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WaPo/Kurtz Report on Rathergate
EFL. Juicy parts only.
Rather Defends CBS Over Memos on Bush
By Howard Kurtz
Rather said that CBS's lead expert was Marcel Matley of San Francisco, a member of the National Association of Document Examiners who has taught, lectured and written about his field, testified in numerous trials, and consulted for government agencies. Matley said last night that a "60 Minutes" executive had asked him not to give interviews. The Dallas Morning News cast fresh doubt on the documents by reporting last night that the officer named in one memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" Bush's military record was discharged a year and a half before the memo was written. The paper cited a military record showing that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972, while the memo cited by CBS as showing that Staudt was interfering with evaluations of Bush was dated Aug. 18, 1973.
Picked that up, did they. Wonder when the Dallas folks will get the Rather Barnes connection established. It would sell a lot of Sunday papers.
The White House is raising doubts for the first time about the documents' authenticity. "I think there's a big question mark, like major news organizations are suggesting," communications director Dan Bartlett said last night. "Obviously, we saw see the same things that other people are pointing out now. But at the time, I had every reason to believe that a major news organization had authentic documents." Killian's widow and son have also questioned whether the documents are real. Some CBS employees, who asked not to be identified while questioning their bosses' actions, expressed concern that the network had issued only a terse statement Thursday, when the authenticity of the documents was first questioned and until yesterday had refused to name any of the experts it had consulted or provide an on-the-record spokesman. One staff member, who has examined the documents but did not work on the "60 Minutes" piece, saw potential problems with them: "There's a lot of sentiment that we should do an internal investigation."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-09-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=42945