Idle Political Speculation on Forged Documents

[CamEdwards]

I'm sure this will soon turn into a partisan thread, but I'll post it anyway.

According to the Boston Globe

A group of veterans in West Virginia, organized by the Democratic National Committee, also held a news conference yesterday to challenge Bush's Guard record, and veterans in Pennsylvania and Ohio plan to do the same today. More are planned in other battleground states, Howard Wolfson, Democratic National Committee adviser, said yesterday.


It seems like the Kerry campaign has had either a run of bad luck or ineptitude (depending on your political affiliation) lately. My thinking is that doing stuff like this while there are most likely forged documents out there (and at least one "unnamed source" saying these documents were seen by both the Kerry Campaign and the DNC) could be disastrous. Even if there's no connection between the Kerry campaign and the forged documents... it really looks bad on the surface.

Thoughts on the political mchinations, not the candidates, would be greatly appreciated.

[Butter]

What documents are forged?

Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm not sure what you're talking about. Has there been talk that the new documents on Bush's Guard record are forged?

[Honolulu_Blue]

As a plotical "machine" the Democractic party is pathetically inept. The word Traveshamockery comes to mind. I mean seriously. They have already totally blown the one issue that should have been a slam dunk: Kerry's war record versus Bush's draft dodging ways. They totally blew that one. It's ridiculous.

That's all I got... for now.

[sachmo71]

Well, I'm temped to say that all of the focus on these innane issues are a complete waste of time, but since my fellow Americans still seem to be swayed by whether their politician is a LIAR or not, I'd be wasting my time.

If this is proved to be a forgery, then Kerry will brand himself a liar. Apparently, that's worse then anything President Bush ever did.

[miked]

Yes, because these allegedly forged documents were released by Kerry...er...no the DOD at the lawsuit of the AP.

I find it funny that most people on this board were very quick to question Kerry when the Swift Boat people made their accusations without ever having actually served with him, but when these records are released...by the DOD...they are obviously forged and so on. Who really cares? Are you going to vote for Bush because you think Kerry didn't earn his medals given before you were born?

I'm more concerned with my research funding, personally. Bush has cut NIH funding drastically in the last 2 years (hey...wars aren't cheap) and I haven't seen a penny from his tax cuts (other than that wonderful $300 check 3-4 yrs ago). You people can bicker all you want about who served when and where 30 years ago if that's important to you, but how about focusing on whether the economy is going to really turn around...or whether our ballooning deficit will be turned around by either (I saw a projection yesterday that said it would be 2.5 trillion in 8 years or something).

[sachmo71]

Yes, because these allegedly forged documents were released by Kerry...er...no the DOD at the lawsuit of the AP.

I find it funny that most people on this board were very quick to question Kerry when the Swift Boat people made their accusations without ever having actually served with him, but when these records are released...by the DOD...they are obviously forged and so on.

I find it funny that both sides have used this same statement.



Who really cares? Are you going to vote for Bush because you think Kerry didn't earn his medals given before you were born?




Too many people, unfortunately. :(

[digamma]

As a plotical "machine" the Democractic party is pathetically inept. The word Traveshamockery comes to mind. I mean seriously. They have already totally blown the one issue that should have been a slam dunk: Kerry's war record versus Bush's draft dodging ways. They totally blew that one. It's ridiculous.

That's all I got... for now.
And it keeps happening again and again and again. This is the third election cycle in a row that the Dems have failed to frame the debate (2000 should have been a referendum on Clinton-Gore, instead, they did all they could to move Gore away from Clinton; 2002 they tried to make a referendum on Bush when it clearly wasn't the time to do that yet; and this year it is just comical). The plus on McAuliffe is that he is supposedly a tremendous fund raiser. The problem is those funds aren't much good if you can't use them effectively.

[clintl]

If it turns out they were forged, everyone drops this and moves on.

It's not like the Bush Administration has never used forged documents to press a case for something.

[John Galt]

If these documents are forged, I think it would be amazing if this was really Karl Rove's doing. What better way to discredit Kerry than having his campaign appear responsible for forging military documents. I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but I just found this line of thinking fun. The reason this seems viable at all to me is how quickly the forgery has been discovered. I doubt Karl Rove is behind it, but if turns out they are forgeries, I am sure is wondering why he didn't think of planting them. He is truly in evil man when "truth" is the issue.

[Glengoyne]

If these documents are forged, I think it would be amazing if this was really Karl Rove's doing. What better way to discredit Kerry than having his campaign appear responsible for forging military documents. I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but I just found this line of thinking fun. The reason this seems viable at all to me is how quickly the forgery has been discovered. I doubt Karl Rove is behind it, but if turns out they are forgeries, I am sure is wondering why he didn't think of planting them. He is truly in evil man when "truth" is the issue.
I was actually hoping it would be discovered that someone who has volunteered for the Kerry campaign had planted them. Because then it would then be obvious that Kerry's campaign was responsible for the forgeries.

[miked]

Yes, and then you can give us more pointless reasons to not vote for somebody you don't like. Weren't these documents released by the Pentagon/DOD? Are you trying to say that somebody from Kerry's camp typed these out and somehow snuck them into the Pentagon or its computer system?

[Glengoyne]

Yes, and then you can give us more pointless reasons to not vote for somebody you don't like. Weren't these documents released by the Pentagon/DOD? Are you trying to say that somebody from Kerry's camp typed these out and somehow snuck them into the Pentagon or its computer system?\

No.

I was paralleling the logic used to tie the Swift Boat Vet group to Bush's Campaign.

We really do need a sarcasm smilie. Maybe I should have used the "winking" smilie.

[JPhillips]

Cam: I think it turned into a partisan thread with your post. You state clearly that the documents were forged even when that is very much an open question. You also repeat a very questionable claim that Kerry and the DNC saw the documents. Then you end by saying even if there is no connection and the documents aren't forged, it still looks bad.

An non-partisan thread wouldn't have worked so hard to paint Kerry and the DNC as being involved in a scandal that doesn't even exist.

[randal7]

The documents that appear to be forgeries did not come from DoD. CBS news claimed they were personal documents of Bush's Lt. Colonel in the Guard. They have so far declined to say exactly where or how they got them. What I find the most amazing is that CBS ran the story. You look at the type on these things and it is clearly not done on a typewriter, which is of course what they used in 1972/73. I see it as more of an indictment of how eager CBS was to make Bush look bad than an indication of a dirty trick by the Kerry camp. If that really was a democrat plant (which I do not believe), they are WAY too stupid to run the country.

[sachmo71]

You look at the type on these things and it is clearly not done on a typewriter, which is of course what they used in 1972/73.

They had pens and paper in 72-73 also. :D

[John Galt]

The documents that appear to be forgeries did not come from DoD. CBS news claimed they were personal documents of Bush's Lt. Colonel in the Guard. They have so far declined to say exactly where or how they got them. What I find the most amazing is that CBS ran the story. You look at the type on these things and it is clearly not done on a typewriter, which is of course what they used in 1972/73. I see it as more of an indictment of how eager CBS was to make Bush look bad than an indication of a dirty trick by the Kerry camp. If that really was a democrat plant (which I do not believe), they are WAY too stupid to run the country.

The question of whether a typewriter could produce the documents is still an open question. I've been a little confused by those saying it is clearly a computer because several of their arguments are just wrong (proportional fonts were in use decades before this, superscripts and subscripts could also be created, variable spacing between lines existed). That makes me wonder about the overall conclusions based on more open questions (the apostrophes, New Times Roman, etc.). I have no idea either way if these were forged, but some of the reasons "experts" are saying they were forged are just plain wrong.

[rkmsuf]

please get this election over with

[sachmo71]

please get this election over with

I'm with smurf on this one.

[BishopMVP]

The question of whether a typewriter could produce the documents is still an open question. I've been a little confused by those saying it is clearly a computer because several of their arguments are just wrong (proportional fonts were in use decades before this, superscripts and subscripts could also be created, variable spacing between lines existed). That makes me wonder about the overall conclusions based on more open questions (the apostrophes, New Times Roman, etc.). I have no idea either way if these were forged, but some of the reasons "experts" are saying they were forged are just plain wrong.The superscript stuff was only available as special-order, and unlikely at best for the AF to be uding (especially for an informal memo) but clearly the most damning aspect is the kerning. There is absolutely no way to do that on a typewriter (how could it know what letter is next?) which pretty much proves they are forgeries. So now the interesting questions are where did they come from and why was CBS so eager to run the story?

[Glengoyne]

Yes, and then you can give us more pointless reasons to not vote for somebody you don't like. Weren't these documents released by the Pentagon/DOD? Are you trying to say that somebody from Kerry's camp typed these out and somehow snuck them into the Pentagon or its computer system?

Oh, I know I responded earlier, but Just wanted to clear something up. As I understand it, these documents were NOT released by the Pentagon/DoD. They purportedly came from the Author's family and his personal records. His son has come out and said that those documents did not come from anyone in his family.


Edit: Randal already beat me to it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

please get this election over with

Do you really think it's going to matter much?

{I'm not trying to be funny or give you a hard time, I'm serious}

[rkmsuf]

Do you really think it's going to matter much?

{I'm not trying to be funny or give you a hard time, I'm serious}

What matter? I'm totally missing what you are saying...

[JonInMiddleGA]

What matter? I'm totally missing what you are saying...

Erm ... maybe I'm confused.

I took your "please get this election over with" comment to be a sort of "plea for civility" and/or "wish for the end to general bickering" (since that's usually the point of similar remarks I've seen for several years).

I then asked "Do you really think it's going to matter" as in "I don't believe the election ending is going to make many people actually like any better than they do right now".

Maybe I just misread the intent of your election comment.

[rkmsuf]

Erm ... maybe I'm confused.

I took your "please get this election over with" comment to be a sort of "plea for civility" and/or "wish for the end to general bickering" (since that's usually the point of similar remarks I've seen for several years).

I then asked "Do you really think it's going to matter" as in "I don't believe the election ending is going to make many people actually like any better than they do right now".

Maybe I just misread the intent of your election comment.

I'm just tired of the endless, meaningless minutia that gets critical examination ad nausea. Stuff that is amazingly so stupid and yet people go on discourses like they are talking about great issues of our time.

I can't believe America is reduced to superscripts, kerning and typewriter models. What a bunch of geniuses we all are.

We should open up a discussion about when you say "Lier, lier pants on fire" and whether your pants are actually on fire.

Better yet let's make the Enquirer the pool reporter for the whole darn process and really dig into some issues like how Kerry has more cellulite on his ass than Bush so vote Bush!

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm just tired of the endless, meaningless minutia that gets critical examination ad nausea.

Okay, so I think I was reading you about right then, give or take a little.
My point was/is that the election really doesn't have much to do with it IMO -- the same trivial shit has been bantered about since the last election & will continue to be argument fodder for the next four years regardless of who wins.

The point isn't really "insert a topic here" -- that's just a stage prop for people who really don't fucking like each other much to use while expressing their hostility.

[rkmsuf]

Okay, so I think I was reading you about right then, give or take a little.
My point was/is that the election really doesn't have much to do with it IMO -- the same trivial shit has been bantered about since the last election & will continue to be argument fodder for the next four years regardless of who wins.

The point isn't really "insert a topic here" -- that's just a stage prop for people who really don't fucking like each other much to use while expressing their hostility.

Completely agree. I find it offensive that it's 99.99% backbiting and you suck and .01% here's what I'd like to do to help this country.

This is all just a high school popularity contest...

[JonInMiddleGA]

Completely agree. I find it offensive that it's 99.99% backbiting and you suck and .01% here's what I'd like to do to help this country.

That's because, deep down, what a lot of people believe would "help this country" is to contain/minimize/eliminate enough of "the people who suck" in order to render them effectively meaningless.

No arguing with you or debating you or anything, it's just a topic that I've found rather interesting for at least a couple of years now -- particularly the way so many people seem to invest a lot of effort into denying this reality.

[rkmsuf]

That's because, deep down, what a lot of people believe would "help this country" is to contain/minimize/eliminate enough of "the people who suck" in order to render them effectively meaningless.

No arguing with you or debating you or anything, it's just a topic that I've found rather interesting for at least a couple of years now -- particularly the way so many people seem to invest a lot of effort into denying this reality.

That may be true and it's like saying "Uh, I have no idea what I'd really like to get accomplished but you suck and I want to beat you. We'll worry about the pesky details later. The only reason I'm running is because you are bad. I had no real desire to lead the country, I'm just tired of you."

I want to know why your opposition sucks other than malarky from 30 years ago, funny pictures or misspeaks. Also what I am going to better other than avoiding talking about 30 years ago, avoiding funny pictures and avoiding misspeaking.

[Crapshoot]

That's because, deep down, what a lot of people believe would "help this country" is to contain/minimize/eliminate enough of "the people who suck" in order to render them effectively meaningless.

No arguing with you or debating you or anything, it's just a topic that I've found rather interesting for at least a couple of years now -- particularly the way so many people seem to invest a lot of effort into denying this reality.

Exactly- I think your first line is the best summary of this. If I believe my best strategy towards success is to convert my opponent, I will try ad nauseam- especially in the abscense of better options.

[Crapshoot]

That may be true and it's like saying "Uh, I have no idea what I'd really like to get accomplished but you suck and I want to beat you. We'll worry about the pesky details later. The only reason I'm running is because you are bad. I had no real desire to lead the country, I'm just tired of you."

I want to know why your opposition sucks other than malarky from 30 years ago, funny pictures or misspeaks. Also what I am going to better other than avoiding talking about 30 years ago, avoiding funny pictures and avoiding misspeaking.

well, its simple really- If I want you to vote for A- I dont particularly care why you do so, as long as you do. If I dont believe his stance on ABC will convince, I need to give you other reasons why not to vote for him - ad hominem attacks so to speak. If the goal is win at all costs, and it seems like it would be effective- why not ?

[rkmsuf]

well, its simple really- If I want you to vote for A- I dont particularly care why you do so, as long as you do. If I dont believe his stance on ABC will convince, I need to give you other reasons why not to vote for him - ad hominem attacks so to speak. If the goal is win at all costs, and it seems like it would be effective- why not ?


I guess you have to do it but it's at the point that whatever happens everyone sucks.

[miked]

Damn...we need more smileys! I didn't get the sarcasm. As for the DoD thingy, I guess I misread. Some of them are from the DoD and others are personal "gifts" or something? Anyways...who cares...let's figure out who's going to feed and fund me, they get my vote.

[Crapshoot]

I guess you have to do it but it's at the point that whatever happens everyone sucks.

Im not stating the ideals means - its simply an ends justify the means arguement. If I am certain the country will go to hell if Kerry/Bush/Nader/Barney is elected, do I not have an obligation to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening ?

[rkmsuf]

Im not stating the ideals means - its simply an ends justify the means arguement. If I am certain the country will go to hell if Kerry/Bush/Nader/Barney is elected, do I not have an obligation to do whatever it takes to prevent that happening ?

How can you be certain of anything if there's no discussion of the issues or a refusal of voters to evalutate the issues? The whole thing becomes a meaningless exercise.

[Whar]

I know people think the media is left-wing but how incompetent do you think they are? CBS had these documents for weeks. They submitted them to type-writer experts and hand-writing experts. They passed muster. They have sources, from the time period, that state the documents are geniune. They have Maj Gen Hodges, Killians commanding officer, stating that the documents contain the same information that Killian and verbally communicated to him.

While I believe the documents could be fakes I think it is remote. First lets consider the physical. Modern printers are almost all laser printers. A laser print makes no mark on the page except the ink. A type-writer strikes the page to leave the ink mark. I believe I could tell the difference between a typed page and a laser printed page. I am certain a moderately competent expert could tell you that without caring about the fancy fonts.

Therefore the document had to be made on a printer that would simulate the strike of a type-writer. A Dot Matrix printer I am certain would also leave tell tale signs as well. So now our forger has to be bright enough to buy a fancy electronic type writer to make his forgery, yet stupid enough to leave in all the fancy font settings. (And of course stupid enough not to get an old type writer to make his forgeries on.)

Further the experts CBS used have to be stupid enough not to notice in the weeks they had the documents these inconsistancy which people examining the documents on the internet noticed in about a day.

It just does not seem to reasonable. If CBS reported on forgeries it would be the Mother of All Journalistic Fuckup! They know this and vetted the documents.

[Crapshoot]

How can you be certain of anything if there's no discussion of the issues or a refusal of voters to evalutate the issues? The whole thing becomes a meaningless exercise.

Playing the advocate again, you're missing the point. The point being is that if I believe with certainty about the potential downside to an action, I should (and will) take steps to prevent them from happening, as long as the potential downside of the steps (the opportunity cost of it, so to speak) are less than the potential downside of the original action. We're not debating if Im right or not to be certain (though I do find the concept that the average newspaper man or tv journalist is going to wow me with his economic insight or logic- sometime discussion is pointless), we're debating my actions as if I am. To some extent, I think Jon is a good example of this- he's certain that the left will be the downside of the US, and given that that is the case, he should take every step he can to prevent it from coming to power, whatever the potential costs (since they are liable to be less than doing nothing)- its a perfectly rational action. Which is why even if I dont agree with him on a few things, I understand his stance completely.

[sachmo71]

I know people think the media is left-wing but how incompetent do you think they are? CBS had these documents for weeks. They submitted them to type-writer experts and hand-writing experts. They passed muster. They have sources, from the time period, that state the documents are geniune. They have Maj Gen Hodges, Killians commanding officer, stating that the documents contain the same information that Killian and verbally communicated to him.

While I believe the documents could be fakes I think it is remote. First lets consider the physical. Modern printers are almost all laser printers. A laser print makes no mark on the page except the ink. A type-writer strikes the page to leave the ink mark. I believe I could tell the difference between a typed page and a laser printed page. I am certain a moderately competent expert could tell you that without caring about the fancy fonts.

Therefore the document had to be made on a printer that would simulate the strike of a type-writer. A Dot Matrix printer I am certain would also leave tell tale signs as well. So now our forger has to be bright enough to buy a fancy electronic type writer to make his forgery, yet stupid enough to leave in all the fancy font settings. (And of course stupid enough not to get an old type writer to make his forgeries on.)

Further the experts CBS used have to be stupid enough not to notice in the weeks they had the documents these inconsistancy which people examining the documents on the internet noticed in about a day.

It just does not seem to reasonable. If CBS reported on forgeries it would be the Mother of All Journalistic Fuckup! They know this and vetted the documents.

It doesn't matter now. It's "out there". The voters will soon have it drilled into their heads that Kerry got desperate, made some stuff up about whether Bush reported for duty and then got it back in spades.

