Sanity, continuity, or trustworthy not expected on network TV

[gotsnowgotslush]

Sanity, continuity, or trustworthy not expected on network TV

Did it start, when GW Bush and his crew trashed Dan Rather?

"CBS walked the story back and publicly apologized for what the network called its "mistake in judgment." CBS News executives and staffers who worked on the story were fired. Rather stepped down from his post at CBS in wake of a very public media scandal dubbed "Rathergate" in the press."

The documents that started the whole scandal-

The documents were Xerox copies, which in forensics is a dead end—nothing can be proved, or disproved, without an original. Since the report, Rather has hired lawyers and private investigators to get to the bottom of the mystery, to no avail. Strangely, he has made only one attempt to contact the man who initially gave the documents to CBS, the former Guardsman and West Texas rancher Bill Burkett, who, after initially lying about where he got them, told a dubious tale of receiving them from shadowy characters at a cattle show in Houston—and then went stone silent. Burkett refused to talk to Rather."

Something does not fit-

Under pressure in 2004 to explain the gap, the White House produced as evidence of Bush’s service a military dental exam from January 6, 1973—in Montgomery, not Houston. It also released a computerized summary of his pay records from the period (discovered in a Denver repository after the Bush campaign had previously declared them lost in a fire), and the dates showed that Bush was paid for attending drills in Alabama in January and again in April of 1973.

Apparently, while he was volunteering in the Third Ward in Houston, he was also pulling Guard duty six hundred miles away, in Montgomery—or at least getting paid for it—despite the fact that his home base, Ellington, was right across town.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/truth-or-consequences/page/0/6

One of the journalists working the story throughout Bush’s ascent from governor to president was Jim Moore, the KHOU TV reporter who’d originally asked Bush about his service during the gubernatorial debate in 1994. Now, ten years later, Moore published everything he’d found in a book called Bush’s War for Reelection. Among other things, the book publicized the claims of Bill Burkett, a grizzled lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard who said that in 1997 he had overheard Bush advisers Joe Allbaugh and Dan Bartlett asking Bush’s top Guard appointee in Texas to dispose of “embarrassments” in Bush’s file. (Allbaugh and Bartlett deny this.) Burkett also said he later saw some of Bush’s military records in a trash can.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/truth-or-consequences/page/0/7

*gsgs comment- Why would the Air Force refuse to do favors for George Herbert Bush ?*
December 11, 1970

Keeping a promise to find Bush a job if his bid for U.S. Senate failed, Richard Nixon announces his appointment of Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Nixon had offered Bush a role as a Special Assistant to the President, but Bush argued for the U.N. appointment.

October 8, 1972

Prescott Bush dies of lung cancer at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York.

January 1973

Bush leaves the United Nations to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. A month later, the Senate Watergate Committee is established to investigate the administration's involvement in the Watergate break-in.

August 6, 1974

In a cabinet meeting on August 6, 1974, Bush tells President Nixon that Watergate is sapping public confidence. The next day, he sends a letter to the president suggesting that he resign. President Nixon announces his resignation on August 8, 1974.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/bush/

 

[Boxlicker101]

Sanity, continuity, or trustworthy not expected on network TV

Did it start, when GW Bush and his crew trashed Dan Rather?

"CBS walked the story back and publicly apologized for what the network called its "mistake in judgment." CBS News executives and staffers who worked on the story were fired. Rather stepped down from his post at CBS in wake of a very public media scandal dubbed "Rathergate" in the press."

The documents that started the whole scandal-

The documents were Xerox copies, which in forensics is a dead end—nothing can be proved, or disproved, without an original. Since the report, Rather has hired lawyers and private investigators to get to the bottom of the mystery, to no avail. Strangely, he has made only one attempt to contact the man who initially gave the documents to CBS, the former Guardsman and West Texas rancher Bill Burkett, who, after initially lying about where he got them, told a dubious tale of receiving them from shadowy characters at a cattle show in Houston—and then went stone silent. Burkett refused to talk to Rather."

Something does not fit-

Under pressure in 2004 to explain the gap, the White House produced as evidence of Bush’s service a military dental exam from January 6, 1973—in Montgomery, not Houston. It also released a computerized summary of his pay records from the period (discovered in a Denver repository after the Bush campaign had previously declared them lost in a fire), and the dates showed that Bush was paid for attending drills in Alabama in January and again in April of 1973.

Apparently, while he was volunteering in the Third Ward in Houston, he was also pulling Guard duty six hundred miles away, in Montgomery—or at least getting paid for it—despite the fact that his home base, Ellington, was right across town.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/truth-or-consequences/page/0/6

One of the journalists working the story throughout Bush’s ascent from governor to president was Jim Moore, the KHOU TV reporter who’d originally asked Bush about his service during the gubernatorial debate in 1994. Now, ten years later, Moore published everything he’d found in a book called Bush’s War for Reelection. Among other things, the book publicized the claims of Bill Burkett, a grizzled lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard who said that in 1997 he had overheard Bush advisers Joe Allbaugh and Dan Bartlett asking Bush’s top Guard appointee in Texas to dispose of “embarrassments” in Bush’s file. (Allbaugh and Bartlett deny this.) Burkett also said he later saw some of Bush’s military records in a trash can.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/truth-or-consequences/page/0/7

*gsgs comment- Why would the Air Force refuse to do favors for George Herbert Bush ?*
December 11, 1970

Keeping a promise to find Bush a job if his bid for U.S. Senate failed, Richard Nixon announces his appointment of Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Nixon had offered Bush a role as a Special Assistant to the President, but Bush argued for the U.N. appointment.

October 8, 1972

Prescott Bush dies of lung cancer at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York.

January 1973

Bush leaves the United Nations to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. A month later, the Senate Watergate Committee is established to investigate the administration's involvement in the Watergate break-in.

August 6, 1974

In a cabinet meeting on August 6, 1974, Bush tells President Nixon that Watergate is sapping public confidence. The next day, he sends a letter to the president suggesting that he resign. President Nixon announces his resignation on August 8, 1974.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/bush/

From what I read about the case, the documents were forgeries. They were supposedly written on a typewriter but contained ordinals with the letters raised, which had, therefore been written on a word processor, which would not have been available at the time they were allegedly written. If they had been written on a typewriter, the letters would have been on the same level as the number.

Typewriters have certain idiosyncrasies and sometimes an expert can tell on which typewriter a document has been written. There are certain tiny differences between the characters on one typewriter and another and these can be seen on either an original or a Xerox copy. However, it the basket or font has been changed, the examiner can't tell whether the same typewriter was used or not.

If Bush was on TDY at an AFB near Montgomery, there is nothing really surprising that he had some dental work done while he was there. As for why he was there, it was supposedly for some drills, and there might have been pilots from all over the country there at the same time. Drills are usually something a group does together and not as individuals.

As for why there was an attempt to blacken his name, assuming there was, I suppose it was done by political rivals, who might have been either Rep. or Dem.