Power Line: Catch-22

September 18, 2004

Catch-22

In one of the forged CBS memos, General "Buck" Staudt is said to have been pressuring another officer to improve Lieutenant George Bush's evaluation. That's a somewhat ludicrous supposition, if you think about it, and it's even more absurd given that at the time of the fake memo (August 1973), Staudt had been retired from the Guard for a year and a half.

Yesterday, we noted that General Staudt had given an interview to ABC in which he denied that he had pressured anyone about Lt. Bush, and put to rest the claim that he had somehow come out of retirement to do it. In addition, Staudt drove a stake through the heart of the claim that Bush received preferential treatment in getting into the Guard. Staudt said that he was the person who accepted Bush as a pilot, that he did so solely because he thought Bush would make a fine pilot, and that he received no communications from anyone in relation to Bush's application. (Contrary to what is often reported in the press, there was no "waiting list" at that time to become a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.)

Staudt's testimony would seem to definitively put the lie to CBS's faked memos, but that's not how CBS sees it. Yesterday CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius brushed off Staudt's comments:

In a debate this heated, one can hardly expect Gen. Staudt to endorse the point of view that he exerted undue influence.

So if you slander a man, as CBS did General Staudt, the fact that he has been slandered makes his response so suspect that it can safely be disregarded. And information from a person in a unique position to know the facts, like General Staudt, is immaterial; but Bill Burkett, a long-time Bush hater and Democratic activist who knows nothing about Bush's Guard service, is an "unimpeachable source," while a comment by Robert Strong to the effect that the forged documents sound like something that could have been written in the early 1970's satisfactorily confirms the documents' authenticity, even though, by his own account, Strong has never met President Bush, never spoke to Jerry Killian about President Bush, and has no idea whether the documents are forgeries or not.

At CBS News, the fact that a witness knows what he is talking about is deemed sufficient to disqualify him: an odd way to do journalism.

Posted by John at 09:19 AM |

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/mt/mt-diespammers.cgi/7945

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Catch-22:

» Morning Hash from lime shurbet
Power Line's Hindrocket posts some interesting observations about how CBS has dismissed General Staudt's (Rathergate) denial of exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" Bush's TANG evaluation. [Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 09:43 AM

» Reading of Interest for a Saturday morning from Darleen's Place
C_BS is bound and determined to keep digging that hole to China. In another brilliant example of chutzpah, Powerline notes the strategy of slandering a person, and when they defend themselves, brush off the defense as suspect because they were... [Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 10:51 AM

» What's the Contradiction Kenneth? from Hold The Mayo
CBS, while discounting General Staudt's testimony as self serving, expects us to accept the confession of undue influence by Kerry campaign advisor Ben Barnes. [Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 11:08 AM

» Once again, CBS says from Duthie on...
[Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 12:17 PM

» Too little, too late... from The Patriette
From The Washington Post: "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and... [Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 02:19 PM

» Memogate: CBS Trashes Staudt from HobbsOnline
Just as I predicted yesterday, CBS is dismissing the statements of Col. Walter Staudt rejecting the assertion by CBS - based on those forged memos - that Staudt pressured George W. Bush's CO in the Texas Air National Guard to... [Read More]

Tracked on September 18, 2004 04:19 PM

Tracked on September 18, 2004 04:24 PM

Tracked on September 18, 2004 04:26 PM

» C BS. C BS Run. Run, C BS, Run (Part 8) from Les Jones Blog
Michael Dobbs has an excellent roundup in The Washington Post of the latest evidence pointing to Bill Burkett as CBS's source for the forged documents. Newsweek reports that CBS's source received the documents anonymously in his mailbox. To recap: the ... [Read More]

Tracked on September 19, 2004 10:42 PM

» Journalism Fraud Update: Sept. 20/04 from Winds of Change.NET
We give you the key updates and powerhouse pieces that let you follow the CBS forged memos scandal, and look at allegations that FOX News used forged documents to attack Kerry. [Read More]

Tracked on September 20, 2004 03:58 AM

Tracked on September 20, 2004 04:01 AM

Tracked on September 20, 2004 04:12 AM

» C BS. C BS Run. Run, C BS, Run (Part 8) from Les Jones Blog
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that CBS is going to back off of the documents authenticity, possibly as early as today. Michael Dobbs has an excellent roundup in The Washington Post of the latest evidence pointing to Bill Burkett as CBS's sour... [Read More]

Tracked on September 20, 2004 09:39 AM

» C BS. C BS Run. Run, C BS, Run (Part 8) from Les Jones Blog
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that CBS is going to back off of the documents authenticity, possibly as early as today. And as long as I'm updating, here's some X-files/Rathergate fanfic from Jim Treacher. Michael Dobbs has an excellent roundu... [Read More]

Tracked on September 20, 2004 09:42 AM

» C BS. C BS Run. Run, C BS, Run (Part 8) from Les Jones Blog
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that CBS is going to back off of the documents authenticity, possibly as early as today. And as long as I'm updating, here's some X-files/Rathergate fanfic from Jim Treacher. UDPATE 2: CBS has abandoned the docum... [Read More]

Tracked on September 20, 2004 11:58 AM