It's all about who spins better, and GWB has the best spinners in the world on his side.

[Glengoyne]

...

It's all about who spins better, and GWB has the best spinners in the world on his side.
Well these "spinners" work for the Washington Post, and I didn't realize they had the President's back.

Oh and AFAIK all the Bush camp has said about this, is that the President served honorably in the Guard, and that he is proud of his service. Not a lot of spin there. The Whitehouse isn't going to declare these papers as frauds, they will wait and let an independant source do that. This is not the kind of thing they want to be wrong about.

[sterlingice]

I want to know why your opposition sucks other than malarky from 30 years ago, funny pictures or misspeaks. Also what I am going to better other than avoiding talking about 30 years ago, avoiding funny pictures and avoiding misspeaking.
I agree with you but I also disagree with you. More people will get swayed by this stupid crap they keep pulling than by political arguments. You gain more votes going after the other guy on personality than on issues. If you attack a guy's character, you are siphoning votes directly from him whereas if you take a stance on a major issue, you could gain some votes from him but you also risk alienating your people.

I'll echo that this is becoming more and more like a giant popularity contest in high school for class president. Then again, this is a country where Survivor and reality tv get good ratings that dwarf CSPAN, PBS, and cable news outlets.

And, I think it will get better once the election is over, at least for a little while, because people's opinions are much more important during the election cycle than during the rest of the time when political capital is much more important.

SI

[sachmo71]

Well these "spinners" work for the Washington Post, and I didn't realize they had the President's back.

Oh and AFAIK all the Bush camp has said about this, is that the President served honorably in the Guard, and that he is proud of his service. Not a lot of spin there. The Whitehouse isn't going to declare these papers as frauds, they will wait and let an independant source do that. This is not the kind of thing they want to be wrong about.

:rolleyes:

[rkmsuf]

I agree with you but I also disagree with you. More people will get swayed by this stupid crap they keep pulling than by political arguments. You gain more votes going after the other guy on personality than on issues. If you attack a guy's character, you are siphoning votes directly from him whereas if you take a stance on a major issue, you could gain some votes from him but you also risk alienating your people.

I'll echo that this is becoming more and more like a giant popularity contest in high school for class president. Then again, this is a country where Survivor and reality tv get good ratings that dwarf CSPAN, PBS, and cable news outlets.

And, I think it will get better once the election is over, at least for a little while, because people's opinions are much more important during the election cycle than during the rest of the time when political capital is much more important.

SI

I know why they do it.

I'll echo that this is becoming more and more like a giant popularity contest in high school for class president.

That probably sums up quite well my feelings on the topic.

[gstelmack]

I know people think the media is left-wing but how incompetent do you think they are?
Was it Nightline or one of the other news shows that fake the pickup truck gas tank explosions by planting explosives to go off during their tests? Didn't a British newspaper recently admit having faked photos of British abuse of prisoners in Iraq? There's two quick examples for you.

Frankly I think most of the media is "incompetent" at reporting good hard news, but very "competent" at entertaining the public and selling advertising space.

[sterlingice]

That probably sums up quite well my feelings on the topic.
It's a shame that they don't have to give more respect to the voting public. However, they don't have to because there are far too many stupid people swayed much more by mindless arguments and bickering than by actual issues. If you find me a solution to that problem, I'd love to hear it so we aren't stuck with this crap.

SI

[rkmsuf]

http://www.fakeconstitution.50megs.com/

[randal7]

CBS had these documents for weeks. They submitted them to type-writer experts and hand-writing experts. They passed muster. They have sources, from the time period, that state the documents are geniune. They have Maj Gen Hodges, Killians commanding officer, stating that the documents contain the same information that Killian and verbally communicated to him.

While I believe the documents could be fakes I think it is remote. First lets consider the physical. Modern printers are almost all laser printers. A laser print makes no mark on the page except the ink. A type-writer strikes the page to leave the ink mark. I believe I could tell the difference between a typed page and a laser printed page. I am certain a moderately competent expert could tell you that without caring about the fancy fonts.

Therefore the document had to be made on a printer that would simulate the strike of a type-writer. A Dot Matrix printer I am certain would also leave tell tale signs as well. So now our forger has to be bright enough to buy a fancy electronic type writer to make his forgery, yet stupid enough to leave in all the fancy font settings. (And of course stupid enough not to get an old type writer to make his forgeries on.)

Further the experts CBS used have to be stupid enough not to notice in the weeks they had the documents these inconsistancy which people examining the documents on the internet noticed in about a day.

It just does not seem to reasonable. If CBS reported on forgeries it would be the Mother of All Journalistic Fuckup! They know this and vetted the documents.

Re: paragraph 1:
CBS is defending the documents (last I read anyway) by saying people have told them the documents are consistent with what the colonel told them during that time, IE hearsay. Other people, including the colonel's wife and son, say he thought highly of Bush, and did not keep private files or notes such as these documents. And CBS has yet to say how they got the documents, so we don't know they had them for weeks. If they thought it was real, it is highly unlikely they would sit on something that hot for very long. My guess is they trusted the source enough that they didn't check thoroughly, and got burned.

Re: rest of post:
My understanding is these are copies, not originals, so there would be no impressions from the typewriter keys.

[Glengoyne]

:rolleyes:
Rolled eyes is nice, but no response to the Washington Post reporting that their experts beleive the documents were likely forged?

[GrantDawg]

I love how people ignore the facts they don't like, and then make up others that don't exist. Fun.

[Glengoyne]

I love how people ignore the facts they don't like, and then make up others that don't exist. Fun.
Please do elaborate. I don't know if you are referring to my post, but if you are I'd like to know what I made up.

[GrantDawg]

Please do elaborate. I don't know if you are referring to my post, but if you are I'd like to know what I made up.
No, stop being paraniod. AND LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!!!!!

[Glengoyne]

No, stop being paraniod. AND LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!!!!!
Damn! I had never even noticed that camera in my office. Thanks a bunch.

[Whar]

CBS is defending the documents (last I read anyway) by saying people have told them the documents are consistent with what the colonel told them during that time, IE hearsay.

That is not hearsay. If you sit a guy down on the witness stand and ask him "Were you told to go to the store by Jim?" he can answer the question. The witness has direct knowledge of the statement. CBS has defended the papers by citing people who had direct knowledge of the memo or direct contact with Killian regarding his opinion of Bush. They have also stated that 4 expert examined the document and concluded them geniune.

While CBS could still have screw-up they seem done their due diligence.

[Leonidas]

That is not hearsay. If you sit a guy down on the witness stand and ask him "Were you told to go to the store by Jim?" he can answer the question. The witness has direct knowledge of the statement. CBS has defended the papers by citing people who had direct knowledge of the memo or direct contact with Killian regarding his opinion of Bush. They have also stated that 4 expert examined the document and concluded them geniune.

While CBS could still have screw-up they seem done their due diligence.

CBS claims they spent 6 weeks verifying these documents, yet liberal paper The Washington Post found four experts in one day to say they were probably fake, not to mention they interviewed the guy's son and widow who both said he never kept documents like that and that the Lt Col always said young Bush was an excellent pilot.

Just goes to show 60 Minutes has an agenda, and they got caught out in the light on it. 60 Minutes clearly has gone the way of the New York Times as a credible news source.

[CamEdwards]

anybody see the "rebuttal" on CBS evening news tonight?

Woo boy. Not a convincing job by CBS.

[Glengoyne]

anybody see the "rebuttal" on CBS evening news tonight?

Woo boy. Not a convincing job by CBS.
No but now I am curious.

[John Galt]

No but now I am curious.

Here is the print version:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml

[John Galt]

Another interesting factoid (ripped from Salon.com):

Yet independent researcher Marty Heldt notes that he had received an undisputed Bush military document in 2000 from the Vietnam era that clearly contains a superscripted "th." He also notes that when Killian's Aug. 14, 1973, memo is enlarged and the word "interference" is examined, it's clear the two middle e's rest higher on the page than the other two e's; that is not something a modern-day word processor would likely do.

I hadn't read anything about the e's before. This all kind of goofy, but I'm sure it will sort it self out in the next few days.

[CamEdwards]

I checked at 200% of the original document size. You're right. Then again there's another example of kerning in the same word, between the "r" and "f". That's not indicative of a typewriter.

I hope you're right about it all sorting itself out. I'd love for CBS to release their copies to an independent panel of forensic document experts, not the handwriting guy they had on tonight.

[Glengoyne]

The CBS defense that I read on MSNBC had some of the stuff from referenced in John's post. But on NPR tonight, on the ride home, they had a forensic document expert that said that some typewriters had some of the features required to produce the memos as early as the 50s, and there were certainly typewriters in the late 60s that had other features used in the memos. He called them composing typewriters or something like that. He said that they were beyond top of the line for typical use, and they required special training to even use. So he thought it unlikely that someone would have gone through the trouble(and time) of using the features apparent in the documents to writing these types of memos. And that is also assuming that a National Guard Officer even had access to that class of typewriter.

The family says they didn't give the documents to anyone, so I am still curious where they came from.

To me the thing that clicked with me and caused me to say "I bet they turn out to be fakes" was the language used. It fit exactly into what Bush's opponents have been saying. It was too perfect.

I have also heard contradictory things about the signatures and whether they match other Killian signatures from the era. I don't know what to think. It seems it is not a simple slam dunk "No way in hell could that document have been produced in 1972", so this looks like it might linger on without resolution for sometime.

[Joe]

anyone think its possible someone affiliated with the Bush campaign may have released these documents, making them look obviously fake on purpose?

[CamEdwards]

you tell me. :)

Seriously? I don't think anybody connected (at least directly) with either campaign would be dumb enough to do that. Why do that? If the Bush campaign were behind this, there's no way in hell that CBS would keep the source a secret if/when the story collapsed.

My hunch is that the documents were given to an overeager producer by someone who's interested in seeing Kerry win, but not directly involved in the Kerry campaign. Someone not too bright, because of the obvious nature of some of this stuff. If it were a not so bright person interested in seeing Bush win, but not directly involved in the Bush campaign the memos would probably have been more positive to Bush, and they would have been given to Fox News. :)

[Glengoyne]

anyone think its possible someone affiliated with the Bush campaign may have released these documents, making them look obviously fake on purpose?
John mentioned that Karl Rove might be involved at some point earlier. Also I have heard a couple of pundits float that idea. One of them mentioning that Terry McAullife was mentioning that possibility along with the fact that the thought that the documents might have been faked was initially brought to public light on a CBS message board at 9:59 Wednesday night. The post apparently mentioned things like the font being inconsistent, and at that point the memos had only been flashed briefly on the screen.

I just watched both MSNBC and Fox News take a look at the documents, and MSNBC's forensic document expert said that he could not imagine any expert concluding that the documents actually came from a 1970s vintage typewriter. They gave his credentials, and mentioned that he had been doing this for law enforcement for over 20 years. He pointed to things like heading being perfectly centered on the page, and centered with the other text on the page. With a typewriter that just isn't easilly done. One of the talking heads on Fox(I Think) mentioned that, in 1970, a typewriter with proportional spacing and justification would have run several thousand dollars. They simply weren't used outside of the publishing business.

CNBC also showed some of the CBS defense of their findings mentioning that subscripts were found on other documents originating from the Air Guard base in Texas. The example they showed was clearly not "in-kind" with the "th" subscript on the Bush memo. The characters were almost as large as the normal text. I'm starting to understand how someone who hasn't even looked at the originals could say that they are 90% certain they were faked. After seeing that piece I think I have also come to the conclusion that if someone doesn't produce a reasonable typewriter from that era with these features and the appropriate typeface, there is no way I will believe these are genuine.

Then on Fox they had a guy on from the Air Guard in Texas. He had some interesting things to say.

First, pilots had until the last day of their birth month to report to their physical. So there is no reasonable explanation why the memo ordering him to take his physical two months prior to the date required would have been sent.

Second, the memo from '73 mentions a superior officer, Staudt, pressuring Hodges to sugar coat Bush's rating. Staudt retired from the Military in '72, so he wouldn't have been in the chain of command at the time the memo was written.

Third, the memo mentions Bush and the OETR. That wasn't the acronym in use at the time, it was instead OER. Since Killian was charged with rating a number of pilots, I am under the impression that he would have known what form he was filling out.

[Leonidas]

These documents certainly look sloppy enough to have been deliberately faked, with the intention of getting caught. My hunch is this was a setup for 60 Minutes. I don't think it will affect Kerry one way or the other. However Tom Harkins has pretty much shot himself in the foot for national credibility, and Terry McAuliffe is pretty much a known scumbag anyway so it's not like he hurt himself. He's said worse things about Bush than what he's said this week.

What's pathetic is just how badly 60 Minutes blew it. Killian's son told them before they even aired the show that he thought the documents were bogus, yet they went ahead with it anyway.

I guess in the end this all probably helps Bush because now the whole issue with his Guard service is an overdone joke. Anyone attacking it now is talking to the wind.

[JPhillips]

The Boston Globe:

Authenticity backed on Bush documents
By Francie Latour and Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff | September 11, 2004

After CBS News on Wednesday trumpeted newly discovered documents that referred to a 1973 effort to ''sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the documents were forgeries, with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time.

But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe yesterday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

Analysts who have examined the documents focus on several facets of their typography, among them the use of a curved apostrophe, a raised, or superscript, ''th," and the proportional spacing between the characters -- spacing which varies with the width of the letters. In older typewriters, each letter was alloted the same space.

Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised ''th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record that the White House made public earlier this year.

Bouffard, the Ohio document specialist, said that he had dismissed the Bush documents in an interview with The New York Times because the letters and formatting of the Bush memos did not match any of the 4,000 samples in his database. But Bouffard yesterday said that he had not considered one of the machines whose type is not logged in his database: the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted.

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Bouffard yesterday provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 -- three years before the dates of the CBS memos -- the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

As for the raised ''th" that appears in the Bush memos -- to refer, for example, to units such as the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron -- Bouffard said that custom characters on the Composer's metal typehead ball were available in the 1970s, and that the military could have ordered such custom balls from IBM.

''You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer," Bouffard said.

[clintl]

anyone think its possible someone affiliated with the Bush campaign may have released these documents, making them look obviously fake on purpose?

Thanks for confessing!

[CamEdwards]

Dr. Bouffard is angry. Very angry. Says he's been misrepresented by the Boston Globe.

hxxp://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php

[Glengoyne]

Jphillips

That is an interesting piece. The IBM Selectric Composer was the typewriter the NPR Typewriter "pundit":) talked about. He said it had the features required, some built in, some as options. If I read a little more into what he said, the only thing he wasn't sure was available was the typeface/font. The article you link seems to indicate that, that too was possible. So it does appear that most if not all of the aspects of the memo were possible in 1972.

Now I think the debate goes to how reasonable is it to believe that Killian had one of these typewriters at his disposal.

From what I understand about the IBM Selectric and Composing typewriters, and this is the result of reading three web pages linked by Google, and listening to what the two or three pundits that mentioned them on-air had to say about them. Certainly this is far from rock solid info, more along the lines of thinking outloud.


-Composing Typewriters were used in the publishing industry by small time "in-house" publishers printing small pieces of work. Universities were given as an example of an institution that would use a Composing Typewriter to publish academic works. They would choose a Composing Typewriter over other typesetting publishing techniques, because of cost and relative ease of use.
-The cost of a Selectric composer in 1970 has been referenced as "Several Thousand Dollars". One of the Talking heads on Fox mentioned "twenty thousand dollars". I'd like to know definatively how much one of these things cost at the time as well as how widely were they sold. Is it possible the expert quoted above didn't have samples of the Selectric because of it's rarity, or it's use as a publishing tool instead of a typewriter?
-Composing Typewriters required special training to use. They aren't "normal" typewriters. This I'd like to hear more about. The pictures of the Selectric look like a normal typewriter, the keys don' t appear to be differently placed. I just don't know.
-The features used to produce these memos, while available, weren't easilly used in practice. So how likely is it that someone who typed their own work, eventhough, according to his son, he was a poor typist, going to go through the trouble of Centering headings and such just to write a memo to himself?

I guess there are just a lot more questions about this than there are answers right now.

[gstelmack]

Dr. Bouffard is angry. Very angry. Says he's been misrepresented by the Boston Globe.

hxxp://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php
It's a cheap shot, and really beneath discussion, but I must say that "Kerry Kamp" tickled my funnybone http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Glengoyne]

It's a cheap shot, and really beneath discussion, but I must say that "Kerry Kamp" tickled my funnybone http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
I'm curious about the cheapshot? The top of the article with the reported conversation with the docor? Or the bottom of the page with the clearly biased commentary?

If the doctor is saying he was mis-represented, then I'm sure more will be said about it.

I did read a couple of the posts from readers below, and this little quote is my favorite. It's not from the Doctor.
This is like seeing a Boing 747 in a movie supposedly from World War II, and some partisan defenders insisting that really, jet engines existed and were in use back then so it could have been genuine.

[gstelmack]

I'm curious about the cheapshot? The top of the article with the reported conversation with the docor? Or the bottom of the page with the clearly biased commentary?
No, the cheap shot was the "Kerry Kamp" comment included in the biased commentary. The actual phrase "Kerry Kamp" is a clear cheapshot that I just found humorous as all get out...

[JPhillips]

Glen: I agree that there are a number of open questions. If pushed, I'd probably conclude that CBS got punk'd. What is clear though is that it isn't an open and shut case of forgery as many would have you believe.

It's very irritating that many of those willing to believe the claims of the first Swift Boat ad are no so vocally crying LIARS! I guess the lesson here is that if you are going to make shit up, don't leave a paper trail.

[sterlingice]

I've figured out who did this!

http://typewriter.rydia.net/

I mean, c'mon, it all fits. Typewriters haven't been talked about this much since the 1980s.

SI

[CamEdwards]

Glen: I agree that there are a number of open questions. If pushed, I'd probably conclude that CBS got punk'd. What is clear though is that it isn't an open and shut case of forgery as many would have you believe.

It's very irritating that many of those willing to believe the claims of the first Swift Boat ad are no so vocally crying LIARS! I guess the lesson here is that if you are going to make shit up, don't leave a paper trail.

Here's a difference, JPhillips. The Swift Boat Guys were (and still are) never shy of doing interviews, even if they were going to get their credibility challenged. You can't say that about whoever gave that document to CBS.

[John Galt]

Jphillips

That is an interesting piece. The IBM Selectric Composer was the typewriter the NPR Typewriter "pundit":) talked about. He said it had the features required, some built in, some as options. If I read a little more into what he said, the only thing he wasn't sure was available was the typeface/font. The article you link seems to indicate that, that too was possible. So it does appear that most if not all of the aspects of the memo were possible in 1972.

