Friday, September 10, 2004

Calls for Rather's Resignation

Roger L. Simon writes:

Howell Raines resigned. So should Dan Rather!

If these documents were indeed forgeries, as they now seem, the fraud CBS anchorman Rather perpetrated, willingly or unwillingly, on the American public is far worse than anything the former New York Times editor did during the Jayson Blair affair. Rather's misrepresentation was intended to influence what many consider one of the most crucial presidential elections in our history, taking place during a time of war, when our troops are dying in Iraq and terrorists are murdering innocent people across the globe on a nearly daily basis.

The Spectator has an interesting story on the source of the story, but Drudge traffic has crashed their server. But Powerline copied the story, and I've reproduced it below.
More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign.