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The Hoaxing of CBS
Weekly Standard ^ | 09/10/2004 | Richard Starr

Posted on 09/13/2004 2:29:01 PM PDT by swilhelm73

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.

Why did the premier news show in what was once reputed to be the premier television newsroom fall for such transparent fakes? Anyone old enough to have used a typewriter can look at them for a few minutes and figure out that they weren't typed on a typewriter in the early 1970s. A poster on FreeRepublic.com whose screen name is "Buckhead" was, to my knowledge, the first to do so at midnight Wednesday, shortly after CBS's scoop had aired. "Every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman," this person wrote. "In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. . . . I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old."

Indeed, some have speculated that a generation gap may

have contributed to the blunder, since only those of us over 40 can remember what it was like to try to type, say, "187th" with the "th" raised above the baseline. You had to turn the platen by hand. (Do you remember what a platen is?) And you couldn't have gotten a smaller "th" without changing the little type ball. Would you have gone to such trouble in typing a memo for your own files?

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: Namely, Bush was a slacker at the end of his tour of duty and his superiors covered for him because they were under political pressure to do so.

Here's a revealing anecdote reported by Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen in this morning's Washington Post:

A senior CBS official . . . named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said that a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

Obviously, you can't authenticate a document by reading it to someone over the phone. (CBS claims to have had other "experts" examine the documents but has been unwilling to name them.) What this reporting should have suggested to CBS is that whoever forged the documents was someone who knew what CBS's sources would be saying--someone well informed on the anti-Bush scuttlebutt about his National Guard service. The "documents" neatly reflect the reigning anti-Bush theories of the events of 1972 and 1973 and perfectly buttress the anti-Bush narrative because they were produced by someone who was obsessing over that narrative and understood that reporters would need "documentation" to advance the story.

Just as obviously, the journalists who went into overdrive for the National Guard story when the phony memos were released, with few exceptions, want to see Kerry win and Bush lose. This makes them suckers for a good anti-Bush story. It's conventional to call this media bias and be shocked by it. But really it's just human nature. That's why we have to be especially skeptical of the stories we fall in love with. And that's why CBS screwed up.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 60minutes; danrather; nationalguard; rathergate
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1 posted on 09/13/2004 2:29:02 PM PDT by swilhelm73
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To: swilhelm73

"If there's any honor and professional pride left in the CBS newsroom, they will then expose the party or parties who deceived them."

That's an awfully big "if".


2 posted on 09/13/2004 2:33:07 PM PDT by Pittsburg Phil
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To: swilhelm73
"these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time

Whoa! His statment as I recall was "If that's what he wrote than that's what he must have felt at the time." The spin continues.

3 posted on 09/13/2004 2:33:45 PM PDT by AZamericonnie (50 more days.....)
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To: Pittsburg Phil
That's an awfully big "if"

I don't think there's a font with a type size big enough for that "IF."

4 posted on 09/13/2004 2:34:46 PM PDT by Samwise (Kerry's convoluted speaking style correlates with his convoluted thought processes.)
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To: swilhelm73

Oh, yes, the pooooooor, sad, pitiful CBS, victimized by a forger, sad little thing...

Oh well. I'll get over it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH


5 posted on 09/13/2004 2:35:11 PM PDT by Judith Anne (Let's have a FReeper pj party election night!!!)
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To: swilhelm73
But the more important reason CBS was duped is that they wanted to believe the story.

This is a good comment. The CBS error may be a mistake, but it's not an honest mistake. They're so blinded by their anti-Bush animus they can't research their stories properly.

6 posted on 09/13/2004 2:35:22 PM PDT by 68skylark
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To: Buckhead
The Nation is in your debt.......

Have "media types" tried to contact you (FReepMail??) because of your investigative abilities?

7 posted on 09/13/2004 2:35:47 PM PDT by rface (Ashland, Missouri - monthly donor - bad speller)
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To: swilhelm73
It is great to see the information about these documents here.

