Posted on 09/11/2004 8:31:00 AM PDT by Pitiricus
few weeks ago, Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe was on PBS' ''Newshour'' explaining why the hundreds of swift boat veterans' allegations against John Kerry's conduct in Vietnam was unworthy of his attention. "The standard of clear and convincing evidence," he said, talking to Swiftvet John O'Neill as if he were a backward fourth-grader, ''is what keeps this story in the tabloids -- because it does not meet basic standards.''
Last week, we got a good idea of what Thomas Oliphant's ''basic standards'' are. Dan Rather and the elderly gentlemen at ''60 Minutes'' were all atwitter because they'd come into possession of some hitherto undiscovered memos relating to whether George W. Bush failed to show up for his physical in the War of 1812. The media had been flogging this dead horse all spring, but these newly ''discovered'' memos had jump-started the old nag just enough to get him on his knees long enough for the media to flog him all over again.
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. So, on the one hand, we have hundreds of living veterans with chapter and verse on Kerry's fantasy Christmas in Cambodia, and, on the other hand, we have a guy who's been dead 20 years but is still capable of operating Windows XP. It took the savvy chappies at the Powerline Web site and Charles Johnson of ''Little Green Footballs'' about 20 minutes to spot the eerily 2004 look of the 1972 memo, and various Internet wallahs spent the rest of the day tracking down the country's leading typewriter identification experts.
Bombarded with accusations that CBS had fallen for an obvious hoax, Dan turned to his trusty Smith-Corona and bashed out a few e-mails: ''For the umpteenth time,'' he said angrily, ''this is the kind of sleaze I had to put up with when they scoffed at 'What's the frequency, Kenneth?' "
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.''
Hey, why not? Who's gonna spot it? If CBS says it's so, that's good enough for Thomas Oliphant's Boston Globe, the New York Times and the Washington Post, all of whom rushed the story onto their front pages because it met their ''basic standards.'' On Friday morning, Paul Krugman, the New York Times' excitable economist, filed a column called, ''The Dishonesty Thing,'' and for one moment I thought he was about to upbraid CBS for rushing on air with their laughably fake memos. But no, he was droning on about how the National Guard story demonstrated George W. Bush's ''pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't ..."
The tragedy for Rather, Oliphant, Krugman and Co. is that even if the memos were authentic nobody would care. Their boy Kerry had a crummy August not because he didn't hammer Bush for being AWOL in the Spanish-American War but because the senator's AWOL in the present war. Big Media are trashing their own reputations in service to a man who can never win.
After the 2002 election, I wrote, ''Remind me never to complain about 'liberal media bias' again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.''
The media and the Democrats sustain each other's make-believe land. Dan Rather tells his staff, ''Kerry's told me there's nothing to this Swiftvet thing.'' Kerry tells his, ''Rather's assured me this Swiftvet story's going nowhere.''
George W. Bush ought to wake up every morning and thank the Lord the media aren't on his side.
Remember the Hitler Diaries? They turned up in the '80s. Only problem is they weren't by Hitler. But by then various prestige publications had paid a fortune to serialize them. Among them was the Sunday Times of London, owned by Murdoch, who wasn't happy. He called the editor, Frank Giles, into his office, and said, ''Frank, I'm promoting you to editor emeritus.''
''I've always wondered,'' murmured Frank, ''what 'editor emeritus' means.''
''The 'e-' means you've been given the elbow and the '-meritus' means you bloody deserve it,'' said Murdoch.
I have a feeling after November CBS News will be promoting Dan Rather to editor emeritus.
Either that, or next week's ''60 Minutes'' -- ''Exclusive! Handwriting Expert Says Bush Wrote The Hitler Diaries!'' -- will have much better fact-checking.
BUMP. Too bad Ivan and 9/11 are helping the Lame Stream Media to bury this story.
BUMP. Too bad Ivan, CBS and 9/11 are helping the Lame Stream Media to bury this story.
The voicemail boxes are full, but I sent them an email.
I also donated some more money to the swifties.
After the 2002 election, I wrote, “Remind me never to complain about ‘liberal media bias’ again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.”
Just damn, I mean just damn. This man Steyn is a magnificant jewel who deserves the highest recognition and acclaims.
Shiite, I digress, he is not liberal, so henceforth the "real" jounalists say blah, blah, blah, blah, and then some more egotistical, blah, blah, blah.