Now I think the debate goes to how reasonable is it to believe that Killian had one of these typewriters at his disposal.

From what I understand about the IBM Selectric and Composing typewriters, and this is the result of reading three web pages linked by Google, and listening to what the two or three pundits that mentioned them on-air had to say about them. Certainly this is far from rock solid info, more along the lines of thinking outloud.


-Composing Typewriters were used in the publishing industry by small time "in-house" publishers printing small pieces of work. Universities were given as an example of an institution that would use a Composing Typewriter to publish academic works. They would choose a Composing Typewriter over other typesetting publishing techniques, because of cost and relative ease of use.
-The cost of a Selectric composer in 1970 has been referenced as "Several Thousand Dollars". One of the Talking heads on Fox mentioned "twenty thousand dollars". I'd like to know definatively how much one of these things cost at the time as well as how widely were they sold. Is it possible the expert quoted above didn't have samples of the Selectric because of it's rarity, or it's use as a publishing tool instead of a typewriter?
-Composing Typewriters required special training to use. They aren't "normal" typewriters. This I'd like to hear more about. The pictures of the Selectric look like a normal typewriter, the keys don' t appear to be differently placed. I just don't know.
-The features used to produce these memos, while available, weren't easilly used in practice. So how likely is it that someone who typed their own work, eventhough, according to his son, he was a poor typist, going to go through the trouble of Centering headings and such just to write a memo to himself?

I guess there are just a lot more questions about this than there are answers right now.

I've been reading stuff about the Selectric since the story broke and at least some people said (although I have no idea what their source was) that the Selectric was extensively used in the military (probably a big, wasteful contract), but probably not in the National Guard.

And just a side note - given Killian's rank and stature (and the time this occurred), I would seriously doubt he would have typed this - he would have dictated it and had it typed by a secretary. I have no actual knowledge on this, but I really can't imagine any ranking officer typing their own stuff at that time.

[Glengoyne]

I've been reading stuff about the Selectric since the story broke and at least some people said (although I have no idea what their source was) that the Selectric was extensively used in the military (probably a big, wasteful contract), but probably not in the National Guard.

And just a side note - given Killian's rank and stature (and the time this occurred), I would seriously doubt he would have typed this - he would have dictated it and had it typed by a secretary. I have no actual knowledge on this, but I really can't imagine any ranking officer typing their own stuff at that time.
The bit about Killian typing his own stuff, was from his son. So who knows. I do agree with you on your question about how likely that was.

Also the type-writer people are pointing to is not a run of the mill IBM Selectric, but an IBM Selectric Composer. As I understand it, the features at question were available on the Composer, but not a typical typewriter.

We will see. Oh and not everyone believed everything the Swift Boat Vets said.

[Solecismic]

Seems like a non-story to me, other than the further erosion of confidence in network news. Dan Rather's legacy.

[Dutch]

EDITED FOR CONTENT

[CamEdwards]

Seems like a non-story to me, other than the further erosion of confidence in network news. Dan Rather's legacy.

well, there is the matter of where the memo came from. If it was leaked to CBS by Karl Rove, something tells me it becomes an issue.

If it was leaked to CBS by Robin Rather (Dan's daughter, a Travis County Democrat, and a donor to the Kerry campaign), something tells me that becomes an issue.

My opinion is it's a little early to declare this a non-story.

[JPhillips]

Cam: CBS has no reason to reveal the source. Should Novak reveal who gave him Plame's identity? While I'm sure the source could provide more info, as journalists they shouldn't reveal the source unless the source okays it. CBS News would be idiotic to reveal their source on this or any other news story.

[Glengoyne]

Cam: CBS has no reason to reveal the source. Should Novak reveal who gave him Plame's identity? While I'm sure the source could provide more info, as journalists they shouldn't reveal the source unless the source okays it. CBS News would be idiotic to reveal their source on this or any other news story.
They certainly aren't going to reveal the source, if they turn out to be valid. On the other hand, if it turns out they were duped, they might just be willing to do so. If they were duped, then someone gave them the documents and then told them they saw them created. I'm guessing that they have also accounted for the whereabouts of the papers since they were written. The family denies any role in the papers. They say Killian didn't have a home office or keep personal files at home. I'm wondering if he had a secretary or clerk, that would have done his paper work. That person would seem to be the most likely "suspect", as it were.

[Dutch]

Casting further doubt on the memos, The Dallas Morning News said in a report for its Saturday editions that the officer named in a memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's record had left the Texas Air National Guard 1 1/2 years before the memo was dated.

The newspaper said it obtained an order showing that Walter B. Staudt, former commander of the Texas Guard, retired on March 1, 1972. The memo was dated Aug. 18, 1973. A telephone call to Staudt's home Friday night was not answered.

"60 Minutes" relied on the documents as part of a Wednesday segment — reported by Rather — on Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132119,00.html

That's weird.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Damn! I had never even noticed that camera in my office. Thanks a bunch.

No more having sex in the med room for me. :rolleyes:

[CamEdwards]

Cam: CBS has no reason to reveal the source. Should Novak reveal who gave him Plame's identity? While I'm sure the source could provide more info, as journalists they shouldn't reveal the source unless the source okays it. CBS News would be idiotic to reveal their source on this or any other news story.

I did an informal poll with other journalists about this on Friday. I've yet to talk to a reporter or editor who says "if the memo's are fake, CBS should still not reveal their sources." To a person they say if the source burned them, you burn the source.

[Glengoyne]

I am for some reason obsessed with this topic. I am watching football and googling IBM Composing Selectric.

The museum of printing http://www.museumofprinting.org/Collection.html
Lists the Composing Selectric among other typesetting tools. It also says it was "computer driven". I am wondering how big this thing is. It mentions different balls that can be switched in and out for different print effects.

I found a PC magazine piece as well http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1644869,00.asp



Pop-Quiz:
Which image was typed on an IBM Selectric Composer?
Which one was typed in Microsoft Word?
(See below for answers and an explanation.) <!-- start ziffimage //-->http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/8/0,1311,i=87218,00.gif<!-- end ziffimage //--> <!-- start ziffimage //-->http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/8/0,1311,i=87217,00.gif<!-- end ziffimage //-->



<!-- Vignette V6 Fri Sep 10 18:29:30 2004 --><!--WEB 2--><!-- RELATED LINKS -->A great deal has been made of the fact that some documents that are claimed to have been typed in the early 1970s look very much like documents prepared in Microsoft Word in 2004. (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526_Bush_Guard_Documents-_Forged) This fact proves nothing, because (1) a document may well have been typed on a typewriter in the 1970s and (2) virtually the same document can be prepared on a computer in 2004. (Some other comments on this issue, from a notably better-informed perspective, may be found here. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603))

In order to demonstrate that it proves absolutely nothing to show that a document can be reproduced a computer, consider the two images below. One of them was typed on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter; the other was typed in Microsoft Word. The fact that the two resemble each other does not prove that both of them were typed in Microsoft Word. It only proves that Microsoft Word (by default) uses a typeface very similar to one that was available in the early 1970s for the IBM Selectric Composer. (For a brief description of the IBM Selectric Composer, try this link. (http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/description.htm))

Here are the two images. Which one was typed forty or more years ago on a typewriter, and which one was typed on a computer today? The answer is at the foot of this page (scroll down when you're ready).

The image that was prepared in Word was typed without any adjustments whatsoever to the spacing of the type. I reproduced the hyphenation of the IBM original by manually inserting hyphens (without spaces afterwards) after the same letters where hyphens occur in the IBM text.

The source of the image made on an IBM Selectric Composer was the printed manual for that IBM typewriter. A scanned image of the manual may be found at here (http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/Manual/toc.htm). The manual (as stated in a note on its second page) was actually typed on an IBM Selectric Composer in order to demonstrate its capabilities. (As the note explains, the large-type headlines in the manual were not typed on a Selectric Composer, but everything else was typed on that machine).

If you go to the page numbered 100 in the scanned IBM manual, you can find a list of type elements in different sizes, including ones with capitals sized 5 and 6 points. Superscripts may not have been quite as difficult to type on a Composing Selectric as many people say they were.

Of course, none of this demonstrates that the documents dated from the early 1970s are in fact genuine. It only demonstrates that the fact that the disputed documents can be reproduced in Microsoft Word is not convincing evidence that they are inauthentic.

The identifications of the two images may be found one screen (more or less) below this line. Scroll down...







Answer: The one on the LEFT was made in Microsoft Word.

A personal note: I performed this experiment in typography because I have been interested for years in the history and technology of type, not for any partisan political purposes, except to the degree that the public interest is better served by truth than by falsehoods.


Then I found a link to the message board for a blogger. In a thread discussing the documents the above article was linked, the blogger himself posted a reply.

1. This talks about an IBM Selectric *Composer* -- a high-end typewriter
that was sold as a typesetting machine by IBM. It cost in the
neighborhood of $4,000 in early 1970s dollars. Whether or not this is
the sort of thing you'd find in the TANG is questioanble.

The issue is not whether or not there were typesetting machines that
could reproduce the memo in the 1970s -- certainly there probably were,
and from what I've read elsewhere about the Composer, you could get some
of the effects seen in the memos.

So the issue is how likely is it that this TANG officer, who didn't
type, wrote these memos on a IBM Selectric Composer when every single
other piece of documentation coming out of his office both before and
after these memos looks nothing like these documents.

2. The author doesn't seem to understand the point of the MS Word
demonstration. The point isn't that you can, with a lot of work, make a
document today look like one from a 1970s typewriter. Of course you can.
But notice he has to do a lot of extra work in Word -- add hyphens
manually, etc.

What Charles Johnson did was type the memo in and noticed that the line,
letter and word spacing matches exactly with the 1970s memos. There are
a number of problems with that, including the fact that the military at
that time used paper that was 8" wide rather than 8.5" so it is *very
odd* that the margins match up perfectly.

It is also very odd that there are three memos, if I remember correctly,
that have perfectly centered typewritten letterheads. And by perfect I
mean you can overlay them and they are as identical to each other as you
would get by producing them on a laser printer today. That suggests that
some sort of typesetting system -- MS Word or this Selectric Composer or
some other typesetting equipment -- were used, which again is very
suspicious. If they are genunine, this man went to a lot of effort to
have typographically lovely memos that were for his personal files
(which his wife and son maintain simply didn't exist).

3. "If you go to the page numbered 100 in the scanned IBM manual, you
can find a list of type elements in different sizes, including ones with
capitals sized 5 and 6 points. Superscripts may not have been quite as
difficult to type on a Composing Selectric as many people say they were."

Actually it is relatively difficult and, in any event, would involve
swapping out balls. Again, it's not impossible, but if you're typing a
short 250-300 word memo that you're, are you going to take the time to
swap balls back and forth just to get superscripting? That just doesnt't
add upp.

4. "Of course, none of this demonstrates that the documents dated from
the early 1970s are in fact genuine. It only demonstrates that the fact
that the disputed documents can be reproduced in Microsoft Word is not
convincing evidence that they are inauthentic."

Of course not. The point is there are a whole variety of things odd
about the documents. Any one of them alone would not be anything more
than an oddity, but the totality taken together about the documents
taken into account that everyone from the officer's wife to his former
commanding officer say the documents appear to be fake means CBS has to
step up to the plate and authorize an outside, independent look at the
documents. It is CBS that bears the burden to demontrate that they are
authentic.
I really agree with a lot of his points. I think that since the IBM Composing Selectric was available in the seventies it is not a simple slam dunk that these are faked. I think the focus needs to be placed on how widely available this typewriter was, and whether it would have seen any realistic utilization outside of the "publishing" industry. A second question I'd like answered is do the superscripts available at the time match the ones found in the Document. MS word can match them exactly, but can the Selectric? The superscripts that CBS touts as existing on documents from the Texas Air Guard, do not come close to mathing those in the memos.

I'm beginning to wonder what the "over-under" on a CBS mea-culpa is. Perhaps on the next edition of sisty minutes two? Hey maybe this was all about ratings.

[CamEdwards]

Glengoyne,

If you want to see what the memo would have looked like were it written on a Composer (which would basically be like you or I using a freakin' printing press to make a memo)... try hxxp://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html

He got a guy who actually ownes a Composer to type out the memo. It's very interesting.

The leap of logic that it takes to believe these are real is astounding, yet CBS persists that the memos are the real deal. And even if they're not, Rather says, what's important are the questions they raise.

Umm... no. Fake memos can't raise real questions.

I still say this is a big deal, not necessarily politically, but for CBS and the media. I've actually regained a little bit of confidence in the media as I've seen them cover this story (albeit with some problems). As to the over-under on a mea culpa, the last time 60 Minutes used fake memos in a news story (1997) it took them two years to formally apologize, and that was after a lawsuit had been filed.

Let's hope they learned something from that experience.

[Dutch]

Source Pulls Support for Memos on Bush Guard Service
Sunday, September 12, 2004

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132157,00.html

Says he was read the memo's over the phone, never saw them directly....sad ploy by our faithful free media to affect the outcome of our elections!

[gtmarc]

Amazing how the Republicans can change the topic and how most people will willingly follow them.

There was actually something important on this story this last week, that the Republican smoke screen about typewriters has managed to mostly obscure.

The story about Bush and the National Guard had previously been that the Texas National Guard had released him from any further service so that he could attend Harvard Business School.

Now its emerged that the Texas National Guard did not release Lt. Bush early. They did say he could go to Harvard, but the condition was that Lt. Bush sign on with a National Guard unit in Massachusetts. There's absolutely no record of Lt. Bush ever contacting the MA National Guard.

The day after I saw that, this bs about the typewriters and the CYA Memo to File document began.

Amazing to me that here we are in a war, with a government that's constantly saying we need to give up our rights for security, and in an economy that's losing jobs and if anything barely out of a recession, and both the Democrats and Republicans seem mainly to want to talk about what these two did during Vietnam.

I don't like Democrats or Republicans, but to me this Bush crew has been so incompetent they need to go.

[Glengoyne]

...
There was actually something important on this story this last week, that the Republican smoke screen about typewriters has managed to mostly obscure.

The story about Bush and the National Guard had previously been that the Texas National Guard had released him from any further service so that he could attend Harvard Business School.

Now its emerged that the Texas National Guard did not release Lt. Bush early. They did say he could go to Harvard, but the condition was that Lt. Bush sign on with a National Guard unit in Massachusetts. There's absolutely no record of Lt. Bush ever contacting the MA National Guard.
...

Interesting. Did I miss something about Bush and Harvard Law or the Air Guard in Massachusetts? I thought the story had been he was in Alabama working on a political campaign. Also wouldn't your issue be somewhat mitigated by the fact that he received an honorable discharge from the Air Guard? I didn't think they handed out Honorable Discharges to AWOL soldiers.

The Bush people didn't bring this story out. This memo scandal was started by CBS on sixty minutes two. So while yes this has become a focus of interest, it is not controlled by the Bush campaign. If someone hadn't been so motivated to smear the President, then these memos wouldn't have been in the news. Perhaps there would have been some worthwhile coverage in it's place. Then again, most likely not. I think we are SOL until the debates.

[GrantDawg]

Interesting. Did I miss something about Bush and Harvard Law or the Air Guard in Massachusetts? I thought the story had been he was in Alabama working on a political campaign. Also wouldn't your issue be somewhat mitigated by the fact that he received an honorable discharge from the Air Guard? I didn't think they handed out Honorable Discharges to AWOL soldiers.

The Bush people didn't bring this story out. This memo scandal was started by CBS on sixty minutes two. So while yes this has become a focus of interest, it is not controlled by the Bush campaign. If someone hadn't been so motivated to smear the President, then these memos wouldn't have been in the news. Perhaps there would have been some worthwhile coverage in it's place. Then again, most likely not. I think we are SOL until the debates.
Sadly, it looks like the Dems have decided they do not want to attack issues, but concentrate on what happened 35 years ago. Let me paint the picture I see of the two:

G.W.B.- Rich kid who got out of Vietnam by wealth and influence and didn't exactly serve with the best intentions.

John Kerry- Volunteered to serve, got three purple hearts and Silver and Bronze Star (wish it would end there). Then he came home, called those he served with war criminals, compared them to Ghengis Khan, claimed he entered Cambodia when he didn't, threw medals that were supposed to be his but belong to someone else....

advantage Bush.

[JPhillips]

Grant: This is hardly limited to Dems. Don't you remember SBVT?

[miked]

I did an informal poll with other journalists about this on Friday. I've yet to talk to a reporter or editor who says "if the memo's are fake, CBS should still not reveal their sources." To a person they say if the source burned them, you burn the source.

They should release their sources to the same degree Novak should. Novak willingly participated in what is a capital offense (I believe). That is the lowest form of journalism I've seen. Isn't what happened to that CIA officer considered treason? If the law can't make Novak spill the beans about who committed treason, why should anyone reveal this POS memo source?

[Buddy Grant]

Seems like a non-story to me, other than the further erosion of confidence in network news. Dan Rather's legacy.
Do you mean a non-story in that you personally would prefer not to hear about it or a non-story in that you think nobody else should hear about it? As for erosion of confidence in network news, that sounds premature in this case. If this story is accurate (and regardless of the WN in this forum, that is still being debated) shouldn't this kind of reporting actually increase your confidence?

[Fritz]

"Are you going to vote for Bush because you think Kerry didn't earn his medals given before you were born?"

I was born.

[JonInMiddleGA]

They should release their sources to the same degree Novak should. Novak willingly participated in what is a capital offense (I believe). That is the lowest form of journalism I've seen. Isn't what happened to that CIA officer considered treason? If the law can't make Novak spill the beans about who committed treason, why should anyone reveal this POS memo source?

1) Actually, I believe the penalty attached is up to 10 years in prison.
2) Intent is required as part of the crime
3) No, what "happened" to the operative is question isn't covered under "treason", but rather under a different statute. Or, at least the discussions I've read about the situation all make reference to a different law, one that is specific to covert operatives.

[CamEdwards]

Interesting. Did I miss something about Bush and Harvard Law or the Air Guard in Massachusetts? I thought the story had been he was in Alabama working on a political campaign. Also wouldn't your issue be somewhat mitigated by the fact that he received an honorable discharge from the Air Guard? I didn't think they handed out Honorable Discharges to AWOL soldiers.

The Bush people didn't bring this story out. This memo scandal was started by CBS on sixty minutes two. So while yes this has become a focus of interest, it is not controlled by the Bush campaign. If someone hadn't been so motivated to smear the President, then these memos wouldn't have been in the news. Perhaps there would have been some worthwhile coverage in it's place. Then again, most likely not. I think we are SOL until the debates.

