Depends on which side the professionals are on. Never hurts to get a second opinion!
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.
Depends on which side the professionals are on. Never hurts to get a second opinion!
Your comments about grumbling within CBS are spot-on. I still have a few friends in the business, including some at CBS. Rather has been a master of news division politics over the past 30 years, but he's made a lot of enemies in the process. He shamelessly promotes "favorites" among producers and editors, as Bernard Goldberg described in his book "bias." You can almost tell which reporters are currently in favor with "The Dan," based on the amount of air time they receive. Jim Axelrod, Byron Pitts and John Roberts fall into that category right now. Reporters viewed as a potential threat (such as Russ Mitchell) are not as visible. BTW, a former CBS staffer told me that Rather was pissed on 9-11 when Mitchell was temporarily assigned to spell him on the anchor desk. You'll note that Mitchell "disappeared" in the late afternoon, allowing Ironman Dan to occupy the desk by himself. You may also recall Rather's campaign to get rid of Connie Chung as co-anchor on the Evening News. Playing games like that may eliminate short-term "threats," but it also creates enemies, and there are plenty of reporters and producers at CBS who'd like to see Dan get his comeuppance. Rathergate may provide just that opportunity.
Beyond the newsroom, Rather's support in the CBS hierarchy seems to be dwindling. Les Moonves, the former Entertainment Division President who now runs the whole show, sees Rather's faltering evening news as a drag on the schedule, doing nothing to generate a lead-in for local news, prime time access programs, and CBS' prime-time schedule. Those sentiments are shared by Dennis Swanson, who runs CBS' important stations division. The network owned-and-operated stations are a vital revenue source for any network, and CBS' have lagged behind for years. Swanson is trying to turn it around, but he's reportedly frustrated because the Evening News is mired in last place, and provides no lead-in audience for the 6 pm news on stations like WCBS in New York, WBBM (Chicago) and KCBS in Los Angeles. All three of those stations remain in last place, at a cost of millions of dollars a year in lost advertising revenue. Believe me, CBS has done studies on the impact of a more successful Evening News on its local and prime time ratings, and the numbers don't look good for Gunga Dan. BTW, Swanson could well become the next president of CBS News, if Rathergate explodes as many believe.
The planets are beginning to align against Rather--he'll never know what hit him...
Check out the John F. Kerry Timeline.
Here is one of the articles I have linked, which says a lot of Kerry's character or lack thereof: Kerry's Disloyal Nicaraguan Journey
.
It's worse than that.
Times New Roman is a fully proportional font. This means that each letter has its own customized width, just as we see all the time today.
Not even the best of the old typewriters could produce something like that. IBM's Executive has four pre-formed widths. The fonts were customized to fit one of those four. So for example the 'i' would be wider than on a true proportional font because the 'r' would share the same width.
I notice that a lot of people have been talking about Selectrics, but a Selectric would provide much higher print quality than I see in any of the memos or forms of the period. They used old-fashioned electric typewriters with typebars, not balls.
Other than running memos through a typesetter, there's just no way you could create that kind of type in those days.
What amazes me is the stupidity of the people who forged these documents. I've never forged a document before in my life, and I would have known to duplicate the typeface and so on.
I at least like to think that at the highest level of political campaigning somebody out there had a brain.
Guess not.
That alone is enough for me to be absolutely appalled at the idea of Kerry for President. Someone who selects a campaign staff this stupid deserves what they get.
D
And if so, a lot of Democrats are admitting their own stupidity.
Do we really want people who can be easily duped by hoaxes running the country?
Sorta looks as though Capt'n DAN the NEWS man kr*pped in his mess kit AGAIN doesn't it?
Bigun! Being a longtime Freeper I know you're loving this too! LOL
I am gleeful....I wonder if RATHERbiased will have to make an on air apology?
"RATHERbiased"
But couldn't get-by-us?
LOL
Smartaleck (
Been waiting a LONG time for Capt'N DAN the NEWS man to step in it to the point that he is required to board his mentor's (Walter's) boat and sail of into the sunset forever! Perhaps...just perhaps this is it!
here's your ping
It does not make sense.
And with both of Killian's family members saying Col. Killian respected young Mr. Bush and thought he was an excellent pilot and member of the guard.....how in the HELL does anyone explain these memos.....this is NUTS!
CBS needs to state RIGHT NOW that the memos are FAKES.
And then make-up for their butt kissing of the DNC for all these years by doing a SIXTY MINUTE SPECIAL on the book that John Kerry authored entitled 'The New Soldier', which had a mock up of the troops at Iwo Jima raising an UPSIDE DOWN AMERICAN FLAG.They continue to cover this baby up, and there is NOT ONE PERSON IN THIS NATION that does not know that CBS, ABC, NBC, and NPB and CNN would be shouting about this horrid book from the rafters if such an anti-American book had been published by GW Bush.
47 posted on 09/08/2004 8:59:43 PM PDT by Buckhead [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
-----
Depending on what timezone Buckhead is in. If he's on the west coast, then that was the actual time.
No, it's not. You're going to quash one of the biggest finds we've ever had, in order to play tit for tat?
bump
The Kerry end is near?
His end was near the day he became a candidate. He was fed to the dogs.
When I go fishing I use CHUM, that is what he is now.... just CHUM.
W is a real man, this guy is a CHUM.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.