Posted on 09/09/2004 2:59:00 PM PDT by MindBender26
As many of you I have met know, I'm an old CBS network system newsie.
This is a little insight into Dan Rather, the CBS system, and the current forgeries in particular.
First the forgeries. The amazing thing isn't just that 60 Minutes put forged documents on the air to attack President Bush. The amazing thing is that 60 Minutes put such poor quality forgeries on the air at all.
Any good documents forger could have produced a set of letters that would have passed muster. This forger did a horrible job, the forgeries were easilly decectable, and still 60 Minutes put them on the air.
The bottom line here is Rather and the rest of the 60 Minutes crew so very much wanted them to be true. They knew what story conclusion they wanted, and worked to get it.
There have been news forgeries in the past; the phony Howard Hughes book, the film of the Italian cement plant passed off as smoundering Chernobyl, but this is much worse.
Here there was a specific intended victim, and plenty of time to validate the documents. When they aired the cement plant video, they needed to get it on the air immediately, ahead of the other networks. The only people who really got hurt were the CBS staffers who bought the bogus film for $10,000.
Here, with no deadline, the attacked and hurt a President in the middle of a cmapaign.
Next is Rather himself. A few years ago, another network anchor personally told me that Rather was, in his words, "off his rocker." He then went on to describe a couple of unreported Rather actions that were way outside the behavioral norms for lucid people.
Rather can lie too, and he does so very well. In one of his books, he tells the story of how, one Sunday morning, at a small radio station in Texas, he left the station while a 30 minute Sunday Sermonette transcription was playing. Eventually, the record got to the line, "..... and if you don't follow the way of the Lord, you will reap the wasges of sin and go to Hell.
Thenm supposedly, the transscription record skipped, so all the listeners heard, over and over and over was "go to Hell (skip) go to Hell! (skip) go to Hell....."
Problem is, that story has been told by every disk jockey for 75 years.... and the odds are miniscule that it happened to Rather.
There are many other events, but Rather is not a "normal" man.... He obviously wanted to be the news again, rather than just reporting it.
I've been listening to this story all day long. What I don't understand is why would anyone who had something like this about President George Bush wait until now to announce it. Why didn't this come out in the election of 2000? Why isn't anyone asking these questions?
Kewl! Thanks!
It wasn't as powerful as I thought it would be. What i want to see is the superimposition of the memo over a word document. That will change minds. Tune in tomorrow. They are just getting their ducks in a row.
Dan Rather is a scum. He is a has been trying to make a name for himself.
But the Dimwit Dems love him. You'll never change that! My coworker is already defending it. Saying... well there's always so much untruth on TV I don't know why they think this is any big deal.
Remember the story from a couple of years back where they were supposedly comparing the IQ of a bunch of Presidents and supposedly "proved" that Bush was dumb?
Remember how every liberal rag ran it without checking to find whether the supposed organization making the comparison even existed -- and didn't?
Same thing here, I guess. They liked it so much, they wanted it to be true so much, that they didn't even bother doing the most basic checks.
The Democrats' press really crippled themselves with this and the Barnes thing.
For the rest of the election cycle the first reaction people are going to have to negative stories on Bush is going to be that the media is merely lying again.
They do have other documents from this same guy, from that year. Documents where he is commending the President on his performance and qualities.
They should compare it to that one.
You're the man in your house... and you have your wife's permission to say so? :)
bttt
Next on Brit's show they'll discuss the content of the memos.
Make sure you keep posting updates. I'm in Tokyo so I'm depending on you guys to keep me updated.
Byron York on with Brit.
Brit starts with "Let's presume authentic, what is new, if anything"
York says we knew he had not taken physical, knew he had been grounded. Did not know an actual order was given for physical.
The Boston Globe report that claims Bush was supposed to report to base in Boston is wrong, York says. Bush's honorable disharge issued before the date in question.
York: Explaining what the documents purport to be and says there are definitely odd aspects to them.
York: Killian appears to be a Jekyll and Hyde character when you compare tone of these new memos with the other records of glowing reviews.
York now addressing the font business and the superscript problems. Says these questions have been raised and so far their info is the typing not possible. Brit says one of their producers did a typing in Word and got the reproduction others here have produced.
York spoke to nationally recognized expert who said this was produced on a typewriter, but other experts said no. But the expert who said typewriter possible was flummoxed over the superscript. The expert had no explanation for that.
They showed close-up the superscritped th
That's convincing.
Expert says that cannot be explained.
This thing just got blown wide open. CBS Hang On To Your Hat!
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