Posted on 09/12/2004 2:43:11 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
These days, CBS News anchor Dan Rather and his colleagues at the network's magazine program "60 Minutes II" are enduring an unusual wave of second-guessing by some of the public and fellow journalists.
For that, they can thank "Buckhead."
It was a late-night blog posting by this mystery Netizen that first questioned the validity of documents Rather cited Wednesday as proof that George W. Bush did not fulfill his National Guard duty more than 30 years ago.
Buckhead refuses to further identify himself, other than dropping hints that he is a male who lives on the East Coast — preferring to proclaim that the scramble to verify the contentions in his posting marks an extraordinary achievement for a medium that has operated more as an underground world of ideological venting than a source of legitimate news.
But Buckhead is vehement about one thing: He acted alone when he posted, to the conservative website FreeRepublic.com, what was widely believed to be the first allegation that the CBS report relied on documents that could have been forged.
"Absolutely, positively, on my own, sitting at my computer in my bedroom just before midnight — but not in my pajamas," he wrote in an e-mail exchange with The Times. "But once I posted the comment to Free Republic I was no longer working alone, and that is the real point of the story about the story about the story."
That story began Wednesday, 19 minutes after the "60 Minutes II" broadcast began, when another FreeRepublic poster, TankerKC, noted that the documents were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF…. Can we get a copy of those memos?"
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The absolutely wonderful thing is that Buckhead will have more impact on the election than will the despicable Michael Moore. The left is becoming so marginalized that no patriotic American will want anything to do with them. Looked like Rummy was pretty well received at last night's Nascar race. Lot of American flags there.
Post #54 timeline reference bump. Way to go Howlin!
They call us right wing loonies until we score a hit and then we're a part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
"It was amazing Thursday to watch the documents story go from FreeRepublic.com, a bastion of right-wing lunacy, to Drudge to the mainstream media in less than 12 hours," said Jim Jordan, a strategist for independent Democratic groups opposed to Bush.
LOL, Jim, it must have killed them to see their old law suit target alive and feistier than ever, and hurting their beloved CBS!
I'm wondering, with all the attention FR is getting now, if the LSM print media will stop making us excerpt their articles.
I'm so proud of everyone who worked on this. FR Rules!
Thanks very much for your link in #8! That's a big help.
I've been reading how the VRWC is being credited with this. But what's really happening is that regular people, people like me, have a voice. The MSM may be surprised at the vastness of the right wing but it's not necessarily a new phenomenon, we've been here all along. Power to the people.
When I read this line from Buckhead I got a chill down my spine...living in NYC...a bastion of left wing lock step liberal group think...I often felt so alone until I found Free Republic...it was not only honest of Buckhead to share the spotlight but it is really loving of him to acknowledge the family thing that happens every so often on this forum...we got each other through the Clinton years while the MSM ignored Juanita Broaderick and the WACO fiasco not to mention Florida 2000 when I thought that I'd go nuts...the MSM may be waking up to the power of the New Media but when it comes to Free Republic they still don't get us...we are way more than a far right wing blogosphere...we are a community of people who love their country and each other...we are not only smart but also damn funny at times...FR is my safe haven and my political home.
Gentle FR humor.
Change the first letter - 6 times if you must.
sublime.
BTTT
ALL YOUR FORGERY ARE BELONG TO US
Sometimes old media does serious, difficult work. See the Los Angeles Times on the effort by Trinity Broadcast Network's Paul Crouch's efforts to silence an accuser. I know the reporter of this story, and he's a model of careful journalism and integrity. Perhaps the Times could assign him to the collapse of old media credibility surrounding Rathergate.
The Boston Globe begins a necessary retreat from Rathergate's bogus Bush documents in this morning's paper. This comes one day after INDC Journal conclusively demonstrated that the Globe's Saturday story was more deceiving than it was revealing:
"I just interviewed Dr. Bouffard again, and he's angry that the Globe has misrepresented him. He's been getting hate mail and nasty phone calls since last night's story was posted, and he wants me to correct the record. He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries."
CBS cited the flawed Globe report as evidence that its transparently fraudulent "scoop" wasn't falling apart, and in doing so misspelled Dr. Bouffard's name --in yet another sign of careful reporting that has marked CBS' effort from the beginning. RatherBiased caught that slip, and has many other developments as well.
