Dan Rather and CBS knew ......
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Dan Rather and CBS knew ......
| Wed, 09-15-2004 - 7:59am |
that those documets were FAKE.
Document Analysts: CBS News Ignored Concerns About Disputed Bush Military Records
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/bush_guard_documents_040914-1.html
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http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20040911.asp#1
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At the time of Bush's service National Guard regulations required a minimum of 50 service points to satisfy a yearly obligation. Since Bush joined the Guard in May of 1968, his "year" ran from May to May. The total number of points he earned for each year of service are:
May 1968 to May 1969 253 points
May 1969 to May 1970 340 points
May 1970 to May 1971 137 points
May 1971 to May 1972 112 points
May 1972 to May 1973 56 points
May 1973 to May 1974 56 points
http://www.hillnews.com/york/090904.aspx
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CBS FORGES AHEAD
-John Podhoretz
September 14, 2004 -- IF you've been following the story, you know this already. If you haven't been follow ing the story, then I'll cut to the chase: Four documents used by CBS News last week in a story about George W. Bush's National Guard service are forgeries.
When I first wrote about this on Thursday, in a column that appeared on Friday, it seemed likely but not certain they were phony. We called the column "CBS' Big Blunder?" with a question mark just to be careful.
There's no need to pull any punches now. I'm going to be blunt here: Anybody who spends an hour reviewing the evidence and the expert testimony knows they're forgeries.
The discrediting has gone on now for five straight days. The conclusion isn't just overwhelming, it's inarguable.
The documents aren't just forgeries, they're bad, blatant, ludicrous forgeries. They're forgeries so easily detected that in the space of a few hours after CBS released computer photographs of them on the Internet, they had already been pegged and deconstructed.
Mainstream news organizations are still granting CBS the benefit of the doubt because CBS still maintains they're not forgeries. People are still writing stories and doing televised reports saying that there are experts on both sides arguing every which way about the legitimacy of the documents.
The truth is, no there aren't. CBS unveiled one expert who now says he only authenticated the signature on one of the four documents. Last night it found two others to offer unconvincing testimony on their behalf. And that's about it.
Now, surely many people at those organizations have spent an hour looking at the case against CBS. And I will say this even more bluntly: If you do spend that hour and at the end say you're not convinced, you're either stupid or blind or insanely partisan. Or you're guilty of wishful thinking to an extreme degree.
Wishful thinking is what explains why and how CBS fell for the forgeries in the first place.
The forged documents must have looked like a dream come true. First, it seemed a tremendous scoop, a newsbreaking smash hit of the sort that wins ratings, awards and the respect of peers in the industry.
The documents represented the juiciest kind of scoop, the kind that can play a role in changing history. Their most important feature is that they suggest Bush disobeyed a direct order from his commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard. And that's certainly something John Kerry could use as a direct weapon against George W. Bush in the closing weeks of the campaign to question his fitness as commander in chief.
The documents don't assemble into a smoking gun, but they would have been useful. They might have worked as a delayed-detonation device that Kerry or the media could have triggered during the debates. And we know the Democratic National Committee was going to center a new ad campaign around them.
Add to this the fact that many people at CBS want Bush out of office and want John Kerry elected, and you get a perfect storm of wishful thinking. What could be more alluring, more tempting than a bona fide scoop that serves a desired political purpose? That's the sort of scoop you don't want to discredit in your reporting because your heart and your gut suggest it's true.
And it all might have worked fine had CBS not put the documents out in computer form for everybody to see.
Fifteen years ago — maybe even five years ago — the world would simply have accepted the legitimacy of the documents. After all, CBS said it had gone to an expert to have them authenticated.
Well, this isn't the old days. And for reasons largely consigned within the peculiar brain of its anchorman, Dan Rather, the CBS news division is refusing to face the reality that it has been caught out in the most significant forgery scandal to hit journalism since the Hitler diaries.
CBS News is part of a larger organization. That organization is run by Les Moonves. Moonves cancelled the airing of a docudrama about Ronald and Nancy Reagan because he considered it biased. Will he sit by, silent, as the venerable CBS News "brand" is destroyed from within?
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/30280.htm
Why would a "self-professed" journalist not see this as an opportunity to REALLY get the scoop on who forged the documents and for what purpose as a way to soften the FACT that he reported on a fake story that slanders the President in a wartime election?
Unless revealing his source would expose either the Kerry campaign (thus costing Kerry the election for sure) or show that he, Dan Rather, was the source which SHOULD end his career in scandal and discredit CBS news for a while.
Common sense makes you wonder...
P.S. Anyone who was "gung-ho" about the veracity of these documents want to admit that CBS is BIASED and that they were fooled? Oh. Ya'll are probably just like Rather and refuse to admit it. What color is the sky in the liberal world?
But that's probably because CBS News is unbiased and only searches for the truth.
The fact is, it doesn't matter who was doing what during Vietnam. Why do you suppose the media is so afraid to stick to the issues? Because they know that Bush doesn't have a record to run on.
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