In attempt to lower the odds of a sitting president’s re-election chances Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, aired a story on 60 Minutes Wednesday in 2004 critical of President George W. Bush’s National Guard service.

The documents used to support the story were quickly proven fabrications. The New York Times headline defending Rather’s reporting said ‘Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says’.

‘Fake but Accurate’ became the main defense of Rather/Mapes exposé leading to much critical derision and laughter.

The broadcast delved into whether the President had completed all his National Guard service requirements during the early 1970s. It was stated in the documents used to support the show’s story that Bush disobeyed a direct order to appear for a physical and that family friends squashed any investigation into his service.

The documents in question supposedly came from the files of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush’s Guard commanders. Killian died in 1984 so was unable to collaborate the documents’ contents when the story aired 20 years later. Killian’s typist claims she did not type the documents but said the fake documents accurately stated the issues related to Bush’s service. How a National Guard typist would know this wasn’t volunteered in the story.

The documents were quickly discovered to be fakes because the font, character spacing, and other computer generate text did not exist on 1970s era typewriters. The documents also appeared to have been generated on a word processor using Microsoft software. Microsoft word processing software was first released in 1983. It was also reported that Rather and Mapes were discussing the story with John Kerry’s campaign staff before the story aired which ran counter to all journalistic standards.

Mary Mapes was fired from CBS in January of 2005 and Rather was allowed to retire in March of 2005.

On the question of motive, Mapes had been researching the Bush National Guard story for 5 years before it was aired in 2004.

Source: Rather Relieved | Power Line (powerlineblog.com) by Hinderaker, 2004. A Look Back At The Controversy – CBS News by Chris Hawke, 2005. Graphic: Dan Rather, Marty Lederhandler, 1993—Caption added by author.