Dan Rather, CBS, Plus Duke

We’ll get to the latest ethically-blind, unintentional humor at Duke University in a moment. Let’s begin with the same thing as demonstrated in the $70 million case Dan Rather just filed against CBS.

The theory of American law is that adversaries – plaintiff and defendant in a civil case – will contest facts, witnesses and experts before the trier of fact (judge or jury) and truth will result. It is not just people like me who’ve been attorneys forever, but also laymen who read the papers, who know this theory sometimes fails in practice.

The theory will fail on purpose in this case, because neither side is interested in proving whether the documents in this case were forgeries that any competent reviewer would have identified at once. CBS wants to prove they were questionable, and shouldn’t have been used. Rather wants to prove they “were not proved false” and therefore should have been used.

I have a personal stake in this. I was part of the small group of bloggers, beginning on FreeRepublic.com right after the Rather broadcast on CBS, who demonstrated that the documents were forgeries, and ridiculously obvious ones. I knew this the moment I read the first post by “Buckhead,” an able lawyer from north of Atlanta.

I was in print media production at the time the “Bush National Guard” documents were allegedly produced by his commanding officer. I knew the only machines at that time which could produce the exact typesetting displayed in these documents cost about $50,000 and were owned only by printing firms. Such a piece of equipment, which cost more than the average house, would not have been available in the HQ of any National Guard unit.

Could the typewriters available at the Guard have possibly produced these documents? Absolutely not. The two typewriters it had then, are known. Neither could match the typesetting of the IBM Selectric, then the most sophisticated typewriter in existence. And even the IBM Selectric, which I worked with in my office, could not have matched these documents.

So, I read Buckhead’s comment, slapped my forehead and said, “Of course. He’s right. These are forgeries. I should have seen it myself.”

Back to the case of Rather v. CBS. Every court of general jurisdiction has the power to appoint Special Masters to examine particular facts in a case and report back. Masters are routinely used when the central issue is highly technical. But there’s another reason to use a Master. When there’s reason to believe both the parties in a case have cause to slant the central facts, the court can and should appoint a Master to make an unbiased examination.

This case is not just about Rather against CBS. It is also about the integrity, or lack of integrity, of the American news media. For about a week after this broadcast, the media circled the wagons to protect both Rather and CBS. Not until the blogosphere forced the issue, did the media change their conclusions.

So, the judge on this case will, in my opinion, be derelict in his duties if he (or she) does not appoint a Special Master in this case. The Master’s assignment should be to determine if the “Guard” documents are forgeries, and if so, how obvious was that? Neither Rather nor CBS may like the results of that examination. But the American press will benefit greatly though unwillingly, from that investigation.

While we are on the subject of “justice,” here’s a brief comment about Duke University. Duke has just announced that it will “invest $1.25 million over the next five years for its law school to establish a center devoted to the promotion of justice in the criminal justice system and the training of lawyers to fight against wrongful convictions.” President Richard H. Brodhead made this stunning announcement this week.

If Duke is honestly interested in promoting justice and avoiding wrongful charges and convictions, it would have spent $36.08 to accomplish the same result immediately, rather than over the next five years. That would be $35.67 to mail a letter to each of the 87 faculty members who published the full-page ad asuming the students to be obviously guilty. The letters would say, “Your services are no longer required.” (There were 88 such professors, but one recanted and apologized after the NC Attorney General dismissed all charges and apologized.)

The last 41 cents would be for President Brodhead to mail a letter to the Board of Trustees, letting them know he was leaving, after his failure to deal honestly with the situation.

In the alternative, Duke could name the new Center the O.J. Simpson Justice Center. The decision rule is ever so simple. Black defendants are innocent. White defendants are guilty. Meanwhile, Duke and CBS are once-proud institutions that are dying a slow suicide. Both forgot the lesson that Scottish poet Robert Burns taught in 1786 in “To a Louse”:

About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.

IIRC it was called an Executive.

I'll guess you're questioning the availability of the Selectric in '61, yet it was marketed for the first time that year.

It took a bit of time to get used to because, instead of type keys, the characters are embossed on a metal ball which twists and turns during typing. It doesn't have the movable carriage of typewriters which preceded it.

As I said, General Electric MSVD agreed to "try out" this new-age typewriter with a few employees.

I'm curious as to why you doubt it, ladyjane.

BTW, my dear Dad, who died on December 4, 1992, would address me as "Lady Jane" when he was annoyed with me in my younger days. LOL

No, you are right. The moving ball one was a Selectric.

