According to Drudge,…

According to Drudge, CBS and the NY Times were just beside themselves trying to get out the latest anti-Bush story. CBS wanted to schedule a surprise attack 2 nights before the election, but the NY Times just couldn’t wait that long.

News of missing explosives in Iraq — first reported in April 2003 — was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that “our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn’t hold…”

Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].

The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as “exclusive.”

NBC, however, had an embedded reporter on the scene when the coalition showed up initially, so they couldn’t participate in the feeding frenzy.

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

Good for them for the willingness to point this out, although, from a competitive standpoint, it makes good business sense, too.

The big question will be this: Who was trying to launch this?

It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.

The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES… “The tip was received last Wednesday.”

The Kerry campaign was certainly quick on the draw to blame this on Bush. It’s rather funny how quick that came. Or not.

CBSNEWS’ plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

“Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up,” the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

Too funny, except for the fact that CBS was fully intending to hold the news until the worst possible moment. Is Dan Rather really that desperate to give the gift of an election to John Kerry?

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