"We'll see. I don't have much faith in the media to act in the public interest, but I do trust in them to act in their own."

That'll get Dano nailed. But will it extend to finding the author of the fraud? We shall see.

And what exactly is the difference between "expert shopping" and "doctor shopping"?

I'm only being half-facetious.

What I thought was most pathetic about last night's CBS News broadcast was this SUPER EXPERT #1 Richard Katz clown who tells us that it's hard to make both superscripted and regular sized TH's in Microsoft Word.

I posted the video of this guy on my website, along with what I consider to be an apt visual metaphor for his awe-inspiring performance.

So now it's just a software designer who takes the short bus to work, and a former typewriter repairman standing with Rather.

What, Mr. Rather? You eat little pieces of shit for breakfast?

This morning I posted a copy of the SPJ's code of ethics along with some other Rather links at my site.
I'm looking for interesting examples of Dan's failure to meet them (at any time in his career) to include as links within the list. If you'd like to help, please stop on in...
That post is shown as a trackback to this one.
msl

I disassemble Richard Katz's "expert" argument (with lots of pretty pictures) here:
http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/006148.php

I thought the best point made last night on CBS was that the typist had used a lower case L for the number 1. Today, however,I just tried to do a small "L" and the numeral 1 on Microsoft Word in Times Roman.

They are identical! Did CBS not even check this?

The other item nobody seems to be talking much about it the military guy that rather had on his cbs news report last night. you can see the video on cbs's website (or you could last night)This guy is General Merrill McPeak, fmr U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. The interesting thing is, he has currently been featured in a Kerry commercial saying "four years ago, i voted for bush, this year i'm voting for kerry" here is someone directly tied to the dnc and the kerry campaign in a national news story. But, nobody is talking about it.???
toni

Garbo – minor correction – “one” and “el” are SLIGHTLY different in TNR, but the difference is a minor difference in height, not shape. Blow-up to 72 points to see the difference.
However, this just means to be careful about using the strong word, “identical”. It doesn’t in any way obviate your point, that when looking at the memos, whether the typist typed a “one” or an “el”, they will appear the same.

What did George H.W. say about Dan?

Garbo, they aren't identical. BUT at 11 and 12 pt type (the size of the CBS memos) they're only different by a single pixel. Amid all the tests we've done, this is considered "proof"?

heh, that's what I get for not refreshing after running my little test in Paint. :-)

After CBS stated that experts (plural) had verified the documents (plural) before the broadcast, they can only produce one -- count 'em -- one expert who only validated one -- count 'em -- one signature. Who validated the typography? No one. Who validated the content (e.g. references to none-existent regulations and people who weren't in the TANG at that time)? No one.

Great stuff.

Ace--

I checked out Matley. He has written for some bonafide publications. Even if he began his career as an astrologist it doesn't really matter. The point, as Beldar made at the time, is that his creds are in handwriting, not typology.

Anyway you knew all that. But there's no reason to dump all over the guy now that he's backed away from SEE B.S.

"...he had previously written that the authenticity of a signature cannot be positively established off a copy, because simple computer tricks can put one genuine signature on to a document never signed by the subject..."

You don't need a computer trick when scissors and paste will do. Cut the signature off a copy of a real document and glue it to your forged document - and photocopy. Whiteout any lines around the signature - and photocopy again.

The point is not to dump on the guy, but just to point out that he most likely wasn't the first choice - which presumably means that other, better known, better qualified experts passed on them. It's one thing to "expert shop" when you're a lawyer, but presumably a journalist should have some obligation to let us know if this is what they've done. (I assume that it would be standard practice for someone contacted by CBS to sign a non-disclosure?)

This is the crucial (damning) question, as I've said before. If anyone _ever_ gets to put Rather and Mary Mapes into the position of answering questions, this one question is really... everything.

Ace--

Where all the dancing cats, man? You've been too serious on this Rathergate stuff-- take a break for a moment, enjoy some humor.

"Drudge Flash: Kerry Polling Lower Than Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, Putin."

Top ten on my site: "Top Ten People Less Popular Than John Kerry"

Cheers,
Dave
Garfield Ridge

First, on Matley:

I looked at what some of the other handwriting experts said on just the signature- (1)Clearly not Killian's signature on more than 7 points of exam; (2) In one of the documents, the very top of the "J" and "K" letters are clearly clipped off from the bad cut 'n paste; (3) quality of the photocopies makes authentication impossible - they would never stake their professional opinion on a document authentication w/o insisting on seeing the orginal; (4) so they could see pauses, variable ink and paper laydown from press patterning the signer applied. But all but Matley said they can disprove a photocopied signature, and they said the sigs clearly were forgeries.

