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| 7/9 |
| 2004/9/21 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:33660 Activity:low |
9/21 Burkett explains how he obtained memos: http://csua.org/u/951 After he received the documents in Houston, Burkett said, he drove home, stopping on the way at a Kinko's shop in Waco to copy the six memos. In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope they were in. Ramirez was worried about leaving forensic evidence on them that might lead back to her, Burkett said, acknowledging that the story sounded fantastic. "This is going to sound like some damn sci-fi movie," he said. -USA Today Another story: http://csua.org/u/952 (Post) \_ Sci-fi movie? Shouldn't he have said suspense movie if that's really his recollection? \_ Never fear, the kosers are now searching Texas for Lucy Ramirezes, and they've even found a few. This proves that a Lucy Ramirez does exist, and therefore the memos are legit. http://csua.org/u/94w |
| 7/9 |
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| csua.org/u/951 -> www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-21-cover-guard_x.htm CBS backs off Guard story By Dave Moniz, Kevin Johnson and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY CBS News acknowledged Monday that it received disputed documents critical of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard from a former Texas Guard officer who now says he lied about where he got them and has doubts about their authenticity. CBS The network said Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army Guard, was its source for the memos that were the basis of a 60 Minutes broadcast Sept. Initially, USA TODAY and other news organizations took the CBS report at face value but in subsequent days, inspired by Internet sites, began to report doubts about the documents' authenticity. For a week, CBS staunchly defended the documents against a stream of experts' opinions that they were fake. In a statement issued Monday, the network acknowledged it had been wrong and said it should not have used the documents. "That was a mistake, which we deeply regret," CBS President Andrew Heyward said. The network's chief anchor, Dan Rather, apologized for "a mistake in judgment." The admission was a major blow to the credibility of the news organization and of Rather, who has a history of skirmishes with politicians and is a favorite target of conservative commentators. Heyward promised an "independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to determine what actions need to be taken." The network aired an interview with Burkett on the Evening News Monday, after which Rather said, "I want to say personally and directly, I'm sorry." In interviews in recent days with USA TODAY, both in person and on the phone, Burkett said he had merely been a conduit for the records purported to be from the private files of Lt. Jerry Killian, one of Bush's former Guard commanders, who died in 1984. Burkett admitted lying to USA TODAY about the source of the documents but said he did not fabricate the papers. In earlier conversations with USA TODAY, Burkett had identified the source of the documents as George Conn, a former Texas National Guard colleague who works for the US Army in Europe. Burkett now says he made up the story about Conn's involvement to divert attention from himself and the woman he now says provided him with the documents. Burkett now maintains that the source of the papers was Lucy Ramirez, who he says phoned him from Houston in March to offer the documents. When Burkett gave copies of the documents to USA TODAY, it was on the understanding that his identity would not be disclosed. USA TODAY honored that agreement until Burkett waived his confidentiality Monday. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. Excerpts from CBS statement: "60 Minutes Wednesday had full confidence in the original report, or it would not have aired. "However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents' authenticity. "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. "CBS News and CBS management are commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken. The names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly, and their findings will be made public." The White House on Monday welcomed the network's admission but said it "raised more questions than answers." Communications director Dan Bartlett called for an investigation that includes "whether the president's political opponents were behind these attacks." He added, "Since CBS News and USA TODAY had both obtained these forged documents, we now urge them to lead the way in finding the truth." McClellan said Burkett "is not an unimpeachable source as was previously claimed. Bill Burkett is a source who has been discredited, and so this raises a lot of questions." Burkett's own doubts about the authenticity of the memos and his inability to supply evidence to show that Ramirez exists also raise questions about his credibility. He has posted comments on Internet Web sites critical of Bush and has chastised Sen. John Kerry's organization for what he called its inept campaign. Tired of 'being the bad guy' Burkett's emotions varied widely in the interviews. One session ended when Burkett suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair. Earlier, he said he was coming forward now to explain what he had done and why to try to salvage his reputation. In the past week, Burkett was named by many news reports as the probable source of the documents. I'm tired of losing everything we've got," a reference to his financial and health struggles since he left the Guard. Turning to his wife, Nicki, he said: "We've lost it all, baby. Sitting in a rocking chair in his weathered ranch house south of Baird, Texas, Burkett recounted his continuing efforts -- beginning before he was discharged from the Texas Army National Guard in 1998 -- to clean up what he saw as Guard corruption and mismanagement. He said that activity led to a telephone call in March from Ramirez and her offer to provide documents damaging to President Bush. Burkett said Ramirez told him she had seen him the previous month in an appearance on the MSNBC program Hardball, discussing the controversy over whether Bush fulfilled all his obligations for service in the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. "There is something I have that I want to make sure gets out," he quoted her as saying. He said Ramirez claimed to possess Killian's "correspondence file," which would prove Burkett's allegations that Bush had problems as a Guard fighter pilot. 