This is very interesting...

[Yonivore]

...and I think it explains why CBS and Dan Rather are being so obstinent. It also explains why the DNC and Kerry are being so quiet on the matter.


Texan Involved in CBS Report Tried to Help Kerry Campaign (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/politics/campaign/18guard.html)

"'I spent some time on the phone with the Kerry campaign seniors yesterday,' Mr. Burkett wrote on Aug. 21 in an e-mail letter circulated to a list of about 600 Texas Democrats."


In the Rush for a Scoop, CBS Found Trouble Fast (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cbs18sep18,1,1428308.story?coll=la-home-headlines)

"Although CBS News notes that Mapes had been chasing the National Guard story for five years, it only came back on the active burner in mid- to late August."

"That's when executive producer Howard got a call from her, telling him 'she was on to something' and wanted to put her other projects aside."
Okay, Raise your hand if you think the dates are a coincidence.

[Yonivore]

Bump

[Yonivore]

Bump

I'd really like DeSPURate's and Nbadanallah's perspective on this revelation.

[Tommy Duncan]

It gets curiouser and curiouser. It certainly won't look good for the Kerry campaign and DNC if Burkett told them about the documents and/or sent the docs to them prior to the 60 Minutes II report and they indeed forwarded them on to Rather and CBS.


apnews.myway.com/article/...Q0180.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040919/D856Q0180.html)


The retired Guard official, Bill Burkett, said in an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.

"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.

Burkett, who lives just outside of Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.

The e-mail was distributed to a Yahoo list of Texas Democrats. The site, which had about 570 members Saturday, is not affiliated with the state party.

Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke suggested collaboration between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear," he said.

[Nbadan]

I think we will have a better understanding of the situation, including any involvement Burkett may have had with the Bush documents, if at all, soon enough...


CBS Talks With Suspected Source of Documents
Network to Air Interview in Effort to Resolve Dispute Over Bush Guard Memos' Authenticity

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A14

CBS News anchor Dan Rather has interviewed the retired lieutenant colonel widely believed to have helped provide "60 Minutes" with the disputed National Guard documents about President Bush that have created a credibility crisis for the network, and CBS plans to air the interview in the coming days.

The on-camera sit-down with Bill Burkett, who has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks," could help resolve whether CBS continues to stand by its story or concedes the purported 30-year-old memos are forgeries, as numerous document experts have contended.

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34151-2004Sep19.html)

[Tommy Duncan]

CBS to use Burkett as scapegoat (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20guard.html?ei=5006&en=42f1be2f0a0efa9d&ex=1096344000&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=)

[Nbadan]

From Tommy's link above...


But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they had been misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.

Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos had come from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.

So Burkett deceives CBS as to the origin of the documents and this is CBS's fault how? Burkett worked with Killian and could have just as easily pulled the documents from the trash as they were "allegedly" being purged. The former pool secretary for Killian confirming the content of the memos, as well as the White House not expressing any doubts as to either the authenticity or content in the memos only served to reinforce CBS's belief that the documents were indeed authentic.

[Tommy Duncan]

CBS has a duty not to smear the President using faked documents. Hence the reason CBS tried to get some experts to sign off on those docs' authenticity.

It seems like most Americans don't like the kind of 'fake, but accurate' partisan journalism you advocate. Then again, most Americans aren't you.

[Yonivore]

I know one way to resolve a part of the question.

Get the phone records of the Kinko's in Abilene and see to whom Burkett faxed the memos.

We've all been assuming he faxed them to See-BS. In fact, it may be that he faxed them to Max Cleland, the Kerry Campaign, or the DNC and they handed them over to See-BS.

Either way, Dan Blather's excuse of being duped doesn't fly. Anyone who's been in the national media for the past 10 years knows who Bill Burkett is and how he's been discredited in the past.

So, the only explanation that Dan Blather could conceivably come up with is that he got it from an unimpeachable source, the DNC or Kerry Campaign (I know, that stretched credulity).

That's why he's been stonewalling.

[Tommy Duncan]

www.nationalreview.com/co...170630.asp (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/powell200409170630.asp)

September 17, 2004, 6:30 a.m.

