I posted that Dan was spotted flying to Texas yesterday.
Blogs for Bush has this comment on it. NYT article follows. No longer in doubt about the source. Although they put him in the AF instead of the Army.
My God! They didn't know it was Burkett! They claim they took Mary Mapes WORD that the source was good. I guess the rumor we heard that they were going to hang Mapes to get Rather off the hook is true.
Several people involved in the reporting process said Mr. Rather and Ms. West flew yesterday to Texas, where they were to meet with at least one man who has been identified as a source for the report, a former Texas Air National Guard officer named Bill Burkett.
Dan Rather and his shovel
Not good enough.
The New York Times is reporting that Dan Rather and Betsy West, a top news executive have flown down to Texas. The purpose of the trip is to interview Mary Mapes’s sources.
This is the problem that CBS has. Dan Rather should not be involved with the investigation at all. He can’t be trusted to tell the truth and he will be working to twist any new information into a favorable presentation for CBS.
I have no doubt that he's not looking into the forgery charges, but he's looking at trying to “prove” the “heart of the charges”. This is unforgivable.
Andrew Heyward, the CBS News president should have the sense to put a real reporter on this story and leave Dan Rather back at the studio. Dan Rather is no more than a TelePrompTer reader whom at most should be given the assignment to cover pie-eating contests at local fairs.
CBS News still has not grasped just how bad this has hurt their News Division. The word is out that the Sunday 60Mins team is leaking the word that, “hay we're a different team, we had nothing to do with this.” Well sorry CBS you’re all in the same boat.
I thought it funny Dan Rather told an interview “he wanted to be the one to break that story.” When talking about the growing evidence of forgery. As we all know Blogs broke that story 1 week ago. This little paragraph from the New York Times piece has me thinking Danny Boy has something planned for this Wednesday.
This is what the President had to say.
"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."
Then this from the New York Times.
The [presidents] comments also raised pressure on CBS News and Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to resolve the debate about the documents before its competition does.
Better hurry DannyBoy
September 19, 2004
THE NEWS MEDIA
Bush Says Questions About Guard Memos Used by CBS 'Need to Be Answered'
By JIM RUTENBERG
resident Bush said in an interview published yesterday that there were serious questions about the authenticity of documents featured in a CBS News report suggesting that he received preferential treatment in the Texas National Guard three decades ago.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the documents, Mr. Bush told The Manchester Union-Leader, "There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered."
He said, "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."
Mr. Bush stopped short of calling the documents forgeries but said: "I met my requirements and was honorably discharged. I'm proud of my service in the Guard."
When CBS News first presented the materials to White House officials two weeks ago, aides to Mr. Bush said they had no reason to doubt their authenticity, in part because of CBS's reputation as a credible news organization.
But over the past week, officials - who said that Mr. Bush had inspected the documents personally - have become openly skeptical amid mounting evidence that suggests the papers are fake. The president's comments were an indication of increasing confidence at the White House that the documents would be proved false.
The comments also raised pressure on CBS News and Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to resolve the debate about the documents before its competition does.
The papers are purported to be from the personal files of one of Mr. Bush's guard commanders, Lt. Col. Larry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memorandums say that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat" the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.
Apprised of the president's comments yesterday, Andrew Heyward, the CBS News president, said: "We're in total agreement. We're working very hard to resolve these questions about the documents, so I agree with the president."
With its credibility on the line, the news division says it has redoubled its efforts to figure out whether it fell prey to a hoax and if so, who was behind it. Underscoring the importance of the task, Betsy West, a top news executive, has taken over the investigation and doubled the number of journalists working on it to 12 from about six, several people at the network said yesterday.
Network officials said the executive producer of the "60 Minutes" Wednesday edition who oversaw the report, Josh Howard, remained involved but was busy preparing for his program's official fall premiere on Sept. 29.
Several people involved in the reporting process said Mr. Rather and Ms. West flew yesterday to Texas, where they were to meet with at least one man who has been identified as a source for the report, a former Texas Air National Guard officer named Bill Burkett.
An executive involved in the investigation said the network was leaning on its initial sources to come forward and help resolve the questions, preferably by speaking publicly about how they got their hands on the documents.
The network, however, is playing catch-up. While other news organizations began pursuing the accusations that the documents were fraudulent 10 days ago, the "60 Minutes'' team did not seem to take the questions seriously until last week, when Colonel Killian's secretary stepped forward to say they appeared to be fakes, though they accurately reflected other memorandums the commander had asked her to type. Now the network is going back over the chain of events that led to the broadcast, and network officials are indicating that the report came together much more quickly than they previously said.
When questions first arose, CBS News officials said they were confident about the documents in part because the lead producer of the report, Mary Mapes, had been working on the story for years. But an official said yesterday that the actual documents - six in total, four of which were used in the report - did not fall into CBS News's possession until Sept. 3. That was less than a week before the report ran.
Officials say they did not begin trying to authenticate the documents in earnest until the next day. Two of its experts, whom CBS News refused to name as questions about the memos began to mount, said last week they had actually told the network they had some doubts about the records.
A CBS News spokeswoman denied last week that there had been questions about the documents' authenticity at least two days before the report was broadcast. But officials acknowledged yesterday that questions lingered up to the day the report was shown.
Asked about a report in The Los Angeles Times yesterday that network officials were questioning the documents' authenticity at a meeting several hours before the start of the "60 Minutes" broadcast, Mr. Howard said: "We were sitting there with the lawyers, asking ourselves a million questions. 'Are we sure we got it right?' And the answers were all, 'We got it right, yes.' ''
One mystery among CBS staff members is why network officials remained so confident for so long about the documents as so many questions arose.
During an interview yesterday Mr. Howard said that Ms. Mapes, who broke the news for CBS about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal earlier this year, continually pledged confidence in her sources, who were said to have access to Mr. Killian's personal file.
Mr. Howard acknowledged yesterday that he had not, in fact, known who Ms. Mapes's primary source for the documents was before the report was broadcast. But, he said, "Mary Mapes told us her source made her completely confident about where they came from, and that they were authentic, and that made me confident." Ms. Mapes has not returned calls seeking comment.
For now, Mr. Burkett seems to be a focus of the network's efforts to get to the bottom of the documents' validity, which it hopes it can do as early as Monday.
One person at the network, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Burkett had been at the very least a go-between for the documents, but that very few people at the network know from whom he might have obtained them, if anyone.
Another person at the network said that among the questions Mr. Rather would probably try to resolve was: "Is it possible he made this up, or did he get it from a source who made it up?" Mr. Burkett's lawyer has repeatedly said he did no such thing.
Mr. Bush's campaign officials, meanwhile, do not seem as if they are going to let up on the pressure.
"There's a threshold question," Nicolle Devenish, Mr. Bush's campaign communications director, said. "If a media outlet is about to go on the air with a story, there is kind of an assumption that they're going on the air with documents that are authentic when they attack the president of the United States of America 50 days before a national election."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
