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September 13, 2004

Bad Days at Black Rock

According to this American Spectator piece, they're not quite as convinced of the documents' authenticity as Dan Rather would have his audience believe:

On Friday, according to CBS News sources, Rather spent the day on the phone and dealing with CBS suits who were nervous about the fall out from the story. "All Dan could say was that this was an attack from the right-wing nuts, and that we should have expected this, given the stakes," says a CBS News producer. "He was terribly defensive and nervous. You could tell."

All day Friday, Rather, his producer on the story, Mary Mapes, and other 60 Minutes staffers were scrambling to shore up support from their sources on the story. That effort didn't go so well. By Saturday, one of their key sources, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, had said that CBS misled him, and that he had never been shown the memos in question.

"We pulled the trick of only calling some sources at the last minute to reconfirm," says the CBS producer. "Someone called Hodges, I think, on Monday night and read him parts of the document. The late contacts are a standard practice so we don't tip off the competition or our sources."

...

PERHAPS MOST TROUBLING to the CBS News staff looking into how its story went off the rails is the timing of the memos' appearance. "Some 60 Minutes staffers have been working on this story for more than three years off and on," says the CBS News producer. "There have been rumors about these memos and what was in them for at least that long. No one had been able to find anything. Not a single piece of paper. But we know that a lot of people here interviewed a lot of people in Texas and elsewhere and asked very explicit questions about the existence of these memos. Then all of a sudden they show up? In one nice, neat package?"

This CBS New producer went on to explain that the questions 60 Minutes folk were asking were specific enough that people would have been able to fabricate the memorandums to meet the exact specifications the investigative journalists were looking for. "People were asking questions of sources like, 'Have you ever seen or heard of a memo that suspended Bush for failing to appear for a physical?' and 'Have you heard about or know of someone who has any documentation from back in the 1970s that shows there was pressure to get Bush into the National Guard?' It was like they were placing an order for a ready-made product. That is the biggest problem I have with this. It's all too neat and perfect for what we needed. Without these exact pieces of paper, we don't have a story. Dan has as much as admitted that. Everyone knows it. We were at a standstill on this story until these memos showed up."

The article also states that people at CBS are floating rumors that the actual documents were hand-written, but that someone "typed them up" to make them look "more official."

This is absurd. Handwritten documents are nearly self-authenticating, and no one would commit fraud to make a more-authentic original look like a less-authentic copy.

This ridiculous "Plan B" defense, however, is similar to what I expect we will soon be hearing: Someone really saw these documents, and they said almost exactly what the forgeries say, only the witness in question didn't take the documents or make copies of them.

Therefore, to get out "the truth" which he cannot unfortunately prove with documentary evidence, he typed up what he knew was in the documents (working from a nearly perfect memory).

I don't even think our liberal Spirit Squad media would dare run with such a "forgery-but-nevertheless-accurate" defense, but I was shocked by Dan Rather's blazingly dishonest performance on Friday; before this is over, I expect to be shocked three or four more times.

Does that defense sound too ridiculous?

Is it any more ridiculous than what you've heard so far?

Is it any more ridiculous than trained reporters at CBS beginning to spin tales about real handwritten documents being "typed up" to look pretty for TV?

They are in trouble and they almost know it. When you get to this level of desperation, you begin spinning pleasing but absurd "what-if" scenarios that will get you out of the jam.

But they won't get out of this jam. This will not stand.

posted by Ace at 01:52 PM

Comments

Hmm...

"CBS consultant Michael Bellesiles suggested the original documents were lost in a flood that swept through CBS offices".

No, not really.

Posted by: See-Dubya on September 13, 2004 02:14 PM

Am I the only one that is wondering how many times the MSM has successfully pulled the wool over our eyes in the past? I agree with many bloggers that even if they had been successful this time, it wouldn't have mattered too much. But, now I must, for example, rethink their performance in the Vietnam war from Tet onward. What else?

Posted by: Paranoid on September 13, 2004 02:42 PM

This has been my predicted "fallback" position for a while.

I.e., the story would go something like:

The "custodian" of Killian's personal handwritten files (and Rather's source) typed them up into electronic form, for "safekeeping," using Microsoft Word. There was an unfortunate miscommunication somewhere, making CBS think the custodian claimed these to be copies of the original documents.

Then, one of two things happen:
1. "Tragically, the original handwritten files were lost in a fire...."
2. "Fortunately, I do have the original handwritten files. Just give me a few days to find someone who can forge... er, sorry, 'find' them."

Posted by: David C on September 13, 2004 02:42 PM

And amidst all of this, isn't CBS News a, you know, NEWS AGENCY? Since when is it their job to "go several extra" miles to find support for something that is such an abvious fraud? Isn't the actual news here that someone is trying to perpetrate a fraud in order to disgrace the President in the final weeks of an election? A lot of other news agencies seem to get this. And instead of the person (party? campaign?) that created this fraud, CBS is the principal focus of their investigations.

