Now that they've admitted they don't even have the originals (which would settle things once & for all), Rather will never apologize. But it doesn't matter anymore. The smear has backfired, in an ugly way. No damage to Bush, but big damage to CBS.

Re "handwriting expert," see the Kerry Spot at National Review.

His story has been eradicated.

Also, CBS has asked him not to give interviews. (Forgot where I read that.)

Dude, I just can't follow this anymore. I'm on information overload.

A news haiku:

Memos are not fake:
Just broke in my new copy
of Word 68.

Jeff B.

LOL!

Ace,

Well, of course.

I mean, whether kerning or pseudo-kerning, the point it, Charles Johnson was the first to show that the alleged memo is exactly the same as one typed on Word.

Let me put it another way,

IT'S FUCKING EXACTLY THE SAME.

How hard is this to understand.

If George W. Bush had a memo from his CO stating that he was there, in Alabama n'stuff, and the memo looked like the Rather memo, how strongly do you think CBS news would protest, or if the President's people said, "Look, it's not the memo that's important, it's larger truth that memo points to that's important."

Do you think Dan Rather wouldn't go ApeFuckingShit and demand the originals?

This is becomming so pathetic.

And the President now leads in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

What are they going to do when the President wins?

Sigh.

The real irony is that with Bush's base support so high, this didn't have a prayer of moving the polls. They had nothing to gain from this sham and a lot to loose. Maybe Rather was really the Manchurian Newscaster! Yeah, that's it. He was turned by Karl Rove years ago, but he has maintained his liberal credentials for all this time just to be positioned to destroy Kerry's hopes of getting elected.

But I had another idea. I'm going to write up a new Howard Hughes will in Word naming me as the sole benneficiary and send it to Rather. He HAS to verify it now! I mean, if DAN RATHER certifies it as real, they have to give me the money, right?

Dang, I just had a great idea, but I forgot what it was. No, wait, turn your TV channel to FOX News Channel and keep the remote in your pocket. Tell the wife and kids if they ever change the station again you will break their fingers. If everybody did this it would mean henceforth Danny Boy will be talking to a blank wall in the dark and the advertisers would stop paying to have their commercials run in a void. My dad once asked me this question... If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it would it make a sound? Are we getting the message?

Blogs should all call for a boycott of CBS shows until CBS runs a full investigation.

The biggest blog is Instapundit, and he only is getting 240,000 different visitors per day at the height of this blog-friendly scandal.

The entire right-leaning blog readership isn't much higher than that number. It's not as if Instapundit gets 240,000 and Allah gets 13,000 and LGF gets 25,000. Most of everyone else's readers are also Instapundit regulars.

So, we don't really have the power to boycott anything except jack and shit, and jack left town.

And yet, Oliver "Uncle Fester" Willis, Soros' morbidly obese girlfriendless whore, doesn't care that they're fakes.

What you do is contact CBS's sponsors, because for every one person who bothers to phone them (or whatever), they assume there are several pissed off people who aren't writing.

Have any idea how many Log Cabin Republicans there are, BTW?

It's like 10,000 (I think that was the number I saw the other day). Moreover, they've doubled since the last election, but you still heard even in 2000 about trying to keep the Log Cabin Republicans happy. (How is it that the Republican Party has been so disastrous for gays, yet there are twice as many Log Cabin Republicans now as in 2000? Good question but for another day.)

Nicholas--

I don't even get CBS news with my antenna, and I have no reason to watch them. But if someone posts a list of their advertisers and how to contact them I'll gladly fire off hate mail to them. I agree that's the most leverage bloggers are going to have.

Ace? Somebody?

I guarantee it will generate traffic.

Link to Free Republic thread listing sponsor of the show in question

Scroll down for contact info.

That was me, should have said "sponsors."

I've always thought Dan Rather had "crazy eyes." Nothing personal. Now hand me another burger.

Thanks, NK! that's what I needed.

When it rains it pours....

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/election2004/9633814.htm

It turns out that Stoudt, one of the guys mentioned in one of Rather's memos dated 1973, was honorably discharged in 1972.

I'm sure Rather will tell us that the very special typewriter used to type the memo had an automatic punchcard dating feature which was one year off due to a "hanging chad" on the punchcard.

I mean it's all easily explained....

Here's an excerpt from the linked story.

Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written

BY PETE SLOVER

The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Bush's service, was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special favors and did not fulfill his service.

Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among a packet of documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.

A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting that Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless over remaining officials.

Drudge is turning up the heat. Rather can't survive constant Drudge headlines.

If the shoe was on the other foot, let's just say, if Sean Hannity produced documents damaging to Kerry which turned out to be forgeries...How long would we have to wait before Ted Kennedy was standing up in the floor of the Senate and bellowing a demand for an investigation?
Yeah, sure...at the very least this is gross journalistic negligence, right? But at the most, it's election fraud. In my book, somebody committed a crime here, and its time for Mr. Rather to name some names.

I dunno about writing sponsors, but I'm gonna write my representives in the Congress and pray that someone has the cujones to bring this matter to the mainstream....

You're missing the point with the Sean Hannity comparison. It is exactly because conservative, or for that matter non-liberal, journalists have to operate on a higher standard that they wield any power. That's what makes them more valuable as a resource for those of us who simply want 'the facts' and not Gov. Jim McGreevey's 'personal truth.'

We should be proud, but not overly proud, that the blogosphere is dominated by people who MUST get it right in order to maintain their credibility. That's our power. We have to get it right, not on each small matter, but on the ones that count. If we allege facts we MUST get them right. Opinions can be wrong or stupid or whatever.

DU and all the other LLL moonbats will never have any power because they are simply incapable of marshalling rational thoughts in a coherent manner. They're a joke made worse by the fact they're incapable of catching their own punchline. But so will the right-leaning and neutral blogosphere be if we lose focus on getting it right.

That's a meme that should be spread far and wide for all to see.

Respectfully,

How about this:

A few medical clinic records turn up dated circa 1970 detailing penile enhancement surgery on John Kerry, Dan Rather and Terry McAuliffe. Some sort of Democrat 3 for 1 offer. Burden of proof anyone?

Fire up that IBM composer or whatever!

Actually, I found what little I've bothered to learn about Rather's on-air defense convinced me. Until then, I figured there was a four percent chance the memos were genuine: now, I am figuring zero. His circular argumentation would validate the Hitler Diaries.