Not sure if Dan Rather is stupid or not (I don't have much historic knowledge about the guy). Bet he wanted to believe every word of these. And that, inevitably, skews ones judgement.
Now we know the direct source of providing the forged docs to CBS…long-time Bush hater Bill Burkett. But, Burkett hasn’t said who gave him the documents. Let’s keep following the trail. Still a good bet we end up back with Carville and the Kerry campaign.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml
There's enough documentation (and lack of) regarding Bush's pitiful service (or lack of) in the National Guard to make one wonder why anyone would invent these memos.
I tell this story to my daughter all of the time.
When I first came out of college, I worked in Wash DC for a number of years. I helped set up a number of hearings on healthcare issues. One of the things I worked on was so called "orphan drugs". That is drugs that are not as commercially viable, as they cure small numbers of people, or have a small need, or are so expensive to prove effectiveness that there is no sense in running expensive human trials.
One example of this is a drug called DMSO, or di-methlysulfoxide. It a a byproduct of the forestry industry, and was widely touted as an arthritis cure. It costs about $2 per quart. One congressman, Steve Symms, from Oregon I think, appeared before the committee, and said that he used this stuff personally all of the time, and that it was great. Now wouldn't you know it, the NIGHT BEFORE the hearing, Symms appears on 60 Minutes and does his whole orphan drug chat!.
Now I was busy talking to researchers before the hearings and found out that this stuff is a powerful solvent that will dissolve almost anything and wash it into the bloodstream through the surface of the skin. Skin creams, Ben Gay rubs, bandaid adhesive, almost anything on the surface of your skin. (ever see how much stuff old people slather on their skin?) The FDA had noted the same thing, and was advocating a go-slow approach, because of these same safety concerns. I went back to the tape of the 60 Minutes show and reviewed it. Not a single word about the solvent properties. No safety concern, 60 Minutes was basically a mouth piece for the "orphan drug" lobby that wanted to prove all big drug companies are evil. I ended up calling the producers of the show, and asking them why there was no representative from the FDA, or why they had ignored what every college researcher I had talked to was adamant about. They said that they broadcast the best available information and that was that. Stories that are uncovered by good jounalism are one thing, but stories that fall into your lap are basically a set up.
For all of the complaints around here about FOX news being biased, you have to realize that for years news organizations like CBS, and 60 Minutes in particular were spoon-fed stories that feed moral outrage, and also a political agenda. CBS has deserved this for years, and the only one who ever called them on this is Bernard Goldberg in his book "BIAS".
This is the tip of the CBS iceberg.
More on the thingy above…
DMSO became a darling among the promoters of quackery after CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes portrayed the substance as a medical breakthrough [2]. Some arthritis sufferers testified that DMSO had provided relief. The Arthritis Foundation says that DMSO can act as a liniment with a counter-irritating effect temporarily relieving pain, but it does not reduce inflammation as do truly effective arthritis remedies (Arthritis Foundation, undated). A detailed Public Information Memo was issued to the Chapter Executive Directors of the Arthritis Foundation on November 13, 1981, following the publication of a popular trade book.
Mildred Miller, owner/administrator of the Degenerative Disease Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, promoted DMSO for a variety of disorders including arthritis, mental illness, emphysema, and cancer. Miller wrote a book touting DMSO entitled A Little Dab Will Do Ya! (Quality Advertising, 1981). Miller also published Preventive Health News, a tabloid-sized newsletter in which she promoted DMSO and carried on a harangue against the establishment (Miller published another book with the disrespectful title Up Yours FDA). Miller was eventually convicted of Medicare fraud and went to prison [2]. The American Cancer Society issued a statement advising against the use of DMSO for cancer [3].
During its heyday, black market DMSO could be purchased in health food stores, military surplus stores, hardware stores, at swap meet booths, or even from vendors working out of the trunks of their cars parked along highways. Very often black market DMSO is industrial grade, not medical grade. A problem with industrial grade DMSO is that companies bottling the substance as an industrial solvent use the same equipment to bottle other substances. Residual toxic materials can contaminate industrial grade DMSO and may be taken into the body by DMSO’s action as a “chemical hypodermic.”
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d096:50:./temp/~bdmlK7::
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d096:51:./temp/~bdmlK7::
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d096:52:./temp/~bdmlK7::
Conclusion? 60 Minutes has had sloppy journalistic standards for 30 years. Everybody in Washington knows it, and it is no wonder that it was hand chosen for this bit of dirty politics…
I have a better question:
Who forged the documents concerning Niger's uranium and Iraq?
Remember that one?
The Story That Didn’t Run](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/)
Here’s the piece that ‘60 Minutes’ killed for its report on the Bush Guard documents
In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same “60 Minutes” broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.
Only goes to say....
Dish the flame..but can't handle the candle........