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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has launched a criminal investigation into forged military records allegedly obtained from President Bush's National Guard file that were aired by CBS News two weeks ago, referring a congressional request for the probe to the investigative division of the Texas Rangers. "On Wednesday 52 Republican congressman urged the Texas attorney general and the U.S. attorney in Lubbock to investigate who created a bogus document at the heart of the now-discredited CBS News story accusing Bush of shirking his Guard duty," the Fox News Channel's Major Garrett reported. The congressional letter read in part: "We request...

Dan Rather's initial, furious street-side defense of an amateurish forgery — smug, huffy, self-righteous — brings to mind one of those bad movies about the Paris barricades, especially the grainy, black-and-white shots of powdered and wigged aristocrats on their way to the Guillotine, yelling out of their carriages at pitchfork-carrying peasants. Worse than being duped, worse than cobbling together a highly politicized hit-piece during a war and in the waning days of an election, worse than the shady nature of the "unimpeachable" sources and the likely sordid origins of the story, and worse even than the pathetic nature of CBS's...

September 23, 2004 at 12:13PM MST NBC's Lisa Myers Reports Kerry campaign says timing of 'Fortunate Son' ad campaign, 60 Minutes story a 'coincidence' Having acknowledged that its own standards were violated, CBS News named an independent panel to investigate what went wrong: Former Republican Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired chief of the Associated Press Louis Boccardi. The investigation focuses on the process that led to airing possibly fraudulent documents challenging the President's military service and why the CBS Producer put the source of those documents, longtime Bush critic Bill Burkett, in touch with the Kerry Campaign before the...

Newsweek's Howard Fineman argued that CBS News producer Mary Mapes became "obsessed," with trying to prove that George W. Bush got special treatment in the National Guard, because she wanted to "save the world from a George Bush presidency, and in the last five years, she's tried to find that smoking gun that would allow her to do that." Appearing on MSNBC's Imus in the Morning on Wednesday, Fineman fretted that due to the CBS scandal, it is getting "increasingly difficult to prove" that the rest of the media strive for "objectivity" and want to be "fair" and "even- handed."...

The fallout from CBS's doomed story about President Bush's National Guard service most endangers a woman few viewers know but who played a key role in two of the biggest television stories of the year. Mary Mapes, a veteran producer at CBS News, reported most of the National Guard story, including obtaining the documents CBS now says it can't authenticate. She also passed on the phone number of her source, former Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, to the Kerry campaign. ... CBS acknowledged Mapes passed on Burkett's number to Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart, and Lockhart called him. Spokeswoman Kelli...

Paraphrasing - Fox News found out Mary Mapes was sending protected letters to a Prisoner in a High Security Prison in Colorado. Also what was said is Mapes holds strong Liberal views.

The man CBS News touted as the "unimpeachable source" of explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turns out to be a former Guard officer who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings." Over the past three years, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett has given dozens of newspaper and television interviews accusing the president and his aides of destroying documents and stealing elections. In e-mail messages to an Internet chat group for Texas Democrats, he has also said that the "Bush team" sent "goons" to intimidate him at his ranch in Baird, Texas. "They can go...

[graphic similar to what NYT tried to do with Bush/Swift Boat connections]

So far, Ellis' prediction of second-day anti-Mapes revelations has proved eerily prescient. And Joe Lockhart is in on the Save-Dan-By-Throwing-Mary-Overboard conspiracy! ... P.S.: I don't understand why it would have been wrong for Mapes to ask Lockhart to call Bill Burkett as part of a deal to get the documents. If the documents hadn't been phony that would have been smart journalism, no? A harmless favor to produce a big scoop. It only looks like partisanship on the part of Mapes if it was not part of an implicit deal to get the story--i.e., if Mapes was just freelancing with...

John Carlson is the KVI radio host that took a call from Mary Mapes' father last week. John also worked with Mary Mapes at KIRO news in Seattle. John just said he is going to break a story about Mary Mapes that he has been researching for the last few days. Listen Live http://www.570kvi.com

As we asked yesterday: What did Dan Rather know? And when did he know it? And that was even before it was disclosed that CBS News' dubious source for those phony National Guard memos insisted on being put in touch directly with John Kerry's campaign — apparently as a condition for turning over the documents. As USA Today reported in detail yesterday, CBS producer Mary Mapes arranged for Bill Burkett (who provided the forged documents) to speak with Joe Lockhart, the former Clinton press secretary who's now a top Kerry campaign adviser. CBS claims hooking Burkett up with Lockhart "was...

