Do you really think it’s incriminating that she would answer questions about that time once asked but wouldn’t come forward on her own, out of nowhere? (Especially 10 years ago, in the middle of Clinton’s first term?)
And if that were to happen, you might be able to convince me that the reporters should reveal the source of the lies.
More specifically, those who can’t be 100% sure that they’re telling the truth. If you find a document lying next to a shredder, and it looks juicy, do you send it to a reporter? Wouldn’t you want some assurance that you won’t be branded as a liar and a forger in the chance event that it turns out to be fake?
I meant the ones she (claims to have) typed, not the CBS memos:
On that program, Knox said the questioned memos appeared to be based on real ones that she typed for Killian in 1972 and 1973. She said she had typed memos containing “the same information.”
Incriminating? No. Just odd, that’s all. The questions were certainly being asked back then. Not on the same scale, agreed. But they were also being asked in 2000.
Now you are confusing me. Are you saying that we should reveal sources when they harm the state but not if they simply lied? So, you are saying that national security wistleblowing should not be protected. But false wistle blowing shoud?
No, not really. But I admit I am a pervert. If I came accross some memos and had no other information to attest to the facts laid out in them I would not expect to be spared from any reprisals if they turned out to be false. If, on the other hand, I had some real memos and wished to alter them to hide my identity or for some other purpose, I would also expect to be called to task if my forgery job were this shoddy. Again, I am a pervert. Perhaps YMMV.
Do yo have a cite which accurately quotes her? I have heard to many different interpretations of that interview to know for sure. The CBS site says pretty clearly that she remembers filing a memo about Bush missing or being late for a physical. She remembers Killian putting some things in a file and that the prevelant attitude at the time was that Bush had some sort of privilaged attitude. But she does not confirm very clearly the other memos. That the information in them was known and talked about, yes, but not the memos themselves.
Of course, the same CBS report says “*Are those documents authentic, as experts consulted by CBS News continue to maintain? Or were they forgeries or re-creations, as Knox and many others believe? *”
I take that report with a big grain of salt. Perhaps if we had the unedited transcripts of the interview we could know more. Without that, we have an 87 year old secratary, a Democrat, coming forward only after CBS contacted her and remembering that the gist of the information is correct. I’m sorry, but this is not a ringing endorsement.
Posted a link to this analysis in the GQ thread, but thought it couldn’t hurt to add it here, too. Just another data point, albeit a lengthy one. Pack a bag lunch and some No-Doze.
Exposing someone as a CIA agent isn’t “national security whistleblowing”, especially when it’s done by a senior administration official for political purposes.
So let’s see… When 17 men sign affidavits claiming personal knowledge of acts by John Kerry that make him unfit for office, the response was to scour their backgrounds for any hint of Republican support. When some was found, their claims were instantly dismissed as partisan attacks.
But when a woman comes forward with negative recollections about George Bush, suddenly HER political affiliation is totally irrelevant, right? And her word should be accepted at face value?
By the way, the Washington Post has an excellent side-by-side analysis of the forged documents compared to real ones, showing just how lame CBS’s ‘analysis’ of the documents was.
Yea, that’s the information I keep getting. Did you notice that the only memo she specifically mentioned was the one ordering Bush to take the physical? Why did Rather not question her about the other specifically? Surely he could have questioned her about specifics of each and every memo to find which parts were authentic and which were “terms we didn’t use”. Notice also that she did not confirm the pressure from above. Or the refusal by Killian to doctor reports. I’m also curious what her involvement would have been if Bush had taken the physical just after that memo ordering him to do so. Would another memo have been typed? Given that the people around her were discussin Bush’s privilege, would they have discused his attendance at the physical?
So, we have an 87 year old secratary remembering a privilaged attitude by this “gentleman”. Who she saw often, BTW, was she in Texas or Alabama? I forget. She remembers typing a memo ordering him to take a physical. She remembers that he did not do this. At least at the time of the memo. I’m not trying to cast aspersions on her. It just strikes me that that interview was heavily edited. And not necessarily for accuracy. JMHO.
I suppose I’ve become spoiled by CSPAN. I simply don’t trust an interview where the interviewer talks more than the interviewee.
Thank you very much for diggin up the transcripts of the interview. It is most appreciated.
Have those affadavits actually been produced? Because as I see it, none of those 17 Swifties were actually on Kerry’s boat when he was in charge, which would make any signed claims of “personal knowledge” be a damned lie.
…not that it’d stop a right-wing nutjob from repeatedly spreading those lies, even when they have been debunked, of course.
