Capt. Rather On Bridge!
'Rats Deserting Ship!
Okay......did you EVER IN YOUR LIFE think you'd post a thread with this title? The worm has turned, my friend. Old Media is trying like hell to be hip.
I am sure that CBS will allow other experts to examine the documents their non experts examined. But of course it is all moot, because even if the documents were forged, they reflected what Dan Rather's sources said was on Killian's mind at the time, well maybe not what was on his mind, but "consistent" with something or other. The message from CBS is that it is time to move on from the documents, and just look at Bush's guard record again, for maybe the 5th time or so.
O'Reilly: Did Clinton Lie?
Rather: Yes, he did
O'Reilly: Is Clinton a liar?
Rather No. I believe he is an honest man.
O'Reilly: How can you say that?
Rather: I believe you can tell lies and still be an honest man.
And some people still trust this guy for their news reports?
rather is toast.
--snip--
"Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill," the CBS anchor said. "My colleagues and I at '60 Minutes' made great efforts to authenticate these documents and to corroborate the story as best we could. . . . I think the public is smart enough to see from whom some of this criticism is coming and draw judgments about what the motivations are."
--snip--
Rather said that CBS's lead expert was Marcel Matley of San Francisco, a member of the National Association of Document Examiners who has taught, lectured and written about his field, testified in numerous trials and consulted for government agencies. Matley said last night that a "60 Minutes" executive had asked him not to give interviews.
--snip--
CBS News President Andrew Heyward staunchly defended the piece. "I have full confidence in our reporting on this story and in every reporter on both sides of the camera," he said last night. "This is going to hold up. This was thoroughly vetted."
--snip--
"The first rule of public relations is to get all the bad news out right away," said Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University's College of Communication. "It looks like CBS News has made some serious errors here, and if so, they should plead nolo contendere and not do the perp walk later."
What nonsense. The MSM wouldn't have covered this story if the bloggers didn't raise real issues about the documents. And real experts have said they're fake.
wow....WP being skeptical does not bode well for Blackrock...
..so sad....so very very sad.
Don't find the Post all THAT sceptical. The lib-reliance on so-called experts frequently leads to the inability to see the forest for the trees. Remember the Dems' academic expert on exit polling? Barry Richards tore him apart (and his specialty was law--not exit polling).
I don't think this WashingtonComPost is all that great.
It begins by repeating all the stale old charges, which will presumably appear on the front page, and it puts all the questions after that, where they will appear on a back page.
Not only that, but it fails to point out that Rather's excuses are ridiculous. Readers can judge for themselves, but the Post refrains from making the obvious judgments.
Yes, Times Roman was available then, but only to compositors. And Times New Roman, which Microsoft has pushed, was a later font that with many small but noticeable differences from Times Roman. The font and the proportional spacing are NOT obscured by the copy blurring.
Captain Dan needs to go back to the shrimp boats
Sean Hannity had Gary Killian, the son of Lt. Col Jerry Killian on his show today. Gary said he recieved a call weeks ago from Mary Mapes asking about the documents. He named her by name. She revealed to him in the call that she thought the documents weren't real. Gary told Hannity he was shocked that See-BS aired the story anyway. That doesn't bode well for See-BS's credibility.
Yes, and why would they do that? He was interviewed by Rather tonight!
analysis of the bush memo
http://img41.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img41&image=60minbusted.swf
Interesting. I suppose that this is why Rather refuses to let us know the source of the memos. We might see where this story is coming from and draw judgements about what the motivations are. Oh wait, I think I just did!
ABC aint buyin it either.....
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/NotedNow/Noted_Now.html
HODGES SAID HE WAS MISLED BY CBS: Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."
Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002483.php#c15399
IBM Executive (proportional spacing)
http://www.well.com/user/smalin/typinwhy.htm
excerpt:
"The IBM Executive typewriter I found at a garage sale was magnificent, and (having been long since replaced by the Selectric), dirt cheap. Only somebody with a PhD in secretarial skills could operate it. It was a proportional spacing machine: an 'm' was five spaces wide, an 'i' was two. There were two separate space bars (two and three spaces respectively). To correct a mistake, you had to know the width of all the characters involved so that you could backspace the appropriate amount (backspace was the only single-space key on the machine). There was an arcane procedure for producing justified type which involved typing a page a first time (while using a special guide to measure where the lines ended), noting the extra spaces that needed to be added, marking the copy to show where two-width spaces would be replaced with three-width spaces (or, in the worst case, two two-width spaces), and typing the page a second time. Even loading the ribbon (it was one of the first carbon ribbon machines on the market) was a major challenge: its rimless reels would spill their contents at the slightest mishandling, and the thin (less than 1/2" wide) tape had to be threaded through bewildering series of slots, grooves, carriers, and guides. It was a machine only a fanatic could love, and I did. I made regular trips to Santa Barbara's IBM parts center, and spent hours with tweezers, probes, hooks, needle-nosed pliers and other fine tools, getting it working right."
Just the kind of thing to whip off a memo with ... NOT!