***More info. surfaces about fake documents Max quoted***

[Ronnie Raygun]

http://www.drudgereport.com/bushtang.htm

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE SEP 14, 2004 17:48:35 ET XXXXX

TEXAS GUARD SECRETARY SURFACES: SAYS CBS DOCS 'FORGERIES', BUT STANDS BY ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BUSH

The DRUDGE REPORT has found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary who claims that the Texas Air National Guard documents offered by CBS in its 60 MINUTES II report filed by Dan Rather last week are indeed 'forgeries'.

"I did not type these particular memos. I typed memos like these," Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT from her home in Houston.

"I typed memos that had this information in them, but I did not type these memos. There are terms in these memos that are not Guard terms but that are Army terms. They use the word 'Billets'. I think they were using that to refer to the slot. That would be a non-flying slot the way we would use it. And the style... they are sloppy looking."

But Marion Carr Knox stands by the accusations contained in the allegedly fraudulent documents that Bush skirted a medical and flight exam without suffering institutional repercussions.

"The information in these memos is correct -- like Killian's dealing with the problems."

"It was General Staudt, not then Lt. Colonel Hodges [who succeeded Staudt], that was putting on the pressure to whitewash Bush. For instance he didnt take his flight examination or his physical. And the pilots had to take them by their birthdays. Once in a while there would be a reason why a pilot would miss these things because some of them were commercial pilots. But they had to make arrangements to take their exams."

Knox speculated as to how she thought the forgeries were created saying, "My guess is that someone in the outfit got hold of the real ones and discussed it with a former Army person."

Knox worked for the Guard from 1957 until she retired in 1979, and she was Lt. Col. Killian's secretary during the time President Bush served in Texas.

Contacted by the DRUDGE REPORT, Lt. Col. Killian's son Gary, who also served in the unit during the same period, responded: "I know Marion Carr. I remember her as a sweet lady who reminded me then of a dear aunt."

"But if Staudt had put pressure on my dad, there would have been a blow-up -- instantly. It was one of the reasons they got along so well. They had a mutual respect for one another."

"As has been pointed out by so many others, then Col Staudt had been out of the unit for 18 months. And I stand by my previous comments regarding my dad's admiration for Lt. Bush and his regard for him as an officer and pilot -- which was exemplary."

Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT that she did not vote for Bush in 2000 because he is 'unqualified' for the job, and does not intend to vote for him in 2004, either.

"Bush was not the only person of privilege who had a spot in the Guard. Senator [Lloyd] Bensen's nephew was in headquarters. There was a big jewelery store, Gordons. Their son was in the Guard. The owner of Batelstein's, a posh department store in the area, his son was in. The other kids couldn't get in like that. Hugh Roy Cullen's grandson was also in. He was a big oil man."

Knox, however, did have some kind words about then Lt. Bush.

"[Bush] was always pleasant and gentlemanly to me," she said. "I never noticed him not being respectful. I thought he was a nice young man and that he must have had very nice parents to produce a son as nice as he seemed to be."

Knox has been following the story since last week when the 60 MINUTES II broadcast aired, and on Friday she contacted the HOUSTON CHRONICLE wanting to tell her side of the story. Since then the DALLAS MORNING NEWS has also contacted her.

"What really hecked me off was when it was somebody on TV, associated with the White House, who said that all of this information was lies. And I got excited at the time because I knew that I had typed documents with this information because a person like Bush stood out from the others -- because of his association with his father."

Asked about reports that Lt. Col. Killian's wife and son saying he didn't type, Knox stated, "He didn't need to. He had me."

Knox explains that the August 18, 1973 date typed on one of the "forged" documents proves that they were faked. Group Commander Staudt, who allegedly had been putting pressure on Killian, retired in 1972.

To the best of her recollection, Knox explains that Staudt must have put pressure on Killian in 1972 -- the year he retired.

"If my father was going to type a CYA memo, which he didn't," Gary Killian responded. "He would have typed it himself because he wouldn't have wanted anyone to see it. But it's academic because Colonel Staudt had been out of the unit for 18 months -- as is well documented."

Contacted at his office in Bartlett, Texas, former Major Dean Roome, who served with Lt. Bush, responded to the latest information.

"If the memos are fraudulent, then why were they generated? Roome asked.

"Marion Carr Knox is validating what the rest of us are saying. She says once in a while a pilot would miss a physical because some of them were commercial pilots. I was also a commercial pilot with Continental Airlines. The clinic did not just open up for us to take a personal physical. The Flight Surgeons had to be there along with a full complement of medical personnel. We took our physical during the Uniformed Training Assembly (UTA) just like everyone else."

"The 'former Army person' she references is the person we believe may have created the fraudulent documents in an effort to injure President Bush. He has his own agenda and I doubt that he has any 'real ones' [documents].

Ms. Knox states emphatically that she is not acting for political motives, and has no formal relationship with any political party. She says she just wants to set the record straight.

Developing...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004
Not for reproduction without permission of the author

[Dole]

You get weirder and madder everyday. How many fucking topics have you posted today??

[Ronnie Raygun]

You can't count?

[Anonymous]

Starting as of the last thread I blammed, I'm going to start deleting new topics made on this issue. You already have 9 hundred perfectly good threads you can APPEND with this crap, without pushing everything not fitting your agenda off the front page.

[mburbank]

Will this be the thread naldo posts todays (9/20) confirmation that the CBS documents are fake?

[ziggytrix]

But Marion Carr Knox stands by the accusations contained in the allegedly fraudulent documents that Bush skirted a medical and flight exam without suffering institutional repercussions.

"The information in these memos is correct"

The memos are fake, but everything in them is true. Thanks for clearing that up for me Ronnie.

[mburbank]

Yeah, I noticed that too, but neither Naldo or Drudge read that far down the page.