Actually Sam, it seems that you are glossing over the fact that these men little or no actual person knowledge of what they were attesting to. All that their affidavits contain are opinions. The facts of the disputed actions are ALL either ambigious or point out errors or outright falsehoods on the part of the veterens. The Vets put Themselves into the spotlight voluntarily in an attempt to sway the electorate. Their motivations are therefore very relevant when considering the message.
Killian’s secretary’s motivations are also relevant here, but luckily, those motivations are quite clear. She was dragged out of obscurity after someone else (whoever gave CBS the memos) generated this little dust up. The secretary would likely never have come to light had not someone kicked over the anthill. Perhaps this whole mess is one that was designed to get this woman into the spotlight. Perhaps she was approached and wouldn’t voluntarily open up, but would step up to set the record straight. In any case, there is nothing to discredit her with. From what I can tell, everything that she has said that can be corroborated, has been corroborated. Bush failed to take the physical. People were trying to pull strings for Bush. There are huge gaps in Bush’s service record that are unexplained. There is nothing inconsistent in what she said. She even put paid to the forged memos in question. (Note that Rather asked about memos in the plural instead of in the singular, so it is likely that he and the secretary were talking about all of the memos).
Frankly, the secretary isn’t being taken at face value. The difference here is that she appears to be telling the truth, and it is a pretty picture for Bush.
Please tell me you are a fool and bought some right wing source’s claim that this is what the Plame outing is, because the only other alternative is to believe you are a damned liar.
Yes, they have been produced. They were given to all the media outlets as part of a ‘support’ package. Several of them have been reprinted in the media.
cj Finn said:
How many times do we have to go over this?
Steve Gardner served on John Kerry’s boat longer than anyone else. He was Kerry’s gunner’s mate. He has personal knowledge that John Kerry did not go into Cambodia at any time while Gardner was on that boat, which would be the entire December/January time frame. Gardner has signed an affidavit to that effect.
Admiral Schacte claims to have been on the ‘Boston Skimmer’ on the night of Kerry’s first Purple Heart.
Numerous members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were present during the third Bronze Star incident. In fact, of the five boats on the water that day, one commander is dead, one is John Kerry, and all three of the others are members of SBVT, along with several enlisted men who were on the water that day. They have direct, personal knowledge of what happened.
Note that in all three of the incidents mentioned above, it’s Kerry’s story that has changed since this whole thing broke. Kerry initially claimed that he was wounded by enemy fire on the ‘Boston Whaler’ incident. Schachte said there was no enemy fire and Kerry accidentally wounded himself. Kerry said this wasn’t true, until someone pointed out that his own diary had an entry AFTER that incident saying that he had yet to be shot at in Vietnam. Now Kerry is saying it might have been an accidental self-inflicted wound. The Kerry camp has recanted about ‘Christmas in Cambodia’ after Gardner said it didn’t happen. And in the Bronze Star incident where Kerry rescued Rassmann, both Kerry’s and Rassmann’s stories have changed several times, and now closely match what the Swiftboat guys were saying all along. Originally, the Kerry/Rassmann story was that mines started going off all over the place, and gunfire erupted from both banks, and all the boats ran. Then Kerry realized that Rassmann was in the water, and he went back under withering fire and rescued him. The Swifties said that that was a load of bull, and that what happened was that ONE mine went off, disabling the 3 boat, Jack Chenowith and Larry Thurlow and Dick Pees are the surviving commanders from that day. Pees was on the boat that was hit by a mine, and he was severely wounded.
What actually happened was that all boats went directly to the aid of the 3 boat, with the exception of Kerry’s boat. Kerry’s boat left the scene. Later, it came back and collected Rassmann. Kerry himself now admits this, and he says he left the scene to drop his special forces ashore upstream of the ‘ambush’. But that never happened either , as he turned around and went back to collect Rassmann.
The only remaining dispute in that story is whether they were actually under fire. The swifties say they weren’t, and point to the almost complete lack of gunfire damage and wounds to prove this. Kerry says they were, as well as several other people. I chalk that up to the ‘fog of war’ - I think both sides believe what they say. But on the other matters, clearly Kerry’s original version was embellished to make him look good, and the Swifties’ version was substantially correct.
Here is Van O’Dell’s affidavit rgarding this incident.
All of the affidavits signed around these actions were signed by people who were participants, either on Kerry’s boat or serving in the same action alongside him. Saying that they don’t have direct knowledge because they weren’t on his boat is like saying a wingman can have no direct knowledge of the actions of another pilot because he’s not sitting in the same plane.
