September 20, 2004

Memogate: CBS To Admit Forgeries

The New York Times says CBS will announce as early as today that it was duped by forged memos. But Dan Rather may try to cling to the "fake but accurate" claim.

fter days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air.

... Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings but that the documents' authenticity was now in grave doubt.

The California Yankee has a good post on all of the connections and possible connections between the forged memos and the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The forged memos are proof that a crime was committed. The important questions are who did it, who helped, and who knew? If connections between Kerry's campaign and the forged-memo smear job are proven, do you think should Bush consider refusing to debate the head of a criminal enterprise?

More good stuff on memogate today from Hugh Hewitt, PowerLine, and most especially AllahPundit, who looks at the timeline of development of the original 60 Minutes report and what it suggests.

UPDATE: Powerline points out some indication that CBS will try to distance itself from the memos while clinging to its "fake but accurate" claim.

Josh Howard, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, said over the weekend: "The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day."

In fact, the "editorial story line" is false from beginning to end. Lt. Col. Jerry Killian gave Lt. Bush a glowing evaluation as his commanding officer. For the Democrats to assert, more than thirty years later, that Killian and the other officers who praised Bush in official documents didn't mean what they said is an exercise in futility. And the claim that Bush failed to satisfy his National Guard requirements, no matter how often the Left repeats it - see Eleanor Clift's lying, mean-spirited column in the current Newsweek - is simply untrue. Bush did fulfill his requirements, as is demonstrated by the honorable discharge he received.

Also, I heard a radio report that a CBS producer claims CBS was duped in part because, when CBS reporter John Roberts showed the memos to White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, Bartlett didn't say they were fake, an excuse that ranks right up there with "the dog ate my homework." Interestingly, that explanation reveals that CBS had some inkling that the documents were fake - otherwise, they wouldn't have been interested in whether Bartlett questioned their authenticity. So, here's a question for Dan Rather and CBS News: Why was CBS asking the White House for comments on documents it hadn't yet authenticated?