Could Rove have had these Bush papers planted?

[slater71]

I don`t think it is beyond Rove to do this. Then he sends the talking points out to all his right wing surrogets on talk radio to push the fake papers thing knowing full well that they are. Rember, he was the one that said they would use smoke and mirrors to will the 2000 election.

[amber dog democrat]

1. yes

He could have. Never put it past him. It has his trademark.

[Prodemsouth]

5. Yes he could have - these are specultations. not facts

n.t.

[amber dog democrat]

9. That is all you have with Rove.

Whisper campaigns, character assassinations, or the unethical things he does.
He always has plausible deniability.
Even if I believe he is behind the Spin Boat Liars, I can't prove it....but its classic Rove.

This could be too. We will never have proof.
He does things by remote control and is the puppeteer who manages the Chimp.
I put nothing past him. He stops at nothing to win and always attacks.

[tridim]

2. Forged or not, they aren't fake

The information in them is legit.

[liberalmike27]

3. Not beyond his Evil

I read in some campaign he planted a microphone in his own office, then "found" it just before the election. They put the story out, with the implication that the other side had planted it, and they ended up winning. Later it was found out that the bug's microphone only had a 12 hour battery life! So they kind of exposed that he'd probably planted it himself, as anyone from the other campaign would have had one that didn't have to have the battery replaced so frequently.

So this sounds like that kind of trick, if indeed the documents are fake. Just remember though, just like they can hire enviromentalists to say there is no global warming, they can easily hire an "expert" who will say documents are false. The real issue isn't the documents anyway, but the five month period Bush dropped off the face of the earth, with all of his records following him into the void. Only a daddy in the CIA, then president can make all of your negative records disappear.

[liberalnurse]

4. I doubt it.......

Dan Rather would of known what a scheme he would be involved with and it is not in his being to be corrupt.....

[karlrschneider]

6. I would bet Rove is a good chess player...thus he could anticipate

the possibility of being "discovered"...so he would have them filtered through several intermediaries. Multiplying the layers of plausible deniability. I doubt we'll know the truth on these memos for years.
:grr:

[JHB]

8. How would Rather know?

I don't think anyone's suggesting Karl wet to CBS directly. From what CBS says, the source was someone with operational knowledge of the TANG.

[liberalnurse]

11. I just don't give Rove that much credit.

[Bridget Burke]

7. What "fake" papers?

?

[Poiuyt]

10. Keith Olbermann brought this up the other night

He said that it was a little strange at how quickly there was evidence that they were forged (like 2 hours after they were released).

[murielm99]

12. No.

Some of you act like Rove is ten feet tall. He is not.

I don't think he is that smart, or that omniscient.

I think he is responsible for the disinformation about them being forgeries, but that is all.

[Eloriel]

20. Well, think about this for a few minutes

When James Hatfield was writing his book, "Fortunate Son," he interviewed Rove and Rove personally confirmed Bush's cocaine use, and gave him a few other juicy tidbits.

St. Martin's Press had already printed the book when the story broke about one of the "facts" in Hatfield's book -- one given to him by Rove -- had a piece of it that was flat wrong, and provably so. Not only that, but a whole shitstorm descended on Hatfield becuase it was leaked that he'd been involved in someething pretty shady himself some years back. St. Martin's refused to distribute the book and destroyed all its copies.

Sometime later, once Hatfield had found another publisher (Soft Skull Press), and before the new publisher had actually published, James Hatfield was dead. Suicide, or so they said.

Here's his last article, written just a couple of weeks before his death:

Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?
By James Hatfield
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html

Here's the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1887128840/102-5650221-6597765?v=glance

Edited to add: Here's Soft Skull Press's write-up about the book (and it can be ordered from them as well):

http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-887128-84-0

[xcmt]

13. It'd be really good damage control.

Suppose Rove knew there were documents in existence, or witnesses to these documents, that proved Bush didn't perform his TANG duties. It's completely reasonable to think a strategist like Rove would forge the documents and release them to the media, because, as we've now seen, the story is 99% about the forgeries (which somehow reflects as badly on Kerry as CBS), which means Bush has completely evaded the real issue....that, forgeries or not, the sentiments in the documents are true.

Also, the more I think about it, the more the convenient expediency of the forgery story seems suspicious. Freepers were rallying within two hours, and most media sources were running with the story by the next afternoon, in a manner wholly consistent with all other Republican media distortions (website > Drudge > Newsmax/Fox > Everyone Else).

However, it seems unlikely CBS News would run with a story that wasn't completely vetted. Also, we know proportional spacing, superscript, and TNR were all widely available during the time periods in question.

Yesterday I was 100% behind believing the documents were real. But CBS's refusal to explain their source, plus the overwhelming convenience of the distraction, makes me about 80% now.

[TahitiNut]

17. They were provided copies by CBS News far enough ahead of time

... to 'release' them themselves and to spend their time preparing the shit-storm of distraction, disinformation, deceit, prevarication, and dissemblance.

If anything PROVES the authenticity of the content of those documents, it's the full-bore effort by the brown-nosed, brown-shirted, brown-brained reichbots to change the subject from content to every kind of turd they can throw against the wall.

[necso]

14. Maybe (through hirelings),

but why are we flogging this dead horse?

Isn't this counterproductive?

And isn't it the next steps in the game that should hold our interest?

It is clear to me what CBS's next step must be, but even discussing the obvious might give our opponents (who are idiots, if cunning* and evil ones) some advantage, so I will not.

Move on people. No essential interest of ours is directly involved.

The facts of Bush's "service" are clear and letting this be obscured with some he said, she said nonsense does us no good.

Concerned about freedom of the Press? -- Elect Kerry and I can promise you that the Press will be a lot more "free", even if we will not particularly like the results.

Now I feel that many of you wish (and, no, not the author here) to be proven right and that is why we are continuing with this. But right or wrong is one thing, wise is another.

Personally I don't know about the memos. But personally I now longer care. And plant or not, this is not a good use of our time or energies. The truth of the memos seems clear and it is consistent with what else we know. Further fussing serves no purpose of ours.

There will be plenty of time to savor the details... after the election.

(cunning*: Skilled in deception.)

[Eye and Monkey]

15. Remember the video tape of Bush practicing for the debates?

Mailed to the Dem campaign, from an insider in the Bush election camp in Austin in 2000 (Mark McKinnon's assistant). The insider claimed it was an accident. Dems turned the video over because viewing it would have been a violation.

Seems like a set-up, ambush - at least to me.

[BiggJawn]

16. I said that the other night.

Saturday Night, if memory serves. A thread titled along the lines of "Why I think '60 Minutes' is going to be 'Hatfielded'..."

And people wanted to BURN me at the fuckin' STAKE for even THINKING that these papers could be dis-proved.

[necso]

18. Give the egos a rest.

Those, you will still have after the election.

And what else do you imagine that you will still have?

(This really deserves a thread, but it would "uglify" the board, so I will not.)

Must I point out to each and every one of you where what you say is a obviously an ego thing?

I will, you know.

And I will be glad to respond to your use of the same argument in every case -- where it is worth bothering.

Now don't take this personally, it is easy to mistake zeal and ego -- I do it all the time!

(And, again, I am not really addressing the author of this post.)

PS: Oh, and I am the sort of person who considers previous posts, when I consider the point of any single post.

[AnnInLa]

19. Rather says this about Rove

http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage1.asp

Rather said it is possible, but he doesn't believe that scenario. Said he has been working on this story for 4-5 years. Read the above interview of Rather.