I understand that there are issues on both sides of these claims, and inconsistencies on both sides. There are also people who dispute claims on both sides. What I’m trying to dispel here is the repeated false claim that A) none of these men served on the boat with Kerry, and B) None of them were eyewitnesses to the actions in question. In fact, of the 254 members of SBVT, 17 of them were directly involved in the incidents in question, or knew Kerry well because they served with him as fellow Swift Boat commanders, going on the same missions (Swiftboats always operated in groups, in very close proximity).
Somehow, I think if 17 members of Bush’s squadron came out and said he was unfit to be CinC, you guys wouldn’t be calling their testimony invalid because they weren’t in the same plane. The swift boat group that these guys belonged to was very much like an aircraft squadron. They worked together closely, fought together, debriefed together, slept together, and trained together.
Sigh. Of course the plame affair was not “whistleblowing”. Sheesh.
Merriam-Webster online defines whistle-blowing as"Not unless you are willing to suggest that sanctions were functioning exactly as planned and that they were going to do so into the foreseeable future." but my other dictionaries seem to indicate that it must be the revelation of fraud or wrongdoing by a large organization by one of that organization’s employees.
So, how about if I change my statement.
The original "Are you saying that we should reveal sources when they harm the state but not if they simply lied? So, you are saying that national security wistle-blowing should not be protected. But false wistle-blowing should?"With a small spelling correction.
The new one: "Are you saying that we should reveal sources when they harm the state but not if they simply lied? So, you are saying that revelations of state secrets should be not be protected but liars should?." What I was trying to get at was the principle by which Mr2001 would make the call to reveal or not a source.
Is that better?
I really did not mean to imply any moral justification or goodness for the person who outed Plame.
It seems clear enough to me from the transcript that she was aware of the other memos and was using that one as an example. I suppose it’s possible that everything Rather summarized was simply fabricated, or that CBS edited out some parts where she denied the accuracy of the other memos, but I’m not going to buy into that conspiracy theory. This is CBS, not Michael Moore.
She was Killian’s secretary at the Texas Air National Guard.
“Harming the state” is not the point; actual whistleblowing might do that too. The point is that whoever outed Plame did so not to expose any fraud or wrongdoing, but as retribution for her husband’s political disloyalty. It put her and her contacts in danger, and harmed our intelligence gathering abilities, just to get back at Joe Wilson.
Well, She was aware of them, and remembered Bush’s privilege attitude. But it was Rather who used the physical order memo as an example.
Yea, and they would never fabricate… oh wait.
What I mean is that if they could have had her on air saying “Yes, I remember typing one exactly like this. Yes, I remember typing one exactly like this. Yes I remember typing one exactly like this. Yes, I remember typing one exactly like this.” I’m sure they would have. There were only 4 of them for gosh sakes. Failing that, if they had footage of her confirming all four, why did they only air the most trivial of them? Why not air the ones in which Killian claims pressure from above? Why not air the ones in which Killian professes that he will not doctor documents? That she typed a memo ordering Bush to get a physical seems anti climactic.
It is a common news “trick”* to ask leading questions and edit interviews for effect. CBS is not the only one who does it. They all do it. It makes the story flow better and is better journalism.
Yea, but the press doesn’t care about any of that. There were plenty of people who would have done exactly the same thing from both sides of the isle if it made a good story.
*I used the word trick here. I should have used technique, perhaps. I did not really mean trick in the prevarication sense. More in the technical trade practice sense. For the record I am not accusing CBS of any unusual partisan motives in this situation. I am a believer in the liberal media, but I think the results are overblown. Just so you guys know.
Um, the fake memos? I’m not saying they created them, but they certainly aired them dispite questions regarding their authenticity. Not exactly evidence that they are unable or unwilling to present false or misleading evidence.
Yes. In general they care about getting good stories to the public before their competitors. Good in this case means juicy or “having legs”.
So, if the source has an ax to grind he is fair game to be outed, yes? Regardless of the truth of his asertions, right? Or, as I suspect, are you imposing some sort of public good standard. If so, can you explain it?
Of course we all know that Knox is a democrat who has said that Bush should not be in office ---- but shame on the unbiased journalist, Dan Rather, for taking such an active hand in helping the Democrats raise money.
My bolding. ---- (If I change a doc - I’ll tell ya)
Until you realize and accept that the Swift Boat Vets are deliberately attempting to use the Fog of War to rewrite history for purely political purposes. To be fair, rewriting history rarely has any other purpose, but these folks want everyone to believe not just that things didn’t happen exactly as reported in Navy records, but that John Kerry not only doesn’t deserve his medals or the respect that goes along with the actions that earned them, but deserves to be reviled. Nice bunch that. They apparently forgot that honor can’t be taken away, it can only be given away voluntarily.
