CBS Offers New Experts to Support Guard Memos

NY Times ^ | 9/13/04

[NYCVirago]

Comparing the CBS memos with a replication produced on Microsoft Word, he noticed a slight variation in the boldness of the letters, as there is on many typewritten documents.

This is their expert? The boldness would be irrelevant on a copy of a copy, which is what CBS's document is.

At any rate, CBS told the WaPost on Friday that it had four document experts review these memos. Only one has come forward, and he's changes his story. Where are the other three "experts"? Instead, they're putting these DU types who've inserted themselves into the spotlight.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I'm a futures trader by profession, but if you were to ask me about markets in the 60s I wouldn't have a clue . . .

I bet you'd have a pretty good clue as to whether I should buy stock in VIACOM tomorrow.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I remember that movie: 'Freaks'

Apt, too. Chilling, weird and just as dark and evil as the RAT campaign to elect Kerry.

[Boazo]

[piasa]

They don't need to- they cannot even explain how a guy who had retired over a year before the letters were "dated" could be in a position to pressure Killian.

Which is amusing considering that they all blissfully accepted the Niger uranium docs as being forged because of similar errors.

[RansomOttawa]

You're dealing with genuine professionals. The last thing in the world that any of these people would want is to phony something.

Yeah, and GM trucks really do burst into flame when they're hit on the side!

[John Valentine]

One other thing.

Glennon may not have the $20,000 to match against my money.

If not, then surely Dan Rather would stake him the cash, don't you think. Rather can't be such a girlyman that he is unwilling to put his money where is mouth is. Or can he?

[TommyUdo]

Look for the next CBS retrenchment to be:

"We have been advised that the content of the the current Memos was transcribed from Original Handwritten Memos extracted from the records of GWB which were accidentally destroyed shortly after the Memos were painstakingly copied using an O-fish-ally Certified Memorandum Transcriber and Microsoft Word 2002."

Sidebar:

As a proud Army 71H Remington Ranger, circa 1969-72, I can tell you these memos are fake.

But, typewriters that had a "th" key did exist. I had one once when I worked at a Battalion HQ. But, IIRC, it wasn't a "Superscript" th. To do that you had to move your paper down using the knob. I hated that typewriter. My preferences were a IBM Selectric with a Courier or Orator balls and an M-14 (the only weapons of any size I could hit anything with)!!!

[spitlana]

Richard Katz, a computer software expert in Los Angeles...[said] "It doesn't look like you can do this very easily... "If you use something like Photoshop you could come close to faking it, but why not just go out and buy a Selectric for $75?"

THIS is a software EXPERT?? We've all duplicated those darn memos on Microsoft Word for heaven's sake! Don't these people use Microsoft Word in their great media empire? Doesn't Dan Rather? What a buncha dinosaurs!

[twhitak]

In a preemtive effort to stave off potential opposition to this news, Dan Rather issued the following statement: "Yes, it is a coincidence that all of our new experts are employed by the Kerry campaign. Each of these individuals signed a sworn statement that he/she would remain impartial in their findings."

[alancarp]

This little pun makes me think all the more that I agree with another posting tonight: I think somebody on the Left actually sabotaged their own campaign - and used bumbling old Dan Rather as the delivery vehicle. IT WAS WAY TOO EASY to figure this out as a fraud!

It makes sense:
(1) The memos have been floating around in Kerry's campaign for what, six WEEKS?
(2) Kerry's crew likely had a good laugh over them and knew they were fakes too (note: I believe only Tom Harkin - another bumbling fool - has tried to exploit them)
(3) They just had a shake-up in the Kerry campaign -- who stood to lose power, prestige (that's a typewriter font, BTW), and position? The Old Guard: Mary Beth Cahill, Bob Shrum, Tad Devine, Stephanie Cutter.

Now find one of these who doesn't particularly like Dan Rather, and you may have your stooge.

(p.s. - CBS: why protect a bad source?? 'OUT' HIM/HER before you cease to EXIST. Are you this desparate to cling to this loser of a story?? Why???)

[The Citizen Soldier]

But CBS News officials have made it clear that they will go only so far.

Bob Woodward your silence is deafening. Oh, that's right ...you're sworn to secrecy until your sources die.

[Prime Choice]

OK Mr. Glennon, put up or shut up--if you believe that the documents could have been created with a 1972 typewriter, then do it. Numerous people have created the documents in Word in 20 minutes or less. Have at it--see if you can do the same. Perhaps, CBS should get you some help and put millions of monkeys at work typing on Selectrics and one will produce the memos.

AMEN! (It bears repeating.)

[Anti-Bubba182]

The way I read this is that the NY Times is positioning to bail on Rather and CBS.

[buckster]

Next step is to get CB_iaS to tell us where this document came from. If they won't provide a name they should at least say whether or not it came from the Kerry campaign or the DNC.

[sport]

CBS Offers New Experts to Support Guard Memos
By JIM RUTENBERG and KATE ZERNIKE


No surprises here.

If they did not support them, CBS would not have offered them.

[formercalifornian]

Mr. Rather himself said emphatically: "CBS News stands by, and I stand by, the forgery"

[cyncooper]

I've read some handwringing on FR tonight, mostly from newbies, saying how this was just going away. I was and remain convinced they arrived to tamp down any momentum the story had.

I pointed out as evidence to refute them that Rather was again defending the report tonight and he wouldn't have if he thought he'd put it behind him. (I did not watch this myself but going by FR eyewitness accounts.)

I just read a piece in tomorrow's Washington Post, too, where Rather's first expert, Matley, goes on record as saying he did not authenticate these documents.

And I love this by the New York Times:

While Mr. Rather's initial "60 Minutes" report was considered a journalistic coup,

Oh, isn't that just special. Considered a "coup" by whom?

Words can't express how offended I am by the New York Times.

[Redcloak]

Here are three of the new CBS document experts...