When he went to Harvard he was transferred to a Reserve unit in Denver. This is because he was allowed to go on inactive or standby reserve status (I can't remember which).

Now, if we really want to continue in this vein, we could talk about what John Kerry did while he had inactive or standby reserve status. Kerry had that status from 1970 to 1978, according to documents on his website. That means his trip to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese, his testimony, his throwing of the medals, etc. were all done while he was technically a member of the Navy Reserve.

As a conservative, I'm finding it amazing that the Demcrats are continuing in this vein. Whoever's in charge of making decisions like this really needs to be fired.

[GrantDawg]

Grant: This is hardly limited to Dems. Don't you remember SBVT?
Yup, I remember that they would only gotten play on Right Wing Radio if John Kerry hadn't spent his whole convention playing only to his war record and then his whole August keeping them on the newspaper covers instead of DEALING WITH ISSUES!!! I expect Bush not to highlight the issues. If Kerry has a vision when in the heck does he plan to show it? Is his vision to refight the Vietnam war? That seems to be his plan so far.

[GrantDawg]

Whoever's in charge of making decisions like this really needs to be fired.
Could not agree more. Worse run campaign ever!

[Solecismic]

These guys are making me look bad. A couple of months ago, I predicted an easy win for Kerry. At least 150 EVs. Now, it could go either way. I still think Kerry pulls it out, but it may be another one of those that isn't called until 3 a.m..

What a horrible campaign Kerry has run. He makes Dukakis look good in comparison. Even Edwin Muskie and his crying game would be an improvement.

[JPhillips]

Grant: We remember things slightly differently. I remember CNN running the first SBVT ad before Kerry responded. In fact the SBVT ad only ran in a few states, but by the time Kerry responded a majority of the country claimed to have seen or knew about the ads. It was the "liberal" media that provided a free forum for the SBVT.

Now, Kerry certainly handled this poorly. We are in complete agreement here. But, you can't blame Kerry for ads.

[Ksyrup]

Consider the source, of course (American Spectator)...but this article suggests that the documents may have come from someone in the Kerry campaign:



<TABLE width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>Here We Go Some More</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>By The Prowler ([email protected]) </TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>Published 9/13/2004 12:08:06 AM

</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE borderColor=red cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=1></TD><TD align=left>While CBS news anchor Dan Rather can say there is no internal investigation under way over the alleged forged documents used as the foundation for an investigation into President George W. Bush's National Guard service, you wouldn't have been able to tell from the 15 or so 60 Minutes and CBS News" staffers working away feverishly on Friday and Saturday to try to nail down their story.

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."

Hodges is a critical loss for CBS News' credibility. He was the superior officer of the man CBS claims wrote the memo, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.


MEANWHILE, OVER THE WEEKEND journalists from around the country were attempting to track down the original source of the documents. "We're having a hard time tracking how we got the documents," says the CBS News producer. "There are at least two people in this building who have insisted we got copies of these memos from the Kerry campaign by way of an additional source. We do not have the originals, and our sources have indicated to us that we will not be getting the originals. How that is possible I don't know."

One individual several news outlets were looking at was Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer. Burkett in the past has cooperated with both press and Democratic Party opposition researchers in slinging mud at President Bush. Burkett gained some national attention earlier in the campaign when he claimed he was at National Guard headquarters in Austin 1997, when he overheard Guard officials and a representative of then Governor Bush discuss how to sanitize Bush's files. That story was fully discredited. Nonetheless, Burkett sat down for at least three different interviews with CBS News for the story now at the center of the controversy. One of those interviews was with Rather's producer, Ms. Mapes.

"There are rumors here that if there are any real documents, they are hand-written notes from Killian that someone like Burkett was holding, and that instead of using the hand-written notes, someone typed them up to look more official," says the CBS News producer. "They would look better on TV and posted on line if they were typed, but on a number of levels, that story just doesn't hold up. There are too many inconsistencies factually with what is in the memos."


THE MOST GLARING ISSUES now are the seemingly phony P.O. Box addresses used in the headers of at least one of the memorandums. Such post office box addresses were not used by the National Guard at that time.

Yet another issue: the 18-month gap between the retirement of Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt on March 1, 1972, and August 18, 1973, when the Killian of the disputed memos claimed that Staudt was putting pressure on him to sugarcoat an evaluation of Bush. Almost everyone involved in the National Guard in Texas says Staudt would have had virtually no influence in the active units nearly a year and a half after leaving the service.


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."


REPORTERS ARE ALSO LOOKING at staff and associates of Sen. Tom Harkin, who enthusiastically held a press conference on Thursday morning using the forged documents as the tent pole for attacks against President Bush. Harkin called Bush a "liar."

"Harkin has been pushing this story for a while," says the CBS producer. "Not this specific story, but the 'Bush is a liar about his record' story. His people seemed particularly interested in making sure they could keep their boss up to date on what was going on."

That Harkin was the individual selected to be the attack dog on this particular issue was an interesting one, give that Harkin himself has a checkered history about telling the truth about his involvement in the Vietnam War.


WITH MORALE AT WHAT some Kerry campaign insiders consider an all-time low, Sen. John Kerry, who unlike Tom Harkin did serve in Vietnam, did what any true leader does. He sets up a conference call. During the Labor Day weekend, during meetings with senior staff, campaign director Mary Beth Cahill suggested to the candidate that he try to buck up the troops, since the media onslaught against him, as well as the dipping poll numbers, were affecting staff in Washington and in satellite offices around the country. Kerry acknowledged their concerns by gathering the Washington staff into the central office space in their McPherson Square suites and speaking to them via speaker phone. Kerry told them that things were going well on the road. The crowds were enthusiastic, and he could feel the campaign was moving in the right direction with the new senior staff additions.

"He actually said that he felt the campaign had turned the corner," says a Washington-based staffer. "Some of us couldn't help but laugh given that he's made fun of Bush for saying the same thing. You hear stuff like that and you just feel sick. You look over at people like [Joe] Lockhart and Cahill and they seem to understand it too."

Kerry further undercut his own efforts, when he hung up his side of the call before any questions could be asked by staff members.

"[Kerry] doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that he has problems," says the staffer. "I'm low level, but there are a few people here who have stopped coming in to work or to volunteer. We've got some issues, and the guy who should be trying to help fix it doesn't seem to care."

Cahill seems to understand this. On Thursday, since the candidate wouldn't face his own staff, Cahill pulled out the big guns. She invited her old boss, Sen. Ted Kennedy down to the Washington offices to further raise the morale of Kerry's staff.

Kennedy actually said little about Kerry, beyond the fact that he was a fighter who would continue fighting. After mentioning Kerry, Kennedy then went on a 10-minute diatribe about President Bush. "His face was turning red, he was really getting into it," says the Kerry staffer. "Then the next day we saw him make the same speech on the floor of the Senate. Guess we were the dress rehearsal."


THERE ARE OTHER PROBLEMS with the Kerry campaign. According to several Kerry and DNC sources, Kerry advisers have been furiously holding focus group meetings in an attempt to find some issue of national concern that might cut their way in the coming weeks. But nothing they've looked at seems to be working. Of course, even if they were to find something there is no guarantee their man would run with it.

For example, some media types thought having his old pal John Sasso along on the road would help focus Kerry a bit more on his stump speeches. Judging by Kerry's performance last Thursday in North Carolina, they're not sure anymore. While talking about the economy, health-care policy, Kerry went off speech and began stumbling immediately. Kerry said that he would always tell the public the truth, and if the audience didn't believe him, they could "[g]o to a web site. It can be johnkerry.com or go some other place. Go to truth.com, if there is one, and find out what's really happening," Kerry said.

Truth.com (http://www.truth.com/intro.cfm) won't set you free, but at least you'll be able to see a bit more clearly. Truth.com is operated by Truth Hardware, makers of a complete line of locks, window hinges and remote-controlled power window systems.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[Arles]

Here's another similar story to what Ksyrup posted:

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200409\POL20040914a.html

I don't know if this Burkett guy was actually part of the Kerry campaign, but it's pretty obvious he had an agenda against Bush.

If this proves to be true, I don't think that the Kerry campaign will be all that damaged from this. I do see CBS taking a pretty big hit though.

[Ksyrup]

BTW, as if anyone really needed convincing that Dan Rather is a biased goober masquerading as an objective journalist, check out this site:

http://www.ratherbiased.com/

The Compare & Contract section is pretty interesting.

[Glengoyne]

I don't think the "Prowler" piece is very useful, nor does it shed any light on the subject. Especially with all of the "CBS insiders did this" type stuff. Pretty much all unverifyable information unattributed to any source.

I think the ratherbiased site has "bias" right in it's name, so it's content needs to be weighed accordingly. There are a couple of points I did get from there.
-First is that apparently the typist used the alpha lower case "L" key instead of the numeric "1" key to type the number 1. This apparently was an old typist's trick to help increase WPM. Since the "trick" is not commonly used or taught today, it is a very nice "period" detail to have included in the memos. I think this is the single biggest piece of "positive" evidence CBS has come up with. Well maybe actually the biggest would be the signature, but since we are dealing with photocopies of photocopies it would not be that difficult to slip in valid signature.

-Secondly the overlay argument. I saw someone mention this on MSNBC yesterday, and sort of glossed over it in my mind. Apparently one can recreate the document(s) in Word, print them on a transparency, and overlay them exactly over the memo(s). That point was used to illustrate that the documents can absolutely be produced in MS Word. The point made on the ratherbiased site is that in reality how likely would it be that someone 30 years ago created a document that would be easilly and identically reproduced in a wordprocessing software running on a computer that hadn't yet been invented. The point made was that it was very near a mathematical certainty that it could not occur. I'm no mathematician, but I think highly unlikely would suffice. NOTE:I used the words document(s) and memo(s) above because I am unsure if the MSNBC pundit was talking about the overlay trick with regard to one or all of the documents.

[Dutch]

Now if the Kerry Campaign did have something to do with it, would it be MicrosoftWord-Gate? :)

[sterlingice]

From an ICQ conversation with a conservative friend of mine (I love talking political strategy with him because we both like to divorce the ideologies from the pure politics)

Me: considering how much of a horse and buggy show it is over there at the DNC, you think it's most likely that they fell for some easily forged and planted evidence or gross incompetence won out?
Friend: At this point, I give it a 50-50 shot on whether an incompetent Democrat forged them or a wily Republican forged them, then conveniently dropped them right in from the Democratic national party headquarters.
Me: either way, it's backfiring in a big way for the Dems because we still seem to be shouting back and forth about things that happened 30 years ago and no one cares

SI

[CamEdwards]

watching the nightly defense of their story on the CBS Evening News is now better political comedy than The Daily Show.

I hear Dan Rather's going to have John Edward channel the spirit of Jim Killian tomorrow in order to confirm he wrote the memos.

[TroyF]

Amazing how the Republicans can change the topic and how most people will willingly follow them.

There was actually something important on this story this last week, that the Republican smoke screen about typewriters has managed to mostly obscure.

The story about Bush and the National Guard had previously been that the Texas National Guard had released him from any further service so that he could attend Harvard Business School.

Now its emerged that the Texas National Guard did not release Lt. Bush early. They did say he could go to Harvard, but the condition was that Lt. Bush sign on with a National Guard unit in Massachusetts. There's absolutely no record of Lt. Bush ever contacting the MA National Guard.

The day after I saw that, this bs about the typewriters and the CYA Memo to File document began.

Amazing to me that here we are in a war, with a government that's constantly saying we need to give up our rights for security, and in an economy that's losing jobs and if anything barely out of a recession, and both the Democrats and Republicans seem mainly to want to talk about what these two did during Vietnam.

I don't like Democrats or Republicans, but to me this Bush crew has been so incompetent they need to go.


You would think people could figure it out by now. When you LIE about one part of your story, the rest of the story is thrown into question. (and rightfully so) This is how the Republicans can change the topic? What on Earth are you talking about?

The CBS story only has more rumor and heresay without those documents. They threw those on the air as the "hammer" to drive the nail in once and for all. The only problem is it appears they were duped.

The democrats COULD have made huge gains out of this thing. If Kerry had came out a day after the story aired and said it was a non-issue and that the dirty campaigning should stop now. . . he'd have seen an instant increase. Instead the jack-asses go on the offensive with it. They throw the documents and the story all over their campaign websites, hold press conferences with democratic senators waving the documents like flags and scream to the high heavens to tell everyone George W is a scumbag.

Oops. You've now did this with forged documents you stupid morons. Your credibility, like the CBS story is ruined if these documents are proven fake.(and right now it's on CBS to prove they are real, and they are doing a horrific job of it so far) Now it's too late for Kerry to come out and say the matter should be put to bed. The best thing for Bush? He didn't have to lift a finger through this. Before he ever had to make a public response to the issue, the documents accuracy had already been challenged. Now he gets to sit back and enjoy the show as CBS loses all credibility and the Kerry campaign prays to God that nobody associated with their campaign was stupid enough to be traced back to the documents. (because, even without Kerry's involvement, it would end this campaign in about 1/2 of a second)

If it was a Republican who put the documents out there, CBS would be giving them up in a half second. It would save their credibility and they could happily slam Rove. Instead they are in a process of denial and protecting a source that torched them at all costs. As Cam has said, you would NEVER protect a source that burned you. Not in a million years. (I'm a journalism major for those who don't know)

This continues to be the worst run campaign in history. The democrats should be up by 10-12 points right now. This election should be all but over. Instead they've butchered it to the point I think it cannot be repaired. I'll be very surprised if Bush doesn't win this thing by 6-8 points (at a minimum).

As for CBS, Rather won't be able to recover from this if the documents are proven to be forged. He had a chance if he'd admitted it early, but he's went on the attack to show how right he is. The public will forgive a high profile newscaster for a screwup, they WON'T forgive him for a coverup.

[randal7]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/bush_guard_documents_040914-1.html

Apparently now some of the experts who examined the documents for CBS say they told them there were problems with authenticity.

[Ben E Lou]

CBS' experts say they didn't authenticate Bush memos

<!-- date --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"> <!-- host = new String(location.hostname); host = host.toLowerCase(); if ( host.indexOf("edition.") != -1 ) { document.write('Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Posted: 0744 GMT (1544 HKT)'); }else { document.write('Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Posted: 3:44 AM EDT (0744 GMT)'); } //--> </script>Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Posted: 3:44 AM EDT (0744 GMT) <!-- /date -->


<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">var clickExpire = "-1";</script><!--startclickprintexclude--><!--endclickprintexclude--> WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three document experts who were asked by CBS News to examine memos alleging that President Bush received special treatment during his service in the Texas Air National Guard told CNN Tuesday that they did not authenticate the documents -- and one said the network "ignored" her reservations about them before a "60 Minutes" broadcast last week.

Emily Will, a document examiner in North Carolina who said she examined two of the documents for CBS News prior to the broadcast, said she "had serious questions" about their authenticity, although she did not reach a definitive conclusion about whether they were fabrications.

Will told CNN she had concerns about signatures on the documents, as well as the type of the text and the content. She told ABC News that she questioned whether the memos could have been produced by a typewriter and found "five significant differences" in the questioned handwriting.

While Will told CNN that she did not advise the network to spike the story, she said she did tell CBS News that "if you run this on Wednesday, on Thursday you are going to have 100 document examiners asking you these questions."

Also, Marcel Matley -- who appeared Friday on the CBS Evening News during anchor Dan Rather's lengthy defense of his reporting on the memos -- told CNN that he could only verify that Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's signatures on the documents in question were from the same source.

The memos were purportedly written in 1972 and 1973 by Killian, Bush's squadron commander, for his private files. He died in 1984.

"When I saw the documents, I could not verify the documents were authentic or inauthentic. I could only verify that the signatures came from the same source," Matley said. "I could not authenticate the documents themselves. But at the same time, there was nothing to tell me that they were not authentic."

Linda James, another document examiner from Texas hired by CBS News, told CNN that she, too, did not authenticate the documents. She described them as being of "very poor quality," which she found surprising given "what they were about ... and who it was concerning."

"I didn't feel I could give an opinion, and I certainly would not authenticate," she told CNN.

Tuesday evening, ABC News reported that James and Will had raised questions about the authenticity of the documents with CBS News before the 60 Minutes broadcast.

In response, CBS News -- which has stood behind the authenticity of the memos -- issued a statement saying James and Will played only a "peripheral role" in assessing one of the four documents cited in the report, "and they did not render definitive judgment on that document."

"Ultimately, they played a peripheral role and deferred to another expert who examined all four of the documents used," the statement said. "More importantly, the content of the documents was backed up by our reporting and our sources who knew the thoughts and behavior of Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian at the time."

The statement did not identify the expert who examined all of the documents and rendered the definitive judgment.

But James told CNN that "I didn't defer to anybody ... I have my own opinion."

Will agreed that CBS News did not rely on her for a final assessment of the documents, but she said "they seem to have ignored" her opinion.

"If they had relied on it, they would not have done that story," Will said. She said she "in no way" deferred to another expert, although she did refer CBS News to a typewriter expert because she did not know the exact timeline of typewriter development.

The memos in question were purportedly written by Killian. In them, the author complained he was being pressured to "sugar coat" the future president's performance evaluations and that Bush failed to meet performance standards while a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, including getting a required physical exam.

The author also wrote that he believed Bush -- at the time the son of a Texas congressman -- was "talking to someone upstairs" to get permission to transfer to the Alabama National Guard to work on a Senate campaign.

But the authenticity of those documents has come under fire in media reports, with some document experts insisting they were not written on a typewriter in the 1970s but generated on a computer at a later date.

Forensic document experts who have examined the memos have told CNN that they cannot conclusively determine whether the documents are authentic -- but some features in them raise questions about whether they were actually written in the early 1970s.

Rather and CBS News have insisted that the documents came from a "solid" source, that their contents were backed up by other reporting and that the memos had been authenticated by document experts.

However, Rather conceded that CBS had only obtained photocopies of the documents, not the originals, which experts say would shed light on their authenticity. The network has also not revealed the source of the documents.

On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called on CBS News to say where it got the memos.

"I understand that people want to protect their sources, but we're dealing with the alleged forgery of government documents to influence a presidential race during war," DeLay told reporters. "This isn't politics as usual. It's dangerous and possibly criminal."

First lady Laura Bush also waded into the controversy over the documents in a radio interview Monday.

"You know, they probably are altered, and they probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really," Laura Bush told Radio Iowa. "That's actually one of the risks you take when you run for public office or when you're in the public eye."

A senior Bush campaign aide said the first lady was expressing her own opinion. Officially, the White House has said only that the authenticity of the documents is unclear, although the aide noted that there are "more and more serious questions being raised."