I don't expect him to resign, or quit the race, but I hope that his negative coattails cause the Democrats to lose big time in Congress. It almost goes without saying that he will not be elected president.
Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful
He's done it again!!!
"The standard of clear and convincing evidence," he said, talking to Swiftvet John O'Neill as if he were a backward fourth-grader, ''is what keeps this story in the tabloids -- because it does not meet basic standards.''OWNED. Absolutely. Frickin'. PWN3D.
Last week, we got a good idea of what Thomas Oliphant's ''basic standards'' are.
BUMP!
"This should be enough to put a LOT of heat on CBS if you're willing to do the work. "
I'm wondering if this is actionable from a legal standpoint.
It's my sense that CBS affiliates may be subject to stiff fines for violating FCC regulations prohibiting false or deceptive radio transmissions. We need to encourage our congress critters to raise a clamor calling for proper enforcement of FCC regulations in this matter. This is way more serious than JJ's wardrobe malfunction.
Also I think that each member of the electorate has cause against CBS and ViaComm for the attempted fraud and election tampering that the Sixty Minutes show was.
Freedom of speech allows people to tell lies to advance their politics but the electronic media is held to a higher standard. Broadcasters are licensed to operate "in the public interest" using the public resource of the RF spectrum.
Man what a happy time.
Home run excepting he missed that the first pitch came from FreeRepublic.
Get on Pokey78's Steyn ping list. You won't regret it. I have been a dedicated Steynophile for a few years now.
Do we know for a fact that the document came from the Kerry campaign, as the title of the column suggests? Do you know where I can get confirmation on that?
No one in the media will admit that publicly, but I imagine they are quietly furious about this screw up. The incompetence of the forgers exposed the partisan media pretty glaringly.
Thank you. (Think they'll figure I'm part of the VRWC?)
“Gentlemen”:”
Re: Killian Memos
I haven’t watched CBS in years, but I have found a list of its advertisers (yes, every show). There’s not a single product or service represented that I can’t live without; so they’re going on a card that will be placed in my wallet (and, yes, I may need my trusty magnifying glass to read them) to remind me when I’m shopping. I’m producing copies of this card for my very large Irish Catholic family and all my friends. Several products have remained on my no-buy list for over 40 years; e.g., ALCOA (they sponsored Edward R. Murrow during the years he slandered Joe McCarthy), Kelloggs (they contributed to Planned Parenthood); Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, et al, need no elucidation.
That CBS spent a purported six weeks to “study,” “analyze,” “criticise” the late Lt. Col. Killian’s private memos and decided to “run with it” proves beyond the most generous arguments that CBS is actively campaigning for a Democrat–and not just any Democrat, a Democrat who, by any reasoned reading of his 1971 testimony to the Senate, betrayed his comrades and his country, admitted that at least one of his Purple Hearts was deceitfully gained, lied to the Congress while a Senator (as recorded on numerous occasions in the Congressional Record), and managed to find the time to vote, as a “believing” Roman Catholic, for the legality of the most barbaric medical procedure in history. Not to mention that in six weeks, no one at CBS considered in even the vaguest terms that it might be slandering a dead military officer and causing untold pain to his family and former associates. If this be journalism, I’ll take “My Pet Goat.”
Suffice it to say that it’s far from surprising to learn that an organization unable to spot a hypocrite of John F. Kerry’s proportions is unlikely to spot a forgery. You have, however, provided the answer to a much debated question: we now know what the F stands for.
Sincerely,
I don't think we know that, but this little operation is classic Carville and Begala, who, by coincidence, were just hired to fight Bush more aggressively after the Swift Vet debacle.
I know you know that and were looking for factual verification, but I can't resist pointing out the giant donkey in the room!
What is hilarious is that the same producer for Wednesday night's broadcast was the same one from the Abu Ghraib picture scandal (which broke on the first day of the Swift Boat press conference.)
Coincidence?
I'm wondering if contacting CBS is the wrong approach. I think we should contact the other MSM outlets to cover this story instead. If only CBS hears about it, then they will simply ignore the complaints, and the issue will go away.
If however, CNN, NBC, ABC, (the axis of MSM evil) start to eat their own, then this story will have legs.
Thanks. You're right on the money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.