If the CBS documents are shown to be fraudulent, should CBS produce their source?

[Tigers2B1]

Sorry – grabbed the wrong URL. This one points you to “the source” –

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-20-cbs-documents_x.htm

[Tigers2B1]

With the new questions regarding CBS’ contact with a top aide with the Kerry campaign just coming out — here’s a little history regarding CBS’ “unimpeachable source.” I do not think that a reasonable person can contend that CBS acted in good faith in this matter. In fact, CBS now appears to have some serious ethical issues to deal with – considering the Lockhart contact, their failure to make a timely acknowledgement, and their misrepresentation of Burkett as an “unimpeachable source” BEFORE they knew the latest information (the source) would be made public.

**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.”

Over the past three years, retired Lt. Col. 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….

…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….

…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…**

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36908-2004Sep20.html

[Sam_Stone]

Man, this is turning into a big damned story. Now we have connections to the Kerry campaign. The White House is demanding that Bob Schieffer be pulled as a moderator of the debates. The potential for blowback on Kerry is huge at this point, and CBS is rapidly moving through the spectrum from ‘inept’ to ‘highly unethical’ if they were attempting to coordinate a smear campaign against Bush.

[Ms2001]

Let’s see just how far this connection to the Kerry campaign goes:

1. Burkett calls up CBS and says “I have some juicy documents here, and I’ll let you see them if you arrange a chat between me and a Kerry adviser.”
2. CBS says OK, puts him in touch with the adviser, runs story.

Ha! Proof positive… of what, exactly?

@Sam Stone

The White House is demanding that Bob Schieffer be pulled as a moderator of the debates.

Cite? I’m seeing news articles about the demand, but none that attribute it to the White House. They only attribute it to some Republican in Virginia, or to BoycottCBS.com (a site that calls CBS a “left-wing outlet” and features a pic of Dan Rather standing next to Fidel Castro, but, oddly enough, is not a parody site).

[Sam_Stone]

Bush Officials Want CBS News Moderator Off Debate.

It’s from Drudge, so take it with whatever grain of salt you think it deserves.

As for whether the Kerry campaign can be implicated in anything… It depends. Depends on what the conversation was about. But tell me… If the Swift Vets had produced documents that showed John Kerry was a war criminal, and those documents turned out to be forgeries, and it later turned out that three days before the forgeries went public the forger had a long conversation with Karl Rove… Do you think the Bush Administration would have anything to worry about? Do you think the Dems on the SDMB would not be going absolutely-frickin-INSANE over it?

[annaplurabelle]

@john mace

I’m very confused. It would take “liberal bias” of an unimaginable degree if that were the case. It just doesn’t make sense.

I feel your pain. And I think it’s only going to get more senseless.

@Jonathan Chance

FWIW, and it’s strictly my opinion, I’d do my best (were I CBS) to determine the original source of the fake documents and then out that person.

FWIW, here’s the story behind Burkett’s “source”, via his attorney:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/0904nation/21burkett.html
Source of documents alleges mystery man

The saga of the possibly faked documents about President Bush’s National Guard service began with a phone call last winter, according to an attorney for the man who provided them to CBS News.

David Van Os said in an interview that his client, Bill Burkette, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, got a call “out of the blue” from someone who had seen him on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” in February, discussing his longstanding allegation that Bush aides ordered the destruction of the then-governor’s National Guard records in Austin. The caller said there were some old records that Burkett should see…

Should be easy to locate this guy - how many people watch Hardball? It’s a great story - he meets the guy at a rodeo in Houston and the guy slips him a sealed envelope… Here’s a bit more, since the link requires registration:

Though Burkett blames Bush for denying him medical care after he contracted a serious infection while serving in Panama, he planned to do nothing with the documents, Van Os said. He stashed them in a cold storage locker and did a minimal amount of checking on the person who provided them but did nothing to determine their authenticity.

Van Os said Burkett determined that the man who provided them was using the name of somebody who once held a National Guard position that would have made him privy to the documents. But Burkett had no way of knowing if the man was who he said he was.

By August, reporters somehow had learned about the documents and started calling Burkett, who, according to Van Os, had no intention of getting involved.

But he decided to to cooperate with CBS.

If nothing else, Burkett is the poster boy for health care reform in the US.

[Sam_Stone]

It’s also very strange that CBS is claiming that Burkette did not go to them. CBS says that they sought out Burkette. How much of coincidence is that? What it sounds like so far is:

1. Mysterious man seeks out Burkette, and gives him forged documents.
2. About this time, CBS suddenly decides that they should track down Burkette and see if he’s got anything for them.
3. Burkette demands to be put in touch with the Kerry campaign before he’ll turn over documents.
4. CBS acts as intermediary between Burkette and Kerry campaign.
5. Kerry campaign talks to Burkette.
6. CBS runs memo story
7. Kerry campaign kicks off ‘Operation Fortunate Son’ which focuses on Bush’s using influence in the Guard. OFS mentions memos, even though first commercial runs only hours after CBS airs story.