The questions about the documents prompted Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., to take the floor of the House Tuesday to demand answer to two questions: "What did Dan Rather know, and when did he know it?"

"I understand we believe in the First Amendment," Hayworth said. "All we ask ... is that Dan Rather answer those two questions."

However, despite the challenges to the veracity of the memos, the Democratic National Committee continued to pound away on the issue, unveiling a new two-minute video challenging Bush to answer questions about his Guard service raised by CBS News and other media reports.

"George Bush is a son of privilege -- a fortunate son who has spent his entire life receiving special favors and having strings pulled for him," said DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe. "He's gone from being a fortunate son who uses special influence to being an unfortunate president who makes especially wrong choices for America."

Responding to the video, which the DNC plans to air at campaign events and on its Web site, RNC spokesman Jim Dyke issued a statement calling it "as creative and accurate as the memos they gave CBS."

CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Dana Bash, Suzanne Malveaux, Peter Ornstein, Sarah Irwin and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

[Ben E Lou]

However, despite the challenges to the veracity of the memos, the Democratic National Committee continued to pound away on the issue, unveiling a new two-minute video challenging Bush to answer questions about his Guard service raised by CBS News and other media reports.Wow. Does their research and polling tell them that this is the way to win, or is this complete ineptness?

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:

Just looking at CBSNEWS.com for anything on this, I ran across this story. Maybe it really is as bad as some of us are starting to think...

<noindex>
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Top Dem Rips Kerry Campaign

NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2004
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http://www.cbsnews.com/common/images/bug_video.gif (javascript:vlaunch('clip=/media/2004/09/14/video643474.rm&sec=201&vidId=201&title=Bush$@$Mum$@$On$@$Guard$@$Service&hitboxMLC=national'))<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td>Bush Mum On Guard Service (javascript:vlaunch('clip=/media/2004/09/14/video643474.rm&sec=201&vidId=201&title=Bush$@$Mum$@$On$@$Guard$@$Service&hitboxMLC=national'))</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="131" width="175"><tbody><tr><td background="http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2004/09/14/image643423l.jpg">http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/common/images/story_image_pop.gif (javascript:launch('photo', 540, 400, '/stories/2004/09/14/politics/main643438_popup0_1.shtml'))</td></tr></tbody></table>Tony Coelho, former Gore campaign chairman, in 2000 file photo. (Photo: AP)

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“What I’m looking for is a Karl Rove and I don’t know where our Karl Rove is.”
Tony Coelho

<noindex>
</noindex><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><!--TO MAKE MULTIPLE SIDEBARS, COPY AND PASTE TABLES UNDER EACH OTHER--> http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2003/11/21/image585075.gif<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="175"> <tbody><tr> <td bgcolor="#999999" valign="top"> <table bgcolor="#dddddd" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="173"> <tbody><tr> <td class="bodysmall" valign="top" width="173"> The latest from CBS News reporters and analysts on the 2004 campaign:

Bush, Kerry & N. Korea (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/14/politics/main643242.shtml)
By David Paul Kuhn

Campaign 2004: A 9/11 Casualty (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/09/opinion/meyer/main642481.shtml)
By Dick Meyer

Kerry Campaign Stomachache (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/13/opinion/lynch/main643067.shtml)
By Dotty Lynch

Foreign Polls Favor Kerry (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/13/opinion/fenton/main642860.shtml)
By Tom Fenton

<hr width="75%"> More campaign news:

Washington Wrap (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/02/26/politics/main502099.shtml)

Trail Bytes (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/10/politics/main635211.shtml)

CBS News Polls (http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/opinion/polls/main500160.shtml)

<hr width="75%"> Interactives:

Campaign 2004 (javascript:PopUp('http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/politics/campaign2004/framesource.html',540,400))

The Democrats (javascript:PopUp('http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2004/07/06/in_depth_politics/interactivehomemenu627668.shtml',540,400))

The Republicans (javascript:PopUp('http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2004/07/12/in_depth_politics/interactivehomemenu628968.shtml',540,400))

</td></tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/common/images/gray.gif</td><td valign="top" width="6">
</td></tr></tbody> </table> (CBS) By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer<hr width="75%">
Longtime Democratic insider Tony Coelho lashed out at the John Kerry presidential campaign, characterizing it as a campaign in chaos. With yet another appointment of a former Clinton administration staffer to Kerry’s team on Tuesday, Coelho argues the problem is worsening.

“There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other,” says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign.

Sen. Ted Kennedy’s former staff members, Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, and veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum are at odds with recent additions who served under President Clinton.

“Here are two groups that have never gotten along and have fought, and it is a lot over money,” says Coehlo. "Because in the Democratic Party the consultants get paid for the creation and the placement of [advertising]. Republicans only pay you for the creation.”

Coelho, a former congressman who served as House majority whip for the Democrats from 1987 to 1989, does not question any of the Kerry staff's sincerity in wanting to unseat President Bush. But his comments highlight a longstanding battle within the Democratic Party for national campaign control.

“In 1988, Dukakis: Shrum is involved. In 1992, Clinton: nothing to do with Shrum. They don’t want Shrum in any way,” Coelho says. “In 1996, they do not want Shrum in any way. In 2000, Gore doesn’t want Clinton people. We go forward, 2004, all of a sudden it’s the Shrum/Kennedy people.”

And Coelho adds that the Kerry campaign staffers “are in serious trouble now, so they want to bring in the Clinton people.”

The Democratic scuttlebutt has long been filled with concern over Shrum’s losing streak. He remains 0 for 7 in presidential elections, from George McGovern to Michael Dukakis to Al Gore. When Coelho resigned as chairman of the Gore campaign, Shrum, in large part, took the reins.

The Kerry campaign insists this is not the case; it says Mary Beth Cahill is still in charge. But last week, the appointment of strategist John Sasso as a senior adviser began to belie such claims.

Calls and e-mails to Cahill and the Kerry campaign were not immediately returned.

“What I’m looking for is a Karl Rove and I don’t know where our Karl Rove is.” Coelho says. “I think Sasso is a Karl Rove. I’m very high on Sasso because I don’t think he plays Machiavellian games. I think he very sincerely wants to win. I think he is very big on Kerry. And I think he’s tough enough to say, ‘Goddammit, come together.’”

Sources inside the Kerry campaign say the Democratic nominee was fuming that his advisers told him to ignore charges by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that Kerry lied about his war record and betrayed fellow veterans by testifying to Congress about alleged atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers.

The Kerry campaign never countered the Swift Boat charges, the allegations persisted and Kerry’s bad August ensued.

Kerry led most polls leading into August. By the second week of September, President Bush had come back and now has a four-to-seven point lead over Kerry, depending on the poll.

“Our problem here is a national message,” Coelho says. “What is it that we [Democrats] are? If you go to Kerry, that’s a disaster because the candidate should not be involved in solving disputes or the creation of his message.

“You need a [campaign] boss, somebody who says ‘Shut up, we are going to work this out.’ Not someone who can go around to Kerry, and that’s Shrummy’s forte,” Coelho continues, speaking of Shrum. The Kerry campaign has over the past week refuted speculation that either Shrum or Sasso are running the campaign.

But in a sign of how seriously the Kerry campaign is taking its dive in the polls, a trio of ex-Clinton staffers has come aboard recently, including former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry who signed up on Tuesday. He joins Joe Lockhart, another onetime Clinton press secretary, and Joel Johnson, the former president’s legislative strategist.

The call for the Clintonistas, in McCurry’s view, illustrates that Democrats are circling the wagons.

“Democrats are sort of coming out of places where normally they might sit on the sidelines,” McCurry says, “because there is a strong sense that we really need to get in there and try to help, because it is an important election.”

McCurry emphasizes that he is not in charge. “I’m not pretending that I’m taking any major strategic role,” he says. “I think they’ve got too many gurus in that campaign. I’m going to be a road guy and help out and make sure Kerry’s as good as he can be.”

McCurry defends the Kerry camp and says he doesn’t think they got off message in August. “I think Bush got on message,” he says.

“I think [Mr. Bush] had a much better August than he had had prior,” McCurry says. “So I think part of this is a reaction to the fact that [the Bush campaign] sharpened up their operation and had a good convention on their side. We just have got to do our bit, on our side.”

McCurry’s addition followed a call this past weekend from campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill.

“I said I would think about it,” McCurry says. “And then when I talked to Lockhart and said, ‘What’s your assessment of what you really need?’ it was pretty clear that he could use the help. And he’s a guy that has been there for me so I wanted to help him.”

McCurry was quick to speak of himself as a deputy, not the sheriff. Though Coelho questions Cahill’s ability to run the campaign, he does not question her managerial ability.

“She’s basically a C.O.O, and a very good one. I think she’s a very effective administrator,” Coelho continues. “What McCurry represents is further chaos because McCurry’s not in charge. If they were telling me that McCurry’s in charge, then I’d feel better. I’m not sure he’s the right guy, but I’d feel better.”

Of Shrum’s role as adviser, Coelho says “I’m not anti-Shrummy here. What I’m saying is that you need to have someone in charge and I think Sasso’s capable of it.”

“If [Sasso] is in charge then Goddammit, say it and stop having the speculation of who's in charge because that’s worse,” Coelho says. “It also starts to impact in regard to the whole image of leadership. If someone can’t control a message in a presidential campaign, how are you going to be a good president?”


By David Paul Kuhn
©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[GrantDawg]

Well, you have to be carefull, Ben. That is from CBS news so they may be making it up and forging documents to prove it. :)

[GrantDawg]

Wow. Does their research and polling tell them that this is the way to win, or is this complete ineptness?
Complete ineptness. Of course then you have the other alternative. ****puts on his ten-foil hat**** All this could be the Clinton friends in the campaign sabotaging from the inside to make sure Kerry does not win this year, so Hillary has a better shot in 2008. Or even juicier, it is some how Carl Roves fault. I don't know how, but everytime something bad happens in a campaign somehow the Dems all blame Carl Rove. Maybe he is using mind-control or something.

[TroyF]

Wow. Does their research and polling tell them that this is the way to win, or is this complete ineptness?


Complete and total ineptness. If Rather and CBS don't confirm the source and where they found these documents quickly, anyone associated with the story in any way is going to go down in flames. A blind man can see this from three thousand miles away.

You cannot use ANYTHING reported in this story for your campaign until those documents are verified as legit. It's now just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Because of the way the Kerry campaign has handled this (combined with their other blunders), if these documents are forged, he may as well not bother wasting anymore money on the campaign trail. It's over.

As it is, he's going to need a miracle to pull this off. George W. has to be one of the luckiest men alive. Two of the top five worst run campaigns in history are what he's had to go up against. Amazing.

[GrantDawg]

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Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect
CBS Anchor Urges Media to Focus On Bush Service



By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01

<NITF>CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."

"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.' "

Rather spoke after interviewing the secretary to Bush's former squadron commander, who told him that the memos attributed to her late boss are fake -- but that they reflect the commander's belief that Bush was receiving preferential treatment to escape some of his Guard commitments.

The former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, is the latest person to raise questions about the "60 Minutes" story, which Rather and top CBS officials still defend while vowing to investigate mounting questions about whether the 30-year-old documents used in the story were part of a hoax. Their shift in tone yesterday came as GOP critics as well as some media commentators demanded that the story be retracted and suggested that Rather should step down.

"This is not about me," Rather said before anchoring last night's newscast. "I recognize that those who didn't want the information out and tried to discredit the story are trying to make it about me, and I accept that."

For Rather, 72, it is an all-too-familiar role. In his CBS career, he has survived an impertinent exchange with President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, a clandestine trek through the mountains of Afghanistan, an on-air confrontation with George H.W. Bush over Iran-contra and a much-debated sitdown with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Now, on the final leg of a career launched by a Texas hurricane, Rather is trying to weather his biggest storm. And some of his closest friends and associates are concerned.

"I think this is very, very serious," said Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent. "When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries." Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS.

In her interview with Rather yesterday, Knox repeated her contention that the documents used by "60 Minutes" were bogus. Knox, 86, worked for Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian while he supervised Bush's unit in the early 1970s.

"I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the Killian memos. "However, the information in there is correct," she said, adding that Killian and the other officers would "snicker about what [Bush] was getting away with."

Rather said he was "relieved and pleased" by Knox's comments that the disputed memos reflected Killian's view of the favorable treatment that Bush received in the military unit. But he said, "I take very seriously her belief that the documents are not authentic." If Knox is right, Rather said, the public "won't hear about it from a spokesman. They'll learn it from me."

But he also delivered a message to "our journalistic competitors," including The Washington Post and rival networks: "Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions: 'How do you know this and that about the documents?' "

CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the Guard story. "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said last night. "But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues," including questions about the memos' typography, signatures and format. "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents."

Heyward said the account by Knox is "significant, which is why we're putting it on our prime-time program," "60 Minutes."

As a former Houston reporter, White House correspondent and "60 Minutes" regular, Rather has always taken pride in unchaining himself from the anchor desk to cover wars, political campaigns and various other crises. Determined not to be just a multimillion-dollar news reader like some younger-generation stars, he continued to anchor "48 Hours" before finally giving it up and to contribute pieces to "60 Minutes," even at the cost of being stretched thin. So it was not unusual for Rather to be crashing an investigative piece, as he did last week.

The most controversial of the three broadcast network anchors who took the reins in the early 1980s -- the others are ABC's Peter Jennings, 66, and NBC's Tom Brokaw, 64, who is retiring after the election -- Rather has long drawn the most headlines and the sharpest criticism from conservatives who view him as biased.

"Dan is a lightning rod, compared to Brokaw and Jennings, because of his personality," said Lawrence Grossman, a former president of PBS and NBC News. "He's had some very strange incidents. His colorful use of language makes him a little quirky in many people's eyes. So he's a little vulnerable."

But ABC News executive Tom Bettag, who once produced Rather's evening news, said his friend has been "quite extraordinary" in shouldering the burden. "He is the sort of person who could easily say 'this is a team effort,' but he's one of those anchors who puts it all on his shoulders and doesn't pass it down the line to anyone else," Bettag said.

Bernard Goldberg, a longtime CBS correspondent who has turned sharply critical of his former employer, said he believes that Rather was duped and will survive. But, he said, "CBS News is acting the way the Nixon administration did during Watergate. I'm really sad to say that Dan Rather is acting like Richard Nixon. It's the coverup, it's the stonewalling."

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, said that "if it turns out CBS got this wrong, it's very damaging." He added that Rather "has a 'hot' personality that provokes strong reactions."

That may be an understatement. Rather has a penchant for down-home Texas truisms, the sort of globe-trotting that earned him the nickname "Gunga Dan" for his Afghan foray, and plain old strange behavior -- such as signing off his broadcasts for a time with the word "courage."

In 1986, he was mugged on Park Avenue with one of his attackers shouting, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" In 1987, the network went to black because Rather had angrily walked off the set in the belief that a U.S. Open tennis match would bump his broadcast. In 1988, he got into an emotional shouting match with then-Vice President Bush, who accused Rather of being unfair. In 2001, he apologized for speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Texas in which his daughter was involved.

His career has seemed revitalized in the past year and a half. He landed an interview with then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq and the first sitdown with Bill Clinton about his autobiography. And with producer Mary Mapes, who also spearheaded the National Guard story, Rather broke the news of Iraqi prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib -- after agreeing to a two-week delay at the Bush administration's request.

Once the most watched of the three anchors' broadcasts, Rather's show has been ranked third for several years. Now he is even the target of a new Web site, Rathergate.com.

Some media analysts are already comparing the Guard controversy to the 1993 fiasco in which NBC's "Dateline" apologized for staging the fiery crash of a truck, and the 1998 debacle in which CNN apologized for the "Tailwind" story that accused U.S. troops of using nerve gas during the Vietnam War.

"Dan knows that trying to do a story about a Republican president is immediately going to stir up a hornet's nest from the conservatives who have jumped on him since the Nixon days," Bettag said. "He could have been excused for saying 'I don't need this kind of grief.' But he didn't."

As Rather signed off to rush back into the studio last night, he sounded a defiant note.

"I try to look people in the eye and tell them the truth," Rather said. "I don't back up. I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces."



</NITF>

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[John Galt]

You would think people could figure it out by now. When you LIE about one part of your story, the rest of the story is thrown into question. (and rightfully so)

I have no horse in this race, but I found it interesting that a fervent advocate of the war in Iraq would utter such a sentence.

[Ben E Lou]

I have no horse in this raceThat's "I don't have a dog in this fight", you $@*(&% elitist.

[John Galt]

That's "I don't have a dog in this fight", you $@*(&% elitist.

LOL :D

[Ben E Lou]

LOL :DI try.

[Glengoyne]

I have no horse in this race, but I found it interesting that a fervent advocate of the war in Iraq would utter such a sentence.
Well I'm guessing that is because not everyone believes the Administration lied about Iraq.

[GrantDawg]

CBS CONCERN OVER VIEWERSHIP PLUNGE; RATHER RATINGS FADE IN MAJOR MARKETS

CBS executives on both coasts have become concerned in recent days that Dan Rather's EVENING NEWS broadcast has plunged in the ratings since the anchor presented questionable documents about Bush's National Guard service.

NIELSEN numbers released this week show Rather fading and trailing his rivals in every Top 10 city, other than San Francisco, with audience margins in some cities running more than 6 to 1 against CBS!

Executives fear many voters inclined to vote for Bush are now switching off Rather.

"The audience appears to [be] polarized," a top CBS source said from LOS ANGELES on Thursday. "Rightly or wrongly, we're being perceived as 'anti-Bush,' which I do not think is fair to Dan, who is a fine journalist... of course we do not like to see the ratings coming back the way they are this week."

In Philadelphia, the nation's #4 market, Rather pulled a 2.6 rating/5 share on Tuesday night against ABC's 13.3 rating/23 share and NBC's 4.0/7.

In Chicago, Rather hit a 2.3/5 to ABC's 9.2/20.

CBS trailed ABC by more than 2 to 1 in Los Angeles.

And in the nation's top market, New York, Rather finished not only behind NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT -- but also pulled less audience than reruns of the SIMPSONS, WILL & GRACE and KING OF QUEENS.

Rather finished dead last in New York during the 6:30 pm timeslot among all broadcast channels tracked by NIELSEN on Tuesday.

[Chubby]

Well I'm guessing that is because not everyone believes the Administration lied about Iraq.
So it depends on your definition of "lied"?

[GrantDawg]

Sorry, that as Drudge. The ratings information is very interesting. Those numbers may end up being the death-nell of Rather unless this thing can blow over.

[TroyF]

I have no horse in this race, but I found it interesting that a fervent advocate of the war in Iraq would utter such a sentence.