CBS News seems to suddenly be offering up an awful lot of derogatory, incriminating information about producer Mary Mapes, who was formerly called a 'well respected journalist' with an 'unblemished reputaion.'On Tuesday, it was revealed that Mapes arranged for Burkett to talk to a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.Standard journalistic practices forbid journalists from doing anything that could be perceived as helping a politcal campaign.CBS News hopes to name an independent panel today that will investigate how Bill Burkett, a Texas Democratic operative and opponent of President Bush, decieved 60 Minutes in its now retracted story about...

Three weeks ago, New Braunfels resident Col. Walter Staudt became a national figure, albeit a silent one. Ever since he was named in a controversial memo CBS aired purporting to prove that President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service record was “sugar-coated” due to political pressure, Staudt has been bombarded by reporters wanting him to verify or disavow those claims. When the phone rings, he does not answer, and when someone comes to the door, he only opens it a crack. “I counted up to 40 calls last Monday, but I probably got 50 or 60 phone calls...

September 22, 2004 -- The "60 Minutes" producer on CBS's story that used phony National Guard documents is the subject of an internal investigation for arranging contact between the network's source and a top aide to John Kerry, officials said yesterday. It is believed that veteran producer Mary Mapes facilitated a phone call between Bill Burkett, a former Texas Army National Guard officer who supplied the Guard documents to CBS, and Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart. The move would be a clear breach of ethics that could cost Mapes her job. [snip]Lee said the general managers of CBS stations across the...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Republicans stayed on the offensive Tuesday in the battle over President Bush's service record. The focus of the controversy has moved away from questions about whether Bush fulfilled his obligation to the Texas Air National Guard and now rests on the conduct of his accusers. Joe Lockhart, an advisor to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, admitted that he spoke with Bush antagonist Bill Burkett at the request of CBS producer Mary Mapes. Burkett claimed that he refused to turn over documents to CBS that "proved" Bush received preferential treatment and skipped a required physical until he...

A war of words has erupted within the halls of "60 Minutes" following Dan Rather's admission that CBS News aired a report on President Bush using questionable documents. On one side of the battle is Steve Kroft, a veteran correspondent on the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes." On the other is Don Hewitt, founder of the pioneering newsmagazine. Kroft argues it's unlikely the Sunday show would have made the mistake of using the documents that bolstered Rather's report - which aired on the Wednesday telecast, formerly known as "60 Minutes II." So much so, Kroft and staffers on the Sunday...

CBS Says Producer Violated Policy by Putting Source in Touch With Kerry Aide By JIM RUTENBERG and BILL CARTER Published: September 22, 2004 BS News said yesterday that the producer of its flawed report about President Bush's National Guard service violated network policy by putting a source in touch with a top aide to Senator John Kerry. "It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda," the network said in a statement. The rebuke of the producer, Mary Mapes, also broadcast last night on "The CBS Evening...

Guys, we need to keep the pressure on C-B.S. affiliates. It's working (see the article below), and it may determine the fate of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes. Media fear '60' fallout Tue Sep 21, 6:21 PM ET Pamela McClintock, STAFF Frustration and ire gripped CBS News on Tuesday, with staffers and the main "60 Minutes" newsmag trying to distance themselves from the scandal that has embroiled the spinoff edition of the show. Across the country, CBS affiliates continued to be bombarded with mail from viewers expressing their outrage over Dan Rather in particular and the journalistic debacle in general....

OK, we shouldn't be surprised by now that Burkett is exposed as a fraud, but I found this contradiction so glaring I can't believe the press hasn't picked up on it: Burkett is claiming that he was given the documents by someone named Lucy Ramirez (or her shadowy courier). From USA Today: "Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted."...

(CBS/AP) The fallout from CBS's doomed story about President Bush's National Guard service most endangers a woman few viewers know but who played a key role in two of the biggest television stories of the year. Mary Mapes, a veteran producer at CBS News, reported most of the National Guard story, including obtaining the documents CBS now says it can't authenticate. She also passed on the phone number of her source, former Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, to the Kerry campaign.Burkett has acknowledged that he lied about the source of the documents, which purported to show lapses in Mr. Bush's...