So much for "ABC and CBS PWN BUSH"

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


So you attribute to yourself exactly the same scepticism I have been advocating, yet you want to make a big deal out of it.

You're pathetic. (as if that was a surprise)

No actually, Aggie, there is more than enough known for me to conclude that the documents are forgeries. The only caveat to that would be if the reports of things like Word producing an identical document are false.

I don't share your 'see no evil' scepticism. I'm not that pathetic.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

One last one as the issue seems decidedly at this point the memos are forged. For Rather who has claimed authenticity from the photocopies. His own expert said the following:

BACK TO THE CBS MEMOS [09/11 02:32 PM]

The only expert cited by CBS in this case, Marcel Matley, wrote in the September 27, 2002 issue of the journal, "The Practical Litigator":

In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries. From a copy, the document examiner cannot authenticate the unseen original but may well be able to determine that the unseen original is false. Further, a definite finding of authenticity for a signature is not possible from a photocopy, while a definite finding of falsity is possible.

Attempting to authenticate a signature from a photocopy is exactly what Matley did for CBS.

Game over.

Yet one more link for Sava

[Drake Tungsten]

A good overview of some of ^the visual evidence again^{st th}e CBS memos...

http://peterduncan.net/CBS_Documents.html

Ra^ther should be toa^st.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Is it even remotely possible that the owners allow the editors to run the paper?

Not according to former employees. Editorial policy comes down from the Almighty, literally. I can't believe you're even defending them.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
A good overview of some of ^the visual evidence again^{st th}e CBS memos...

http://peterduncan.net/CBS_Documents.html

Ra^ther should be toa^st.

Ouch, that's the most damning evidence I have seen yet against Ra^ther. He's screwed.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Not according to former employees. Editorial policy comes down from the Almighty, literally. I can't believe you're even defending them.

I'm not defending them so much as I'm commenting on your frothing everytime the WT is mentioned.

[CygnusZ]

I don't really talk here but...

I noticed this online yesterday. Now, I'm not really sure exactly what is necessary to consider when examining whether or not a document is a forgery. I possess no real extensive knowlege of what type of paper was used, what type of typewriters were in use by the Army, how good or poor those typewriters were, and for that matter I don't really know that much about typefaces.

Anyway, the skinny of this one is that New Times Roman did exist, porportional spacing typewriters existed (and was sold to the US government), the "th" superscript did exist and that the New Times Roman from Microsoft Word is different from that shown on the document.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

I'm not saying it's a fraud or its not. Only that some of the earlier assertions as to why this is a fraud do appear to be untrue and it would be best to defer to people actually trained in this field rather than rely on the woefully inept world of internet blogs.

[Giancarlo]

From Drudgereport:

Saturday, another retired Air National Guard officer came forward to attack CBSNEWS credibility. Retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, who was cited by a senior CBS official on Thursday as the network's "trump card" in verifying the documents, said in an interview that he was "misled" by CBS and believed the documents to be forgeries.

Hodges said that he was read only excerpts of the documents and never saw the documents. A CBS spokesman said the network stands by its report.

Another Update:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationalpolitics/2002032742_bushguard11.html

Only that some of the earlier assertions as to why this is a fraud do appear to be untrue

The facts already say it is fraud. That has been established.

And this shows where your assesssment falters:

http://peterduncan.net/CBS_Documents.html

The documents are fake.

[Drake Tungsten]

The Daily Kos is full of ****. I've been reading his defenses and laughing at them since this whole thing started...

[Ned]

Cygnusz, try reading that peterduncan site referenced in both Drake's and Giancarlo's posts. The site proves that the memo's were written on MS Word and not on an IBM selectric.

I no longer have any doubts.

This is the greatest election year scandal since Watergate.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

InDC has been pwning dailyKOS and been far ahead of them on the curve.

[Ned]

There are reports this came to CBS from the DNC. Did they forge them?

I wonder when CBS is going to fire Rather?

[Lefty Scaevola]

All I have seen about DNC & Keery Campaign is that they have had these in their pocesssion. I have not yet seen the link between them & CBS on these documents.

[Drake Tungsten]

William Safire PWNS Rather

Those Discredited Memos
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: September 13, 2004

Washington - Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax: the "documents" presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment in Lt. George W. Bush's National Guard service have all the earmarks of forgeries.

The copies of copies of copies that formed the basis for the latest charges were supposedly typed by Guard officer Jerry Killian three decades ago and placed in his "personal" file. But it is the default typeface of Microsoft Word, highly unlikely to have been used by that Texas colonel, who died in 1984. His widow says he could hardly type and his son warned CBS that the memos were not real.

When the mainstream press checked the sources mentioned or ignored by "60 Minutes II," the story came apart.

The Los Angeles Times checked with Killian's former commander, the retired Guard general whom a CBS executive had said would be the "trump card" in corroborating its charges. But it turns out CBS had only read Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges the purported memos on the phone, and did not trouble to show them to him. Hodges now says he was "misled" - he thought the memos were handwritten - and believes the machine-produced "documents" to be forgeries. (CBS accuses the officer of changing his story.)

The L.A. Times also checked out a handwriting analyst, Marcel Matley (of Vincent Foster suicide-note fame), who CBS had claimed vouched for the authenticity of four memos. It turns out he vouches for only one signature, and no scribbled initials, and has no opinion about the typography of any of the supposed memos.

The Dallas Morning News looked into the charge in one of the possible forgeries dated Aug. 18, 1973, that a commander of a Texas Air Guard squadron was trying to "sugar coat" Bush's service record. It found that the commander had retired from the Guard 18 months before that.

The Associated Press focused on the suspicion first voiced by a blogger on the Web site Freerepublic.com about modern "superscripts" that include a raised th after a number. CBS, on the defense, claimed that "some models" of typewriters of the 70's could do that trick, and some Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House included it.

"That superscript, however," countered The A.P., "is in a different typeface than the one used for the CBS memos." It consulted the document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Ariz., and reported "she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."

The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics' "motivation."

After leading with that response, Post media reporter Howard Kurtz noted that the handwriting expert Matley said that CBS had asked him not to give interviews, and that an unidentified CBS staff member who had examined the documents saw potential problems with them: "There's a lot of sentiment that we should do an internal investigation."

Newsweek (which likes the word "discredited") has apparently begun an external investigation: it names "a disgruntled former Guard officer" as a principal source for CBS, noting "he suffered two nervous breakdowns" and "unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses."

It may be that CBS is the victim of a whopping journalistic hoax, besmearing a president to bring him down. What should a responsible news organization do?

To shut up sources and impugn the motives of serious critics - from opinionated bloggers to straight journalists - demeans the Murrow tradition. Nor is any angry demand that others prove them wrong acceptable, especially when no original documents are available to prove anything.

Years ago, Kurdish friends slipped me amateur film taken of Saddam's poison-gas attack that killed thousands in Halabja. I gave it to Dan Rather, who trusted my word on sources. Despite objections from queasy colleagues, he put it on the air.

Hey, Dan: On this, recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and papers. Courage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/13safire.html

Ouch...

[Drake Tungsten]

bump