Liberal Media Hurricane

Most of the media is obsessed with the storm off in the Caribbean while another storm of sorts is brewing at cbs. This is an outtake of a discussion of the 'forged/not forged' documents proving that Bush was AWOL.

Rather: "YOU'VE STUDIED PRESIDENT BUSH'S RECORDS FOR 10 YEARS.. ARE THESE DOCUMENTS CONSISTENT WITH THE RECORD AS YOU KNOW IT?"

Moore: "THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY CONSISTENT WITH THE RECORDS AS I KNOW IT."

Rather: "PUT IT IN CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVE FOR US ... THE STORY AND WHAT WE CALL THE COUNTERATTACK ON THE STORY. WHERE ARE WE RIGHT NOW?

Moore "I THINK WHAT HAS HAPPENED IS SOME INCRIMINATING DOCUMENTS HAVE COME OUT. THE WHITE HOUSE, YOU SHOULD REMEMBER, HAS NOT DISCREDITED THE DOCUMENTS. THEY'RE RELYING ON THE BLOGOSPHERE AND OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THAT. BECAUSE THE WHITE HOUSE PROBABLY KNOWS THESE DOCUMENTS ARE IN FACT REAL."

Rather Tag: The "60 Minutes" report was based NOT solely on the recovered documents .. but on a preponderance of evidence .. including documents that were provided by un-impeachable sources .. and interviews with former officials of the Texas National Guard. If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it.

So far, there is none.

So....the man they are trying to paint as untrustworthy and a liar is the man they rely on to say "Hey, the documents are forged!". That doesn't jibe. Also, if these documents are *consistent* with other research, then surely there are corrobarrating documents, no?

I'm not saying anything one way or the other about the documents. I've heard pretty convincing arguments both ways about these things....although, I think CBS should have been more ready for this. Also, its disingenuous for Rather to be privately "shell-shocked" and surprised about this and in public be putting out this "This is the truth, and nothing will persuade me otherwise" attitude.

Here's the Daily Kos backing up the "they are not forged" side.

LGF replicates the document with MS Word side.

And Mark Steyn comes up with some pretty convincing stuff as usual:

Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking, so the ''60 Minutes'' crew rushed on air with a damning National Guard memo conveniently called ''CYA'' that Bush's commanding officer had written to himself 32 years ago. ''This was too hot not to push,'' one producer told the American Spectator. Hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera -- that's way too cold to push; we'd want to fact-check that one thoroughly, till, say, midway through John Kerry's second term. But a handful of memos by one dead guy slipped to us by a Kerry campaign operative -- that meets ''basic standards'' and we gotta get it out there right away.

The only problem was the memo. Amazingly, this guy at the Air National Guard base, Lt. Col. Killian, had the only typewriter in Texas in 1973 using a prototype version of the default letter writing program of Microsoft Word, complete with the tiny little superscript thingy that automatically changes July 4th to July 4th. To do that on most 1973 typewriters, you had to unscrew the keys, grab a hammer and give them a couple of thwacks to make the ''t'' and ''h'' squish up all tiny, and even think it looked a bit wonky. You'd think having such a unique typewriter Killian would have used a less easily traceable model for his devastating ''CYA'' memo. Also, he might have chosen a font other than Times New Roman, designed for the Times of London in the 1930s and not licensed to Microsoft by Rupert Murdoch (the Times' owner) until the 1980s.

Killian is no longer around to confirm his extraordinary Magic Typewriter, but his son denied the stuff was written by his dad, and his widow said her late husband never typed.
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Are Dan Rather and ''60 Minutes'' a bunch of patsies suckered by the Kerry campaign? Not exactly. According to the American Spectator, ''The CBS producer said that some alarm bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story.''

There is a real problem with CBS bringing this stuff to the forefront without the usual scrutiny used in investigative reporting, while they let the Swift Boat Veteran story sit on the shelf for weeks while the Internet was buzzing with it. Not even a mention.

here's a little tidbit from ABC, since CBS admits nothing:

The 60 Minutes Documents:

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."


Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

via LGF.