When are the Dems going to realize that they are smearing themselves now?
"I think, as a practical matter, that anything about Bush's record has become about the CBS documents," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster. "It is hard to generate a story about Bush's record that isn't regurgitating how Dan Rather apologized for those documents."
September 22, 2004
Kerry Camp Describes Contacts With Source of CBS Papers
By KATE ZERNIKE - NYT
emocrats vowed yesterday to keep alive questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service despite the admission by CBS that it could not authenticate documents at the center of a report on his service. But the party instead spent much of the day explaining contacts between Senator John Kerry's campaign and the former National Guard officer who gave the network the documents.
The political jockeying over CBS's admission marked a sharp change from a week ago, when the White House was trying to answer questions about the documents and Democrats were accusing Mr. Bush of avoiding his service requirements.
Yesterday, Republicans went on the offensive and used reports that the former officer, Bill Burkett, had talked by telephone with Joe Lockhart, a senior strategist to Mr. Kerry, shortly before the CBS report, to question whether there had been collusion between the news organization and the campaign.
"I think it is time Senator Kerry came clean about all the contacts between CBS, his campaign and Bill Burkett,'' Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee said on Fox News.
Michael D. McCurry, a former press secretary to President Bill Clinton who recently signed on as an adviser to Mr. Kerry, told reporters traveling with Mr. Kerry that the campaign was trying to determine who in its ranks had been in contact with Mr. Burkett.
Mr. McCurry said that Mr. Lockhart had approached Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, in the last few days to tell her that he had had a brief telephone conversation with Mr. Burkett. Ms. Cahill, he said, told Mr. Kerry, who did not think anything needed to be done in response.
Mr. McCurry said that he believed that the only other contact was a telephone conversation between Mr. Burkett and former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a prominent Kerry supporter among veterans. Mr. Burkett and Mr. Cleland have both said Mr. Burkett called Mr. Cleland to push for a stronger response to a group of veterans who had taken out advertisements criticizing Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service.
Mr. Burkett told USA Today in an interview published yesterday that he had agreed to turn over the documents - appearing to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander - if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign. CBS officials said they did not believe there was any such deal. But the network said in a statement that it was against its standards "to be associated with any political agenda'' and that the matter would be investigated. It also publicly rebuked the "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes for putting Mr. Burkett in touch with Mr. Lockhart.
Mr. Burkett has said that the documents were not discussed, and that he wished only to make his case for a more aggressive strategy to defend Mr. Kerry's military service.
Mr. Lockhart echoed that yesterday in a daylong round of interviews and appearances on cable television. In an interview, he said that Ms. Mapes called him the Saturday before Labor Day amid rumors in Washington that CBS was preparing a major report casting new criticism on Mr. Bush's Guard service. Ms. Mapes said Mr. Burkett had been helpful and asked whether Mr. Lockhart could call him. Mr. Lockhart said he and Mr. Burkett spoke for "three minutes," during which Mr. Burkett told him he thought Mr. Kerry should give a speech "putting Vietnam in perspective."
"I told him he wasn't the only one that thought that," Mr. Lockhart said.
An array of Republicans called the explanation insufficient. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, noted that the Democratic National Committee had started an Internet advertisement shortly after the CBS report and had also begun a campaign to press questions about Mr. Bush's service.
"I think their motives are very clear," Mr. Bartlett said, "And I think it was made clear by the sophisticated, coordinated attack on President Bush that was launched simultaneously with the CBS News story."
Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, noted that Ms. Cahill had called Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor of Texas, to congratulate him after he appeared on the CBS broadcast, where he said that he had helped Mr. Bush - the son of a prominent politician - get into the Guard, where he would most likely avoid service in Vietnam.
Mr. Lockhart and other Democrats insisted they would not be deterred from pushing questions about Mr. Bush's record.
Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called a news conference to declare that the questions about Mr. Bush's service would not go away with CBS's admission that it could not verify the documents.
"I can say unequivocally that the D.N.C. had nothing to do with the CBS documents," Mr. McAuliffe said. "Why can't George Bush tell us unequivocally why he skipped that flight exam or why he leapfrogged over 150 people waiting to get into the National Guard, or why he, the son of a congressman, managed to get an honorable discharge when he did not get enough credits?"
Other Democrats, however, said the doubts about the documents had discredited the entire issue.
"I think, as a practical matter, that anything about Bush's record has become about the CBS documents," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster. "It is hard to generate a story about Bush's record that isn't regurgitating how Dan Rather apologized for those documents."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
