For The Record: Bush Documents - CBS News / Sept. 15, 04 - 10:40 EST

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/15/60II/main643768.shtml

(CBS) Last week, on 60 Minutes, we heard for the first time the full story from a Texas politician, former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, who says he helped President George Bush get a highly coveted place in the National Guard.

60 Minutes also presented documents for the first time which indicated that once Mr. Bush was accepted into the Guard, he failed to live up to the requirements of his service, including following an order. And we also reported that the documents were written by Lt. Bush's National Guard squad commander, Col. Jerry Killian, who passed away in 1984.

In the past week, those documents have been subjected to extraordinary scrutiny and criticism.

Now, another voice - a credible voice - has entered the debate. Col. Killian's secretary, Marion Carr Knox, describes herself as Col. Killian's "right hand" during much of the 1970s.

She flew to New York this afternoon to tell 60 Minutes that she believes the documents we obtained are not authentic.

But there's yet another confusing twist to this story. She told Correspondent Dan Rather that she believes what the documents actually say is exactly as we reported. snip

Knox says she didn’t type these memos, but she says she did type ones that contained the same information.

more

[Raster]

1. the lady has cajones and a good memory

"She told 60 Minutes again and again that she believed President Bush refused a direct order to take a physical.

“Col. Killian’s son says that this isn’t true,” says Rather.

"He has no way of knowing whether that is true or not," says Knox.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. She may have "cajones", but she personally has no way of knowing....

...whether or not Killian typed out his own "CYA" memo.

It was my experience in the military that CYA documents were NEVER typed by support staff...the less people that knew you had certain information in your possession the better off you were.

[Raster]

3. absolutely. I just watched her segment on 60 Mins. Astounding.

I must say, Edward R. Murrow smiled tonight. Rather was good. Fight the good fight.

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.
--Edward R. Murrow

[young_at_heart]

4. I remembered Murrow tonight also

Knowing that several stations cancelled CBS jolted my memory of McCarthy, etc.

[Raster]

5. I am absolutely aghast at the level of censorship.

This is a national outrage. Are we burning books next?

[dave29]

9. Hey, we're skipping books alltogether

and forging right into sovereign countries.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Because if the wrong people knew...

those files might get rifled and disappear

[jdj]

7. That is such a good point.

Plus I find her "they are not real because I didn't type them" utterly ridiculous.

Her only valid assertion MAY be "I don't remember typing them". As to the actual document's authenticity, SHE IS NOT A VALID SOURCE OF INPUT. If people don't understand this, just imagine if dems tried to discredit a repuke document by having a secretary say "they CAN'T be real, because I didn't type them". Kapishe? (sp?)

[amandabeech]

8. The point is that she stated that the memos in question reflect

accurately Col. Killian's views on Bush and his service, IMHO.

Her views on their provenance do not take away from her view that the memos reflect reality from 1972-1973.

If the memos are fakes, and I remain neutral on the subject, they are most likely an attempt by someone to get information into the public debate--someone who knew what was going on. And someone who simply does not want his or her identity known, probably because this person is aware of what an angry Bush clan can do. Kitty Kelly's sources apparently fall into the same category.

I doubt if the person, or even persons, will come forward nor do I expect CBS to reveal that person. Not only does it go against journalistic ethics, but it will discourage anyone from talking confidentially to CBS ever again.

[Eloriel]

10. No, no. You're off the mark on this.

Maybe you've never been a secretary. :evilgrin: I have.

One of the things she specifically said in the interview was that these were not in the format she used. I think it's true that people can forget specific memos, but they don't forget a format for a memo, etc., that they've used for 20 years.

She also said there was language in the memos that was "Army not Air Force." That's valid too, assuming her observation is correct and I have no reason to doubt it. The services DO have their distinctive traits and lingo.

She also said that perhaps someone had seen real memos to this effect and wanted to try to reconstruct them, maybe introducing some changes so that it wouldn't be traced back to them. I don't know how credible that speculation is, but I'm passing it along.

[Jane Eyre]

12. She was good

I think that the fact that she remembers everything in such detail gives her a heck of a lot of credibility. This is a woman who clearly did not approve of Bush's actions, but she is telling the truth when she says she did not type the memos and that she thought Bush was well-mannered even though he constantly confused her with his father's secretary.

Why do we know she is telling the truth about Jerry Killian's issues with Lt. Bush? Because she is obviously telling the truth about everything else. She is not a woman with an axe to grind, so when she says that Bush disobeyed a direct order, you can believe that she is telling the truth.

What I got out of the interview was the feeling that someone had seen documents similar to the ones CBS has and made an attempt to recreate those documents. They took some artistic license perhaps, but the documents that CBS has are pretty darn close to the originals.

Here's a theory: Bush's files were purged prior to the cleansing they got when Karen Hughes was writing her biography. Someone saw the documents that were taken out then and re-created those documents at a later date. The new docs were put back in the original file when no one was looking. Then the next purging took place when the Hughes book was being "researched". The re-created documents were thrown out only to be rescued and saved by a guardsman who had no knowledge that they were not the originals.

[Eloriel]

11. Dupe. Sorry. n/t