At the very least, it seems to me that CBS gave the Kerry campaign a ‘heads-up’ about the memo story, allowing them to prepare a campaign to take advantage of the material. This is highly unethical for a supposedly non-partisan news organization. At worst, we have political dirty tricks going on. In any event, this story is going to get bigger before it goes away. And even if Kerry’s campaign had nothing to do with it, this is bad for Kerry because it pushes him off message and diverts attention away from what he wants to do.

[Sam_Stone]

Oops. I have no idea why I kept adding a trailing ‘e’ to “Burkett”.

[annaplurabelle]

@Sam Stone

It’s also very strange that CBS is claiming that Burkette did not go to them. CBS says that they sought out Burkette. How much of coincidence is that? What it sounds like so far is:

1. Mysterious man seeks out Burkette, and gives him forged documents.
2. About this time, CBS suddenly decides that they should track down Burkette and see if he’s got anything for them.

According to Burkett’s attorney, it wasn’t just CBS who had sniffed out this story:

By August, reporters somehow had learned about the documents and started calling Burkett, who, according to Van Os, had no intention of getting involved.

But he decided to to cooperate with CBS.

“They just did the slickest job of sweet-talking him,” Van Os said.

Now, he regrets giving the memos to the network.

“Bill Burkett trusted and believed that CBS, being a huge news organization and with the resources to do so, would conduct a proper, professional investigation before they did anything,” Van Os said.

“He now knows they haven’t done it. It’s obvious to the world they haven’t done it.”

This might explain why they were in such a rush to air it - and why MSM knew Burkett was the source before it was officially revealed.

Re Burkett’s credibility: Isn’t this something that could be verified? Who sniffed it out first, and how did they find out Burkett had new docs?

[annaplurabelle]

It was a woman???

USA Today had the docs too. A more complete version of the “story” here:

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040921/1a_cover21x.art0.htm

[Tigers2B1]

@annaplurabelle

It was a woman???

And a mysterious woman at that — at a rodeo, with a brown envelope, containing documents incriminating the President.

[Shodan]

Holy farging schnit.

@Sam Stone

What it sounds like so far is:

1. Mysterious man seeks out Burkette, and gives him forged documents.
2. About this time, CBS suddenly decides that they should track down Burkette and see if he’s got anything for them.
3. Burkette demands to be put in touch with the Kerry campaign before he’ll turn over documents.
   **4. CBS acts as intermediary between Burkette and Kerry campaign.
4. Kerry campaign talks to Burkette.
5. CBS runs memo story
6. Kerry campaign kicks off ‘Operation Fortunate Son’ which focuses on Bush’s using influence in the Guard. OFS mentions memos, even though first commercial runs only hours after CBS airs story.**

Even I, a dedicated Republican, would not have believed CBS would do something like this. 60 Minutes is coordinating its news stories to assist the Kerry campaign!

What the hell were they thinking?

[pervert]

Gentlemen, May I ask for a few days calm before we attribute too much to the current news on this issue? I know it is not my place, and I certainly have no authority. But I would hate for this to be an example of a conspiracy theory.

I always try and attribute these things to stupidity before malice. If someone cooked up these documents and gave them to Burkett they could have just as easily told CBS USAToday and the Kerry campaign. It does not require any conspiracy on their part to have them all salivate over the same story at the same time.

While I agree that it is suspicious that the Kerry campaign had their fortunate son add ready so soon after the CBS broadcast, I am not yet willing to specualte that it was collusion. Advance notice, perhaps. But then the Whitehouse had the memos pretty soon after CBS did as well. So, among those who keep aware of such things, it seems that the story was known in advance.

[Bricker]

I’m not that surprised.

Dan Rather has had a long-standing antipathy towards the GOP. The idea that he would simply not want to dig deep to discredit a story that fits right in to his preconceptions is not outrageous.

We see it here, of course, although it’s fair to point out that I’d like to hold Rather to a higher standard than the yahoos on a message board. But the Democrat True Believers here are STILL qualifying their comments about these documents with weasel-words rather than simply admitting the forgery.

It’s sad. If Sylvia Browne’s or Uri Geller’s claims are discussed here, these same people would - quite properly - demand stringent and rigorous analysis. But when it comes to a memo discrediting Bush… the standards are much looser.

Nor am I immune. When “Unfit For Command” came out, I was much gentler with its claims than I should have been; it took a while before I admitted to myself it was on thin ice.

I try to remind myself not to make this error, but I’m not always successful.

• Rick

[Shodan]

@pervert

Gentlemen, May I ask for a few days calm before we attribute too much to the current news on this issue? I know it is not my place, and I certainly have no authority. But I would hate for this to be an example of a conspiracy theory.

I always try and attribute these things to stupidity before malice. If someone cooked up these documents and gave them to Burkett they could have just as easily told CBS USAToday and the Kerry campaign. It does not require any conspiracy on their part to have them all salivate over the same story at the same time.

While I agree that it is suspicious that the Kerry campaign had their fortunate son add ready so soon after the CBS broadcast, I am not yet willing to specualte that it was collusion. Advance notice, perhaps. But then the Whitehouse had the memos pretty soon after CBS did as well. So, among those who keep aware of such things, it seems that the story was known in advance.

Fair points, all of them, as usual.

That CBS set up a meeting between Burkett and the Kerry campaign is somewhat more than questionable, IMO.

Always interesting to speculate what the board’s reaction would have been had it been Fox News and Bush instead of CBS and Kerry.

But pervert is correct, and my assumptions that CBS and Sixty Minutes are a bunch of unethical, slimy, left-wing partisan assholes conspiring in a smear campaign based on forged documents and the assertions of a certified nut (I mean a nut other than Rather) were premature.

Regards,
Shodan

[Tigers2B1]

No, you’re right, USATODAY also had these documents but had reservations about going with documents "written by a dead man to himself." On the CBS side, Lockhart, a top Kerry campaign aide, has already admitted that CBS contacted him about the documents. And just admitted this fact for some reason even though this story is on it’s 11th day.

In fact, Max Cleland, former Democratic US Senator, and present aide to the Kerry campaign is also involved in the growing - CBS – Burkett / ‘mysterious woman’ – Lockhart / Kerry Campaign – triangle. Umm, well maybe a triangle isn’t the right shape but, since I don’t know what trhat shape would be called - it’s a triangle.

Anyway, from MSNBC -

**…Burkett, a Democrat, sent an e-mail last month to several Texas Democrats, saying he had passed along information to Max Cleland, a former Georgia senator and Kerry supporter, about information that would counter criticism of Kerry’s Vietnam War service.

Cleland said Monday he does “not have any knowledge” about documents used to support the “60 Minutes” story.**

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6063289/

AND from the Houston Chronicle

**…And Max Cleland, the former U.S. senator from Georgia and Kerry’s point man on Vietnam issues, confirmed that Burkett had called him to offer information on Bush.

“I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with,” Burkett wrote on the Internet last month.

Cleland admitted talking with Burkett, and said he told him to give the information “to someone in the Kerry campaign,” according to the New York Times.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett called the contact between CBS News and Lockhart “a stunning and deeply troubling development” and said Kerry should hold accountable those involved in helping CBS obtain the documents, the AP reported late Monday.

CBS has not said how Burkett became their source. Rather would only say on the air Monday, “He did not come to us, we went to him.”**

Rather apologizes for Guard story

Anybody have an over-under on when Dan Rather retires?

[Mal_Adroit]

@Tigers2B1

Anybody have an over-under on when Dan Rather retires?

If it winds up sinking the Kerry campaign, involuntary retirement should be the least of his worries.
ok ok, not actually threatening the stupid old fuck

[Evil_Captor]

< channelling our Republican posters >

Sorry nothing has been proven here. All we have here is a group of unsubstantiated allegations. Until you have a videotape of Dan Rather accepting money from John Kerry with him verbally telling Rather to “do Bush in with this information” ON TAPE, all we have is a bunch of mindless scandalmongering. And may I say, “tin foil hat”? Of course I may!

[Bricker]

@Evil Captor

< channelling our Republican posters >

Sorry nothing has been proven here. All we have here is a group of unsubstantiated allegations. Until you have a videotape of Dan Rather accepting money from John Kerry with him verbally telling Rather to “do Bush in with this information” ON TAPE, all we have is a bunch of mindless scandalmongering. And may I say, “tin foil hat”? Of course I may!

And what do you have to say about the issue in your proper persona, now that the channeling is over?

[Tigers2B1]

@Evil Captor

…Until you have a videotape of Dan Rather accepting money from John Kerry with him verbally telling Rather to “do Bush in with this information” ON TAPE, all we have is a bunch of mindless scandalmongering. And may I say, “tin foil hat”? Of course I may!

Videotape? I think you’ve hit on the right standard! A direct quote shouldn’t be enough. Reasonable inferences are way out of bounds. But dang! I could have sworn that the Straightdope standards weren’t that high when discussing, errr, ‘other’ issues. I suppose you’re right though, we should all just shut up about it until we have a video.