RatherGate, Day 9--Dan's Triple Play

Ra^therGate gets bigger. Here's a summary of two new items since Wednesday, and the list of losers.

1. LGF reports, based on the fax header on top of the memos, CBS got the memos from Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard. Who's Burkett? According to the Washington Post, a "well-regarded Texan." Almost no one else agrees. Burkett was among the first to point at Bush's Texas National Guard Service, back in the late-1990s. But Burkett's animosity is personal: Fox News reports "Burkett blamed Bush and his aides for blocking medical treatment for him after he contracted a tropical disease in 1998." (Remind you of Ross Perot complaining that Bush 41 planned to disrupt his daughter's wedding?) According to the Houston Chronicle, "Burkett has a long history of making charges against Bush and the Texas National Guard. But Burkett's allegations have changed over the years, and have been dismissed as baseless by former Guard colleagues, state legislators and others." And Burkett's recent pronouncements further reduce his credibility as a source, says the Chronicle:

   One month ago, in an essay posted on a progressive Web site, Burkett theorized that Killian would have been a likely person to know more about Bush's service. But, he conceded, "I have found no documentation from LTC Killian's hand or staff that indicate that this unit was involved in any complicit way to ... cover for the failures of 1Lt. Bush ... " Burkett went on to say, "On the contrary, LTC Killian's remarks are rare."

   Isn't it suspicious that, eight years after Burkett began investigating, but 50 days before the election, documents containing "rare" remarks suddenly appear? NRO's Jim Geraghty quotes a Mike Rezendes, a reporter for the liberal Boston Globe, who corroberated Burkett's previous claims. Geraghty also quotes Rezendes, appearing on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Thursday, warning: "If Bill Burkett were source of these records, I would check them very carefully."
   
   In sum, the alleged memos were supplied by a tainted and possibly deranged source with a long-standing grudge against the Bush family. But that was good enough for Gunga Dan.



2. Retired Col. Walter Staudt was mentioned in one of the memos allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian as assisting Bush. But Staudt retired in March 1972, a year before the purported memo's date, further evidence of forgery. ABC interviewed Staudt, who flatly denied the allegation:

   "I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to," Staudt told ABC News in his first interview since the documents were made public. . .Staudt said he decided to come forward because he saw erroneous reports on television.
   
   He added that after retiring he was not involved in Air National Guard affairs. "I didn't check in with anybody -- I had no reason to," he said. "I was busy with my civilian endeavors, and they were busy with their military options. I had no reason to talk to them, and I didn't."

   Staudt, a Bush supporter, went further to deny Bush used family connections to avoid Vietnam:

   "He didn't use political influence to get into the Air National Guard," Staudt said, adding, "I don't know how they would know that, because I was the one who did it and I was the one who was there and I didn't talk to any of them."
   
   During his time in charge of the unit, Staudt decided whether to accept those who applied for pilot training. He recalled Bush as a standout candidate.
   
   "He was highly qualified," he said. "He passed all the scrutiny and tests he was given."
   
   Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. "No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard," he said. "It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody."

   Interesting that Staudt was interviewed by ABC, but ignored by CBS. Mickey Kaus speculates Staudt may sue CBS for libel!



3. Losers: this scandal has staying-power at the expense of CBS, Rather, and Kerry.

   A. CBS: The network's clearly nervous--its ratings are plunging, and CBS affiliated stations aren't backing Rather--some dropped "60 Minutes" from the schedule. Instapundit quotes WSJ's Holman Jenkins:

   The network didn't just fall for fake documents; it reportedly used fake documents to pressure/entice its other 'source,' notorious Texas pol Ben Barnes, into publicly claiming he helped pull strings to get Mr. Bush into the Guard and giving CBS a 'scoop.' From a journalistic standpoint, that's very, very bad -- the kind of 'mistake' it's hard to recover from.

   Today's Chicago Tribune's Editorial is brutal:

   [W]what looks like shoddy reporting on George W. Bush's career in the Texas Air National Guard, anchorman Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS News have made it harder for all those other journalists to earn and keep trust. . .
   
   The president of CBS News now says the network will "redouble its efforts" to investigate the documents. The time to do that was before the story aired. And some journalists wonder why many Americans think we're biased, arrogant and inaccurate. The burden of proof here was on Rather and Co. If they did ignore warnings from experts, they hurt a lot of honest reporters.
   
   News organizations that relied in part on CBS' story--the Tribune included--put some faith in CBS News' credibility. Only to learn that the network may have had its trademark eye wide shut.

   Lawyer/radio talk-show host Hugh Hewett blames CBS for "not defending the brand." Lawyer Ernest Miller says all major media, not just CBS, are at fault:

   Where are the outraged calls for more transparency on the part of CBS News from the editorial boards of the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal? Why haven't anchors of the other networks called for CBS to establish an internal, or better yet, an external investigation into the issue? Any profession that won't police its own when members egregiously violate the fundamental tenets of that profession will very quickly lose all credibility.