Well, I suppose it might help to know the background, wouldn't it? One of my criticisms of the Bush administration is how they told us about the war. I think they did use some falsehoods and I think that was pretty sad.

On the other hand, I felt the war needed to be fought. I can understand the people who are against the war. My only issues are them acting as though the supposed Al Queda link was the ONLY reason we went to war and acting as thought the WMD thing had so many questions before the war began.

I felt we should have finished the job in 1990. I felt we should have taken care of things long before 2002-2003, so I would have supported this war under nearly any circumstance.

The people who wouldn't have? They feel as though they've been lied to and it's a large reason for Bush not having a high approval rating. I can understand that.

You, in turn, have to understand that if Rather used forged documents, those sitting on the fence on Bush's military record are going to not only discount the story, but discount the stories source as well.

[Buddy Grant]

I have no horse in this race, but I found it interesting that a fervent advocate of the war in Iraq would utter such a sentence.
Lies about going to war is much different though - this is a flat out partisan attack against the Commander in Chief by the left leaning media. The way I see it, lies that helped garner support for the Iraq war were worth it because it was a just war to protect the Iraqi people from tyranny, while lies that make President Bush look bad are unjust as they might cause him to lose a Presidential election (not to mention downright disrespectful). The attack on Iraq was a good thing, so whatever the administration had to do to get the public behind it will be worth it once it becomes a democratic nation sometime over the next generation. Regardless of the facts, I seriously doubt President Bush did any of the things they say he did back in the 1970's, but the main thing is that the media needs to show more respect for the office of the President, warts and all.

[John Galt]

On the other hand, I felt the war needed to be fought. I can understand the people who are against the war. My only issues are them acting as though the supposed Al Queda link was the ONLY reason we went to war and acting as thought the WMD thing had so many questions before the war began. . . .

You, in turn, have to understand that if Rather used forged documents, those sitting on the fence on Bush's military record are going to not only discount the story, but discount the stories source as well.

I have no doubt that lying in part hurts the overall cause - my point was that the post hoc rationalization of human rights in the Iraq war is analogous. Lying about WMD issues, Al Qaeda issues, and being overly optimistic about the celebrations in Iraq that would ensue makes the "truth" about human rights get lost. Similarly, there was a lot of "meat" to the CBS story without the documents that has been lost. I, for one, am extremely skeptical of almost everything the Bush administration says in regards to foreign policy because their credibility has been shot to hell. And my faith in mainstream media has declined even further as believe they are almost entirely puppets for whoever is in power at the current time.

As a side note, there is substantial evidence coming out (albeit I've seen almost none of it in the American press) that the human rights situation was horribly exaggerated as well. Specifically, the number of mass graves may have been overestimated by a couple orders of magnitude (and many of them may have been due to famine). I have no doubt the human rights situation in Iraq wasn't good, but I still believe (as I argued before the war), that Iraq wasn't even in the top 10 in terms of human rights abuse in the world.

[John Galt]

Lies about going to war is much different though - this is a flat out partisan attack against the Commander in Chief by the left leaning media. The way I see it, lies that helped garner support for the Iraq war were worth it because it was a just war to protect the Iraqi people from tyranny, while lies that make President Bush look bad are unjust as they might cause him to lose a Presidential election (not to mention downright disrespectful). The attack on Iraq was a good thing, so whatever the administration had to do to get the public behind it will be worth it once it becomes a democratic nation sometime over the next generation. Regardless of the facts, I seriously doubt President Bush did any of the things they say he did back in the 1970's, but the main thing is that the media needs to show more respect for the office of the President, warts and all.

If you believe the government should lie to the people for their own good, then there is no debate can be had here. I believe nothing is more dangerous to democracy and civil society than a government who believes it knows better than the people what it should do (and is therefore justified lying to achieve that end). Democracy only works when the people openly criticize the leaders.

[gstelmack]

I have no horse in this race, but I found it interesting that a fervent advocate of the war in Iraq would utter such a sentence.

A President does not rely on his credibility to do an effective job. That may be a key part of getting re-elected, but people care more about the results than how we got there. That's aside from any debates about whether or not the Administration lied about Iraq (people sure seem to have a short memory about how Clinton and the Democrats have come out saying they thought Saddam had WMDs as well).

A journalist is supposed to be all about reporting the truth. If they report a lie, or use false evidence to support a story, what do they have left?

[John Galt]

Well I'm guessing that is because not everyone believes the Administration lied about Iraq.

Believing that the administration did not lie about Iraq requires ignoring a large body of overwhelming evidence. You can certainly argue (as others have) that the war was still justified or that the lies were not that big, but to deny the lies just seems to ignore a lot of evidence.

[John Galt]

A President does not rely on his credibility to do an effective job. That may be a key part of getting re-elected, but people care more about the results than how we got there. That's aside from any debates about whether or not the Administration lied about Iraq (people sure seem to have a short memory about how Clinton and the Democrats have come out saying they thought Saddam had WMDs as well).

A journalist is supposed to be all about reporting the truth. If they report a lie, or use false evidence to support a story, what do they have left?

Again - I'm not defending CBS (if anything, I'm attacking them) - I was just pointing out what I saw as an ironic part of TroyF's argument.

If you are right that people only care about results and not process, then we are in a much sadder state than I ever imagined.

[gstelmack]

If you are right that people only care about results and not process, then we are in a much sadder state than I ever imagined.

I thought that "liar" was part of the definition of "politician". We have effective politicians that lie all the time. I agree with you, I hate it when it happens, but it happens all the time. Sometimes they get in a bit of trouble for it (Nixon), sometimes they don't (Clinton).

But if you're trying to claim that a politician can't be effective without always telling the truth, I respectfully disagree. I would assert that a journalist can't lie and be effective (leaving aside yellow journalism and tabloids, which I don't think are really journalists and which I don't think Rather purports to be either). Therefore, there was nothing contradictory in the original statement.

[John Galt]

I thought that "liar" was part of the definition of "politician". We have effective politicians that lie all the time. I agree with you, I hate it when it happens, but it happens all the time. Sometimes they get in a bit of trouble for it (Nixon), sometimes they don't (Clinton).

But if you're trying to claim that a politician can't be effective without always telling the truth, I respectfully disagree. I would assert that a journalist can't lie and be effective (leaving aside yellow journalism and tabloids, which I don't think are really journalists and which I don't think Rather purports to be either). Therefore, there was nothing contradictory in the original statement.

I think we need to differentiate lying by politicians into different categories (this isn't an exhaustive list, just the things that came to mind): 1) Lies to protect state secrets - a very narrow category that almost eveyone supports, 2) Lies on trivial issues due to poor information - and by trivial issues, I mean those things that aren't on central policies - these are probably inevitable, 3) Lies about personal stuff - this is a controversial area and I'm less inclined than most to forgive here, 4) Lies that are failed promises - this is another gray area - we never know if a politician never intended to carry out a promise or if something else stopped it, and 5) A lie to persaude regarding a central policy in order to gain support - propoganda of lies.

The last category is the most dangerous in my mind - when politicians use propoganda built on lies, they enter very scary territory. Communist and fascist regimes were most famous for this type of social control (Hitler got away with arguing that the invasion of Poland was a war of liberation to stop human rights abuses there). When American politicians engage in such lies, they may be "effective" in that they get their policies implemented, but they do a great disservice to democracy in the process.

As for journalists, I agree that some notions of "truth" are important, but I believe mainstream media today has abandoned most notions of "truth" even moreso than politicians. I saw a clip from "Outfoxed" last night and it made an interesting point. Foxnews has done so well by marketing "America" and "the Flag" that every other news agency is running to catch up. When getting viewers means following the administration party line, we are in a very ugly place.

[DeftRevisited]

Lies about going to war is much different though - this is a flat out partisan attack against the Commander in Chief by the left leaning media. The way I see it, lies that helped garner support for the Iraq war were worth it because it was a just war to protect the Iraqi people from tyranny, while lies that make President Bush look bad are unjust as they might cause him to lose a Presidential election (not to mention downright disrespectful). The attack on Iraq was a good thing, so whatever the administration had to do to get the public behind it will be worth it once it becomes a democratic nation sometime over the next generation. Regardless of the facts, I seriously doubt President Bush did any of the things they say he did back in the 1970's, but the main thing is that the media needs to show more respect for the office of the President, warts and all.
Sarcasm Sirens- ON
I have to agree lies based on trivial partisanship that discredit a man's record from 30 years ago are much more heinous than lies that justify committing billions of dollars and killing thousands of lives. I think deception and false reasons are always good policy when trying to start unprovoked wars. It worked in the Spanish-American War, why not now?
Sarcasm Sirens- OFF

With regards to journalism, CBS and Rather may be moving to far left and bridging the line of attempting to be unbiased. But I think its a reaction to entertainers like, Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the new Liberal radio that are completely biased but try and pass themselves off as the "news".

[Glengoyne]

Believing that the administration did not lie about Iraq requires ignoring a large body of overwhelming evidence. You can certainly argue (as others have) that the war was still justified or that the lies were not that big, but to deny the lies just seems to ignore a lot of evidence.
In my mind, in order to lie, you have to know what you are saying is incorrect. I don't believe the administration(The President, Colin Powell, ...etc) lied about things. I believe they honestly believed that the WMD were there, and that it was at least a possibility that they might pass those along to a terrorist organization.

You say overwhelming evidence, I don't think I have been that out of the loop. The most damning evidence of a lie has been the State of the Union bit about Iraq obtaining uranium from Nigeria(I think?). I have heard a lot of Bush's opposition yelling "Lies, Lies", but I don't consider that evidence.

[Solecismic]

There's a huge number of us who aren't invested in the Republican/Democrat war. And just want an unbiased presentation of the news.

Right now, we don't know where to turn. Perhaps CBS' sudden drop in viewership has more to do with the perception of bias than partisan viewers.

Because if Republicans suddenly realized Rather and CBS were shills of the Democratic party, wouldn't Democrats, then, suddenly realize Rather and CBS were on their side, and make up for the loss in viewership?

I wish there were a place I could turn for news. For stuff like Hurricane Ivan, which I believe was a non-partisan hurricane, this isn't a problem. But for stories about the economy, the war and the election, it's much tougher to decide. I try and offset every hour of CNN viewing with an hour of FOX News. But I'd much rather (no pun intended) just have one place to go where there is no hidden agenda.

I believe CBS's massive viewership drop has much more to do with Rather's politics and the bizarre manner in which CBS has defended the story than the politics of those who used to watch CBS news.

[TroyF]

John,

I don't think the human rights stories were exaggerated. Nor do I believe the administration knowingly lied about WMD's. They thought they were there. Just like John Kerry thought they were there. And Bill Clinton. And Newt Gingrich.

Again, I fail to see why you find irony. The only way you could find irony in my statement is if I admitted that Bush had never lied or that I held some psychotic right wing belief that Hussein was in bed with Al Queda. I don't on either.

I understand exactly why you feel betrayed by Bush on all foreign intelligence matters. It's your right and Bush certainly did things to make you feel that way. I admit, I had a bias going in. I felt it was a just war, so I can forgive the mistakes more easily.

This? This is a clear cut attempt at influencing a political election. CBS has ran this story multiple times already. It never stuck. So now they run it with "documentation" to back their case. Only the documentation is forged and now they are screwed.

Now, if someone is slightly tilted to the right they are going to be offended by the story. The left will talk about how it's true and that the documents were some Karl Rove conspiracy. (Air America is a downright comedic radio station at times) The people in the middle? They are going to be the ones most pissed about this. They are the ones who are going to question anything anyone tells them after this.

As far as the news media catering to the current holder of power, how exactly do you explain this or Kenneth Lay? The current holder of power is attacked from the second he gets in office until the second he gets out. (and possibly longer if he's especially hated)

The media wants to do ONE THING: MAKE MONEY. If they feel they can do that by talking up the current president, they'll do it. If they feel they can do it by knocking him down, they'll do that instead. They don't give a damn about who is in charge, all they care about is how they can make money off of it. In this case they have their hands in the cookie jar. And while we have sadly grown accustomed to our politicians being lying bastards, most everyday Americans have an expectation that a major newscast will be credible. (even if it is biased at times) When they screw up one thing, especially this horrificly, they are doomed. The fallout from this story has yet to be fully realized. It'll take years for the CBS news organization to recover from this gaffe.

[John Galt]

In my mind, in order to lie, you have to know what you are saying is incorrect. I don't believe the administration(The President, Colin Powell, ...etc) lied about things. I believe they honestly believed that the WMD were there, and that it was at least a possibility that they might pass those along to a terrorist organization.

You say overwhelming evidence, I don't think I have been that out of the loop. The most damning evidence of a lie has been the State of the Union bit about Iraq obtaining uranium from Nigeria(I think?). I have heard a lot of Bush's opposition yelling "Lies, Lies", but I don't consider that evidence.

The uranium was from Niger, but I think there have many other lies that are on the record:

The aluminum tubes
The unmanned vehicles that could disseminate WMD material
Statements by Bush that at the time of the invasion, Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in (when in fact, the US had recalled them)
Cheney's repeated denials that he ever said we would be welcomed as liberators (even with video saying otherwise)
The administration citing Kurdish controlled al-qaeda camps as linked to Saddam

Those are just some key facts from my memory (there may be more). I also think that quotes by Bush and his administration put a heavy burden on them in terms of deniability:

"Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied."-- President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03

"We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the - our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."-- President George W. Bush, 7/17/03

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."-- Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02

"We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."-- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03

When an administration repeatedly uses "no doubt" type language, I think a lie occurs when they play fast and loose with the facts. Even without the "no doubt" issue, there are several issues above that the Bush administration lied about and knew it lied about.

If you still think they didn't know, then I fear you have adopted the Costanza definition of lying: "It's only a lie if you believe its a lie."

[Glengoyne]

...

If you still think they didn't know, then I fear you have adopted the Costanza definition of lying: "It's only a lie if you believe its a lie."
I think the vast majority of the things you are talking about are incidents where they are stating what they believe are facts based on the intelligence. I can pull out Clinton, Daschle, and Kerry quotes stating that Saddam possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and needed to be removed from power. Were they lying too?

[John Galt]

John,

I don't think the human rights stories were exaggerated. Nor do I believe the administration knowingly lied about WMD's. They thought they were there. Just like John Kerry thought they were there. And Bill Clinton. And Newt Gingrich.

I'm not denying a great many politicians believed they were there - my problem is that the intelligence community didn't believe we could know they were there (certainly not without "doubt" as my quotes above illustrate. I argued before the war that we couldn't possibly know, but the lack of doubt exhibited by the Bush administration is where I find the problem. Either way, there were plenty of other (easier to prove) lies above. As for the human rights stories, do a little leg work and you may find the facts are far from clear. Relying on dissidents who are lobbying for invasion rarely yields good information, but that is all the Clinton and Bush administrations relied on.

Again, I fail to see why you find irony. The only way you could find irony in my statement is if I admitted that Bush had never lied or that I held some psychotic right wing belief that Hussein was in bed with Al Queda. I don't on either.

I just saw the statement as unusual for a war supporter because the lies have really discredited much of what the Bush administration has said since. If you are willing to admit those lies, it does loose a little bit or irony. Oh well.

I understand exactly why you feel betrayed by Bush on all foreign intelligence matters. It's your right and Bush certainly did things to make you feel that way. I admit, I had a bias going in. I felt it was a just war, so I can forgive the mistakes more easily.

This? This is a clear cut attempt at influencing a political election. CBS has ran this story multiple times already. It never stuck. So now they run it with "documentation" to back their case. Only the documentation is forged and now they are screwed.

Now, if someone is slightly tilted to the right they are going to be offended by the story. The left will talk about how it's true and that the documents were some Karl Rove conspiracy. (Air America is a downright comedic radio station at times) The people in the middle? They are going to be the ones most pissed about this. They are the ones who are going to question anything anyone tells them after this.

As far as the news media catering to the current holder of power, how exactly do you explain this or Kenneth Lay? The current holder of power is attacked from the second he gets in office until the second he gets out. (and possibly longer if he's especially hated)

The media wants to do ONE THING: MAKE MONEY. If they feel they can do that by talking up the current president, they'll do it. If they feel they can do it by knocking him down, they'll do that instead. They don't give a damn about who is in charge, all they care about is how they can make money off of it. In this case they have their hands in the cookie jar. And while we have sadly grown accustomed to our politicians being lying bastards, most everyday Americans have an expectation that a major newscast will be credible. (even if it is biased at times) When they screw up one thing, especially this horrificly, they are doomed. The fallout from this story has yet to be fully realized. It'll take years for the CBS news organization to recover from this gaffe.

As I've made clear, I'm no fan of CBS in this action and really believe the media in general has lost any meaningful role in our democracy.

Now, you make the argument that the leader is attacked from day 1 until they leave - I think those attacks are almost always personal or tangential. Say what you want about Michael Moore, but many issues he covered in F 9/11 were never addressed by the mainstream media (the suppression of the black vote in Florida and subsequent scene on Capitol Hill with the Black Caucus is the most prominent example). When it comes to war and policy, the media just runs the reports prepared by the White House (and its intellectual wings in the private sector). Real investigative journalism is a lost art. Moreover, corporate interests create a race to get the story first, even if all the details are unknown. Foxnews has created the paradigm for modern media (even though mainstream media had lost its way before) - rallying around the flag always makes money.

Why did the National Guard story become so big? Why did Swift Boat stories dominate the headlines? The media is covering non-issues. Why didn't we receive more coverage about the tactics of having free speech zones at both conventions? The media doesn't care because they get into the conventions. I'm appalled at the state of journalism in America and I believe this is a sad byproduct of the inevitable capitalist consolidation of media. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm quite sure the Bush administration (and probably subsequent administrations) will continue to exploit this poor state of affairs and use the media as a propoganda machine.

[Glengoyne]

... Say what you want about Michael Moore, but many issues he covered in F 9/11 were never addressed by the mainstream media (the suppression of the black vote in Florida and subsequent scene on Capitol Hill with the Black Caucus is the most prominent example)...
Perhaps those investigative reporters looked into the suppression of the black vote in Florida, and determined it was Bullshit.

[John Galt]

I think the vast majority of the things you are talking about are incidents where they are stating what they believe are facts based on the intelligence. I can pull out Clinton, Daschle, and Kerry quotes stating that Saddam possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and needed to be removed from power. Were they lying too?

