Posted on 09/12/2004 6:36:03 AM PDT by finnman69
Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten meticulously reconstructs the events of this past Thursday following the CBS 60 Minutes broadcast that have led to the exposure of the "new" documents featured in the Air National Guard story as forgeries: "No disputing it: Blogs are major players."
Wallsten's article does not raise any question that we might have erred in doubting the authenticity of the documents or offer any support for their authenticity. Rather, it gives voice to desperate Democratic operatives who claim the fraudulence of the documents is a Republican conspiracy:
"It was amazing Thursday to watch the documents story go from FreeRepublic.com, a bastion of right-wing lunacy, to Drudge to the mainstream media in less than 12 hours," said Jim Jordan, a strategist for independent Democratic groups opposed to Bush.
"That's not to say the documents didn't deserve examination. But apparently the entire thing was cooked up by a couple of amateurs on Free Republic. The speed with which it moved was breathtaking." Wallsten then notes that "Rather opened his evening news broadcast Friday with a defense of his report, producing an analyst who vouched for the memos." Wallsten omits to mention that the analyst was a purported handwriting expert who could not authenticate the documents. Wallsten quotes a professor articulating the dark fears of the MSM:
Media experts said the role of the bloggers illustrated a significant development in the relationship between mainstream news and the still-nascent phenomenon of blogging.
Isn't one of our current pillars of justice that illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible?
I say we stipulate that the documents are genuine and go from there... this could be fun... Dan Rather & stolen property...
Already posted........
LA TIMES: No Disputing It: Blogs Are Major Players (FreeRepublic.Com & Buckhead Mentioned!)
Posted by West Coast Conservative
On 09/12/2004 4:43:11 AM CDT · 204 replies · 3,818+ views
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213757/posts
What you say???
It is very refreshing to know that individuals are capable of cross checking big media. For so long big media has given us the so-called "exclusive" documents dredged up from the archives of government paperwork. Not to mention the "unnamed sources" which provide a cloaking over if news is really news or if news is fabricated to meet copy quotas.
The big media cannot ignore the power of the people any more. We are not dumb sheeples incapable of challenging blatent agenda and interference in our right to know the truth.
I commend the intelligence of the freepers who were enterprising enough to research forgery. They are real American hero's. We must defend the onslaught of the leftist socialists who will now attempt to discredit and intimidate those who are standing in the way of their socialist left wing conspiracy!!!!!
Now hold on there...
Hey Wallsten, what is this about " a bastion of right-wing lunacy" when you refer to FR? We are doing the best we can with limited resources. What is your excuse?
Sometimes old media does serious, difficult work. See the Los Angeles Times on the effort by Trinity Broadcast Network's Paul Crouch's efforts to silence an accuser. I know the reporter of this story, and he's a model of careful journalism and integrity. Perhaps the Times could assign him to the collapse of old media credibility surrounding Rathergate.
The Boston Globe begins a necessary retreat from Rathergate's bogus Bush documents in this morning's paper. This comes one day after INDC Journal conclusively demonstrated that the Globe's Saturday story was more deceiving than it was revealing:
"I just interviewed Dr. Bouffard again, and he's angry that the Globe has misrepresented him. He's been getting hate mail and nasty phone calls since last night's story was posted, and he wants me to correct the record. He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries."
CBS cited the flawed Globe report as evidence that its transparently fraudulent "scoop" wasn't falling apart, and in doing so misspelled Dr. Bouffard's name --in yet another sign of careful reporting that has marked CBS' effort from the beginning. RatherBiased caught that slip, and has many other developments as well.
Today's story suggests that an adult at the Globe has apparently figured out the aplicability of Occam's razor to this situation. It is possible --remotely--that the docs are legit, but:
*Lt Col Killian didn't type;
*Lt Col Killian's family says he did not maintain such records;
*Guard regulations prohibited the maintenance of such records;
*General Bobby Hodges didn't vouch for the docs as CBS said he would;
*Colonel Buck Staudt --cited in the memos as pushing Killian to "sugarcoat" a Bush evaluation-- had retired more than a year before the meo was allegedly written;
*Bloggers have been overwhelmed with e-mails from active duty and retire dmilitary who scoff at the form of the memos;
*Typewriters with proportional spacing were rare in '72/3;
*Typewriters with superscripting capabilites were rare in '72/3;
*Typewriters with perfect centering ability were non-existent '72/3;
*Typewriters with the "kerning" function didn't exist in '72/3;
*Most experts, from Dr.Cartwright at Rice, the above-referenced Dr. Bouffard and Farrell Shiver, range from certain to almost certain in their conclusions that the docs are not legit;
*CBS doesn't have the "originals" and didn't reveal that fact until pressure mounted;
*The fake docs are easily and exactly reproduced on modern word-processing equipment, underscoring the ease with which the bad forgery could have been produced contrasted with the near impossibility of Lt Colonel Killian's producing them in 192/3;
*Lt Col Killian lacked motive to write and maintain such records;
*Despite intense media interest in the president's TANG career that extends back at least four years, someone sat on these docs until seven weeks before the 2004 election and after the RNC convention;
*CBS has a history of obtaining docs damaging to the Bush Adminsitration which in all likelihood came from Democratic partisans;
*CBS won't reveal its source;
*CBS has a history of blowing stories that involved fake documents; and
*Dan Rather has not appeared opposite a serious journalist to answer extended questions on camera, even though his reputation and the reputation of his network are being shredded and a confidant witness would demand a hearing with a Russert or a Hume.