He hasn't even dropped by to gloat. Maybe he's job hunting. I hear Delta didn't 'turn the corner' with the economy.

Or maybe he;s hard at work on a "Plan B". I hear a "Plan B" can be a really good thing to have as a back up if the original plan you have complete blind faith in doesn't trun out exactly as expected.

[Preechr]

I almost posted on that comment yesterday, but figured I should let it slide... But now that MAX agrees, I have to ask a couple questions. Rather is parroting this assertion as well that the proof may have been forged, but what the fakes meant to prove is still true... So, how do we know that?

An unproven suspicion is still just a suspicion. The forged memos were meant to prove Dubya defied a direct order and whatnot... I mean, we already knew his Guard duty was, just like everybody else's serving in that unit, a product of privledge... which is essentially what Mrs. Knox was saying.

Does Dan Rather really expect me to believe Bush did something 30+ years ago that should affect whether I vote for him this year based solely on his unproven beliefs? Not that I would, but is that supposed to be what's "really true" here?

[mburbank]

Guessing what Dan rather thinks is always a fun game. He never said what the frequency was, he's not going to let folks in on his secret thought process now.

[mburbank]

Oh, and let me through this out there as a long range prediction about how these forgeries reached Rather.

Follow my assumptions

1.) Rather almost certainly loathes the Bush clan. He makes some effort to keep this out of of his broadcasts, but he has a long history with the family, and how could any serious journalist, even one as wacky as Dan, not hate W deep down?

2.) Dan is wacky.

3.) 1 + 2 makes Dan a perfect Mark for a con job.

4.) In W's gubernatorial and presidential runs, there have always been attempts by someone to drop choice bits of information ito the opponents lap and see what they did with it. There has been widespread speculation an a ggood deal of evidence to suggest the con artist is... well, wait for it a second, because

5.) When SOMEONE dropped a video tape iof W's debate prep at Gores office, they were smart enough to immediately turn it over to the justice department. They were wise to the game. It's safe to assume since Kery is advised by some of the same folks who advise Gore that they too would be wise, practically waiting for this sort of con.

6.) If you can't punk Kerry, who do you punk? The media is the obvious choice.

7.) Who in the media do the Bush camp have a lengthy history of hating above all other newscasters? Dan Rather.

8.) All these assumptions taken into account, I smell Karl Rove. Maybe I'm way out on a limb here, but just remember I said it first.

[Ronnie Raygun]

I smell Joe Lockhart, Burkett and CBS....

http://usatoday.printthis.clickabili...partnerID=1660

CBS arranged for meeting with Lockhart

By Kevin Johnson, Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard.

John Kerry aide Joe Lockhart, shown here in 1998, chatted with a former Texas National Guard officer, whose number CBS provided.

Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn't recall the producer's name. But CBS said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart.

Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign.

The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This "poses a real danger to the potential credibility ... of a news organization," said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

"At Burkett's request, we gave his (telephone) number to the campaign," said Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president.

CBS would not discuss the propriety of the network serving as a conduit between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "It was not part of any deal" to obtain the documents, West said, declining to elaborate.

But Burkett said Monday that his contact with Lockhart was indeed part of an "understanding" with CBS. Burkett said his interest in contacting the campaign was to offer advice in responding to Republican criticisms about Kerry's Vietnam service. It had nothing to do with the documents, he said.

"My interest was to get the attention of the national (campaign) to defend against the ... attacks," Burkett said, adding that he also talked to former Georgia senator Max Cleland and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean during the past 45 days. "Neither the Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign had anything to do with the documents," he said.

Lockhart said he phoned Burkett at the number provided by CBS. Lockhart also said that the documents never came up in his conversation with Burkett. Lockhart said the conversation lasted just a few minutes. "It's possible that the producer said they had documents" before his conversation with Burkett, he said.

At the end of the conversation, Lockhart said he thanked Burkett for his interest, and there was no further contact with him. Asked why he called Burkett, Lockhart said he talks to "a lot of people."

"I called you, didn't I?"

The White House said CBS' contact with Lockhart was inappropriate. "The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Sen. Kerry's campaign to attack the president is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director.

Contributing: Judy Keen

[Preechr]

Since we're making predictions...

The unimpeachable source: Max Cleland.

[mburbank]

Yeah, I'd totally buy that, but I think Rather, Cleland and Burkett all got scammed by Rove. More fool them.

[mburbank]

"Burkett has subsequently revealed, through his attorney, the source of the documents -- a woman who identified herself as Lucy Ramirez, who called him to tell him she had documents related to Bush's Guard service.

The memos were later handed to Burkett by an unknown man during a visit to Houston, "



Burkett was a likely sucker. CBS got suckered too. 'Lucy Ramirez' and this 'unkown man'? Dollars to friggin' Donuts they work for Karl Rove.

[conus]

Yeah, I'd totally buy that, but I think Rather, Cleland and Burkett all got scammed by Rove.

Unless Rather was asked asked to do it. I really can't picture him going out on any limbs. Dan Rather doesn't have the balls of a cockroach. I'll never forget Dan, the great journalist, during the Panama invasion, babbeling like a sixteen year old cheerleader and refering to Manuel Norriega as "that sewer rat." If you had never watched television before it would have been very easy to assume that he was an arm of the U.S. military.

[LNSICPantitude]

on the topic of dan rather... he's out of his ever-loving mind. some of his insanity quotes from the past to entertain you.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/au...an_rather.html

i wish i could find the actual quote, but i can vaguely remember during his extended time on the air the moments after it had been announced that JFK Jr. died, he made some absurd reference to a dead cambodian hooker and a 57 chevy. as is the majority of the time, i have no fucking clue clue what he was babbling about but man alive... if you happen to know what it was, let me know.