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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:46 am CBS & Bush Memos Under Fire |
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General doesn't trust Bush memos' authenticity
CBS quoted Guard documents to him, but he didn't see them
10:50 PM CDT on Saturday, September 11, 2004
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
A former Texas Air National Guard general relied upon by CBS News to support the authenticity of memos about President Bush's military service said he never saw the memos before the show aired, and that he doesn't now believe they are authentic.
Retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges of Arlington also said that one of the memos' references to undue pressure to "sugar coat" Mr. Bush's evaluations rings false. He said Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt did not interfere in Guard affairs after his retirement, 18 months before the date on the disputed memo.
A CBS spokeswoman said that, despite Gen. Hodges remarks, CBS 60 Minutes stands by the program aired on Wednesday.
"We believe the documents are genuine. We stand by our story and will continue to report on it," Sandy Genelius said.
Gen. Hodge's comments come amid other questions about the authenticity of four memos 60 Minutes relied on to show that the president received special treatment as a pilot in the early '70s, failed to carry out a superior's order to undergo a physical exam and was suspended from flying for failing to meet Air National Guard standards.
Typography experts have also raised questions about the memos, stirring a vigorous debate about whether they were computer-drafted on machines not available in the early 1970s.
In an interview Friday, anchor Dan Rather said that 60 Minutes has been working on the story of President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard for four to five years. But, Gen. Hodges said, the network called him on the Monday evening two days before the broadcast and said it had "just received" four memos written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Mr. Bush's commander at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
Mr. Rather agreed that the quotes were read to Gen. Hodges.
"We wanted to take the documents to him and do an interview, and he declined to do that," he said, calling Gen. Hodges statements at the time "impressive" support of the documents' authenticity.
Gen. Hodges "said that the documents were � quote � familiar to him, and that Killian did indeed feel the way that the documents expressed."
On Monday evening, a 60 Minutes producer called Gen. Hodges and read him over the telephone portions of the four memos allegedly written by the now deceased Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
Gen. Hodges says that when he was asked to verify the memos, he believed that the documents were handwritten.
"Without seeing them, I assumed that they were hand-written notes from a personal file that Lt. Col. Killian (who died in 1984) may have maintained without anyone's knowledge," Mr. Hodges wrote in a statement he released on Saturday.
Gen. Hodges, who retired from the Guard in 1989, said that after he saw the typewritten memos on Friday morning, he believed Col. Killian did not, in fact, write them. "I don't think Killian wrote them � official or unofficial," he said.
The White House has not contested the authenticity of the memos, in which Lt .Col Killian says he grounded Lt. Bush for failing to meet standards for fighter pilots and for not taking a required physical. But Bush aides have said his honorable discharge proves he fulfilled his obligations to the Guard.
Staff writers Silla Brush and Tanya Eiserer contributed to this report.
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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/elections2004/stories/091204dnpolbushguard.11076.html
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And look who the man that gave the interveiw was, our good old left swinging buddy Mr. Dan Rather, what a suprise. I do find it rather sad that they actually had to find, or create, fake documents. I also would loooooooooove to see if Mr. Rather did some digging into how Kerry got his purple hearts while he is at it  , but we all know that won't happen.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:54 am |
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^EXACTLY. Now, one other thing that you have to look at is how the son of the man who *supposedly* wrote those memos says that they are not authentic and that his father didn't know how to type AND that his father wouldn't make letters like that. Huh.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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