Hardball: The Horserace- Blogging - Chris Matthews style

MSNBC Election Anchor and "Hardball" host Chris Matthews hosts "Hardball: The Horserace," a weekly look inside the 2004 presidential campaign and a look ahead at the "horserace" to the finish line as Election Day approaches. "Hardball: The Horserace" premieres Friday, Sept. 17, 7-8 p.m. (ET).

"Hardball: The Horserace" is the viewers' source for election news, with analysis of the campaign ad wars and the latest poll numbers, and a look around the country at some of the local races with national impact. The combined resources of NBC News and MSNBC will cover the candidates and the issues with original reports from NBC News reporters Campbell Brown, Andrea Mitchell, Ron Allen, David Gregory, Carl Quintanilla, Norah O'Donnell, and MSNBC's Ron Reagan, Chris Jansing and David Shuster. "Hardball: The Horserace" will also feature reports from NBC affiliates in key battleground states across the country, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Missouri.

The debut telecast will include in-depth reports on the debate over the presidential debates, how early voting could effect the outcome of the election, the success of mudslinging campaigns, how the candidates are looking for voters on the football fields in the swing states and a look at the possible political fallout from the hurricanes.

"Hardball: The Horserace" goes in-depth on Hardball.MSNBC.com with a comprehensive multi-media feature that provides viewers with an immediate read on the state of the race. Updated weekly, viewers can see at a glance the standings in the electoral outlook with map views of the projected electoral vote count, the latest figures from each candidates' campaign fund-raising race, poll updates and campaign trail news that includes a review of recent visits and where the candidates are heading next- including tracking which states each candidates visits most- as the final stretch of the campaign rolls out.

For those who like to read about the CBS scandal through experts, here is a transcript that may add a bit more to the story.
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ABRAMS: When we come back, we‘ve got a brand new statement about CBS News about those National Guard documents. Exactly what are they saying? We‘re going to talk about it a lot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABRAMS: We have just gotten in a statement from CBS News in connection with those National Guard documents. Of course, you know that this is related to this controversy, CBS News had a breaking news report last week, which suggested that President Bush had gotten some favors and had, you know, not done everything he had been asked to do by superiors when he was in the Texas National Guard. But now a lot of document examiners have been saying those documents are actually forged. CBS has issued the following statement.

“We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of corroborating evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions so that is what we are doing.”

Keep in mind the word there is “accurate”, not authentic when it comes to those memos. Now my parsing words here, joining me now is the dean of one of the most prominent journalism schools in the country, Lauren—sorry Ghiglione of the Medill School at Northwestern University. Back again with us is forensic document examiner, he was chief of Documents Operations and Research Unit at the FBI, Gerry Richards and Bob Kohn, author of “Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted”. All right...

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: ... Dean Ghiglione, am I parsing words here by reading into CBS‘ statement where they say we have established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate. Accurate is something very different from authentic, is it not?

LOREN GHIGLIONE, MEDILL SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM: Well I think they‘re acknowledging what they can know and they don‘t know. And the question is we certainly want watchdogs of those people in power and we want those watchdogs to have credibility and we also want watchdogs of the watchdogs to have credibility.

So one question I would ask is will this satisfy the public as to the credibility of the CBS report? There have been organizations, institutions in this society, for example, the National News Council, which existed for about a decade, which was outside of the news organizations, but did—had no power, but did look at news organization when there were complaints from the public.

ABRAMS: Yes.

GHIGLIONE: And this would have been a perfect case for that kind of organization, I think.

ABRAMS: Bob Kohn, I mean it sounds to me and this is a very different type of statement than Dan Rather has been making on the “CBS Evening News” where they have been defending the authenticity of the documents. Do you think that they are now backing off and saying, look, the essence of our story was accurate. That he got favorable treatment. That the issues brought up in this memo were accurate, but now they‘re starting to say but maybe the documents themselves weren‘t authentic.

BOB KOHN, MEDIA CRITIC: They are backing off and they are playing games. I mean any lawyer can take a look at this. It is almost like it was drafted by a lawyer. They‘re saying that they‘re accurate and not genuine. Well it looks like they‘re going to this 86-year-old Mrs. Knox (ph), who was the secretary for Killian, the guy who supposedly wrote these alleged documents.

She said they‘re clearly forgeries, but she also said that she voted against Bush, never voted for Bush, even when he was running for governor. She‘s against Bush. She doesn‘t like what his policies are, and but she also confirms she thinks that her boss would have thought this...

ABRAMS: Yes.

KOHN: ... at the time and it looks like they‘re trying to say, well, the sentiments behind these forgeries are accurate and we‘re going to redouble our efforts. Well, what efforts? Just last Friday they said that they weren‘t going to be doing an investigation...

ABRAMS: All right...

KOHN: ... right?

ABRAMS: ... stick around. We‘ve got a lot more on this topic and those memos when we come back. We may hear more from CBS too.

All right, also coming up, live coverage of Hurricane Ivan. The killer storm is getting closer by the hour. The question, why when there are mandatory evacuations are people—some people not leaving? What does it mean by mandatory?

We‘ve got the latest on the Scott Peterson case as well. Some very important testimony today. It‘s coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ABRAMS: Coming up, we‘ve got more on those CBS memos. We‘ve got a new statement from CBS. All of that coming up, but first the headlines.

