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Times Watch for September 15, 2004

The Times Digs Deeper Into Anti-Bush "Memos"

     Beyond the strange, self-contradicting headline ("Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says"), the Times' latest "Memogate" story has some interesting and odd new information on the struggles of both CBS and the network's likely source for the discredited documents.

     The Wednesday story from Maureen Balleza and Kate Zernike notes that the 86-year-old secretary to the late Lt. Col Jerry Killian thinks the memos are fake but that they accurately reflect Killian's thoughts.

     Then, in a switch from the paper's relatively hesitant coverage of the controversy, today's story digs underneath CBS's increasingly unconvincing defenses: "Executives at CBS said Tuesday that they continued to stand by their statements that they believe the documents are authentic, despite the new questions, and concern from others inside the network, and a report on ABC News that two more experts whom CBS News had consulted to authenticate the documents for its report said they had expressed concerns about the documents' authenticity to the network's producers. When questions about the documents first arose last week, the anchor Dan Rather said at least four experts had helped convince the network of their authenticity. But the network has continually declined to provide the name of more than one of those experts. That one, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he validated only that the signature on the documents was Colonel Killian's. But, he said, he did not vouch for the documents themselves and could not rule out that the signature had been cut and pasted onto the records. On Tuesday, two more experts came forward and said they had been consulted by CBS. One, a forensic document examiner from Texas, Linda James, said in a telephone interview with The New York Times that she noticed indications that the two documents she inspected were the product of a word processor and relayed that to the producers….The women's accounts seemed to undercut CBS network officials' previous denials that producers had questions about the documents' authenticity just one or two days before the report was shown. Officials at CBS News said on Tuesday that they would at some point in the day provide the name of a document expert who expressed confidence in the records' authenticity before the report was broadcast. But they did not do so, and Ms. West declined to say why. CBS has refused to say how it obtained the documents."

     The Times gets an anonymous source at CBS to confirm a Newsweek report that fingers Bush-hater Bill Burkett as a source of the documents, and then relays a bizarre conversation the Times had with Burkett's lawyer, who suggested that even if his client, or someone else, had hypothetically typed up "replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973," then "what difference would it make?"

     Here's an excerpt of the conversation with Burkett's lawyer: "[David] Van Os called Mr. Burkett 'a man of impeccable honesty who would not permit himself to be a party to anything fake, fraudulent or phony.' He also said, in response to questions, and stressing that he was speaking only hypothetically, 'If Bill Burkett were to later discover that something he was a party to were fake or phony, as a man of honor who lives by a code of honor of the military, he would not permit the falsity to continue.' But, the lawyer hastened to add, 'This is not intended to be any kind of specific statement.' Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os said: 'If, hypothetically, Bill Burkett or anyone else, any other individual, had prepared or had typed on a word processor as some of the journalists are presuming, without much evidence, if someone in the year 2004 had prepared on a word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973--which Bill Burkett has absolutely not done'--then, he continued, 'what difference would it make?' The Democratic National Committee released an Internet video on Tuesday accusing Mr. Bush of being dishonest about his National Guard service. The Republican National Committee shot back a one-line statement: 'The video the Democrats released today is as creative and accurate as the memos they gave CBS.'"

For the rest of CBS, Burkett, and the memos, click here.

• Maureen Balleza | Bill Burkett | George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Forged Documents | "60 Minutes" | Vietnam | Kate Zernike

Bush-Blair's "Headlong Rush" to War?

     Foreign correspondent Alan Cowell reviews "The Accidental American--Tony Blair and the Presidency" by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie for Wednesday Arts section.

     Cowell characterizes Bush and Blair as rushing to war in Iraq: "It is probably fair to say that with the premiership of Mr. Blair and his bonding with President Bush, this uneven alliance has never been so closely or vividly illuminated, even though many of its darker corners remain mysterious. Do the two men pray together? Do they really like each other? Why is their diplomatic intimacy so heavily weighted in favor of the United States, to the detriment of Mr. Blair's popularity with his own voters? And, in history's gaze, how will these two unlikely partners be judged for their headlong rush to Baghdad?"

