Dan Rather: "powerful and extremely well-financed forces"

New York Observer ^

[akostenko]

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said.

[Steve_Seattle]

"According to Dan Rather we are the "powerful and extremely well-financed forces". LOL!"

FR is better financed than Viacom/CBS? LOL Tell that to Jim Robinson! Rather is sounding like a nutcase.

[beyond the sea]

perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

Now FReepers are PERPS! Zounds!

[AndrewC]

According to Dan Rather we are the "powerful and extremely well-financed forces". LOL!

That goes along with another of his assessments.

That was why, he said, half of the experts agreed and the other half didn’t. That supposed stalemate left nothing but the truth at the center of the documents.

Since when is one(maybe) versus a gazillion, half and half?

[jess35]

So...let me get this straight. CBS investigated the story for 5 years and they just now got the documents? The same documents that were also given to CNN, USAToday and the WH, presumably by the source?

Uh-huh.

[GatorGirl]

Sorry, I just got in from my polo match, what did I miss?

[Soul Seeker]

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents. "This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.

Dem Playbook!

BTW, can I show this to my boss? As a powerful force I demand my boss help me fulfill the second of this prophecy.

[KeyLargo]

...Key to the unraveling of CBS’s hyped documents, as bloggers pointed out, were the superscript ‘th’ and the Times New Roman font used in the alleged Killian memo, both of which seem to belong to a rather modern Microsoft Word default letter-writing program rather than a 1972-era typewriter.Make that yet another victory for the nerds, but not nerds in pajamas,, as former CBS executive Jonathan Klein said in an attempt to impugn bloggers....

[Enterprise]

The assets of CBS and its parent company are in the billions of dollars. It would be like the United States complaining of the economic power of the Marshall Islands.

[jaz.357]

FREEP NAKED!

[lawgirl]

Ah so it was Johnathon Klein that called us nerds in pajamas. What a typical liberal- get called out and start calling people names.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Whether one believes it or not, this person believed that he and his family had been harassed and even threatened," he said. "We were not able to confirm that, but his fear was that what had already been threats, intimidation, if he gave up the documents, could get worse—maybe a lot worse."

This sounds like an exact description of Burkett, the mentally-unbalanced ex-guardsman with paranoid ideas about Bush.

[Gibtx]

Excellent .... he has lost touch with reality..... focus on him ..... focus focus focus.... a wounded animal is the most dangerous when it is wounded....

[Oztrich Boy]

Mr. Rather said that he and his longtime CBS producer, Mary Mapes, had investigated the story for nearly five years,

You measuring in dog years, Dan?

[pointsal]

Dan Rather = arrogant ninny

[ntnychik]

partisan political operatives

I think he means partisan political accurate FReelance operatives.

powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story

A truth-seeking citizens' e-army is concentrating on questions about the documents because they are obvious forgeries.

If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.

I'm just not seeing how you can get truth out of a forgery. Mr. Rather can't deny the forgery, and is attacking and seeking to destroy the credibility of the informed citizens' e-army who is bearing proof of forgery.

Mr. Rather said that he and his longtime CBS producer, Mary Mapes, had investigated the story for nearly five years...

This story was disposed of during Pres. Bush's 2000 campaign. Rather is desperate to invest his trust in a forgery that reveals what he hopes is true so he can derail Pres. Bush's re-election.

the documents could have been created in the 70’s.

A similar type font was available in the '70's--if you worked on linotype equipment in a publishing house. Such professionals would have been unlikely to have created so many inconsistent versions of superscripts. And since when did local National Guard offices have highly specialized linotype equipment?

'"The story has fallen into a wormhole of seemingly unanswerable questions: Could an IBM Composer, Selectra or Executive have created the superscripts and proportional spacing? Would the Texas Air National Guard have had such expensive models? Was Killian the type to … type?

These questions were abundantly answered by FReepers and other netizens during the night of the 60 Min. II broadcast.

[Enterprise]

Egads! What if Klein had said: "Bloggers have no checks and balances. They are sitting naked in their living room."

[Billthedrill]

Well-financed? I guess it depends on one's perspective. I'd offer to swap Ra^ther paychecks for a few months, but pretty soon he may not be getting one...

(Normally I FReep nekkid, but I do wear fuzzy slippers on occasion...)

[eggman]

If the documents are not important to the "truth" of the story. Why is C^BS still standing behind them as not being forgeries. This makes no sense. The fundamental truth is that the story cannot stand on its own without the documents so C^BS continues to stonewall.

[Steve_Seattle]

They investigated for five years the horrific scandal that Bush may have gotten preferential treatment and put in soft-duty at the end of his tour? Probably like ten thousand other national guardsmen with family connections or other job priorities? But Rather didn't spend five minutes examining how Clinton totally avoided military service, and he brushed off Juanita Broaddrick's rape allegations with a shrug. What a partisan a**hole.

[PJ-Comix]

Dan Rather's statement reminds me of the VO of many a cheap Japanese monster flick: "Deep beneath the surface of the earth powerful and extremely radioactive forces were at work."