Drudge: Fraudulent Memo Writer to go on CBS News

[Michael Michigan]

This should be good; I’ve got a feeling this guy is a complete kook. Can’t wait to see if the edits can make him come across as normal.

http://www.drudgereport.com/


CBS to Air Interview With Suspected Source of Bush Guard Memos

CBS Rather has interviewed retired lieutenant colonel Bill Burkett widely believed to have provided disputed National Guard documents. CBS plans to air interview in coming days, WASH POST reports Monday, sources tell DRUDGE. Rather was in Texas over the weekend for the interview with Burkett... Developing...

WaPo link should be up soon.

[Michael Michigan]

CBS Talks With Suspected Source of Documents
Network to Air Interview in Effort to Resolve Dispute Over Bush Guard Memos' Authenticity


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34151-2004Sep19.html

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A14

CBS News anchor Dan Rather has interviewed the retired lieutenant colonel widely believed to have helped provide "60 Minutes" with the disputed National Guard documents about President Bush that have created a credibility crisis for the network, and CBS plans to air the interview in the coming days.

The on-camera sit-down with Bill Burkett, who has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks," could help resolve whether CBS continues to stand by its story or concedes the purported 30-year-old memos are forgeries, as numerous document experts have contended.

Rather was in Texas over the weekend for the interview with Burkett, a former National Guard official, who would not comment in an e-mail to The Washington Post on whether he had been CBS's confidential source.

CBS News President Andrew Heyward, while declining to comment on what interviews the network may be conducting, said yesterday: "We've said we are trying very hard to get to the bottom of these questions."

Under mounting pressure from critics for standing by questionable memos that indicate Bush received favored treatment in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS executives are aiming to broadcast a story by midweek that would put the controversy behind them.

Burkett, who retired from the Austin headquarters of the Guard in 1998, has said he once saw some of Bush's military records in a trash can. He also says he overheard a conversation among Guard officials about sanitizing the president's military records, which Guard officials strongly deny.

Burkett's motivation could be suspect because he said in a Web posting last month that he tried to contact John F. Kerry's presidential campaign. He said he had urged former Democratic senator Max Cleland to counter Republican tactics -- in a brief conversation confirmed by Cleland -- and tried to provide the Kerry operation with information to "counterattack," but that campaign officials did not call him back.

The Burkett interview follows Bush's comments to the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader that "there are a lot of questions" about the CBS documents "and they need to be answered." The president, while reiterating that he had fulfilled his requirements in the Guard, said of the disputed memos from his late squadron commander in the Guard: "I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out."

Asked about Bush's remarks, Heyward said: "I don't feel any more pressure than before. I agree with President Bush that the sooner we can resolve these questions the better."

[RINGLEADER]

This makes me believe more than ever that Burkett is the source. I can very easily see Rather saying "You're going to give me an interview and explain this or we're going to disavow the story".

Of course they probably huddled first to decide how they could - in their minds - hurt Bush the most.

[Baby Lee]

This makes me believe more than ever that Burkett is the source. I can very easily see Rather saying "You're going to give me an interview and explain this or we're going to disavow the story".

Of course they probably huddled first to decide how they could - in their minds - hurt Bush the most.
And, most importantly, distance their tomfoolery from Kerry as best they can.

[FringeNC]

And, most importantly, distance their tomfoolery from Kerry as best they can.

Yeah, why else go down there? No way this will suddenly cause people to believe these pieces of crap are authentic. This is simply "CYA" time (as Burkett would say).

[LV Tim]

How can Burkett confess being the source without incriminating himself of about three or four felonies? Maybe the Sandy Burger defense?

[Michael Michigan]

Translation--I hate the new media.


CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20guard.html?pagewanted=print&position=

After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air.

But they cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement. Officials met last night with Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to go over the information it had collected about the documents one last time before making a final decision. Mr. Rather was not available for comment late last night.

The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.

Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings but that the documents' authenticity was now in grave doubt.

The developments last night marked a dramatic turn for CBS News, which for a week stood steadfastly by its Sept. 8 report as various document experts asserted that the typeface of the memos could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.

The seemingly unflappable confidence of Mr. Rather and top news division officials in the documents allayed fears within the network and created doubt among some in the news media at large that those specialists were correct. CBS News officials had said they had reason to be certain that the documents indeed had come from the personal file of Colonel Killian.

Sandy Genelius, a network spokeswoman, said last week, "We are confident about the chain of custody; we're confident in how we secured the documents.''

But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they had been misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.

Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos had come from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.

It was unclear last night if Mr. Burkett had told Mr. Rather that he had been misled about the documents' provenance or that he had been the one who did the misleading.

In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Burkett declined to answer any questions about the documents.

Yesterday, Emily J. Will, a document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents said they had been obtained anonymously and through the mail.

In an interview last night she declined to name the producer who told her this but said the producer was in a position to know. CBS News officials have disputed her contention that she warned the network the night before the initial "60 Minutes'' report that it would face questions from documents experts.

In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine.

Ms. Will is one of two documents experts consulted by the network who said they raised doubts about the material before the segment was broadcast. Another expert, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he had vouched only for Colonel Killian's signatures on the records and not the authenticity of the records themselves. Mr. Matley said he could not rule out that the signatures had been cut and pasted from official records pertaining to Colonel Killian.

In examining where the network had gone wrong, officials at CBS News turning their attention to Ms. Mapes, one of their most respected producers, who was riding particularly high this year after breaking news about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the network.

In a telephone interview this weekend, Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes'' Wednesday edition, said that he did not initially know who was Ms. Mapes' primary source for the documents but that he did not see any reason to doubt them. He said he believed Ms. Mapes and her team had appropriately answered all questions about the documents' authenticity and, he noted, no one seemed to be casting doubt upon the essential thrust of the report.

"The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day,'' he said, "and the reporting that was done in it was by a person who has turned in decades of flawless reporting with no challenge to her credibility.''

He added, "We in management had no sense that the producing team wasn't completely comfortable with the results of the document analysis.''

Ms. Mapes has not responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented to them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was "the icing on the cake'' of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents being presented by a credible news organization.

Several people familiar with the situation said they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts.

One person close to the situation said the critical question would be, "Where was everybody's judgment on that last day?''