     Cowell then leaves out some vital information: "[Naughtie] is a co-presenter of the BBC's 'Today' program, a three-hour blast of early-morning radio interviews and news that helps set the daily agenda for journalists and politicians. Indeed, last year the program itself became a leading item on the agenda when one of its reporters, Andrew Gilligan, accused the government of deliberately exaggerating the threat from Saddam Hussein to justify going to war. While successive public inquiries have exonerated Mr. Blair from the accusation of deliberate duplicity, they have not wiped out a broad public perception that he took the country to war in Iraq without sufficient evidence of a threat from Mr. Hussein's elusive and thus far unfound weapons of mass destruction."

     Cowell fails to mention Gilligan resigned after fierce criticism of his report, including criticism from the BBC itself.

     Cowell returns to the theme of Blair's (and Bush's) religiosity: "But Mr. Naughtie's thesis is that these tumultuous events exposed and defined the true nature of Mr. Blair as a politician untouched by doubt, a man swayed by moral conviction rather than calculation. Even in 1999, when Mr. Blair was seeking American military commitments in the Balkans, his thinking had already taken on some of the proselytizing tone that President Bush adopted after Sept. 11."

For more of Cowell on Bush and Blair, click here.

• BBC | Tony Blair | Books | George W. Bush | Alan Cowell | Andrew Gilligan | Iraq War

Stanley Doubts Anti-Republican Discrimination
in Hollywood

     Alessandra Stanley reviews a documentary, "Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood," for the Tuesday Arts section, in a review with a headline that underlies Stanley's long-standing doubts about conservative complaints of Hollywood discrimination: "In Search of Hollywood's Anti-Republican Conspiracy."

     She begins: "'Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood,' a documentary tonight on AMC, examines politics in the entertainment industry at a time when the White House and Congress are in Republican hands, conservatives dominate the Supreme Court, Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor of California and Mel Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ' triumphed at the box office. Now it turns out that even the avant-garde filmmaker Vincent Gallo supports George W. Bush. If there is a blacklist, where is the sign-up sheet? There is no studio ban on Republicans, of course, but certain conservatives have been dining out for decades on what they describe as a Hollywood witch hunt….Still, it is always enjoyable to hear conservatives bemoaning discrimination in Hollywood--they sound like the beautiful blonde who complains that her looks intimidate men. It is true, of course, that in the more rarefied show business communities, Republicans are a despised minority. So are fat people, older actresses and first-time novelists."

For the rest of Stanley on Republicans in Hollywood, click here.

• Arts | Liberal Bias | Movies | Alessandra Stanley

Bush Opponents "Dragged From Events by Their Hair"

     In her "White House Letter" for Monday, "Before Friendly Audiences on the Trail, a Looser, Livelier Bush Appears." Bumiller again harps on a week-old incident from the Bush campaign trail: "In Washington, Mr. Bush delivers serious speeches, tangles with the press and can appear stolid, defensive and halting. But on the campaign trail, where the invited crowds are kept friendly because opponents are sometimes arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts or dragged from events by their hair, there is a different President Bush. He is looser and livelier, a former Andover cheerleader who has learned how to rouse the crowd in the argot of ordinary America."

     Bumiller is talking about a woman who was tossed out of a Bush event for heckling Bush for insufficient AIDS funding. Bumiller even interviewed her after the incident. By contrast, the Times has yet to comment on an anti-Kerry heckler being attacked at a recent rally in Cincinnati.

     Bumiller then returns to a common theme: "Mr. Bush is at his best in front of the adoring crowds his campaign has arranged for him in the swing states."

For the rest of Bumiller's "letter," click here.

• Elisabeth Bumiller | George W. Bush | Campaign 2004

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org