Throwing the Book at Them
CBS looked good on paper.

By Dennis E. Powell

As long as CBS-related documents are being waved around, I have one that is of ironic significance.

Its authenticity is unquestionable. It is a white plastic loose-leaf binder. Its cover bears the title "CBS NEWS STANDARDS." I'll name the source: CBS News Division. When I went to work there two decades ago, each new employee was issued one and was required to sign a receipt attesting that he or she had received it and had read it.

It was typed; from the looks of it in a 12-pitch font of the Times family on an IBM Selectric. The font is not, by the way, proportional.

Its preface was written by the legendary Richard Salant, who said in closing, "[T]his is as good a place as any to remind ourselves that our paramount responsibility at CBS News is to present all significant facts, all significant viewpoints so that this democracy will work in the way it should work — by the individual citizen's making up his own mind on an informed basis. Our job is to contribute to that process and not to make up for them the minds of those who listen to and watch us. We must always remember that a significant viewpoint does not become less significant just because we personally disagree with it, nor does a significant and relevant fact become less relevant or significant just because we find it unpalatable and wish it weren't so."

The document is about 80 pages long — sometimes pages were added, so that, for instance, page 37 is followed by pages 37A and 37B — and fairly comprehensive. Some of it seems a little anachronistic: There is a section on covering riots, and another on covering terrorists back when this generally involved kidnappings and the chief issue was how to keep the network from becoming a mouthpiece for the terrorists. There are sections having to do with the arcana of broadcasting, policy issues such as the circumstances under which commercials may be associated with news broadcasts, whether unbroadcast excerpts from interviews might ever be released, and even (quaint, in this day and age) the general prohibition on interviewing the victims of accidents or tragedies, or their relatives.

Particularly interesting today are pages 37A and B, "Identification of News Sources."

Though the section is dated October 15, 1981, it begins: "Recently the credibility of news organizations has been tarnished by the abuses of a few reporters who, while claiming to rely on anonymous sources, were fabricating stories. Quite reasonably, these incidents have led to discussion by the public and journalists of the practice of using anonymous sources."

It goes on to a section on page 37B headed "Standards and Procedures," which says, in part: "Anonymous sources should be used only when it is determined (1) that there is no other practicable way to obtain and report the information; (2) that the information is factual and of sufficient newsworthiness to warrant its use despite the fact that we cannot disclose its source; and (3) that the source and his information are highly reliable in the particular instance."

There is more, including this: "Where the use of an anonymous source is necessary, as much information as possible about the nature [underlined] of the source should be provided to the audience, assuming, of course, that this information would not lead to disclosure of the source. Where the source may have a vested interest in the matter to be reported, it is especially important that information be provided as to the nature and/or motivation of the source."

There is no section on the use of fraudulent documents; there were things that were understood to be such obvious firing offenses that no mention of them was needed.

It used to be, there was even an arbiter of "the white book," as it was called in the CBS Broadcast Center. His name was Emerson Stone, and his office was across the street at 555 West 57th Street, near the 60 Minutes offices. Violations were to be reported to him, and he could make things unpleasant for transgressors.

My copy of the document is in pristine condition. It provides good guidance and is something I've always treated with a little reverence, because it stands for what CBS once strived to be. I'm tempted to send it to Dan Rather, because I think his copy is probably pretty beaten up as a result of having been flung down and danced upon.

But I don't think I will. For I'm sure that the current view at the CBS News Division is that the document is authentic, but not accurate.


— Dennis E. Powell, a freelance writer, is a former newswriter and radio network news editor at CBS.

[Yonivore]

http://www.lucianne.com/routine/images/09-20-04.jpg

[Yonivore]

CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20guard.html?ei=5006&en=42f1be2f0a0efa9d&ex=1096344000&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=)
Pajama People, 90 minutes -- See-BS, 18,720 minutes.

[Tommy Duncan]

Rather might have been stonewalling in an attempt to save whatever is left of his objective journalist face but one has to wonder if Burkett is where the trail ends.