(NEWS BREAK)

ABRAMS: We‘re back and we‘re talking more about the CBS News report on President Bush‘s military memos or if these memos actually existed. CBS issued a statement only moments ago where they said that we established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate, accurate. They don‘t say authentic.

House GOP leader Chris Cox today called for an investigation into the continued use by CBS News of—quote—“apparently forged documents concerning the service record of President George W. Bush intended to unfairly damage his reputation and influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.”

The letter went on to say that there‘s growing abundance of evidence that CBS News has aided and abetted fraud. But the head of that committee says that‘s not going to happen.

Even in the face of accusations of criminal conduct, the network is standing by its report on the memo. Here is the network‘s defense. It did its homework. CBS says the story was based on documents provided by un-impeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely with Colonel Jerry Killian.

The documents are backed up, they say, by independent handwriting and forensic document experts. Well, we don‘t know everyone who they talked to and at least one former friend and colleague of Killian told CBS he thinks the memos are real. Another who CBS originally called a source now tells NBC News that he thinks that the memos are likely forgeries.

CBS has contacted five document examiners, three of them have spoken

out. Two told ABC News they had concerns from the get-go and could not

vouch for the memo‘s authenticity. CBS says they were asked to look at

only one of the four documents and that in the end the two women played a -

· quote—“peripheral role.”

The third examiner has said he verified that the signatures on the memos came from the same source but not their authenticity. Since the show aired, CBS says that it consulted two more document examiners who say that the memos are likely not forgeries.

Yesterday Killian‘s former secretary said she doubts the authenticity of the memos. She said she would have typed them, but that the content is consistent with Killian‘s thoughts about then First Lieutenant Bush. CBS notes that—quote—“she confirms the contents of the documents which was the primary focus of our story in the first place.”

All right, we‘re back now with a great panel. We‘ve got the dean of the Medill School at Northwestern University, Loren Ghiglione, forensic document examiner, former FBI agent, Gerry Richards, and Bob Kohn, author of “Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted”.

All right, Mr. Richards, why is it that when it comes to the document examination, let‘s not talk about the story as a whole for a moment. Let‘s just talk about the authenticity of the documents. Why is it that when we called document examiners yesterday and today in an effort to get someone on who would say, hey look, I‘m convinced that these are likely authentic, why are we having such a hard time finding somebody to at least back up CBS?

GERRY RICHARDS, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, I think it‘s just a matter of the proof that‘s involved. Most competent, well-trained document examiners aren‘t going to say that because the evidence is pretty overwhelming that they are not authentic documents. That they were produced on a word processor and not on a Circa 1972 machine. Anybody who does come forward and say that they are authentic would have a real problem in trying to prove that particular fact.

ABRAMS: Dean Ghiglione, let‘s assume for a moment then that the documents are not authentic. For the sake of argument, let‘s assume that for a moment. And yet, let‘s say that CBS still says, all right, you know what, even if the documents aren‘t authentic, the heart of our story is still true. It doesn‘t change the heart of our story. As the dean of the most prominent journalism school in the country, is that an acceptable explanation from CBS?

GHIGLIONE: Well, I‘m always nervous about hypothetical...

ABRAMS: You do it all the time in your school. Come on. You can play one with us.

GHIGLIONE: Right. But, you know, I think that you want the credibility of that news organization and broadcast and journalism in general can to be—to withstand scrutiny and I would be nervous about a position that would say, well, gee, don‘t worry about the authenticity of the documents. It seems that‘s part of the case they made.

It can be true, as they say, and this is important. It‘s not to be just tossed aside, that their report can be accurate despite these documents and so I think they‘re in a little bit of a catch 22 situation.

(CROSSTALK)

GHIGLIONE: They certainly don‘t want to run away from their report if they actually believe it to be true and yet they do have to fess up if the documents present a problem. It seems to me that they need to investigate that and have people investigating it and who will be trusted as credible...

(CROSSTALK)

GHIGLIONE: ... whatever they say.

ABRAMS: Mr. Kohn, let me read to you a couple of the experts who seem to have been siding with CBS, Bill Glennon and after the fact expert that CBS hired.

“Everything that is in those documents that people are saying can‘t be done, as you said, 32 years ago is just totally false. Not true. Proportional spacing was available. Superscripts were available as a custom feature. Proportional spacing between the lines was available. You can order that any way you‘d like.”

What do you make of that?

KOHN: The guy‘s wrong, OK. There are enough word processing experts who have gone on television saying that they‘re 100 percent forgeries. There was proportional spacing, but the size of the computer font that generated the typeface on that document didn‘t exist in 1971...

ABRAMS: Mr. Richards, is that true?

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: Let me ask Mr. Richards. Is that true?

RICHARDS: Yes, that‘s true. Basically there was proportional spacing on numerous typewriters, however, they were not very common. It was semi - - it was not common to have that type of typewriter. In addition, the superscript that‘s on there is a different sized font and it is in a different position. It is actually raised. Most of the typewriters who had, you could specially order the superscripts, but they would be even with the top of the type, as a rule.

The way you can tell it is all of the rest of the memos that have I seen at least have what‘s called mono spacing, either 10 or 12 letters to the inch, which is very typical of most government computers at that particular time. I was in the FBI and that‘s mostly what we had.

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: All right, I‘ve got to wrap it up. Dean Ghiglione...

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: ... Gerry Richards and Bob Kohn, thanks very much. We‘re going to certainly stay on top of this story.

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