Dead Men Type New Tales, Day 2

Behold: The Power Of The Blogosphere

Drudge

CBS NEWS executives have launched an internal investigation into whether its premiere news program 60 MINUTES aired fabricated documents relating to Bush's National Guard service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we are in error, it will be corrected," a top CBS source explained late Thursday.

The source, who asked not to be named, described CBSNEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES correspondent Dan Rather as being privately "shell-shocked" by the increasingly likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent.

ABC News reports the family is disputing the memos legitimacy, as uncharacteristic of the alleged author.

A Drudge link to the Prowler shut down their server, so a cached version is here alleging they were passed to CBS by the Kerry campaign;

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."

The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from."

The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush's personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them.

The Chicago Sun-Times is giving credit where credit is due - to Powerline, Bill, at INDC, (though Little Green Footballs was overlooked. )

The New York Post credits everyone, including the Free Republic commentor who first mentioned the discrepencies.

Instapundit is probably the best central source for continuing updates on this. Glenn is reporting that the Washington Post is going page A1 with this story tomorrow.

Donald Sensing notices that the Air Force Manual cited in one memo seems not to have ever existed. Ouch.

I repeat - is anyone from the Canadian Conservative Party paying attention yet?

Posted by Kate at September 10, 2004 9:07 AM