sucking barnacle.
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