Regarding the Vet’s claims:
Steve Gardner - I’m willing to believe that Kerry never entered Cambodia when Gardner was on board the boat. But correct me if I’m wrong, but there were a number of instances when Gardner was not aboard. Given that the Vets leader himself claims to have entered Cambodia on a swift boat, we can surmise that Kerry at least had the opportunity to enter Cambodia without Gardner on board. Whether he actually did, I do not know. Simply because Steve Gardner claims Kerry did enter Cambodia, does not mean that Kerry did not enter Cambodia at some point.
Schacte was another junior office at the time that Kerry won his first purple heart and had come up with the “batman” scheme for messing with the enemy. While he claims to have been on every last one of those missions (and I’ll grant he was likely on most), three people were on the boat claim he wasn’t. Faced with this dilemma, Schacte won’t admit that he might be wrong or that the folks that claim he wasn’t on the boat were wrong; they are liars and by the way, John Kerry is a fraud to boot. No allowance for faded memories or mistakes. Must be nice to be so certain about things.
As you say, the swift boat commanders that were on the raid during which Kerry was wounded have personal knowledge of what happened. But again, the Vets would have us believe that their personal knowledge of the incident borders on the omniscient and their recall is perfect. It is interesting that in their affidavits, again, there is not allowance for deviation. It happened their way and anyone who doubts is not mistaken. That person is an intentional liar. What I find interesting is the fact that the Swift Boat Veterans are the worst sort of flip floppers. Not only do they conveniently ignore their decades old acceptance of the story as told by Kerry, but they would have us believe that anyone that supports Kerry’s version, or that believes it, is at best misguided or more likely an evil liar. To say that the Vets are a bunch of disingenuous fools is a gross understatement.
So why would the Vets push an interpretation of events that is so at odds with the heretofore accepted facts? Even if they were 100% correct, Kerry would still have been awarded the medals, or at least many of the medals. His duty would still have been satisfactory. His actions would still be much more praiseworthy than Bush’s. So what then is it?
Partisan feelings could be it for some of these folks. But frankly, even though I am quite liberal, I am more than willing to assume that most conservatives would not scruple to do what we have seen from the Swift Vets. The something more that motivates the Vets appears to be a combination of their own partisan leanings and an extreme dislike for Kerry that arose from his Winter Soldier testimony. I find it interesting that few have attacked Kerry directly for his testimony and have instead focused on his medals. The reason, I believe, is that it is much easier to attack Kerry on the medals as there were mulitple witnesses, there was a lot of chaos, and the actions in question took place more than thirty years ago. Memory being what it is, both sides would very likely pass lie detector tests on their recollection (an indication that they believe that they are telling the truth, not that what they are saying is the actual truth). The truth of the matter is that the official version of the events is largerly correct and possible in error in some of the details. But this is a message too nuanced for a political campaign and so we end up with the strategy the Vets are now using, i.e. we think Kerry was wrong on some of the details and therefore he lied about the entire thing.
And this is where I think the Vets have surrendered their honor. Kerry served in Vietnam with some distinction (how much is still up for grabs, but the distinction remains) and returned to protest the war, which he did in an honorable manner. Their attempt to hurt Kerry by first stating that “Kerry’s service was not precisely as he has described it” (true or not) and then jumping to a conclusion that Kerry is therefore unfit to serve as President is, as stated before, disingenuous. It is also without honor as their attacks leave no room for interpretation and do not allow for the possiblility that what Kerry did was done with any honor. In their rush to attack Kerry, they have forfiet their own honor, and frankly most, if not all of their credibility.
The fact that Kerry may have acknowledged that certain details of his recollections are incorrect frankly makes me happy. Its a refreshing change. That a man with as much on the line as Kerry has is willing to admit that he might make mistakes is a quality much to be admired. And even you must admit that all men make mistakes, though there are some who do not seem inclined to do so.
One question that I would ask you though, is “so what?” My contention is that even if Kerry’s Vietnam service isn’t as stellar as his campaign would have us believe, its still pretty damn good service and indicative of some character traits that I think are lacking in our current president, a man who is having is own problems with regard to recollecting what happened during his service. What is more, why doesn’t the Swift Boat Group or you for that matter, seem to be willing to consider the fact their recollections are in many instances incorrect as well? What does this say about the Swift Boat Veterans? What does it say about their supporters?
Even if the contents of the CBS fake memos were similar to memos actually typed by Col. Killian’s secretary, it should be clear that since whoever passed them to CBS affixed Col. Killian’s signature/initials to them, he (or she) was not merely paraphrasing, but deliverately trying to pass off frauds as original documents.
Such a person should be prosecuted, not protected.