Re the Lady Jane name. My mother also called me as Lady Jane when she was annoyed with me. (I wonder if they got the name from some television or radio program? )

When signing up here I decided to choose a name that I could remember easily because I figured I wouldn’t sign on much. LOL

Thanks.

Dan Rather is mentioned several times in B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley’s “STOLEN VALOR—How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and History.” Rather helped shape the popular image of the Vietnam veteran as psychotic misfit. He did a “documentary” in 1987, “The Wall Within,” which was later factually discredited. I don’t doubt that Michael Moore as a youth was inspired by 60 Minutes, which has always been 10 percent news and 90 percent entertainment.

Anyway, I quote verbatim from page 107 of Stolen Valor:

“Rather certainly has experience with the military. During the Korean War, when men could be drafted out of college, Dan Irvin Rather joined the Army Reserves while attending Sam Houston University in Huntsville, Texas, thus avoiding the possibility of being drafted. On graduating in 1954, well after the Korean War was over and the killing had ended, Rather quit the reserves and enlisted in the Marine Corps. (This is the same national broadcaster, who night after night during the 1988 presidential campaign, hammered Republican vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle for avoiding Vietnam by joining the National Guard.) Although the press often refers to Rather as an ‘ex-Marine,’ he did not finish Marine recruit training. He joined the Marines on January 22, 1954, but was discharged less than four months later, on May 11, for being medically unfit. (As a boy, Rather had suffered from rheumatic fever.)”

There has never been anything wrong with serving in the reserves. What has been dishonorable is the way Rather, the news media and later, John Kerry, denigrated reserve service for political effect.

Kerry got a six-month early discharge from the Navy. When you add up Kerry’s active duty time and compare it to Bush’s active duty time—OCS, flight training, summer activation—Kerry didn’t do much more time than Bush.

A jury could eat that up.

Sure. But we would eat that up, too. Do you honestly think CBS will put itself in that position?
No, CBS' problem is that, as part of its business plan, it routinely hires loons to go on-air and bay at the moon. The whole business plan of journalism is to criticize everyone but journalists and fellow travelers, thereby attracting an audience and promoting journalism. "See how important we are - if you didn't listen to us you wouldn't know that . . (fill in the liberal criticism du jour here)."
Promoting oneself by criticizing everyone else is the whole "liberal" game plan. And it crucially depends on control of journalism, which implies that anyone who criticizes them must be attacked ruthlessly and marginalized. Thus, a nonfiction book cannot cannot be the simple testimony of the people who knew John Kerry in Vietnam, and were unimpressed with him. No, "swiftboating" must be coined a word of disrepute just as "McCarthyism" had to be, and was.
Note that this implies monopoly media power, which ultimately derives from monopoly control of the quick and economical nationwide transmission of propaganda. That is, it ultimately derives from the telegraph, and from the Associated Press.
CBS will not be proving that Rather is a loon, because for decades he was their loon, and they always a loon in that position, as the face of their organization.

Kerning is the key. Only well-heeled printers owned machines that could do that — until computers and laser printers came along and everyone had that capacity sitting on his desk.

When I went to law school in 1988, I had PC clone that would not kern. Each character printed used exactly as much space as every other character. How I envied the people with Macs. Macs would kern, so they could fit 20-30% more text on a page. That makes a big difference when you are being graded on a writing assignment that has purposely been limited (in order to train to write succinctly) to one or two pages.

I love your stuff...
Even I, an under educated and unapologetic Shenandoah Valley farm boy/red neck can understand exactly your points.....

I’m betting CBS will settle out of court..but praying they won’t..

The way I see it — Blather has to prove he was a simple dumb ass “news reader” with no journalism or professional responsibility for the crap he spewed each evening...and that CBS was force feeding him all the erroneous information and forged documents. This would seem to give CBS MORE grounds for firing the overpaid lying sonuvabitch...

CBS will have to refute this by revealing the source for the false documents — pretty widely already known — and tie that directly to Mapes and Blather, I would think a rather simple task.....

If this goes to trial, and we have a vicious Mongoose vs Cobra encounter -— CBS loses.
Too much of the unprofessional and agenda biased nature of the “news” will by necessity and “discovery” be revealed..

Either way, CBS comes out of this with a perpetual black eye to match their logo!

I’ve already purchased a full case of microwave popcorn, and await “the games”....

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