CBS Hoaxed?

Anti-Bush national guard story may have been based on false documents

Published on September 9, 2004 By Draginol In Politics

(comparison in print out using MS Word and the alleged document from 1973)

CBS's 60 Minutes may have fallen for a hoax yesterday. After airing documents that claimed to show that pressure was put on officers to "sugar coat" Bush's national guard service, blog sites such as Little Green Footballs and this one seem to provide compelling evidence that this was a hoax.

Story developing.

Comments (Page 2)

Gideon MacLeish

on Sep 10, 2004

Forgery? Or evidence that the military has time traveling capabilities?

Call Art Bell...STAT!

Daiwa

on Sep 10, 2004

If it turns out not to be a forgery, does that mean you will vote for Kerry? No. So, what is the importance of the document in either case? Isn't this much ado about nothing?

The importance of the document, CrispE, is that Senator Tom Harkin, among others, came out blasting President Bush yesterday based on this and the related CBS trove of "suddenly-found" documents, none of which can be taken seriously now, once again charging publicly that the President "lied to the American people." And it won't turn out to not be a forgery.

And I guess, since we now know that Kerry's claim to be in Cambodia for Christmas 1968 is false, you're voting for Bush?

What ever Editor let them run with this story should be fired.

Never happen. I'm sure they'll say "Well, we looked at all the evidence and determined to the best of our ability that it was legitimate." To paraphrase someone, that's fine for a seventh-grader but not for an adult.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Lee1776

on Sep 10, 2004

Never happen. I'm sure they'll say "Well, we looked at all the evidence and determined to the best of our ability that it was legitimate." To paraphrase someone, that's fine for a seventh-grader but not for an adult.

Ya, I guess sence Rumsfeld was not fired for the prison in Iraq, that it is OK for them not to fire the Editor.

Lee1776

on Sep 10, 2004

LAST NEWS

Democrates claim the forged documents was a Republican set up.

So CBS had nothing to do with it's content, because they got the info from someone else.

CrispE

on Sep 10, 2004

Daiwa:

I am not sure how Tom Harken's incompetence (or CBS's for that matter) taints the Kerry campaign. I am on the record for both candidates as saying 30 years ago is not a relevant issue to this election. Mr. Bush did what he did (and records leak out periodically which is debateable but not substantial to his candidacy) and Mr. Kerry did what he did (also not the issue when considering the candidate (IMHO).

This campaign always seems to come down to Terrorism and Iraq and the Economy. But underneath the real issues (and both of those are) there is this subterranean "who can we tarnish with what happened 30 years ago" politicking going on. It's not healthy, leads to division and ultimately to another campaign where the real issues aren't discussed and then it's "who's the prettiest candidate" again.

Draginol

on Sep 10, 2004

CrispE: No, what it will demonstrate is that there really is a left wing bias to the media. I don't recall the Swift Boat vets getting air time on 60 minutes and while some of their claims seem to be pushing the envelope, at least they didn't outright fabricate their evidence.

CBS is to blatantly pro-Kerry that this incident I think will forever remind people that the "mainstream" media is carrying's the Democrats' water for them.

FreeMark

on Sep 10, 2004

I kind of agree with Drag...the damage done is most severe to CBS and by association the rest of the mainstream media. I don't think it matters too much though because the only people who care are either the people who don't trust the MM anyway or will scoff at this. I doubt many converts will be made.

But what it does do is really put a crimp in the "if you are going to cast aspersions on my Vietnam experience I will talk about you being AWOL" strategy. They can still do it but it is a landmine waiting to be stepped on. All they have to do is take footage of some Democrat saying AWOL (could be Harkin doesn't have to be Kerry), link it to some voice over talking about forged documents, and then say something pithy like “Is this the kind of people you want in Washington.” In fact they will probably do it anyway.

You may not think the campaign should be about 30 years ago but for some reason it is. This looks to me like serious damage to the Kerry campaign and I am trying to look at it strictly from an dispassionate observer (although I am not). Even if I am wrong I certainly don't think that Kerry's campaign manager, whoever it is for the moment, woke up yesterday with this result in mind. At the very least, it is going to be several days if not weeks worth of new stories not about John Kerry but the CBS debacle.

KarmaGirl

on Sep 10, 2004

Democrates claim the forged documents was a Republican set up

Gee..like that isn't predictable.

Very, very true.

CrispE

on Sep 10, 2004

Draginol:

Ok, so here is the question:

If the documents were authentic (and I can't tell because I used to type on a selectric that I did lots of "tricks" with like superscripts by releasing and repositioning the paper) are you saying CBS (or the media in general) should not have run the story?

If you say yes, then you are confusing bias with incompetence.

If you say no, then you are saying they should not report what they believe is legitimate news.

FreeMark

on Sep 10, 2004

Gee..like that isn't predictable.

It will be a multi-pronged blistering attack consisting of some or all of:
Karl Rove set us up
CBS made the mistake not us
The documents might be fake but when still KNOW that Bush was AWOL
This proves that partisan politics, like the Republicans engage in, are not serving the greater good
We have been trying to campaign on the issues and the Republicans keep bringing up things that happened 30 years ago
and others

For every season, spin, spin, spin, there is a reason, spin, spin, spin.

Probably work to some degree too...but they are still treading water and land just keeps getting further away.

Lee1776

on Sep 10, 2004

CrispE

If you say no, then you are saying they should not report what they believe is legitimate news.

That’s just it, they think it is legitimate news. For them, it does not matter if they have suspicions about the authentification of the documents. They really think it's true, so they ran with it anyway. Some people have been so blinded by their own convictions, that they no longer care if it’s true or not.

It is just getting sad when people get that far.

Because I could not think of any other reason short of a Republican conspericy, but I don't think Dan Rather (as librial as he is) would be that dumb.

FreeMark

on Sep 10, 2004

CrispE,

The real question is did CBS think the documents were authentic or did they bother to check and just ran with it? They say they have experts who looked at it, but as far as I know that haven't produced those experts. I don't know how long it took for someone to raise questions about this on the Internet but it was pretty fast. As far as I know they haven't answered those questions. They haven't brought their experts up to answer them.

I think D's bias claim is that it seems like they went all silly to get this story out and they haven't bothered to touch the Swiftboat story. If there immediate assumption is that the Nat. Guard story is authentic and that the Swift Boat story isn't then that is bias.

Lee1776

on Sep 10, 2004

It will be a multi-pronged blistering attack consisting of some or all of:
Karl Rove set us up
CBS made the mistake not us
The documents might be fake but when still KNOW that Bush was AWOL

This proves my point in #26, Thanks FreeMark

CrispE

on Sep 10, 2004

Lee1776:

So, it is not, in your opinion, legitimate news that Bush's commanding officer had these feelings about Bush? Note, it is not a campaign issue to me, but it is news. It seems to contradict Bush's statements to Russert last winter to some extent. I think it qualifies as news.

bakerstreet

on Sep 10, 2004

Dan Rather has lost it, frankly, and that was pretty apparent to anyone who watched the 2000 election.

"that Bush's commanding officer had these feelings about Bush?"

According to the man's wife, he didn't have those feelings at all. So, who's word do you take? Idiotic on the whole, and just shows how most of these "news" shows are no different than cable news opinion shows, but have been working in the guise of hard news for decades. Wasn't there a Libertarian that claimed he had been ousted from 60 minutes or one of the others because he wasn't liberal enough?

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