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. By Monday, USA TODAY had not been able to locate Ramirez or verify other details of Burkett's account. Three people who worked with Killian in the early 1970s said they don't recognize her name. Burkett promised to provide telephone records that would verify his calls to Ramirez, but he had not done so by Monday night. An acquaintance of Burkett, who he said could corroborate his story, said he was at the livestock show on March 3 The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said Burkett asked if he could put papers inside a box she had at the livestock show. Often, she said, friends ask to store papers in her box that verify their purchases at the livestock auction. She said she did not know the nature of the papers Burkett gave her, and he did not say anything about them. A political hurricane The documents story exploded into view Sept. The network interviewed Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas House, who said he used his contacts to help Bush get into the Guard and avoid being drafted for Vietnam service. But that interview was eclipsed by the controversy over the rest of the report, which was based on documents supposedly retrieved from a personal file Killian kept and supplied to CBS by Burkett. Excerpts from Dan Rather's statement: "Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 Minutes Wednesday story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question and their source vigorously. "Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. We have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where if I knew then what I know now I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have us... |
| csua.org/u/952 -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36908-2004Sep20.html All RSS Feeds Questions Surround Man Who Provided Documents CBS's 'Unimpeachable Source' Is Ex-Guard Officer With History of Problems and of Attacking Bush By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 21, 2004; Page A03 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 with a history of self-described mental problems who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings." 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, Tex. Tuesday's Question: Negotiators for President Bush and Sen. In what year was the first public debate between presidential candidates competing in the general election? Sign Up Now "They can go to hell," the retired officer, 55, wrote in a March 29 posting. "I'll continue to defend the freedom of this nation -- not the liars who have wrested its helm." Burkett's allegations against Bush and leaders of the Texas National Guard were featured prominently in a controversial book, "Bush's War for Reelection," by a former reporter, James Moore, that was published in February. The book led to Burkett's briefly becoming a TV talk-show celebrity, with his allegations of corruption and favoritism in the National Guard. Stories about Burkett appeared in dozens of newspapers, including the New York Times, along with outraged denials from former Bush aides. Burkett said he overheard a conversation in 1997 between Joe M Allbaugh, who was then Bush's chief of staff, and the commander of the Texas National Guard on how to "sanitize" National Guard files to prevent any political embarrassment to Bush, who was running for reelection as governor of Texas. "I have no recall of that whatsoever," said George O Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's. Burkett later said that Conn, a civilian employee of the US military in Germany, recanted his story because of political pressure from the White House. As a former planning officer in the Texas National Guard, Burkett had the opportunity -- at least in theory -- to witness the events that he described. But he also had a clear motive to attack his former superiors. In 1998, he became embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Guard over medical benefits after he contracted a mysterious disease while on assignment in Panama. In interviews, Burkett accused the Guard of failing to provide him with proper medical treatment, as a result of which he became partly paralyzed and had a nervous breakdown. He told author Moore that, in desperation, he saved himself from death by taking a dose of cattle penicillin that turned out to be three times the correct dosage for his body weight. Moore was one of Burkett's staunchest defenders until the "60 Minutes" program, but said yesterday that he no longer knew whether to believe him. "I've got so caught up in the white noise of political skullduggery that I no longer trust anything anyone tells me," Moore said. For Burkett, attacking Bush, posting Internet messages and giving media interviews have become such all-consuming passions that he has had little time to tend to his ranch. As reporters began gathering outside his modest one-story house on the Texas scrub last week, neighbors complained that Burkett's cattle were roaming across their land. Interviewed over the weekend by CBS, Burkett acknowledged that he had "misled" the network by simply "throwing out a name" when asked to reveal the source of the documents. He insisted that he had not forged the documents and that he had urged CBS producers to investigate their authenticity before using them in a broadcast. For 10 days, CBS declined to name Burkett as the person who provided the disputed Guard documents, saying only that they came from an "unimpeachable source." CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said yesterday that the network was investigating a Sept. In the rush to air the documents Burkett provided, CBS producers inadvertently left clues about their confidential source. Documents examiner Emily Will said the footer indicated the document had been sent at 6:41 pm on Sept. Staff writer James V Grimaldi contributed to this report. |
