Posted on 09/13/2004 5:47:30 AM PDT by DocFarmer
CBS Lies. Will Dan Rather Get Away With It This Time?
Written by Doc Farmer
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Last week, 60 Minutes The Sequel (This Time It's Personal) ran a hard-hitting no-hold-barred investigative report trashing President George W. Bush. This is the fourth or fifth time CBS News has done this. Normally, this is done in the fashion of taking Bush-bashing books being sold by a publisher owned by the parent company of CBS News (Viacom) and doing puffball interviews with the authors. This time, however, CBS decided to raise, ad nauseum, the already discredited canard regarding Dubya's National Guard service.
Dan Rather interviewed a completely unbiased former Lt. Governor of Texas, one Mr. Ben Barnes, who regretted helping out Dubya by interceding on his behalf with the TXANG. Odd thing, though – Mr. Barnes wasn't Lt. Governor at the time he said he ''helped out'' the Bush family. Mr. Barnes is also a major contributor to the DNC and a big booster of Jean François Kerrée.
This is nothing new for CBS News, of course. ''Fair and Balanced'' it most definitely is not--by any stretch of the imagination. So, it's really not a shock that Dan Rather would do a softball interview with yet another Bush-whacker. His big mistake, it would appear, was to try and back up his political viewpoint with documentary evidence.
As we all know, CBS News obtained four documents, purportedly written in 1972 by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, that supports the oft-repeated claim of Dubya's failure to complete assigned duties in the National Guard. CBS News vetted the papers with signature and document experts, people who supposedly know what they're doing, and declared them genuine. Thirty years ago, that would probably have been enough. CBS News says the documents are genuine so, to coin a phrase, ''that’s the way it is.''
That was then. This is now. That's not the way it is any more.
CBS News, in an effort to prove just how nifty it is, decided to make the evidence available on the Internet. Folks (like me) downloaded them. It didn't take long for folks like me to question the validity of those four documents. Now, I'm the first to admit that I didn't pick up on the subtleties of the missing items to begin with. However, others did. Then more. Word spread, and a bunch of ''amateurs'' started to see stuff that CBS News ''experts'' seemed to miss, overlook, or simply ignore.
** Proportional font, which came from a typewriter that could only do fixed-width fonts.
** Times New Roman font was used, which was not available on IBM Selectric font balls.
** In some cases, the th after a number was superscripted, which was also not available font balls.
** In other cases, there was a space between the number and the th, which was not superscripted (word processors automatically superscript number suffixes when joined to the number).
** Curled apostrophes and quote marks were used instead of the straight ones contained on the Selectric.
** The heading on some of the documents were typed, instead of using headed stationery. This isn’t disqualifying in itself, but the address is given as a post office box instead of an actual street address.
** The other odd thing is the PO box number provided. 34567? A five digit sequential number? Doesn't this look slightly suspicious to you?
** The fonts were ''kerned,'' meaning that the spacing was varied according to the content of the words or sentences. This is a typesetting function, not a typewriting one.
** When the contents of the document were typed into a blank Microsoft Word™ document using the factory default settings, the layout was identical. Not virtually identical. Actually identical.
Then, there's the issue of the people 60 Minutes II decided to interview. For example, a producer contacted the son of the late Lt. Col. Killian and asked him some questions. His answers were apparently not to her liking (since it disagreed with the show's premise) and so the answers were ignored. She asked him to provide other people her staff could interview. According to Mr. Killian, he provided those names, and the producer dismissed them because they were (Shock! Horror!) Bush supporters.
This part seems a bit odd to me, since the chief witness, the aforementioned Mr. Barnes, is a big Kerry supporter. What's odder still is that the grand inquisitor, Mr. Rather, has spoken before a Democrat fundraiser organized by his daughter and attended by Mr. Barnes. I suppose, however, that Desperate Dan doesn't view that as a conflict of interest.
