The Hoaxing of CBS (FR Mentioned)

The Weekly Standard ^ | September 10,004 | Richard Starr

[buzzyboop]

A NUMBER OF EXPERTS have now weighed in on the inauthenticity of the documents CBS breathlessly revealed on 60 Minutes earlier this week--documents purportedly typed by the deceased commander of George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 and 1973, but actually produced on a personal computer using Microsoft Word. I predict--and here I'm going out on a limb 10-feet wide and only an inch off the ground--that it's only a matter of time before CBS admits it was deceived. If there's any honor and professional pride left in the CBS newsroom, they will then expose the party or parties who deceived them.

[okie01]

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer."

Could that be Professor Robert Strong, I wonder.

He served with Killian.

Now, he is associated with Soros.

In short, he would be in a position to have a.) created them in the first place (well, anybody with access to Word could have) and b.) then serve to "authenticate" them, once they had been given to the network.

How was it, I wonder, that the network went to Strong for corroboration in the first place? How did an obscure Politics Professor from Washington & Lee Univ end up up on Dan Ra^ther's "A" list?

[GeorgiaYankee]

But the more important reason CBS was duped is that they wanted to believe the story. And the memos neatly fit the anti-Bush narrative that they believed to be true.

[okie01]

The news clip, then, suggests that the weblogger (whom we all know is the famous Freeper Buckhead) was an insider to the hoax. We need to respond to this suggestion ASAP.

Already been handled.

ABC's The Note made the assertion this morning, based on Buckhead's posting time of 8:56. But they failed to note that the complete posting time was 8:56 PDT.

In other words, about three hours after the end of the program.

ABC was advised, they apologized...and changed the time on their website.

For purposes of clarity, you do understand that posting times on FR are keyed to your own computer's clock. For example, my screen will say I posted this around 9:25 PM CDT. But, if you're in the Pacific time zone, it will say 7:25 PM PDT.

[Squantos]

Awwww gheeeesh............that's just too funny !

Stay safe !

[liberallarry]

C^BS

That's good. That's very, very good!. I had to cheat to figure out how you did it - since I was sure you didn't turn the platen.

[Hacksaw]

Buckhead - you're famous again. This time The Weekly Standard mentions you!

Let us know if Joe Lockhart shows up to make an offer you can't refuse :)

Good work!

[Buckhead]

I'm told NPR also went with that crap about posting time on All Things Considered this evening.

It'll fly about as well as these stupid forgeries.

[Smartass]

MAIN STREAM MEDIA CREDIBLITIY...Dan Rather, and CBS has committed a major journalistic fraud on the American public.   Moreover, these records were not released by the U.S. Department of Defense.   Unless CBS steps forward and discloses it's source to corroborate and for questioning, it will forever remain bogus.   If not, then Dan Rather needs a pink slip.

[Smartass]

Ahhh, excuse me Mr. Blather, is there something you haven't told me?

[Buckhead]

Patterico.com now has a story about the time error by NPR and Media Matters.

This probably deserves it's own FR thread.

http://patterico.com/archives/002691.php

[M Kehoe]

Good job.

5.56mm

[Casloy]

How long before one or two idealistic young reporters decide this is not the journalism they signed up for and decide to start making midnight calls to the Washington Post from a parking garage.

[LibertarianInExile]

This is the second time I've seen comments about 30-somethings not knowing a typewriter from a hole in their ass.

30-somethings grew up with typewriters. Word processing didn't get to the school level until the mid-80s, and even then, most students did take typing (not word processing) classes.

This is very likely some random jackass who didn't think of it. Let's be careful about tarring the current crop of thirtysomethings with a dumbass brush. After all, how old is Ben Barnes? I haven't heard any insinuations that he's stupid because he's old and experienced with being a liberal puke.

[LibertarianInExile]

ROFLMAO.

BUMP!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Cool - thanks for the linking effort!

[Happy2BMe]

Good to see Colombo is on the job - he ALWAYS gets his man!

[VietVet]

Someone (called himself "Steven") called in to the Micheal Medved Show this afternoon (c. 3:30 pm, 10 Sep), and claimed to have been "at a high level CBS staff meeting" where the authenticity of these documents was discussed. Per his ramblings, the documents shown on the CBS site WERE generated on MS Word, but those were not the original documents. They were transcriptions of the originals, created and posted for ...??? He couldn't say why the transcriptions were posted instead of images of the originals. However, he insisted that the originals HAD been authenticated by CBS before they went ahead with the story. Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Sheeba. These guys aren't even good liers. I could do better than that: Let's see... The original documents were handwritten notes, memos to himself jotted down by Lt. Col. Killian to remind him to bring up these matters verbally with Lt. Bush, or as drafts of official documents. As such, they were kept in the Unit files, or in Lt Col Killian's personal files. If any copy had gotten into Lt. Bush's DD201 file, the clerks would have removed it before his 201 was sent to the AF Reserve Records Center when he ended his time in service, since it would not have been an official document. Someone, somehow got ahold of these memos, which were for some reason preserved through the 20 or so years that George W. Bush was a politically obscure businessman. When Mr. Bush became active in Texas politics, someone, somehow came into possession of these old papers, and had them transcribed using Word, so that they could be posted, since said person did not have access to a scanner at the time. Copies were printed out, and passed around, and further copied on Xerox machines, for further distribution, and so on, by persons looking for unfavorable evidence concerning Bush's service in the TXANG which could be used against him, perhaps in the Governor's race. This could be the source of the rumors that Lt. Bush was "AWOL" from his ANG Drills in 1972. This is the excuse for why the posted images show typical copy-recopy image deterioration. Eventually, some patriotic American forewarded a copy to Dan Blather at "60 Minutes," about the middle of July. By meticulous fact checking and dedicated reportorial legwork, the "60 Minutes" staff tracked down and authenticated the original memos, and put together the story, answering all internal CBS questions and cautions about the validity of the sources. Then they aired the story on Thursday, 9 Sept. Uh-hun. And I'm the Queen of Sheba. What do you want to bet that they come out with some very similar tale to justify their actions in broadcasting this flimsey fantasy? VietVet

[VietVet]

Hey! What happened to my spacing and paragraphing in my last post?

VietVet

[MeekOneGOP]

I NEVER watch anything but FOX News. But I made an exception last night
and watch See BS Evening news with Texas Traitor Dan Blather.

He totally denied the allegations the documents are fake. What an ar$e he is.

I noticed also that he looked just AWFUL and his voice sounded very hoarse,
like he'd been talking all day. He probably spent all day trying to explain his
LIES and BS.

I hope he has many, many more such days .....

[normy]

It's getting to the point where I am waiting for the "big three" to start reporting that giant spiders the size of Volkswagons are attacking our troops in Iraq.