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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (72175)	9/21/2004 12:55:45 AM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 793927

They won't give up the question: What Is Bush Hiding? By E. J. Dionne Jr. Tuesday, September 21, 2004; Page A21 It is to be welcomed that President Bush wants to clear up questions about his National Guard service. He wants more details out there, and good for him. This story should be laid to rest, and the one person who can do it is named George W. Bush. Up to now, Bush has been interested in a rather narrow aspect of the story. He wanted Dan Rather and CBS News to come clean about whether they used fake documents in reporting on the president's Guard service back in the 1970s. "There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered," Bush told the Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., last week. "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." I couldn't agree more. And apparently CBS came to the same view. CBS messed up, and yesterday, Rather fessed up. He said the network could no longer stand behind the documents. There will be much hand-wringing about the media in the coming days, and properly so. But what's good for Dan Rather, who is not running for president, ought to be good for George Bush, who is. "There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered." Surely that presidential sentiment applies as much to Bush's Guard service as to Rather's journalistic methods. The New York Times put the relevant questions on the table yesterday in a lengthy review of Bush's life in 1972, "the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen," as the Times called it. The issues about Bush's National Guard service, the Times wrote, include "why he failed to take his pilot's physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the guard." Oh, I can hear the groaning: "But why are we still talking about Vietnam?" A fair question that has several compelling answers. First, except for John McCain, Republicans were conspicuously happy to have a front group spread untruths about John Kerry's Vietnam service in August and watch as the misleading claims were amplified by the supposedly liberal media. The Vietnam era was relevant as long as it could be used to raise character questions about Kerry. But as soon as the questioning turned to Bush's character, we were supposed to call the whole thing off. Why? Because the media were supposed to question Kerry's character but not Bush's. And, please, none of this nonsense about how Kerry "opened the door" to the assault on his Vietnam years by highlighting his service at the Democratic National Convention. Nothing any candidate does should ever be seen as "opening the door" to lies about his past. Besides, Vietnam veterans with Republican ties were going after Kerry's war record long before the Democratic convention. But, most important, there is only one reason the story about Bush's choices during the Vietnam years persists. It's because the president won't give detailed answers to the direct questions posed by the Times story and other responsible media organizations, including the Boston Globe. Their questions never depended on the discredited CBS documents. Bush could end this story now so we could get to the real issues of 2004. It would require only that the president take an hour or so with reporters to make clear what he did and did not do in the Guard. He may have had good reasons for ducking that physical exam. Surely he can explain the gaps in his service and tell us honestly whether any pull was used to get him into the Guard. But a guy who is supposed to be so frank and direct turns remarkably Clintonian where the National Guard issue is concerned. "I met my requirements and was honorably discharged" is Bush's stock answer, which does old Bill proud. And am I the only person exasperated by a double standard that treated everything Bill Clinton ever did in his life ("I didn't inhale") as fair game but now insists that we shouldn't sully ourselves with any inconvenient questions about Bush's past? I'm as weary as you are that our politics veer away from what matters -- Iraq, terrorism, health care, jobs -- and get sidetracked into personal issues manufactured by political consultants and ideological zealots. But the Bush campaign has made clear it wants this election to focus on character and leadership. If character is the issue, the president's life, past and present, matters just as much as John Kerry's. Dan Rather has answered his critics. Now it is Bush's turn. postchat@aol.com © 2004 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com This is so hypocritical. The better question is: Why won't Senator Kerry sign his 180? M

To: LindyBill who wrote (72175)	9/21/2004 3:42:23 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

CBS arranged for meeting with Lockhart By Kevin Johnson, Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY [KLP Note: More amazing by the second..... WASHINGTON — CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard. John Kerry aide Joe Lockhart, shown here in 1998, chatted with a former Texas National Guard officer, whose number CBS provided. AP Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn't recall the producer's name. But CBS said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart. Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign. The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This "poses a real danger to the potential credibility ... of a news organization," said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "At Burkett's request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign," said Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president. CBS would not discuss the propriety of the network serving as a conduit between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "It was not part of any deal" to obtain the documents, West said, declining to elaborate. But Burkett said Monday that his contact with Lockhart was indeed part of an "understanding" with CBS. Burkett said his interest in contacting the campaign was to offer advice in responding to Republican criticisms about Kerry's Vietnam service. It had nothing to do with the documents, he said. "My interest was to get the attention of the national (campaign) to defend against the ... attacks," Burkett said, adding that he also talked to former Georgia senator Max Cleland and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean during the past 45 days. "Neither the Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign had anything to do with the documents," he said. Lockhart said he phoned Burkett at the number provided by CBS. Lockhart also said that the documents never came up in his conversation with Burkett. Lockhart said the conversation lasted just a few minutes. "It's possible that the producer said they had documents" before his conversation with Burkett, he said. At the end of the conversation, Lockhart said he thanked Burkett for his interest, and there was no further contact with him. Asked why he called Burkett, Lockhart said he talks to "a lot of people." "I called you, didn't I?" The White House said CBS' contact with Lockhart was inappropriate. "The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Sen. Kerry's campaign to attack the president is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director. Contributing: Judy Keen Find this article at: usatoday.com