| csua.org/u/94w -> www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/20/231236/983 New York Times CBS News said today that a former Texas National Guard officer had "deliberately misled" the network in its inquiry into President Bush's National Guard service by providing "a false account" of the origins of documents used to reinforce questions raised about Mr Bush's activities three decades ago. "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," the president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, said in a statement issued by the network. Hunter's diary :: The network said the former Army National Guard officer, Bill Burkett, had "acknowledged that he provided the now disputed documents" and that he "admits he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source." "Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman," the CBS statement said. "Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point." Mr Burkett, 55, whom colleagues call a stickler for rules, fell out with senior commanders in the late 1990's and ended up suing the Guard and its leaders. He also became disillusioned with Mr Bush, who he said was not supporting needed reforms in the Guard. The bitterness, he later said, moved him to go public with what he said he witnessed one night in Austin in 1997, while Mr Bush was still governor of Texas. Mr Burkett said that commanders, who were in touch with Mr Bush's political advisers, had left documents in the trash while sanitizing the governor's service records. An officer who served with Mr Burkett, Dennis Adams, recently said that Mr Burkett had told him of the incident "and that some of the things in the trash were pulled out." "I don't have the foggiest idea what documents of any kind he ever had." So it was indeed Burkett that provided these documents to CBS, and in all probability USA Today as well. Are they entirely forged, and, if so, where did Burkett get the information contained in them, such that Killian's own secretary could verify that, although she did not type the memos, their contents were indeed genuine? these four documents, while an ancillary part of the overall picture of Bush's Guard service, are now a story in and of themselves, and will be testimony, good or bad, to how modern journalism operates. It is in CBS's interests to determine exactly what Burkett's source is, obviously; it is in everyone else's interests to beat CBS to the story, and report it before they do. Nevertheless, is time for another summation, of sorts, because we have no idea how or when the rest of the story will eventually unfold. First off, I have been asked in multiple places whether I still believe these memos are "genuine". I will answer here, for the record, again: I have no idea. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of these four (or six) memos; I can simply vouch for the quality, or lack thereof, of individual arguments that they are forged. It is part and parcel of modern "movement" conservatism. And, indeed, they were lying in this case as well, and continue to do so, and will probably continue until the day the Rapture, space aliens, or tainted Big Macs finally come to take them away. cry was posted within hours of the original CBS airing of the documents in question, by a FreeRepublic poster called Buckhead. tracked him down: It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service -- a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles. But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found. Reached by telephone today, MacDougald, 46, confirmed that he is Buckhead, but declined to answer questions about his political background or how he knew so much about the CBS documents so fast. "You can ask the questions but I'm not going to answer them," he told The Times. "Freepers collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS," he wrote in an e-mail, using the slang term for users of the freerepublic site. And MacDougald assisted in the group's legal challenge to the campaign finance law sponsored by Sen. The challenge, ultimately presented to the US Supreme Court, was funded largely by the Southeastern Legal Foundation in conjunction with Sen. Rather than a swelling of blog power, the original "forgery" charges came, within four hours of the broadcast, from a conservative lawyer who had previously helped draft Arkansas Supreme Court petition to disbar Clinton and is involved in the legal challenges to McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. And, by the way, God help us all if this is what passes for the future of journalism -- what some conservative, anti-Clinton, anti-McCain-Feingold lawyer posts anonymously on a far-right website. As we have shown in (God help us all, again) five separate posts, the argument for "forgery" advanced by Harry W MacDougald was, even in the beginning, complete hokum. From the original charges of proportionally spaced fonts came a raft of similar, completely ignorant charges. Let's pause for a minute to examine, however, the stunning ignorance of MacDougald's statement: Operating as "Buckhead," which is also the name of an upscale Atlanta neighborhood, MacDougald wrote that the memos that CBS' "60 Minutes" presented on Sept. Col Jerry B Killian were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman." "The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers," MacDougald wrote on the freerepublic website. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts." These few sentences of complete and utter crap, easily disproven after five minutes of online research? From that ersatz conservative wisdom, and a subsequent post on LittleGreenFootballs showing that you could almost, but not quite, match the document in Microsoft Word, we were treated to a deluge of claims that, from the quality of the arguments, could only have come from people too new to this world to actually have been around before the advent of Microsoft Word. Liz MacDougald, citing the original FreeRepublic post by Harry MacDougald. Especially if you shrink it down small enough that the differences become difficult to see! Read the comments to that thread for the hilarity of comparing said dead American ("St. Rather than a passing fancy, the celebration of the death of Rachel Corrie is a bit of an ongoing obsession at the site; And by "fabricated", we mean provably false with only the minimal of required skills. Did proportional type exist back in the dark ages of 1972? Could "centering" be accurately achieved on a typewriter? Could typists correctly determine where to wrap words so that they would not run over the margins of the page? And so on, and so on, as each argument was shot down, and new ones arose to assert themselves. Then we went from typeface to signatures, to what slang terms were or were not common during the Vietnam era, etc. After all of this, we are now left exactly where we were before. We know the circumstances they document did indeed happen, and we know, from sources that were around at the time, that Killian did have memos with these facts written down, for his own benefit. The contribution from the far-right websites has been exactly nothing. Racist sites like LGF, or extremist sites like FreeRepublic, will never constitute "... |