Actually my examples have less to do with intelligence (the Bush administration asserted that aluminum tubes could be used for nuclear weapons even though NO intelligence expert agreed with them and there was direct evidence otherwise, the unmanned vehicles were incapable of causing the damage asserted, Cheney has repeatedly denied making statements that he made, the use of the Kurdish al-qaeda camp could not be based on confusion - it was clearly in Kurdish territory, and Bush's continued statements that Saddam didn't let the inspectors in at the time of the invasion is just wrong). These facts don't rely on hindsight. When you also add all the other things we know in hindsight, there is a definite pattern. And the fact that the administration kept saying "NO DOUBT" puts a very high burden on them - they did not just say "the best evidence shows."

As for other politicians, they only spoke to WMD's - something which is a general issue - I'm talking about very specific lies. Clinton and Kerry have lied about various things (including Kerry's very odd confusion about whether he owns an SUV), but that is side issue to this discussion.

[John Galt]

Perhaps those investigative reporters looked into the suppression of the black vote in Florida, and determined it was Bullshit.

First off, I'm more talking about the scene on Capitol Hill when the Black Caucus wanted an investigation as to vote suppression and couldn't get a single Senator to authorize one. I didn't see any media coverage of a major breakdown in democracy.

As for vote suppression itself, there is clear evidence that many blacks were illegally disenfranchised because their names were mistakenly included on the list of felons who couldn't vote. Some had had convictions overturned while others just had the same names as convicts. The numbers were significant and unfortunately, no one did much to report it in the mainstream media.

Here is a story recounting the study done by The Nation (a liberal, non-mainstream media source) featured on Commondreams (a very liberal news collector):

http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0412-02.htm

[Solecismic]

Has anyone gone to the trouble to find out if a similar number of white people were also denied access to the polls for the same reason?

I hate calling this a racial issue without evidence.

As for suppression of votes, obviously, each party wants lower turnout of groups less sympathetic to its cause. The Republicans would be happy if less black people voted and the Democrats would be happy if less military people voted. This is why Gore tried to suppress the military vote in 2000.

[DeftRevisited]

Sadly, the issue brought forth, that Bush is a silver spooned fortunate son who got an easy gig in the Guard is getting overlooked.

"Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston has said she believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected Killian's opinions. " AP Wire

In my opinion, if the ends justifies the means is a reasonable means of legitimizing lying (which it isn't), its much better used to illustrate a person's character than to send thousand off to die.

[Huckleberry]

This whole ordeal makes me sad. I mean, seriously. What has happened to the art of forgery? The forger (presumably Burkett) couldn't even get their hands on a 1970s typewriter? They faxed it and gave away the source? CBS forgot to copy and remove the header immediately?

Brings a tear to my eye. I'm gonna go forge something.

[John Galt]

Has anyone gone to the trouble to find out if a similar number of white people were also denied access to the polls for the same reason?

I hate calling this a racial issue without evidence.

As for suppression of votes, obviously, each party wants lower turnout of groups less sympathetic to its cause. The Republicans would be happy if less black people voted and the Democrats would be happy if less military people voted. This is why Gore tried to suppress the military vote in 2000.

I think the study found blacks were overwhelmingly targetted and were over a majority of those denied the right to vote. There was also an ugly incident (that is hopefully corrected) in anticipation of the 2004 election (this is from the People for the American Way website, but there are many sources out there):

"This year in Florida, the state ordered the implementation of a “potential felon” purge list to remove voters from the rolls, in a disturbing echo of the infamous 2000 purge, which removed thousands of eligible voters, primarily African-Americans, from the rolls. The state abandoned the plan after news media investigations revealed that the 2004 list also included thousands of people who were eligible to vote, and heavily targeted African-Americans while virtually ignoring Hispanic voters."

Apparently, the new list including almost no hispanic voters (who tend to vote republican in Florida) and the explanation I heard (based on census categories) didn't make sense. Either way, I hope it is fixed now.

[larrymcg421]

As for suppression of votes, obviously, each party wants lower turnout of groups less sympathetic to its cause. The Republicans would be happy if less black people voted and the Democrats would be happy if less military people voted. This is why Gore tried to suppress the military vote in 2000.
There were many military ballots that came over past the deadline and without the proper markings prescribed by law to make them valid. Why should they have been counted? It is interesting to note that Gore gave and allowed the military ballots to be coutned eventhough they were NOT legal, but Bush was not willing to do the same for other voters in the state of Florida.

[John Galt]

Here is the link from The Nation directly:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20010430&s=lantigua

[CamEdwards]

John,

You might also read Peter Kirsanow's report on disenfranchisement among black voters. Although he's a conservative, he's also on the Commision on Civil Rights, is black, and says there's no evidence that it took place.

BTW, I believe Jim's absolutely right about CBS's viewership. It's not that Republicans are turning off CBS, it's people who realize their reporting is crap on this story.

[Ben E Lou]

John, I think what Jim is trying to say is that they're making it a "racial" issue when it is a "trying to win" issue. I don't think many Repubs are sitting around thinking, "we need to get rid of the nigger vote", and I don't think many Dems are thinking, "we need to get rid of the baby-killer vote." Both sides would love to get more people to the polls who'll vote for them, and less people to the polls who'll vote for the other guy. As I've said in various ways, this sort of thing is inherent in our system.

[Solecismic]

That's a very biased story, John. I hope you see that.

The fact that a disproportionate number of Florida's felons are black is not evidence of discrimination on its own.

I guess one question I'd ask is if you'd still be in favor of overturning the laws restricting felons from voting if surveys said they overwhelmingly favored Bush.

[CamEdwards]

BTW, here's the link to Kirsanow's column. It's in the National Review, a mainstream conservative magazine (which I guess makes it a good counterpoint to John's piece).

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200310150822.asp

[Glengoyne]

That's a very biased story, John. I hope you see that.

The fact that a disproportionate number of Florida's felons are black is not evidence of discrimination on its own.
...


Ding Ding Ding Black voters weren't disenfranchised, previously convicted felons were.

[Easy Mac]

I wish there were a place I could turn for news. For stuff like Hurricane Ivan, which I believe was a non-partisan hurricane, this isn't a problem.
Non-partisan? That hurricance is as Republican as a 20 year old named Hunter going to a KA frat party. You think its a coincidence that a hurricane is destroying the US in an election year? The things are targeting all the Democrats homes throughout the Southeast (especially Florida) so that Bush can deny them a vote. If they don't have an address, they can't vote. Now all these Hispanics and blacks in Florida who are legal can't vote. It's the Republicans who have been planning these things for the past 20 years with their ignoring of global warming. They knew if they let the environment get bad enough, it would detroy all the poor. They're some crafty motherfuckers. Its no coincidence that 5 hurricances have or will rip through the SE coast of the US. The rich people who have their condos destroyed can still vote, becuase its not their permanent homes, but the poor who live over there are homeless and can't vote.

Don't be a slave to the Republican Hurricane braintrust, Jim... Fight the power, stand up to these massive blowhards.

(I hadn't politicized for a while, so it might as well be inane.)

[John Galt]

John, I think what Jim is trying to say is that they're making it a "racial" issue when it is a "trying to win" issue. I don't think many Repubs are sitting around thinking, "we need to get rid of the nigger vote", and I don't think many Dems are thinking, "we need to get rid of the baby-killer vote." Both sides would love to get more people to the polls who'll vote for them, and less people to the polls who'll vote for the other guy. As I've said in various ways, this sort of thing is inherent in our system.

The only part of the study I was focusing on was the use of felon lists to suppress the vote - the rest I admit, is fuzzier. As for intent - I don't think it is necessary, but look at what the representative in Michigan said - it still happens.

[Ben E Lou]

Non-partisan? That hurricance is as Republican as a 20 year old named Hunter going to a KA frat party. You think its a coincidence that a hurricane is destroying the US in an election year? The things are targeting all the Democrats homes throughout the Southeast (especially Florida) so that Bush can deny them a vote. If they don't have an address, they can't vote. Now all these Hispanics and blacks in Florida who are legal can't vote. It's the Republicans who have been planning these things for the past 20 years with their ignoring of global warming. They knew if they let the environment get bad enough, it would detroy all the poor. They're some crafty motherfuckers. Its no coincidence that 5 hurricances have or will rip through the SE coast of the US. The rich people who have their condos destroyed can still vote, becuase its not their permanent homes, but the poor who live over there are homeless and can't vote.

Don't be a slave to the Republican Hurricane braintrust, Jim... Fight the power, stand up to these massive blowhards.

(I hadn't politicized for a while, so it might as well be inane.):D

Actually, in all seriousness I would think that the hurricanes will impact the election--in Bush's favor. He gets to send all kind of money and aid to Florida when they need it, and gets "I care" face-time.

[John Galt]

That's a very biased story, John. I hope you see that.

The fact that a disproportionate number of Florida's felons are black is not evidence of discrimination on its own.

I guess one question I'd ask is if you'd still be in favor of overturning the laws restricting felons from voting if surveys said they overwhelmingly favored Bush.

I realize most of the study has got some political issues, but I think the felons part is sound (and has been verified elsewhere). And I think when it comes to voting, the disproportionate effect matters (whereas intent is more important in contexts like employent).

As for your question - I don't care much either way about who the supporters are - I just don't like government suppressing oppositional viewpoints (and who is in power determines who those views belong to).

[John Galt]

Ding Ding Ding Black voters weren't disenfranchised, previously convicted felons were.

Did you even read the report or what I posted?

[Easy Mac]

:D

Actually, in all seriousness I would think that the hurricanes will impact the election--in Bush's favor. He gets to send all kind of money and aid to Florida when they need it, and gets "I care" face-time.
It also helps take care of that pesky illegal immigrant problem... Instead of rounding them up and pissing off relatives, let the Earth sort them out...http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Easy Mac]

Did you even read the report or what I posted?
Is the Pope Jewish?

[Glengoyne]

The aluminum tubes
The story here I recall is that the U.S./Administration claimed the tubes were being used by Iraq to reconstitute their nuclear program, and that the domestic use of the equipment was simply a cover story. Then...it turned out that their "cover story" turned out to be a legitimate domestic use. I dunno not so much a lie in my mind.

The unmanned vehicles that could disseminate WMD materialI am frankly unfamiliar with this one.

Statements by Bush that at the time of the invasion, Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in (when in fact, the US had recalled them)
Semantics. Saddam impeded the inspectors for years. Also didn't the U.S. recall the inspectors because Saddam wouldn't grant them the required access? If Saddam hadn't been impeding the inspections the U.S. wouldn't have recalled them. At best this is a misstatement, not a lie.

Cheney's repeated denials that he ever said we would be welcomed as liberators (even with video saying otherwise)
I'm not familiar with this scandal, but it does bring to my mind the images of the Iraqis greeting U.S. troops as liberators immediately after the fall of the government.

The administration citing Kurdish controlled al-qaeda camps as linked to Saddam
The Kurds hardly controlled those camps. Those terrorists were just as much a problem for the Kurds as anyone else. Also the camps were IN Iraq, which is pretty much what the administration claimed. They were allowed to be there.



"Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied."-- President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03

Based on the facts at hand at the time, this is a lie? Give me a break.

"We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the - our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."-- President George W. Bush, 7/17/03

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."-- Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02

"We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."-- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03
Look just because you know NOW months after the fact that the intelligence was bunk, doesn't mean that they knew that then.


When an administration repeatedly uses "no doubt" type language, I think a lie occurs when they play fast and loose with the facts. Even without the "no doubt" issue, there are several issues above that the Bush administration lied about and knew it lied about.
I don't think the fact that these folks said "no doubt" somehow proves that they were lying. I think it means that they believed there was literally "no doubt" about their assertions. Now that we know they were wrong about those things you can criticize their judgement, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on to call them liars.

[GrantDawg]

John Gault, I'm sorry. I thought you were on a new mission for "truth." The stuff you have put out in this thread is the most slanted, partisian crap I've ever seen. It is equal to the right wingers who completely believe Clinton killed Vince Foster and ran drugs in Arkansas. Very, very, very disappointing.

[John Galt]

John Gault, I'm sorry. I thought you were on a new mission for "truth." The stuff you have put out in this thread is the most slanted, partisian crap I've ever seen. It is equal to the right wingers who completely believe Clinton killed Vince Foster and ran drugs in Arkansas. Very, very, very disappointing.

I wouldn't say I'm on a mission for "truth," but I guess that is not really here nor there. If you are talking about the Nation study and the commondreams article, I'm not denying the partisan bias (I even explicitly note the source bias). My problem is that I believe there was substance to those stories (in regards to the felon exclusion, but not the rest), the Black Caucus stood before the Senate and believed there was substance to those stories, and the mainstream media did nothing to report it. I'm not arguing either way whether these events are true (although I believe the false felon exclusion issue has some validity given it was almost repeated in this election) - I'm arguing that the mainstream media is skipping hard, but important stories to focus on crappy, but easy ones. My criticism here is of the media and the way the government in charge (be it GOP or Dem) is effectively controlling the news. Even things like the National Guard (which is perceived as anti-Bush) has just turned into an exchange of press releases from each side. Investigative journalism in mainstream media is dead.

Now, if you talking about the places I say the Bush Administration lied, well I am defending those. I don't think I've said anything not supported by evidence, but if you think I have, then I have no defense.

[Chubby]

The story here I recall is that the U.S./Administration claimed the tubes were being used by Iraq to reconstitute their nuclear program, and that the domestic use of the equipment was simply a cover story. Then...it turned out that their "cover story" turned out to be a legitimate domestic use. I dunno not so much a lie in my mind.

I am frankly unfamiliar with this one.


Semantics. Saddam impeded the inspectors for years. Also didn't the U.S. recall the inspectors because Saddam wouldn't grant them the required access? If Saddam hadn't been impeding the inspections the U.S. wouldn't have recalled them. At best this is a misstatement, not a lie.

Cheney's repeated denials that he ever said we would be welcomed as liberators (even with video saying otherwise)
I'm not familiar with this scandal, but it does bring to my mind the images of the Iraqis greeting U.S. troops as liberators immediately after the fall of the government.

The administration citing Kurdish controlled al-qaeda camps as linked to Saddam
The Kurds hardly controlled those camps. Those terrorists were just as much a problem for the Kurds as anyone else. Also the camps were IN Iraq, which is pretty much what the administration claimed. They were allowed to be there.



"Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied."-- President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03

Based on the facts at hand at the time, this is a lie? Give me a break.

"We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the - our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."-- President George W. Bush, 7/17/03

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."-- Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02

"We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."-- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03
Look just because you know NOW months after the fact that the intelligence was bunk, doesn't mean that they knew that then.



I don't think the fact that these folks said "no doubt" somehow proves that they were lying. I think it means that they believed there was literally "no doubt" about their assertions. Now that we know they were wrong about those things you can criticize their judgement, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on to call them liars.
again, it's not a lie if you believe it right?

[Leonidas]

The unmanned vehicles that could disseminate WMD material


I can answer this one. Iraq had configured a set of L-29 trainer aircraft to be controlled remotely as drones. Fact, not a lie.

Also, if Bush was lying about intel on WMDs in Iraq, then so were Tony Blair, Putin, Jacque Chirac, Hasni Mubarek, Crown Prince Abdullah of Jordan, and Chancellor Schroeder. Every one of these leaders said leading up to the invasion of Iraq that their intelligence indicated Iraq had WMDs. France, Germany, and Russia never questioned the validity of our claims on WMD, just our right to use force. Quite a conspiracy considering several of these folks voted against us going to war.

[John Galt]

I can answer this one. Iraq had configured a set of L-29 trainer aircraft to be controlled remotely as drones. Fact, not a lie.

Also, if Bush was lying about intel on WMDs in Iraq, then so were Tony Blair, Putin, Jacque Chirac, Hasni Mubarek, Crown Prince Abdullah of Jordan, and Chancellor Schroeder. Every one of these leaders said leading up to the invasion of Iraq that their intelligence indicated Iraq had WMDs. France, Germany, and Russia never questioned the validity of our claims on WMD, just our right to use force. Quite a conspiracy considering several of these folks voted against us going to war.

As for the unmanned vehicle, you are missing my emphasis - the lie was that it could be used to attack Israel with WMD's (not that an unmanned vehicle did not exist).

As to the lies, I have not said everyone who said there were no WMD's was lying. In fact I have been very specific about related lies and said that the Bush's administration's repeated stance that there was "no doubt" was the lie. No conspiracies here.

[Dutch]

Would John Kerry give Saddam Hussein another chance then?

[GrantDawg]

Would John Kerry give Saddam Hussein another chance then?

No. Remember John Kerry thinks that Bush lied and rushed to war, but he would still vote in support of the war. So John Kerry supports/opposes the war and will do all that he can to end/continue the war.

[TroyF]

again, it's not a lie if you believe it right?


I've read this a few times in this thread and think it's ridiculous.

No, if you truly believe something and relay that information on, it is not a lie.

You might be wrong, uninformed, idiotic, stupic, braindead, wreckless, pathetic, psychotic, or any number of other things, but you did not tell a lie.

Today at work I got into an arguement about one of our franchises. I swore they were caught up on their fees. The other RM swore he wasn't. Turns out, I blew it. I didn't tell a lie, I gave wrong information. Had we not checked on the information and just went by what I said we would have been basing our decisions off of the wrong information, but I wouldn't have lied either.

I'm curious, do you even know the definition of the word "lie"? Do you understand there has to be an intent to deceive?

Now, maybe you feel George W. did lie. I certainly think he did a few times. (then again, I think all politicians do at times)

But the statement "It's not a lie if you believe it" is dead on, maybe you can look up the definition, put yourself on the other side of the debate for two minutes and understand that this issue isn't as black and white as you want to make it out to be.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Would John Kerry give Saddam Hussein another chance then?

Yeah, that's right, Zell, he'll put Saddam back in charge, probably around the same time he'll be arming the military with spitballs and appointing France to run the state department...

:rolleyes:

[Jesse_Ewiak]

Just as a piggyback on the WMD issue....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040917/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_weapons

US Weapons Inspector:Iraq had no WMD

[Joe]

thanks for the groundbreaking story

[TroyF]

Just as a piggyback on the WMD issue....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040917/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_weapons

US Weapons Inspector:Iraq had no WMD


According to people familiar with the 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.

Duelfer also says Iraq only had small research and development programs for chemical and biological weapons.

As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.

Sorry, but I think the "he didn't have WMD" crowd could find a better story than this.

If the report is accurate, Hussein was in major violations of the UN by continuing to import banned materials, mainaining sites with the ability to produce weapons, had chemical and biological weapons programs (even if they are small, they still exist which would be in violation of the UN) and was just waiting to restart all of his weapons programs until the UN fell asleep again.

A report like this may show a lot of people that we didn't need to go in and do what we did. It strengthens my belief that we needed to go in because this crazy bastard wouldn't have stopped until he did possess dangerous weapons and there is no telling what he'd do with them as he came closer to his date with death. Waiting ten years before we went back in could have been even more disasterous than this war was.