Occam's razor is not so easily explained, but its application here would point to the amazing set of assumptions that have to be held to believe in the authenticity of the CBS docs versus the quite simple explanation for their existence --forgery, to make political noise. An enterprising paper might seek out a dozen trial lawyers not yet on the record in this matter, and --having provided them with the docs and the cites to the two dozen or so bloggers at work on the issue-- ask them: "Assuming a trial had been held in which the experts cited and the arguments made above had been introduced, would you allow a jury to deliberate and decide the case if the jury had to believe in the authenticity of these docs in order for your client not to lose tens or hundreds of millions?"
Many of the bloggers working on this matter bring a lawyer's training in evidence to the conversation, and others bring background in intelligence and design. Pajama-clad though we might be, CBS has not been demolished by us so much as it has been by traditions of investigative thoroughness and judicial standards for the determination of truth. As the Globe report this morning shows, it doesn't much matter if CBS ever gives up the ghost. The verdict is already in. Dan Rather, at the twiligiht of a long and less than glorious career and looking for one last big bang, got duped by second-rate forgeries, and took a lot of wnnabee Woodwards over the cliff with him.
Now the stories are beginning to arrive on how the CBS melt-down was triggered, and old media is hopeless behind or biased again. Read Peter Wallsten's story from today's Los Angeles Times, which parrots Demcoratic spin about how this is a product of "right-wing luncacy," and omits except in passing or disparaging fashion, to underscore the credentials of the bloggers and the experts they assembled in the course of pursuing the story. Wallsten doesn't even seem aware of the ironic reference to "pajamas" in one quote from the original FreeRepublic poster, nor does it appear as though he could be bothered to mention traffic acceleration, "open source journalism" theory or any of previous exercises of blogging power --"Christmas in Cambodia," Trent Lott, the New York Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I spoke with Mr. Wallsten briefly on Friday, before going on air, and I pointed him to a few places like The Belmont Club and Instapundit which could fill in the gaps in a hurry. Instead of really reporting what happened and why, he chose the "right-wing lunacy" angle combined with straight reporting on transmission, and closing with dire warnings from a tenured doom-sayer. What a perfect illustration of why old media is so hopelessly behind the curve: Tasked to report on new media, it couldn't do so, even with a thousand sources and an easy to understand story line. Why not? Because it didn't want to. The stakes are too high. Self-preservation dictates that old media scoff at new media, even after the walls have been breached and breached again.
I like it!
our bastions can beat your bastions any day of the week
I prefer to keep my standing in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
I am proud to be known as a " Buckhead"...
BUCKING RIGHT!!
I'd rather be a 'right-wing lunatic' than a DU kool-aid-drinking, Blatherite.
Note to self: Start concealing documents regarding raising army of Newt Gingrich clones to take over planet. "They" might be watching...
Amateurs! Amateurs! Only two amateurs at that. That's what they said, "a couple of amateurs." I guess that rules out Karl Rove right there -- he's on the first string in every single right-wing conspiracy the Democrats can dream up.
It's OK, Howlin, you're a pro in my book any time.
LOL! You only see stuff like this on Free Republic - archaic phrases you haven't read in 20 years, casually dropped into the conversation.
And the scary thing (for "Dem" Rather) is the number of pajama-clad FR peasants that actually understand the reference. ;-)
"I guess I need to get some PJs? Is it legal to blog naked?"
I thought that was the requirement... LOL
So CBS was scammed by amateurs?
If the documents deserved examination maybe CBS should have done that before they used them as a centerpiece of a "news" story. The "professionals" at CBS should be looking for new jobs because by this reasoning they are surely incompetent. You just can't make this stuff up.
"Bastion of Right-Wing Lunacy" somehow does not sound like an insult when it comes from the drooling lips of the brain-dead Left. And it would make a splendid T-shirt!
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