Text 2044, 84 rader
Skriven 2004-09-10 21:05:48 av Ed Connell (1:379/1.6)
   Kommentar till text 2000 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Re: Documents
=====================
Hey, Jeff.

 JB>  More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the
 JB> Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by
 JB> President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander,
 JB> the late Col. Jerry Killian.

 JB> The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military
 JB> officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both
 JB> senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

 JB> "More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC
 JB> staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for
 JB> them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over
 JB> to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much.
 JB> When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their
 JB> authenticity."

 JB> The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source
 JB> for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't
 JB> confirm from what file, from what original source they came from."

 JB> The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush's
 JB> personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News
 JB> stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of
 JB> Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had
 JB> never before released or even seen them.

 JB> According to a Kerry campaign source, there was little gossip about the
 JB> supposedly hot documents inside the office of the campaign on McPherson
 JB> Square. "Those documents were not something anyone was talking about or
 JB> trying to generate buzz on," says the staffer. "It wasn't like there
 JB> were small groups of people talking about this as a bombshell. I think
 JB> people here weren't sure what to make of it, because provenance of
 JB> these documents was uncertain."

 JB> A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60
 JB> Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that
 JB> the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the
 JB> group of producers and researchers working on the story.

 JB> "The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had
 JB> Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.'
 JB> And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then
 JB> you have these new documents and the tone and content are so
 JB> different."

 JB> The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when
 JB> the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not
 JB> match up with other documents available on the public record, but
 JB> producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to
 JB> push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the
 JB> producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.

 JB> Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on
 JB> 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign.
 JB> "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in
 JB> our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe
 JB> they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more
 JB> information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger
 JB> fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how
 JB> these documents could be forgeries."

 JB> ABC News' political unit held a conference call at 7:00 p.m. Thursday
 JB> evening to discuss the memo and its potential ramifications should the
 JB> documents turn out to be a forgery. That meeting took place around the
 JB> time that the deceased Killian's son made public statements questioning
 JB> the documents' authenticity.

 JB> According to one ABC News employee, some reporters believe that the
 JB> Kerry campaign as well as the DNC were parties in duping CBS, but a
 JB> smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were
 JB> duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the
 JB> opposition.

This afternoon I heard Killian's son tell Hanitty that both he and his
step-mother had told CBS that Killian had a high regard for Bush at the time
they were in the service together.  Guess CBS didn't consider that to be
relevant.



--- Fidolook Lite FTN stub 
 * Origin: Bush, "Let's roll."  Kerry, "Let's rollover." (1:379/1.6)