I'll admit my bias. . . but then again, I'll always admit to gaving a bias against any world leader that has tried ethnic cleansing and mass genocide with chemical weapons in his past.

[John Galt]

I've read this a few times in this thread and think it's ridiculous.

No, if you truly believe something and relay that information on, it is not a lie.

You might be wrong, uninformed, idiotic, stupic, braindead, wreckless, pathetic, psychotic, or any number of other things, but you did not tell a lie.

Today at work I got into an arguement about one of our franchises. I swore they were caught up on their fees. The other RM swore he wasn't. Turns out, I blew it. I didn't tell a lie, I gave wrong information. Had we not checked on the information and just went by what I said we would have been basing our decisions off of the wrong information, but I wouldn't have lied either.

I'm curious, do you even know the definition of the word "lie"? Do you understand there has to be an intent to deceive?

Now, maybe you feel George W. did lie. I certainly think he did a few times. (then again, I think all politicians do at times)

But the statement "It's not a lie if you believe it" is dead on, maybe you can look up the definition, put yourself on the other side of the debate for two minutes and understand that this issue isn't as black and white as you want to make it out to be.

I agree with you here that intent is a requisite for a lie. When I posted the Costanza definition of lying, I wanted to point out a couple different types of intent: 1) Deceiving yourself and 2) Being unwilling to bother with the facts (plausible deniability). I think several people here (not you) are willing to say there is no lie as long as a scenario could be constructed where the administration didn't believe they were wrong. I'm troubled by this approach because it tends to miss patterns of behavior and encourage plausible deniability. And for those with a partisan bent on this issue, did you believe Clinton lied when he said he didn't have sex with that woman? I for one thought he was full of it, but if you hold a very limited intent concept you should be inclined to believe he didn't lie (because he thought oral sex wasn't sex).

[John Galt]

The story here I recall is that the U.S./Administration claimed the tubes were being used by Iraq to reconstitute their nuclear program, and that the domestic use of the equipment was simply a cover story. Then...it turned out that their "cover story" turned out to be a legitimate domestic use. I dunno not so much a lie in my mind.

I am frankly unfamiliar with this one.


Semantics. Saddam impeded the inspectors for years. Also didn't the U.S. recall the inspectors because Saddam wouldn't grant them the required access? If Saddam hadn't been impeding the inspections the U.S. wouldn't have recalled them. At best this is a misstatement, not a lie.

Cheney's repeated denials that he ever said we would be welcomed as liberators (even with video saying otherwise)
I'm not familiar with this scandal, but it does bring to my mind the images of the Iraqis greeting U.S. troops as liberators immediately after the fall of the government.

The administration citing Kurdish controlled al-qaeda camps as linked to Saddam
The Kurds hardly controlled those camps. Those terrorists were just as much a problem for the Kurds as anyone else. Also the camps were IN Iraq, which is pretty much what the administration claimed. They were allowed to be there.



"Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied."-- President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03

Based on the facts at hand at the time, this is a lie? Give me a break.

"We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the - our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."-- President George W. Bush, 7/17/03

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."-- Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02

"We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."-- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03
Look just because you know NOW months after the fact that the intelligence was bunk, doesn't mean that they knew that then.



I don't think the fact that these folks said "no doubt" somehow proves that they were lying. I think it means that they believed there was literally "no doubt" about their assertions. Now that we know they were wrong about those things you can criticize their judgement, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on to call them liars.

First, the aluminum tubes - the problem is that all intelligence available showed that they couldn't be used for nuclear reactors - there was no source to the assertion that they could be used.

Second, inspectors - semantics? That is a little ridiculous - Bush got Congress to authorize force against Iraq (Kerry and others voted for it), he uses that force to get the inspectors in, the inspectors say they need more time, and Bush withdraws the inspectors to invade. Saying at the time of the invasion that Saddam wouldn't let them in as a justification for invasion is plain deceptive.

Third, Cheney's denials - I was wrong about this, it was Rumsfeld - here is a link to the basic story (I have no clue who the source is, but I can't find the original story I read that had more detail): http://www.wirefarm.com/archives/003407.html

Fourth, unmanned vehicles - see my other post.

Fifth - Kurdish camps - to use camps in Iraq in territory not controlled by Saddam (and actually in territory controlled by his enemies) is just dishonest. Does the presence of over 100 al qaeda operatives in the US mean we should bomb Washington?

Sixth - the "no doubt" language - when administration says there is "no doubt" that is very different than saying "our intelligence shows" or even "the best available evidence shows." When you choose to ignore or discount contradictory intelligence and then say "no doubt," you better be right.

[John Galt]

No. Remember John Kerry thinks that Bush lied and rushed to war, but he would still vote in support of the war. So John Kerry supports/opposes the war and will do all that he can to end/continue the war.

I just wanted to point something out about this often used soundbite. Kerry voted to authorize force (and says he would do so again) which is not the same as supporting the war. Believing a president should have the authorization of force is Congress's way of recognizing a potentially hostile situation where a president needs to act immediately - that isn't the same thing as supporting invasion (although it does delegate that power). In many ways, the authorization of force is a separation of powers issue more than it is an actual vote for war. In this case, the authorization was initially used to get the inspectors in, but then was used for much more.

With that being said, I think Kerry has failed to get the media to make that distinction and I don't think he should have ever authorized force. However, there is a difference that has been lost.

[John Galt]

BTW, here's the link to Kirsanow's column. It's in the National Review, a mainstream conservative magazine (which I guess makes it a good counterpoint to John's piece).

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200310150822.asp

Back to the felon list issue. This is the relevant section for TNR:

"Much has been made of the "felon purge list," i.e., a list of those individuals who, under Florida law, were to be barred from voting due to felony convictions. The list had been prepared to prevent the kind of fraud that had occurred in the infamous Miami mayoral election, in which a number of ineligible felons voted.

The list was inaccurate; it included people who shouldn't have been on it. Thus, the myth holds that the purge list was somehow a tool to deny blacks the right to vote.

But facts are stubborn things. Whites were actually twice as likely as blacks to be erroneously placed on the list. In fact, an exhaustive study by the Miami Herald concluded that "the biggest problem with the felon list was not that it prevented eligible voters from casting ballots, but that it ended up allowing ineligible voters to cast a ballot."* According to the Palm Beach Post, more than 6,500 ineligible felons voted."

There are really only two responses here:

1) more whites were excluded - this contradicts everything else I have read, but if it is true, it casts doubt on the story. I have no access to the data to really render any judgment here.

2) it allowed ineligible voters to vote - an irrelevant issue that does nothing to deny suppression.

My thoughts on the voter suppression are that is was a major story and the fact that it almost happened again should have been a major story as well. My criticism here is with the mainstream media's failure to report this issues. There have many other reports of vote suppression around the country, but CNN, ABC, Fox, etc. don't care. That is sad.

[John Galt]

BTW, here's the link to Kirsanow's column. It's in the National Review, a mainstream conservative magazine (which I guess makes it a good counterpoint to John's piece).

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200310150822.asp

As for Kirsanow himself, I've never heard of the man, but how did he ever get on the Commission for Civil Rights?

http://www.bintjbeil.com/adc/020720_kirsanow.html (Kirsanow told a Commission hearing in Detroit on July 19 that if there was another terrorist attack on the United States "and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights." He said "not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling, there will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights.")

This was his reply:

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/3714518.htm (Kirsanow said his comments have been taken out of context. "Under no circumstances did I ever say, nor do I believe in, detention camps or that the government should consider such detention camps," Kirsanow said Monday. "I am adamantly opposed to the concept. I was trying to emphasize that an effective war on terrorism and preserving civil liberties are not mutually exclusive.")

That is one of the worst apologies/denials I have ever seen.

[Glengoyne]

again, it's not a lie if you believe it right?
Right. Do you need a dictionary?

[TroyF]

I agree with you here that intent is a requisite for a lie. When I posted the Costanza definition of lying, I wanted to point out a couple different types of intent: 1) Deceiving yourself and 2) Being unwilling to bother with the facts (plausible deniability). I think several people here (not you) are willing to say there is no lie as long as a scenario could be constructed where the administration didn't believe they were wrong. I'm troubled by this approach because it tends to miss patterns of behavior and encourage plausible deniability. And for those with a partisan bent on this issue, did you believe Clinton lied when he said he didn't have sex with that woman? I for one thought he was full of it, but if you hold a very limited intent concept you should be inclined to believe he didn't lie (because he thought oral sex wasn't sex).

I wasn't trying to talk about the Bush admin John. They have lied in the past. It becomes a game of choosing what to believe and what you don't. I can't blame anyone who doesn't believe a thing. The only thing I can do is point out the the WMD belief was widespread throughout the world. I don't believe the administration "lied" about that fact. I also don't believe they lied in the early stages of the Al Queda/Hussein link. There was a flurry of information coming in at that time. Now. . . later on? Certainly a lie.

My post was an attack on Chubby though. You can lie to yourself. Thing is, if you "lieing" to yourself is very difficult and very subjective. Chubby's continued "if you don't believe it, it isn't a lie" sarcasm is pathetic on a lot of levels. After he mentioned it multiple times in the thread, I decided to vent.

[John Galt]

I wasn't trying to talk about the Bush admin John. They have lied in the past. It becomes a game of choosing what to believe and what you don't. I can't blame anyone who doesn't believe a thing. The only thing I can do is point out the the WMD belief was widespread throughout the world. I don't believe the administration "lied" about that fact. I also don't believe they lied in the early stages of the Al Queda/Hussein link. There was a flurry of information coming in at that time. Now. . . later on? Certainly a lie.

My post was an attack on Chubby though. You can lie to yourself. Thing is, if you "lieing" to yourself is very difficult and very subjective. Chubby's continued "if you don't believe it, it isn't a lie" sarcasm is pathetic on a lot of levels. After he mentioned it multiple times in the thread, I decided to vent.

Fair enough. I was mostly agreeing with your assessment, but since I thought I was the original source of the "belief" element of lying (although I meant it different than Chubby), I thought I should reply.

[GrantDawg]

I just wanted to point something out about this often used soundbite. Kerry voted to authorize force (and says he would do so again) which is not the same as supporting the war. Believing a president should have the authorization of force is Congress's way of recognizing a potentially hostile situation where a president needs to act immediately - that isn't the same thing as supporting invasion (although it does delegate that power). In many ways, the authorization of force is a separation of powers issue more than it is an actual vote for war. In this case, the authorization was initially used to get the inspectors in, but then was used for much more.

With that being said, I think Kerry has failed to get the media to make that distinction and I don't think he should have ever authorized force. However, there is a difference that has been lost.
Kerry was for the war when he made that vote. He knew that he was voting to allow the President to go to war in Iraq. He was in fact for the war and standing with the President (with some criticism) until Howard Dean was beating him in the primaries. There is no doubt in my mind that his sudden change of views on the war in Iraq came about for completely political reasons. Therefore, my criticism is completely warrented. At this point I'm going to vote for him (and it is not like Bush doesn't make many politically expedent changes of mind, too), but I do wish he hadn't played this political game with this issue.

[John Galt]

Kerry was for the war when he made that vote. He knew that he was voting to allow the President to go to war in Iraq. He was in fact for the war and standing with the President (with some criticism) until Howard Dean was beating him in the primaries. There is no doubt in my mind that his sudden change of views on the war in Iraq came about for completely political reasons. Therefore, my criticism is completely warrented. At this point I'm going to vote for him (and it is not like Bush doesn't make many politically expedent changes of mind, too), but I do wish he hadn't played this political game with this issue.

I'm sorry, I was confused - I thought you were talking about Bush's statement that Kerry has acknowledged he would vote to authorize the war even knowing what he knows today - that is the statement that I feel has been misconstrued. Otherwise, I'm in agreement that Kerry's position on the war has pretty much sucked.

[Dutch]

No. Remember John Kerry thinks that Bush lied and rushed to war, but he would still vote in support of the war. So John Kerry supports/opposes the war and will do all that he can to end/continue the war.

And as the Kerry Campaign says, "I think he's stated that a hundred times already and has been quite clear on the matter." :D

[CamEdwards]

Charles Krauthammer has an article about Kerry's positions on Iraq today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27549-2004Sep16.html

It's interesting reading.

[Glengoyne]

John,

A couple of things. I draw a distinction between your Constanza line and what Chubby had posted about lying. That was why I didn't ask you if you needed a dictionary. The deal is, I don't think the administration people deceived themselves into believing things they knew or should have known were untrue. I also don't think that because someone says, they have No Doubt about something, that they have somehow given up their right to be mistaken.

I think several people here (not you) are willing to say there is no lie as long as a scenario could be constructed where the administration didn't believe they were wrong.
I'm guessing you mean me here. I'm glad you can boil down my point of view to a simplistic rationalization. (right here I need that smilie that flips a bird)

I'm sorry if you don't follow my point. It is pretty simple and straight forward. You pretty well have to have proof that someone is a liar, to call them that. I haven't seen the proof that the administration knew the things they were saying were incorrect. You don't have proof. You have hindsight.

On the disenfranchised voter topic. I honestly believe the reason it wasn't a story is that any independent review of the facts pretty clearly shows that Blacks weren't targetted. In other words that it wasn't an issue of race. It was an issue of a mistake being made in clearing the records of previously convicted felons. No malice toward any racial subset was intended or carried out. In other words the assertion that an effort was made to disenfranchise black voters was and is Bullshit.

I understand that you don't want any group's opinion or right to vote suppressed, but convicted felons don't get to vote. Just because the people who had convictions overturned weren't removed from the "black list" doesn't mean the government was targetting them for disenfranchisment. If there was a shred of proof, it would be a good story. Perhaps it was that lack of evidence that prevented it from being a story. Reporters and news organizations, with the current exception of Dan Rather and CBS, want to have solid evidence to back up their stories.

[Buddy Grant]

I still believe they are going to find WMD in Iraq, and then the connection between 9-11 and Iraq will become all the more obvious. As for the naysayers, I find it's best to completely disregard any findings that are contrary to what President Bush says, hence, my refusal to support all forms of media at this time.

[Leonidas]

As for the unmanned vehicle, you are missing my emphasis - the lie was that it could be used to attack Israel with WMD's (not that an unmanned vehicle did not exist).

As to the lies, I have not said everyone who said there were no WMD's was lying. In fact I have been very specific about related lies and said that the Bush's administration's repeated stance that there was "no doubt" was the lie. No conspiracies here.

Again, your liberal use of the term "lie" is inaccurate. With a max ferry range of 1600 Km, Israel was well within its one way range.

As for the second part, my understanding is your contention Bush lied about the WMD capability of Iraq. CIA Director Tenant, according to Bob Woodward, told Bush the WMD issue was a "slam dunk". On top of that virtually every leader in ther Middle East was telling our envoys Saddam had them and would use them on our troops. You are splitting hairs here when you vary your degree of accusation. The CIA told Bush the weapons were there. Our allies in the region told him not only were the weapons there, but that Saddam would use them (likely based on their very own conversations with Hussein). Sorry, but the evidence suggests Bush had very good reason to believe those weapons were there and would be used. You make many thin assumptions and presumptions to go so far as to accuse Bush of boldly lying about the threat.

BTW, here is more data on the L-29. The range on the first link is based on combat radius. The second link has ferry range, which is the one-way number for a strike on Israel.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/l-29.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/l-29.htm

[GrantDawg]

Just as a followup:


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left>http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif<!-- ADXINFO classification="logo_strips" campaign="foxsearch50a-nyt5"--> http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/garden_state_pf.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch50a-nyt5&ad=gardenstate-pf&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fgardenstate%2Findex%5Fnyt%2Ehtml)
<HR align=left SIZE=1>September 20, 2004

<NYT_KICKER>THE NEWS MEDIA </NYT_KICKER><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say

</NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE type=" " version="1.0">By JIM RUTENBERG
</NYT_BYLINE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><NYT_TEXT>http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/a.giffter days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's (http://www.nytimes.com/top/news/washington/campaign2004/candidates/georgewbush/index.html?inline=nyt-per-pol) National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air.

But they cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement. Officials met last night with Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to go over the information it had collected about the documents one last time before making a final decision. Mr. Rather was not available for comment late last night.

The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.

Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings but that the documents' authenticity was now in grave doubt.

The developments last night marked a dramatic turn for CBS News, which for a week stood steadfastly by its Sept. 8 report as various document experts asserted that the typeface of the memos could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.

The seemingly unflappable confidence of Mr. Rather and top news division officials in the documents allayed fears within the network and created doubt among some in the news media at large that those specialists were correct. CBS News officials had said they had reason to be certain that the documents indeed had come from the personal file of Colonel Killian.

Sandy Genelius, a network spokeswoman, said last week, "We are confident about the chain of custody; we're confident in how we secured the documents.''

But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they had been misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.

Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos had come from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.

It was unclear last night if Mr. Burkett had told Mr. Rather that he had been misled about the documents' provenance or that he had been the one who did the misleading.

In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Burkett declined to answer any questions about the documents.

Yesterday, Emily J. Will, a document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents said they had been obtained anonymously and through the mail.

In an interview last night she declined to name the producer who told her this but said the producer was in a position to know. CBS News officials have disputed her contention that she warned the network the night before the initial "60 Minutes'' report that it would face questions from documents experts.

In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine.

Ms. Will is one of two documents experts consulted by the network who said they raised doubts about the material before the segment was broadcast. Another expert, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he had vouched only for Colonel Killian's signatures on the records and not the authenticity of the records themselves. Mr. Matley said he could not rule out that the signatures had been cut and pasted from official records pertaining to Colonel Killian.

In examining where the network had gone wrong, officials at CBS News turning their attention to Ms. Mapes, one of their most respected producers, who was riding particularly high this year after breaking news about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the network.

In a telephone interview this weekend, Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes'' Wednesday edition, said that he did not initially know who was Ms. Mapes' primary source for the documents but that he did not see any reason to doubt them. He said he believed Ms. Mapes and her team had appropriately answered all questions about the documents' authenticity and, he noted, no one seemed to be casting doubt upon the essential thrust of the report.

"The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day,'' he said, "and the reporting that was done in it was by a person who has turned in decades of flawless reporting with no challenge to her credibility.''

He added, "We in management had no sense that the producing team wasn't completely comfortable with the results of the document analysis.''

Ms. Mapes has not responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented to them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was "the icing on the cake'' of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents being presented by a credible news organization.

Several people familiar with the situation said they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts.

One person close to the situation said the critical question would be, "Where was everybody's judgment on that last day?''

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