However, when I went to Fox ABC and CNN online, the documents controversy is not mentioned.

Hmmm
8 posted on 09/13/2004 2:37:31 PM PDT by SouthWall (God bless all Americans, even the Kerrys.)
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To: swilhelm73
"It's conventional to call this media bias and be shocked by it. But really it's just human nature. That's why we have to be especially skeptical of the stories we fall in love with. And that's why CBS screwed up. "

He forgot to mention that CBS is a bunch of lying, cheating rat bastards.

9 posted on 09/13/2004 2:38:12 PM PDT by Slump Tester (John Kerry - When even your best still isn't good enough)
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To: swilhelm73

If CBS admitts these memos are forgeries, they will have to name their sources.


10 posted on 09/13/2004 2:38:41 PM PDT by claudiustg (Go Sharon! Go Bush!)
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To: swilhelm73
Posted.
11 posted on 09/13/2004 2:38:51 PM PDT by TomServo
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To: swilhelm73

Perhaps the hoax was not ON CBS - but rather BY CBS.


12 posted on 09/13/2004 2:40:18 PM PDT by Lexington Green (It just ain't right to ask an American soldier to salute John Kerry.)
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To: swilhelm73

The author gives CBS too much credit. See-BS has been manufacturing "news" stories for years, to satisfy its agenda-driven Manifesto.


13 posted on 09/13/2004 2:40:37 PM PDT by guitfiddlist (Hate is a DNC Family Value)
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To: swilhelm73

"If there's any honor and professional pride left in the CBS newsroom"

This is the real question but I think I know the answer. Anyone who's been around as long as Rather should know the risk of a prolonged denial and coverup. CBS scured President Nixon when he did the same thing. It's ironic to see Dan Rather in the same straits.


14 posted on 09/13/2004 2:40:56 PM PDT by Spok
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To: swilhelm73
This guy at PC Magazine seems to think that there was no hoax.

But I don't think so.


15 posted on 09/13/2004 2:41:05 PM PDT by martin_fierro (Too genteel for my own damn good.)
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To: swilhelm73
only those of us over 40 can remember what it was like to try to type,

Au contraire, mon frere. I'm not (quite) that old, but still remember typing even on manual typewriters (in fact, the noise of an IBM Selectric unnerved me and slowed me down for the first time I used one). Granted, I started typing around age 8.

And isn't Dan Rather a bit over 40, and experienced with a typewritten page from 1972? Of course he is. He's just a lying bag of bones.

I have three children under 17 months, and I change probably 15 diapers a day. And I don't see as much crap in a month as came out of Danny's mouth in five minutes of reading the 'news' last Friday.

16 posted on 09/13/2004 2:41:15 PM PDT by atomicpossum (If there are two Americas, John Edwards isn't qualified to lead either of them.©)
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To: AZamericonnie
"If that's what he wrote than that's what he must have felt at the time."

Considering CBS told Hodges it was hand-written (and I'm sure they also told Hodges that their 'expert' had authenticated it) then what else would have said? LOL! I wonder if the handwriting expert did his authentification over the phone, too?

CBS: "There's a JBK in script; looks like it was written by hand."

Expert (over phone): "Must be his, then."

17 posted on 09/13/2004 2:41:44 PM PDT by vrwinger (Tagline? I don't need no stinkin' TAGLINE!)
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To: Pittsburg Phil
If there's any honor and professional pride left in the CBS newsroom, they will then expose the party or parties who deceived them.

But, atlas, there is none.....

18 posted on 09/13/2004 2:42:11 PM PDT by Lurking in Kansas (--Your message could post here--)
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To: Lurking in Kansas
atlas=alas

D'oh

19 posted on 09/13/2004 2:43:46 PM PDT by Lurking in Kansas (--Your message could post here--)
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To: swilhelm73
CBS
20 posted on 09/13/2004 2:45:38 PM PDT by Focault's Pendulum (I once forged my school report card....Boy!!! Did I get beat!!!)
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