   B. Rather: Fellow journalists are deserting his sinking ship. Dennis E. Powell, former CBS newswriter and radio network news editor, says Rather violated CBS's internal "standards" guide. Not even fellow CBS-er Andy Rooney believes Dan, according to Friday's NY Daily News:

   CBS curmudgeon Andy Rooney indicated yesterday he believes the controversial documents on President Bush's National Guard service are fake and said it could cost Dan Rather down the road.
   
   "I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong," Rooney said, referring to CBS brass.

   Former colleague Bernard Goldberg--whose CBS career ended when he accused Rather of liberal bias--writes in the Wall Street Journal:

   Dan and CBS News do what they'd never tolerate in a crooked politician: They circle the wagons. . . . And this is precisely Dan's problem. This is why, I suspect, he isn't coming clean, despite the damage to his reputation. Because Dan Rather may be protecting not just his source, but himself; because, if the source turns out to be a partisan, then Dan wasn't just taken for a ride, but may have been a willing passenger.
   
   And then Dan, and CBS News, can kiss their reputations goodbye.

   The WSJ also carries a column from conservative National Review reporter Byron York:

   [I]t appears that Mr. Rather did indeed check and re-check the authenticity of the papers. The problem is that, when each check and re-check cast doubt, he decided to go ahead anyway. And when he was caught out, mostly by a legion of bloggers who seemed to know more about the subject than he did, Mr. Rather responded like a politician caught in a scandal, attributing partisan motives to his critics while ignoring most of the charges against him.

   Even the New York Times--till now, a CBS defender--is backing away, in Friday's story detailing Rather's history of Bush hatred and conflicts with conservatives.
   
   Rather has been his own worst enemy all along. On Wednesday, Rather said, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story." Uh, Dan, bulletin from the front: the blogs and every other network and newspaper "broke" that story last week.

   C. Kerry: Shifting the spotlight to Rather leaves the Senator in the dark. Simply put, while Bush gets media coverage as a sitting President, Kerry's been crowded out of airtime Mickey Kaus makes the connection between Ra^therGate and Kerry's decline.
   
   Moreover, Ra^therGate's continued focus on Bush's past is a losing strategy, says NRO's Jim Geraghty:

   All of this National Guard stuff, coupled with the Kitty Kelley book, feels like an attempt to recreate the effect [of] Bush's "November Surprise" DUI revelation. But in that case, Bush was a relatively new figure on the national sta[g]e.

   Though many Dems haven't noticed, it's not 2000 anymore. Bush isn't running on his distant past; re-election depends on the voters assessment of his first term. Kerry, a relatively unknown figure, had to show he could be trusted as Commander in Chief. Kerry relied on his 30-years past military service. Bush's appeal rests on the last three years of the war on terrorism, even if he benefited from influence 30 years ago, as National Review's William F. Buckley explains: "Here is a subject best ignored, but when raised, requiring basic sophistication. Grown-up people know that influence is everywhere used."
   
   Which is why attacks on Kerry's past--such as this new Swiftboat Vets ad highlighting inconsistent Kerry explanations about "tossing" his service medals--have been devastating. At the same time, Kerry's been noticeably less effective in attacking Bush, says Charles Krauthammer:

   If the election were held today, John Kerry would lose by between 88 and 120 electoral votes. The reason is simple: The central vulnerability of this president -- the central issue of this campaign -- is the Iraq war. And Kerry has nothing left to say.
   
   Why? Because, until now, he has said everything conceivable regarding Iraq. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can say now that is even remotely credible.

   And Bush will benefit from election law changes, largely championed by the left, that advance the voting, says Hewitt:

   The big problem for Kerry is that the election really begins tomorrow, when ballots are mailed out to "long term absentee" voters in Oregon. Voting begins in Iowa on September 23, and in Arizona on September 30. Early voting is widespread, and it isn't just absentee voting. In Florida, for example, voting centers open 15 days before the 11/2 vote.

4. Conclusion: CBS's sticking with the forgery despite the holes in Burkett and Staudt's challenge. Why? Arrogance and inattention, says NRO's Rich Lowry:

   Have you heard of the Internet? Have you noticed it has the power to debunk the work of sloppy and stilted mainstream journalists? Isn't it a bummer?

   A bummer for Kerry too, says Hugh Hewitt:

   Dems are downcast, stuck with an out-of-touch, fantastically bad campaigner and an invisible lightweight on the bottom of the ticket. The clock has ticked down past where Kerry can make another "introduction to the voter," and he's in hiding anyway.

   In just nine days, Rather's unplanned suicide also killed CBS and John Kerry. Kudos to you, Dan--an unassisted triple play.