Then, there’s the case of the content of the documents. One states that Lt. Col. Killian was getting pressure from General Staudt to ''candy-coat'' Lt. Bush's record. Problem – the general retired 18 months before the memo was supposed to have been written. Didn’t anybody at 60 Minutes Redux bother to consult a calendar? I mean, there's slipshod and there's just plain stupid.
This is what the Tiffany network has sunk to.
On Friday, Dan (looking decidedly torqued off) defended the report and trotted out some experts to discuss why all those partisan political operatives and bloggers (no kidding, they actually said that stuff!) were wrong. How dare they question the news Brahmin. Therefore, in an almost Kerry-esque post-convention hissy-fit, Danny-boy decided to correct the masses. For close to five minutes on his broadcast, Mr. Rather put his case to show that he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. It was rather pitiful to watch, actually.
Everybody knows the mainstream media is biased quite far to the left. Everybody except Dan, Tom, and Peter (and those people with fewer than 17 active brain cells, aka lib/dem/soc/commies), it would seem.
There's an old rule that if somebody lies in a court of law about one issue, you can pretty much ignore anything else s/he say. Dan Rather, and the entire mainstream news media, are in a much larger court--the court of public opinion.
Dan Rather lied. 60 Minutes II lied. They've all lied. Many times. This is just the latest example.
Folks, it's time that we pronounce sentence.
About the Writer: Doc Farmer is a writer and humorist who is also a moderator on ChronWatch's Forum. He formerly lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but now resides in Indiana. Doc receives e-mail at docfarmer9999@yahoo.co.uk.
This Article Was First Published In ChronWatch At: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=9639
Why should we have to buy space for a legitimate news story that would be run just that way for free if it were the other way around? I say force the major dailies to run it.
It's covered in at least 20 threads. Pull up in your pajamas and do the reading :-)
My favorite quote was
Welcome to Jammie Nation, where Dan Rather gets his ass kicked by guys in pajamas.
Probably.
Will they get away with it? Yes.
Since you are here anyway, listen up: Get rid of that anchor, it is weighing you down.
"O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling..."
It's past tense. The frequency guy did not get away with it. Someone, however, needs to remind him that that saying "it is true" without evidence is an opinion, not a fact.
Whatever happened to professionalism?
He's a professional. In the same sense a whore is a professional. He gets paid, doesn't he?
Hang around long enough at FR and you can learn about anything.
The unprofessional one who doesn't want to talk about it was mugged about 10 years ago, beaten by someone shouting at him repeatedly, "Whats the frequency, Kenneth?.
I can't believe any one would stop typing, change the ball, just to get the small th. Stop again and change the ball. I spent 30 year in administration and would have never wasted time doing that when 187th or 111th would suffice.
"Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not [authentic], I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumour mill." -- Dan Rather
Document experts weighed in for CNN and ABC concluded that the documents are forgeries. Dan Rather is calling his esteemed colleagues at ABC and CNN members of the professional rumor mill.
Expects we talked to, agreed that with 99.999% certainty Dan Rather is into beastiality.
Note: Our reseach standards match and/or exceed those of CBS/60 Minutes.
Doh, expects=Experts
Boy I really can't wait till some of us get away from these old typewriters and have access to word processing software. :)
Just received this in an e-Mail...
Doc,
Another Point about CBS,
Zip code 77034 does not have and never has had PO Boxes.
The closest Zip code in Houston with PO Boxes is 77032.
PO Box 34567 Houston, Texas 77034 never existed in 1972
My company is in the data business and has the history on addresses.
Propostional spacing was introduced in 1980 with the Xerox Memorywriter which competed with the IBM Selectric.
I wouldn't be so sure IBM didn't have a Times Roman font ball. They definitely didn't have it in proportinnal spacing.
I spent 28 years with Xerox in sales and sales training.
Superscript didn't become available until laser printers in 1984 with the HP Laser Jet.
Keep up the good work.
Best regards,
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