Conclusions:

1. CBS goes to a willing liberal San Francisco Democrat, tells him they have the "smoking gun" documents to show Bush was AWOL, and that the world can be made whole and safe again if he finds some reason to believe the documents are credible.

2. Matley joins the band of liberal true believers and plays along. Matley was far more positive they were authentic in his CBS interview.

3. Now that all the other analysts have said "forgery", Matley is backing off to try and save his rep. Too late, IMHO.

2nd thing I wanted to post:

Just forget about the technogeek critiques & reasons the memo failed as a forgery for a few moments and scrutinize the utter failure of CBS to apply responsible journalism and commonsense investigatory standards in a matter that could affect a Presidential election.

CBS never asked for, insisted on the originals from the source. Why?

CBS never applied logic in scrutinizing this claim of a treasure trove of just-discovered Killian memos. They should have given themselves a long, prudent, cautious sanity check and vetted this like the major, major story they thought they were putting out deserved:

Imagine a CBS staff meeting after CBS had done true due diligence, chaired by Rather:

So Killian apparantly had a practice of keeping private typewritten memos on all his subordinants, our source claims, and he has 4 and only 4 highly damaging ones on just one flier, who just happens to be the Prez!!

Hmmmmmmm! We better have this ironclad since we are trying to take down a sitting President by influencing the election. Of course we all know here at CBS that Bush is scum, but the pajama'd hoi pollei may need more. What will our ace reporters and researchers find?

Rather: I know many of you are busy working as part-time volunteers for Kerry, and I appreciate your civic spirit, but we need to get this story out ASAP, since Kerry is sinking fast. Check every angle! Lets reconvene in 2 weeks.

2 weeks later:

A. Rather: So, on the results from asking the wife and son if they have any of the vast private memo stash? What!! The wife said Killian never typed a letter in his life, never had a typewriter of his own! The son said he and another Guard officer cleaned out his Dad's office after he died on active duty and NEVER found any memos in his office or at his house??? And both think the docs were not written by him? Wow!

B. Rather: Gee, what happened when we ran those memos past several retired AF and TANG officers to vet them? Uh Oh, we have this one guy Strong who hates Bush and says they look legit, but all the other officers say the memos are loaded with lingo that doesn't match terminology at the time, they are full of factual errors, and all say they never saw Killian write a typewritten memo when they worked along side him!

C. Rather: God damn it! Maybe the officers are covering for the frat boy! No, they seem to be sincere and will dispute the memos are real if the media contacts them. A few remember Bush and have good things to say about him. It gets worse, Dan, one of the officers showed a memo to their 22 year old daughter and she asked him if the Guard had computer work stations back then that were as good as hers, since she says all 4 she glanced at, she was sure came off a computer

D. Rather: Ok, so we went back to our source and got a look at the 4 originals and the thousands of other Killian memos he wrote on the then nobody GW Bush and the hundreds of other officers Killian rated from 1966 to 1984? Got more document examiners? Darn, Dan, our source says that he only has the 4 highly negative memos that neatly answer and give us proof to validate all the unresolved questions we, Michael Moore, and the DNC have asked for the last 3 years. He doesn't know what happened to the dozens of other memos Killian must have written on Bush from 1971,1972, and 1973, or the thousands Killian must have written on other officers. He just has those incredibly harmful 4, plus 2 one-line memos he shopped to USA Today! And he said he needs to talk with his lawyer and the DNC lawyer they gave him, but for now he seems to remember his cat ate the originals. But we did get an old typewriter repairman to say the four we have look like something that would come off the keys he cleaned with mineral spirits back in the 70's when he did office service call visits. He said, for a fee, he can also document when secretary's skirts shortened, when panties went from white cotton to colored to sheer, to sometimes no panties at all, on his office service calls....

E. Rather: This is CBS. We don't do "panty" feature stories. And our own producer's secretary says she thinks they are Word Documents....

Dan: Well, of course they are word documents, all documents have words in them. OK, troops, we still have the preponderance of evidence. Let's nail that Bush bastard and reclaim the America we lost in Florida!!! The story is in the can, ready to roll on Wednesday, and put a world of hurt on Dubya.

Excellent, cedarford.

I read a comment from another blog that is minor but hasn't been talked about - much of the time the military was filling out forms, set up to use fixed-width fonts to get everything lined up in the boxes. Why in the world would the TNG have a proportional font typewriter? It couldn't be used much of the time (i.e. filling out forms).

poker me up