GUARD MEMOS ACCURATE IF NOT ORIGINALS
Find a Conversation
| Thu, 09-16-2004 - 7:43am |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24633-2004Sep15_2.html<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect
CBS Anchor Urges Media to Focus On Bush Service
By Howard Kurtz
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01
CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."
"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.' "
Rather spoke after interviewing the secretary to Bush's former squadron commander, who told him that the memos attributed to her late boss are fake -- but that they reflect the commander's belief that Bush was receiving preferential treatment to escape some of his Guard commitments.
The former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, is the latest person to raise questions about the "60 Minutes" story, which Rather and top CBS officials still defend while vowing to investigate mounting questions about whether the 30-year-old documents used in the story were part of a hoax. Their shift in tone yesterday came as GOP critics as well as some media commentators demanded that the story be retracted and suggested that Rather should step down.
"This is not about me," Rather said before anchoring last night's newscast. "I recognize that those who didn't want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that."
For Rather, 72, it is an all-too-familiar role. In his CBS career, he has survived an impertinent exchange with President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, a clandestine trek through the mountains of Afghanistan, an on-air confrontation with George H.W. Bush over Iran-contra and a much-debated sitdown with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
Now, on the final leg of a career launched by a Texas hurricane, Rather is trying to weather his biggest storm. And some of his closest friends and associates are concerned.
"I think this is very, very serious," said Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent. "When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries." Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS.
In her interview with Rather yesterday, Knox repeated her contention that the documents used by "60 Minutes" were bogus. Knox, 86, worked for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian while he supervised Bush's unit in the early 1970s.
"I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the Killian memos. "However, the information in there is correct," she said, adding that Killian and the other officers would "snicker about what was getting away with."
Rather said he was "relieved and pleased" by Knox's comments that the disputed memos reflected Killian's view of the favorable treatment that Bush received in the military unit. But he said, "I take very seriously her belief that the documents are not authentic." If Knox is right, Rather said, the public "won't hear about it from a spokesman. They'll learn it from me."
But he also delivered a message to "our journalistic competitors," including The Washington Post and rival networks: "Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions: 'How do you know this and that about the documents?' "
CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the Guard story. "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said last night. "But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues," including questions about the memos' typography, signatures and format. "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents."
Heyward said the account by Knox is "significant, which is why we're putting it on our prime-time program," "60 Minutes."
Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.

Pages
Do you recall that the "balanced budget" was the result of massive tax increases, gutting our national defenses (which we are paying for now) and a huge increase in the tax base due to the dot com bubble and and an overblown, artifically high stock market?
Besides, when government raises taxes, it is not to pay off the debt, it is to increase their wasteful and uncontrolled spending. I personally would much rather spend my hard earned money in the manner that I choose.
Also, the surplus was projected, based on the economic conditions remaining the same, which they were not even when Clinton left office.
gutting our national defenses (which we are paying for now) and a huge increase in the tax base due to the dot com bubble and and an overblown, artifically high stock market?
How ridiculous. Blame everything on Clinton. Blame the mulit billion dollar war in Iraq on Clinton, blame the deficit on Clinton and blame the dot com crash on Clinton.
I blamed none of those things on Clinton, I just said they occurred, and therefore I'm not willing to credit him with the much touted "surplus", when he's not really responsible for it.
Can you name anything Clinton did that actually helped create the booming economy? You're not going to try and deny that the ridiculously overvalued companies of the techie bubble didn't have something to do with the great economy, are you? That was all Clinton's doing, I suppose.
That's right, we weren't at war, because even though Al Quaeda attacked us at least three times during his presidency, he didn't treat them as the acts of war that they were. Perhaps he should have.
Treasury Tax Expert to Bush: Clinton's Increase WASN'T The Biggest.
Study published by Bush's Treasury Department contradicts Bush's campaign.
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=173
In speeches and fundraising appeals the Bush campaign keeps making a distorted claim that Clinton 's 1993 tax increase -- supported by Kerry -- was "the biggest in history."
Republicans have been repeating this gross overstatement for more than a decade, but now there's less justification for it than ever. The GOP claim is contradicted by a study published last year by the Office of Tax Analysis of Bush's own Treasury Department.
Analysis
On Tax Day, April 15, the Bush campaign was still re-cycling this decade-old claim in an e-mail sent to supporters, asking for more campaign contributions:
Bush's E-Mail
Subj: On Tax Day, another reason to support President Bush
Sent: April 15, 2004
*
Both Ted Kennedy and John Kerry Voted Against President Bush's Tax Relief in 2001 and 2003.
*
Both Ted Kennedy and John Kerry Voted For Bill Clinton's 1993 Tax Increase -- the Largest Tax Increase in History.
Bush himself said it in his first overtly political speech of the campaign on March 20:
*
Bush: Over the years, he's (Kerry) voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people including the biggest tax increase in American history.
And Vice President Cheney told the US Chamber of Commerce March 29:
Cheney: A career highlight was his (Kerry's)vote in favor of the largest tax increase in American history .
But that bit of political puffery has always been based on a simplistic tally of the number of dollars the Clinton tax bill yielded, without regard for population growth, rising incomes, or inflation.
Now comes a thorough study of every tax bill enacted since 1940, showing that the Clinton tax increase was indeed large, but not the largest.
A tax increase in 1942 boosted federal revenues by 71%, for example, as the US geared up for war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Measured in inflation-adjusted 1992 dollars, Roosevelt's wartime increase amounted to $73 billion a year, while Clinton's increase averaged $35 billion a year (average for the first two years.)
The study said that inflation-adjusted "constant dollars" is probably only the second -best measure of the size of a tax increase. "The single best measure for most purposes is probably the revenue effect as a percentage of GDP." That's Gross Domestic Product, the way we gauge the size of the economy. Clinton's tax increase isn't the biggest by that "best" measure, either. In the period since 1968, the study said, "the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was the biggest increase." That was the tax increase signed by Ronald Reagan, rescinding some of the effects of his huge tax cut passed the year before.
That 1982 tax increase only slightly exceeded Clinton's in inflation-adjusted dollars ($37 billion a year vs.. $32 billion) but it was much bigger in relation to the size of the economy. The '82 increase amounted to 4.6% of GDP (average for the first two years) while Clinton's was 2.7%.
Footnote: The study's author, Jerry Tempalski of the Office of Tax Analysis, put the following disclaimer on the cover page: "The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Treasury Department." Apparently they are not the views of the President, either. Why let the facts get in the way of a campaign zinger?
Pages