Posted by: Dacotti on September 13, 2004 02:47 PM

The "custodian" of Killian's personal handwritten files (and Rather's source) typed them up into electronic form, for "safekeeping," using Microsoft Word.

Yeah typed them into Word and then conveniently scanned or forged signatures for the bottom...riiiight

Posted by: Paul B. on September 13, 2004 02:54 PM

The only fraud is what is being done by you far right wackos trying to smear hardworking reporters and spread fear (AS USUAL!) -- soo fascist.

see here to be DEBUNKED wingnuts:

http://www.mahablog.com/2004.09.05_arch.html#1094852190259

You kooks are going down.

Posted by: Bush STILL Lied! on September 13, 2004 03:20 PM

Hee hee, oh for a bottle of old-fashioned white out!

Posted by: BR on September 13, 2004 03:30 PM

Ohmigod! I'm a fascist! Why didn't you tell me earlier, f'kn troll?
Let's see, how about RATHER LIED, KERRY CRIED. I like the sound of that, maybe it will catch on.

Posted by: dano on September 13, 2004 03:30 PM

From the "debunking" cited above.

>>So, let's dispense with the "proportional type" theory. I've looked at the PDF files, and IMO the quality thereof is too far removed from the original (the wavy baselines are a dead giveaway) to know what the original type proportion was. And any "kerning" one might see is probably the result of distortion that occurs in photocopies that are generations removed from an original.

Let's suppose that what looks like proportional spacing and kerning is just random variation introduced by photocopying, and that the original document is monospaced with no kerning at all. Why would the random distortions produced by photocopying and scanning so exactly mimic the kerning and proportional spacing of an overlaid MSWord Doc? That would be quite a coincidence, no?

Posted by: Jamie R. on September 13, 2004 03:32 PM

ACE, when the dust settles a bit can we have another Haiku Contest? Please?

Posted by: dano on September 13, 2004 03:32 PM

BushStillLied,

That fool--I use the term accurately--has already been dealt with.

Posted by: addison on September 13, 2004 03:38 PM

The mahablog entry referenced by the lefty:

1) doesn't address the superscripting
2) doesn't address how in the world a National Guard employee (not a business office, but a government office - big difference) would have a typewriter as expensive as the one necessary to even come close to these obviously forged memos
3) doesn't address the perfect word wrap
4) doesn't address the perfect centering of headings
5) doesn't address the signature problems - signature cuts off and doesn't look like other geniune signatures of Killian
6) doesn't address the fact that Killian's widow and son don't believe that Killian felt this way
7) doesn't address the pseudo-kerning
8) doesn't address CBS news lying to Hodges - not something you do when the truth will do

That's just at a first reading. If you're going to attempt to 'debunk' an issue you should at least attempt to address the relevant evidence. We haven't even gone into the fact that there are multiple documentation and typesetting experts who all agree that these are forgeries. So, should I believe an obviously partisan, partial attempt at rebutting selective portions of the evidence, or should I believe the evidence as produced from a vast array of sources, including ABC News, for example (hardly a 'far right wacko')?

Posted by: morpheus on September 13, 2004 03:42 PM

Wow, a bunch of folks beat me to it. LGF's treatment of mahablog speaks for itself.

Posted by: morpheus on September 13, 2004 03:44 PM

"forgery-but-nevertheless-accurate" defense?
Yep; already on Thursday, at slashdot:

Will bush chime in on this himself? (Score:2)
by jgaynor (205453) on Thursday September 09, @02:41PM (#10203850)
(http://jon.rutgers.edu/)

Is all of this junior encyclopedia brown crap necessary? Whether or not you can replicate the doc in word or on your 1907 eniac prototype typewriter is irrelevant if the candidate doesn't come out to deny the allegations . . .

If he DOES come out and call shenanigans then let professionals take a look at the docs and make a judgement - if he won't deny what's being implied then it's fairly obvious that reproduced or not, they're the truth . . .

So how about it, georgie?

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/09/1546251&tid=224&tid=219

N.B. "reproduced or not"

Posted by: m on September 13, 2004 04:32 PM

I forged the Bush/CBS Memos!

Posted by: Sparticus on September 13, 2004 04:45 PM

That slashdot entry is idiotic. How is Bush supposed to respond to forged memos from a previously unknown "personal" file? Where would you begin? You couldn't possibly win, it would read as "thin-skinned" and "defensive."

Grow a brain, folks. Better yet, get a clue-by-four, and hold on with both hands.

Posted by: Dianna on September 13, 2004 05:09 PM

That lefty troll is SUCH a fascist!

Posted by: Smack on September 13, 2004 06:43 PM