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Media Assault on Bush Collapses in Credibility Meltdown
Friday, Sept. 10, 2004 9:07 a.m. EDT
Media Assault on Bush Collapses in Credibility Meltdown
In a stunning journalistic fiasco from which the mainstream press may never recover, a full frontal attack by two out of the three major broadcast networks on President Bush's re-election bid has collapsed amidst questions about forged documents and fraudulent testimony.
CBS anchorman Dan Rather's already shaky journalistic reputation was in tatters Friday morning after documents unearthed during his Wednesday night "60 Minutes II" broadcast purporting to show a cover-up of Bush's National Guard record were called probable forgeries by forensic experts.
Memos uncovered and touted by Rather's team appear to have been written in Microsoft Word, the experts said - a computer program that did not exist at the time Bush was in the Guard.
The same documents, purportedly authored by Bush Guard commander Jerry Killian, were challenged by Killian's widow and son, who told reporters on Thursday that the deceased National Guard commander would never have written such memos.
A second portion of Rather's "60 Minutes II" broadcast, featuring allegations against Bush from former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, also was discredited when his daughter Amy told a Texas radio station that her father was a "liar" who had changed his story to sell a book.
NBC News also was mired in a credibility crisis as a spokeswoman for the network's "Today" show insisted it was going forward with its planned rollout of Kitty Kelley's Bush-bashing book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty" – even though Kelley's key witness against Bush has recanted her account that Bush used cocaine and has accused Kelley of fabricating her interview.
"I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever saw him use cocaine at Camp David," ex-Bush sister-in-law Sharon Bush said in a statement issued Thursday.
Instead, the one-time Bush family insider insisted, "When Kitty Kelley raised drug use at Camp David, I responded by saying something along the lines of 'Who would say such a thing?'"
Still, "Today" spokeswoman Lauren Kapps insisted that NBC producers had no plan to cancel or even scale back Kelley's three-day mega-promotion on the program, touted by the network as the crown jewel of morning TV.
"This was a very competitive interview that all the morning shows were after and, as we do with all of our interview subjects, we'll review the material beforehand and ask all the appropriate questions," Kapps said in a statement issued Thursday.
"This is astounding," one longtime media observer told NewsMax. "You have a major TV network promoting a book with a major news story that has already been discredited. At least in 1999, when St. Martin's Press found out their 'Bush used cocaine' book was false, they had the decency to withdraw it from bookstores."
Media Assault on Bush Collapses in Credibility Meltdown
In a stunning journalistic fiasco from which the mainstream press may never recover, a full frontal attack by two out of the three major broadcast networks on President Bush's re-election bid has collapsed amidst questions about forged documents and fraudulent testimony.
CBS anchorman Dan Rather's already shaky journalistic reputation was in tatters Friday morning after documents unearthed during his Wednesday night "60 Minutes II" broadcast purporting to show a cover-up of Bush's National Guard record were called probable forgeries by forensic experts.
Memos uncovered and touted by Rather's team appear to have been written in Microsoft Word, the experts said - a computer program that did not exist at the time Bush was in the Guard.
The same documents, purportedly authored by Bush Guard commander Jerry Killian, were challenged by Killian's widow and son, who told reporters on Thursday that the deceased National Guard commander would never have written such memos.
A second portion of Rather's "60 Minutes II" broadcast, featuring allegations against Bush from former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, also was discredited when his daughter Amy told a Texas radio station that her father was a "liar" who had changed his story to sell a book.
NBC News also was mired in a credibility crisis as a spokeswoman for the network's "Today" show insisted it was going forward with its planned rollout of Kitty Kelley's Bush-bashing book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty" – even though Kelley's key witness against Bush has recanted her account that Bush used cocaine and has accused Kelley of fabricating her interview.
"I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever saw him use cocaine at Camp David," ex-Bush sister-in-law Sharon Bush said in a statement issued Thursday.
Instead, the one-time Bush family insider insisted, "When Kitty Kelley raised drug use at Camp David, I responded by saying something along the lines of 'Who would say such a thing?'"
Still, "Today" spokeswoman Lauren Kapps insisted that NBC producers had no plan to cancel or even scale back Kelley's three-day mega-promotion on the program, touted by the network as the crown jewel of morning TV.
"This was a very competitive interview that all the morning shows were after and, as we do with all of our interview subjects, we'll review the material beforehand and ask all the appropriate questions," Kapps said in a statement issued Thursday.
"This is astounding," one longtime media observer told NewsMax. "You have a major TV network promoting a book with a major news story that has already been discredited. At least in 1999, when St. Martin's Press found out their 'Bush used cocaine' book was false, they had the decency to withdraw it from bookstores."
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