By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their Flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here the embattled farmers stood
And fired the Shot heard 'round the World.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I vote that this go at the top of each forum.
Posted on 09/10/2004 7:54:07 AM PDT by Smartaleck
Excerpts....
The Kerry end is near? At this precise time every four years, the most media-savvy members of the Gang of 500 begin to think about their roles in the premiere post-election forum that revisits the actions and players of the presidential race.
But if nothing changes in the race as it now stands — with President Bush winning a decent-sized victory — much of the talk will be about the greater technical proficiency of the Bush-Cheney effort.
Democrats, who deny up and down that they had anything to do with the documents, tell ABC News that they plan to continue their push to question the president's Guard service, irrespective of the CBS situation.
Top Democrats vow to continue to lead the charge against Bush along these four lines
1. Bush allegedly got special treatment
2. Bush allegedly was suspended for missing his medical exam
3. Bush allegedly didn't fulfill his requirements
4. Bush allegedly didn't release all the documents he said he'd release
But they acknowledge that it might be more difficult to break through the clutter of questions surrounding the documents' authenticity. (Guess they won't heed BC's advice?)
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos said on "Good Morning America" that "a lot of Democrats think this might have been a set-up" by Republicans — a sentiment we are likely to hear more of in the days to come.
(ABC acknowledges Freepers broke the story...yeah boy)
We always favor looking at the content and substance over WHO is offering up the information, but in the war that will ensue about WHO gave CBS the potentially phony documents, it is interesting to Note that the right (Drudge, Fox, right-leaning blogs, others) led the way in pointing out the questions we have all been asking — and they were onto the questions, with remarkable detail, relatively soon after the documents were made public.
Here's part of how this story got here . . . from a little Marc Ambinder back-lurking on the blogs . . .
At 8:00 pm ET Wednesday night, CBS News does the story . . .
at 8:59 ET — before the broadcast is finished!!! — the documents come into question via a poster named Buckhead on the Free Republic Web site: LINK http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/posts
Buckhead seems well-read on his forensic document examination skills. "Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old."
Well, this is bandied about by dozens of Freepers, as they're called and is picked up at 8:30 am ET and added to by www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ — this little green football guy is a very popular conservative blogger . . .
It's expanded upon by www.powerlineblog.com/ in the early morning:
and also by www.spacetownusa.com/hmmm
and here, at 10:36 am ET: www.allahpundit.com/.
snip The Boston Globe does not get into the debate about the documents, focusing instead on the full-throated DNC push on Bush's service. LINK
A New York Times editorial on the new documents and Bush's Guard service does include a reference to the documents' authenticity being challenged. LINK
The White House lobs claims that the Kerry team is behind attacks on Bush's military service record. The Washington Times ' Bill Sammon reports White House press secretary Scott McClellan describes it as desperate measures for desperate times. "You absolutely are seeing a coordinated attack by John Kerry and his surrogates on the president." LINK
And let us not be the last to point out that if a(nother) major corporation was withholding information related to serious allegations made against the president of the United States, "60 Minutes" would be all over them, demanding to know about their documentation and expert back up.
BTTT
Caddell appears genuinely mystified about Kerry's fixation on Vietnam, and says if his campaign doesn't change the focus quickly, the race could be "over" within a couple of weeks. Then, when the subject of the possibility of the "CBS" documents came up, Cadell said that if they do in fact turn out to be forged, Kerry is done.
Asked why he was being so hard on the Kerry campaign, Caddell responded that he [Caddell] was "trying to save his party by telling the truth."
"So ultimately he won, and ran with a bogus story."
Given the can of whupa$$ Fox put on the MSM during the Rep. Convention and the poor ratings of CBS it's not leap of faith to conclude Danny boy was desperate and Fubar'ed.
did CBS 60 minutes ever reveal the source of these papers?
My sentiments, exactly. I get so POd at some of the BS posted here - however - the BS is far outweighed by this being the BEST breaking news source on the internet! There is nothing finer, even ham and eggs in Carolina. Congratulations to the greatest newshounds in the world!
Agreed. Any of the millions of Americans who worked in military/government offices in that time period would be able to recognize whether a document could or could not have been produced on the equipment in use at that time. And military/government equipment was WAY behind what was in use in the private sector, so just because somebody from IBM says some very new Selectrics at that time "might" have had superscript capability, doesn't have anything to do with the matter.
"the source of these papers"
Not so far. Won't even open up to other news media from what I've read.
1. If he did - so what - a lot of people in that era got "special treatment
2. That was going on a lot in that era also - if you didn't show up for your exam - you wouldn't be able to fly anymore - and if he was getting out, what's the big deal
3. If he didn't fulfill his requirements, he would not have gotten a discharge from service - he would have gotten a courts martial
4. He told them to release all the documents - in an organization like the military - documents are misplaced, misfiled all the time - heck even at major companies documents are lost or misplaced. An Komrade Kerry has not even requested that all his documents be released. (sour grapes?)
Too funny!
But honestly, I don't think this was a Republican hoax. Why? Because it has all the hallmarks of the incompetent Kerry campaign. If a Republican operative had done this, it would have been done a lot better -- would have done a harder to detect forgery, so that it WOULDN'T be discovered almost immediately, so that the media and Kerry campaign would have some time to dig themselves in deeper over it, before the fraud was exposed.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "I'm Mad as Zell, and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore."
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The MK-19 RULES!
Still there.
Still mean.
"My sentiments, exactly. I get so POd at some of the BS posted here"
I see you're from the "class of 98" also. Yes, lots of BS over the years. However, I was thinking just yesterday, through all the fits and growing pains I would have to say the FR of today is much improved over the past.
Kudos are in order for the Robinson's and admins who have done much to weed out the redundant posts (such as this one, LOL) and obvious disruptors.....i.e. the ZOT.
Avoiding a nomination challenge; merciless distribution of message of the day; deflection of any serious discussion of the war in Iraq, health care, jobs, or the tax burden; installing a White House press secretary willing to use the podium for political purposes but not respond directly to any hard questions; making the race not about the incumbent's record but the challenger's, all the while claiming to want to focus on "the future"; and the wielding of national security as the ultimate political trump card.
Nope, no bias there. But I do agree, ABC's "The Note" is a good source of information. It was in "The Note" that teh comment regarding Kerry campaign attitude toward "Unfit for Command" was expressed -- "they [the media] want us to win, and the matter [Swiftees] will be taken care of."
FDR "avoided" military duty in WW1.
I think I am correct that Buckhead said this at 11:59 EST and not 8:59 EST as The Note claims.
"Nope, no bias there. " <------ LOL
"One does not truly know their own argument unless they fully understand their opponents." sorry don't know who said it, but I believe it. Hence......the Note can be most rewarding. :-)
Bump...this is great!
I don't think we should get into that game -- could backfire. And besides, then we wouldn't give them a chance to hang themselves. See post #38.
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