Today's story suggests that an adult at the Globe has apparently figured out the aplicability of Occam's razor to this situation. It is possible --remotely--that the docs are legit, but:
*Lt Col Killian didn't type;
*Lt Col Killian's family says he did not maintain such records;
*Guard regulations prohibited the maintenance of such records;
*General Bobby Hodges didn't vouch for the docs as CBS said he would;
*Colonel Buck Staudt --cited in the memos as pushing Killian to "sugarcoat" a Bush evaluation-- had retired more than a year before the meo was allegedly written;
*Bloggers have been overwhelmed with e-mails from active duty and retire dmilitary who scoff at the form of the memos;
*Typewriters with proportional spacing were rare in '72/3;
*Typewriters with superscripting capabilites were rare in '72/3;
*Typewriters with perfect centering ability were non-existent '72/3;
*Typewriters with the "kerning" function didn't exist in '72/3;
*Most experts, from Dr.Cartwright at Rice, the above-referenced Dr. Bouffard and Farrell Shiver, range from certain to almost certain in their conclusions that the docs are not legit;
*CBS doesn't have the "originals" and didn't reveal that fact until pressure mounted;
*The fake docs are easily and exactly reproduced on modern word-processing equipment, underscoring the ease with which the bad forgery could have been produced contrasted with the near impossibility of Lt Colonel Killian's producing them in 192/3;
*Lt Col Killian lacked motive to write and maintain such records;
*Despite intense media interest in the president's TANG career that extends back at least four years, someone sat on these docs until seven weeks before the 2004 election and after the RNC convention;
*CBS has a history of obtaining docs damaging to the Bush Adminsitration which in all likelihood came from Democratic partisans;
*CBS won't reveal its source;
*CBS has a history of blowing stories that involved fake documents; and
*Dan Rather has not appeared opposite a serious journalist to answer extended questions on camera, even though his reputation and the reputation of his network are being shredded and a confidant witness would demand a hearing with a Russert or a Hume.
Occam's razor is not so easily explained, but its application here would point to the amazing set of assumptions that have to be held to believe in the authenticity of the CBS docs versus the quite simple explanation for their existence --forgery, to make political noise. An enterprising paper might seek out a dozen trial lawyers not yet on the record in this matter, and --having provided them with the docs and the cites to the two dozen or so bloggers at work on the issue-- ask them: "Assuming a trial had been held in which the experts cited and the arguments made above had been introduced, would you allow a jury to deliberate and decide the case if the jury had to believe in the authenticity of these docs in order for your client not to lose tens or hundreds of millions?"
Many of the bloggers working on this matter bring a lawyer's training in evidence to the conversation, and others bring background in intelligence and design. Pajama-clad though we might be, CBS has not been demolished by us so much as it has been by traditions of investigative thoroughness and judicial standards for the determination of truth. As the Globe report this morning shows, it doesn't much matter if CBS ever gives up the ghost. The verdict is already in. Dan Rather, at the twiligiht of a long and less than glorious career and looking for one last big bang, got duped by second-rate forgeries, and took a lot of wnnabee Woodwards over the cliff with him.
Now the stories are beginning to arrive on how the CBS melt-down was triggered, and old media is hopeless behind or biased again. Read Peter Wallsten's story from today's Los Angeles Times, which parrots Demcoratic spin about how this is a product of "right-wing luncacy," and omits except in passing or disparaging fashion, to underscore the credentials of the bloggers and the experts they assembled in the course of pursuing the story. Wallsten doesn't even seem aware of the ironic reference to "pajamas" in one quote from the original FreeRepublic poster, nor does it appear as though he could be bothered to mention traffic acceleration, "open source journalism" theory or any of previous exercises of blogging power --"Christmas in Cambodia," Trent Lott, the New York Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I spoke with Mr. Wallsten briefly on Friday, before going on air, and I pointed him to a few places like The Belmont Club and Instapundit which could fill in the gaps in a hurry. Instead of really reporting what happened and why, he chose the "right-wing lunacy" angle combined with straight reporting on transmission, and closing with dire warnings from a tenured doom-sayer. What a perfect illustration of why old media is so hopelessly behind the curve: Tasked to report on new media, it couldn't do so, even with a thousand sources and an easy to understand story line. Why not? Because it didn't want to. The stakes are too high. Self-preservation dictates that old media scoff at new media, even after the walls have been breached and breached again.
Wonder if he has been to that hate filled dem site! FR is the best. The silent majority is not silent any longer. I have been saying this in lots of emails this year. We have had it and we are going to fight back. FR has many intelligent people who are just as tired as I am of the lies being told by the MSM and others. We do not have to get our news from the tv and radio any longer. Thanks to the internet, we get breaking news faster than they do.
Bump
There will probably be lots of them until the election. Afterwards, they may stay hidden for a while. Shell shocked, you know!
It gives me great satisfaction knowing W knows he has a band of warriors FIGHTING and defending him, CAUSE WE LOVE HIM!! God bless W and his family!
Wonderful summary in #54, Howlin. And your link to the CBS site laid the ammo right out.:) CBS provided the rope for their own hanging.
They sure do. They use to be the only ones allowed to give the news as they pleased. That is not true now.
That would be very interesting.
What else are they going to call us? Some beat them at their own game. They can not stand that! Like all dems they think they are the only smart people in this country. Wrong!
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