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The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Rathergate . . .By Larry ElderPublished September 18, 2004 Dan Rather, in a breathless "60 Minutes" piece, said he obtained documents showing then-Lt. George W. Bush didn't report for a physical, and his commanding officer accused him of failing to meet National Guard standards.     Mr. Rather also interviewed former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who says he used his influence to get Mr. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard (TexANG).     But a funny thing happened on the way to the expose. Mr. Barnes' daughter -- after saying she loves her father...

I did a search on Opensecrets.org for Ben Barnes' donations. He has been a very busy man. The number of checks written must have given him writers cramp. The following is a summary of the donations since 1990. BARNES, BEN           9/18/1991        $500                Alexander, Bill Jr BARNES, BEN           5/20/1999        $5,000             Americans for Responsible Leadership BARNES, BEN           3/3/1994          $1,000             Andrews, Michael A BARNES, BEN           10/4/1991        $1,000             Andrews, Michael A BARNES, BEN           10/10/1989      $1,000             Andrews, Michael A BARNES, BEN           12/16/1998      $3,000             Arena PAC BARNES, BEN           1/14/1994        $1,000             Assn of State Democratic Chairs BARNES, BEN           2/22/2001       ...

. Cash-and-Kerry Consider two of the big money people backing Kerry’s current presidential campaign. One, who since 1999 has reportedly funneled nearly $700,000 in both hard and soft money to Kerry, is Alan Solomont. Remember the controversy four years ago when it came to light that one of the flagship stations of the Public Broadcasting Service, WGBH in Boston, had been violating the privacy of its contributors and the taxpayer-supported impartiality of this PBS station by giving its confidential lists of contributor addresses, telephone numbers and other personal information to the Democratic National Committee? The partisan person who reportedly committed...

What exactly did Ben Barnes do to get President Bush in the ANG? I haven't seen him interviewed. Barnes says he got the President into the ANG. Did anyone ask him any follow up questions, such as who did he call, what did they discuss, etc. It's easy to claim that you did something, but where is the corroboration for the claim.

DNCBS The CBS television network, and Dan Rather in particular, are, if you'll pardon my use of the common military vernacular, in a world of s--t. As most everyone is now aware, the program '60 Minutes II' reported last week that President Bush received favoritism in order to get into the Texas Air National Guard (TANG) in May of 1968, and then had his performance reviews "sugarcoated" by a now deceased Colonel for reasons which have been left to our imaginations. Mr. Rather attempted to substantiate the first of these two charges by introducing the unsupported claim of former Lt....

    CARL BERNSTEIN: RATHERGATE MAY BE ANOTHER WATERGATE (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) NEW! compleatjohnkerry.blogspot.com NEW! unfitforcommand.blogspot.comjohnkerryisdangerousforamerica.blogspot.com   CLUELESS: O'REILLY AND PODHORETZ ON RATHERGATE THE KERRY-RATHER-BARNES FORGERIES DECONSTRUCTEDWHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA 9.14.04 Dear Mr. O'Reilly, Contrary to your discussion tonight with John Podhoretz ("The O'Reilly Factor"-FoxNew), the authenticity of the Dan Rather memos is no longer open to debate. Irrefutable proof on multiple levels now exists that the memos are forgeries. Your problem seems to be that either you lack the technical expertise to evaluate the material... or you never examined the...

Here's a photo of David Van Os, the spokesman for Bill Burkett of Memogate fame, addressing a major John Kerry for President rally in Austin last month. This is the same rally that was headlined by HOWARD DEAN and made pretty big media coverage around the state at the time.

You guys are more up to speed on this than I am, but there is a lot more to this than the documents. Barnes' accusations were the thrust of the story, with the documents as support. Both Rather and Barnes have credibility problems that go well beyond the documents. To say nothing of Barnes' political leanings, (which supporters disqualified the Swift Vets from airtime on CBS) my understanding is that Rather may be tied politically and financially to Bob Barnes, having hosted at least one fund raiser for him. Rather's daughter is involved in Democrat politics in the same county,...

TIME TO THINK ABILENE:  According to the Washington Post for tomorrow - the documents at the center of the Rathergate appear to have faxed from a Kinkos Copy Center somewhere near Abilene, Texas. In this recent story in the local Abilene Reporter News - familiar Bush critic Ben Barnes - who evidently is from near Abilene, is caught parroting some of the same things that these memos supposedly "prove"... IS BUSH CRITIC BEN BARNES "THE SOURCE" of Rathergate's Memos?

I have seen almost no follow up on the 60 MinutesII interview with former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes. Barnes stated that a Bush family intermediary, Houston businessman Sidney A. Adgar (now deceased), requested that Barnes help George W. Bush get into the TANG. Barnes then stated he called TANG Director, Brig. Gen. James Rose, and arranged for Bush's acceptance into TANG. Barnes then stated he had helped sons of other prominent Texas families to enter the TANG with the continuing help of Gen. Rose. The next day, Barnes' daughter stated to FOX's Sean Hannity that her father told her...

CLUELESS: O'REILLY AND PODHORETZ ON RATHERGATE THE KERRY-RATHER-BARNES FORGERIES DECONSTRUCTEDWHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA 9.14.04 Dear Mr. O'Reilly, Contrary to your discussion tonight with John Podhoretz ("The O'Reilly Factor"-FoxNew), the authenticity of the Dan Rather memos is no longer open to debate. Irrefutable proof on multiple levels now exists that the memos are forgeries. Your problem seems to be that either you lack the technical expertise to evaluate the material... or you never examined the material in the first instance. Additionally, both you and Podhoretz seem to approach this story with a pro-media bias, and you, in...

Peter Principles: A fraud, not a mistake By PETER ROFF WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Though it is not a certainty, the documents produced by CBS News to support the assertions of former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes that George W. Bush was the beneficiary of special treatment throughout his service in the Texas Air National Guard are likely fraudulent. This is no small issue. It is unusual for a contemporary U.S. presidential campaign to give as much attention to the military service of the candidates. The Kerry campaign, as many have said, has been based almost...

THE KERRY-RATHER-BARNES FORGERIES DECONSTRUCTEDWHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA by Mia T, 9.14.04   (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)Q ERTY SERIES Thanx to Calpernia   COPYRIGHT MIA T 2004 The Kerry-Rather-Barnes forgeries and flip-flops aside, the attempted analogy is risible... A PRESIDENT KERRY MAY BE ABHORRENT...BUT IS IT EVEN CONSTITUTIONAL? WHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA     by Mia T, 8.21.04 "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us," says former Vietnam...

Saturday, September 11, 2004 And That's The Way It Isn't If you traveled in certain circles on the East Coast this past summer, the one story you heard over and over again was that Ben Barnes had the goods on George W. Bush's National Guard record and that CBS News was going to break the story on "60 Minutes." I must have heard this story four or five times, including once from an investment banker who claimed to have heard it from Barnes himself. It is well known in Texas that Ben Barnes is not a guy you'd want to...

Kerry Spot reader Frank observes that on October 3, 2000, Democrat Ronnie Earle hosted a fundraiser for his race for District Attorney. The event had eight sponsors. One of them was Ben Barnes, the star of 60 Minutes II’s report on President Bush’s National Guard years. Another one of the eight sponsors was Robin Rather, daughter of Dan Rather, an Austin-area “ passionate environmentalist and community activist” who has given $12,500 to Democratic causes in the last three election cycles, including $1,000 to John Kerry on March 15 of this year. One wonders… by any chance, did Robin Rather introduce...

The X Files Of Lt. Bush A flurry of contested memos and memories sheds more heat than light on his record By AMANDA RIPLEY Monday, Sep. 20, 2004 Journalists and politicos have been trying off and on for a decade now to suss out exactly what George W. Bush did in the National Guard more than 30 years ago. The basic facts are not very mysterious: Bush got a coveted homeland gig in the Guard, just as many other well-connected college graduates did, while hundreds of thousands of other young men got drafted and sent to Vietnam. Ever since Bush...

September 12, 2004, 11:02:47 EDT Ben Barnes, the Democratic lobbyist and former lieutenant governor of Texas who was featured prominently in the 60 Minutes report that triggered the Memogate controversy, was the co-sponsor of a fund-raiser for a liberal district attorney in Texas along with Dan Rather's daughter, Robin, an Austin-based environmental activist. According to the web site of Ronnie Earle, district attorney for Travis County, Texas, Ben Barnes and Robin Rather were among a the small group of sponsors for an October 3, 2000 fund-raising event for Earle's reelection campaign. In 2001, Dan Rather was the keynote speaker at...

A new face on the horizon is Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, who is garnering headlines by saying he helped Mr. Bush avoid service in Vietnam. But Mr. Barnes in 1999 said that no one from the Bush family asked for such assistance; he testified to the same fact under oath. Barnes, a Democrat, was defeated in Texas after he was implicated in a quick-profit stock scheme that was allegedly designed to win the passage of two banking bills. He is also a Kerry campaign vice chair.

Dan Rather interviewed former Texas legislator and Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes in order to establish that Barnes used undue influence to get George Bush into the Texas Air National Guard. Rather didn't mention the fact that Barnes has been a major contributor to the Democrats and to the Kerry campaign; over the past five years, he has generated almost a half-million dollars for the DNC and John Kerry, as I reported earlier. Rather treated Barnes as a reluctant witness instead of the partisan he is. However, CBS News did not always treat Barnes with such kid gloves. New Jersey blogger...