Posted on 09/14/2004 3:50:28 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
CBS News has gone into full "CYA" mode. After being attacked continuously for the past six days by everyone ranging from posters at FreeRepublic.com, to Web sites like RatherBiased.com, Powerline, and Instapundit.com, to large media organizations like The Washington Post, The New York Times, and its network television rivals, CBS mounted another defense of itself tonight.
Just as his Friday defense of failed to convince, Rather's Monday defense was almost completely ineffectual. Several points stand out:
"As an 'old' teacher who was teaching 'typing' in the 1970's, let me submit one more item that could be added to the list of discrepancies: Even with the advent of the IBM Selectric typewriter, we continued to teach students to use the lower case of the letter L for several years because it was presented that way in the book!!
"It took me years to personally convert to using the number 1 on the top row of the keyboard; and, I submit to you anyone who learned to type by the touch method in the 1960's and/or early 1970's continued to use the lower case of the letter L.--because it was learned intuitively."
Peter Nelson has further thoughts on this.
"The fact that the CBS Bush National Guard overlay matches perfectly and shows no signs of compounding deviation makes it a mathematical certainty that the two documents were both created by Microsoft Word, and therefore not in 1973. It is nearly impossible to create two documents with two different kerning systems that can survive the overlay test, especially if those two kerning systems are separated by 30 years in technology and design."
Other instant responses from Politicalities and Ed Morrisey. Send yours to blogs@ratherbiased.com.
While you're out on the web, see this parody interview with an IBM Selectric typewriter as well as this hilarious eBay listing for a Selectric auction. We also note the creativity of the individual who came up with this image juxtaposing the CBS Eye onto the famous Tower of Sauron from the
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Also see these related Memogate cartoons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
Why all the funny links at the end? Because at this point, Dan Rather's credibility is so diminished it's quite comedic to watch him try to hold back a tsunami of evidence that he's been duped worse than the old lady who believes The Weekly World News.
If CBS is smart, and we have reason to believe that there are many people within the network who are, it will fire Rather before the bottom falls out any further. The CBS Evening News has consistently been the lowest-rated nightly news program on broadcast for nearly 15 years now. After Memogate, we have no doubt the ratings will fall even further with Rather at the helm.
Transcript here.
Responding to a troll, even with well thougth out points, is like touching sh!t - you can never get the smell off your hands, no matter how many times you wash.
Your fame grows!
Swordmaker and I are the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby of FR. ;P
Posted on parallel thread, but FYI:
*** Open Letter To the FCC ***
Sept. 14, 2004
fccinfo@fcc.gov
To Whom it may concern - FCC:
To whom should I address my indignation of the blatantly politically biased misrepresentation of "News" by CBS Television, and in particular the indefensibly slanderous allegations about President George W. BUSH expressed as "News" by Anchorman Dan RATHER?
Mr. RATHER's obvious political bias in his delivery style and choice of content for his "news" programming have been offensive to me for years (I only watch him under duress; my Wife insists of watching his 6PM Newscast on Channel 13 here in Maine).
But his latest diatribe, using what are becoming increasingly obvious to be forged documents to support his contentions, have far exceeded his typicaly poor taste and journalistic incompetence.
I submit to you that I seriously consider Mr. RATHER's latest attempt to unseat a sitting President of the United States of America by the use of fabricated allegations of dereliction of duty during Mr. BUSH's Military service in the Texas Air National Guard using FORGED documents to advance his spurious allegations, during a time of national emergency and WAR, to be sufficient to establish a reasonable suspicion of willful sedition and TREASON against not only our President, but the concept of Constitutional Democracy itself.
Mr. RATHER and CBS have wantonly and repeatedly violated the trust of the American People by advancing their political agendas by use of regular propaganda techniques under the guise of legitimate "news" over the public broadcast media, in clear violation, I submit, of the FCC regulations and standards of conduct by a broadcaster entrusted by their Federal license to operate in the "Public Interest".
Please consider this as a formal request by an American Citizen (and regular Voter) to investigate the intentions and conduct of the CBS Television Network as well as Mr. RATHER, and take whatever regulatory and/or legal action is deemed judicially appropriate.
Thank You;
("Uncle Jaque")
***
So there; I have ventilated. Not holding my breath for any "Justice", however.
Feel free to use the E-mail link to the FCC above to have a crack at it yourselves, though. At least we can annoy them a little, don't you suppose?
"Dan Rather is an honest man with no agenda. He is accurate and credible, just like me!"
LMAO!
Maybe Baghdad Bob can become CBS' ombudsman.
It's my favorite soap opera now: "As the Eye Squirms."
AGAIN, YOU SAY I'M MISSING IT., AND I'VE READ EVERYTHING YOU SAID (CLEAN THE EARS I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING AND I AGREE, BUT JUST ASK YOURSELF, EVEN IF THIS IS THE CASE WHAT IS THE MOTIVE..IF IT CAME FROM THE KERRY CAMPAIGN, IT WILL HURT THEM TRUE., ASK YOURSELF., SO WHAT IF IT DID...THE WILL SAY IT CAME FROM A WILD CARD SUPPORTER., AND FIRE THE PERSON...IN THE MEANTIME., I'M JUST SAYING WE NEED TO KEEP IT ON KERRY "PERSONALLY". IF THEY HAVE A FINGERPRINT OF KERRY'S ON THE PAPERS, THEN MAYBE, THEN RIDE THE STORY UNTIL THE DONKEY DROPS, BUT THEY WILL JUST SAY IT WAS SO OR SO., AND FIRE THEM, ETC.
---ALL I ASKED/GAVE MY OPINION TO WAS: COULD THIS NOT BE A PLOY TO GET OFF THE SUBJECT THAT 'has hurt him more than anything, his "OWN" ACTION AFTER VIETNAM, NOT HIS CAMPAIGN'S ACTIONS. JUST A THOUGHT.
DAMN (I HATE USING THAT WORD IN CONVERSATION WITH OTHERS), BUT WE ARE ALL ON THE SAME TEAM. MAYBE I'M JUST NOT AS PRIVILEGED ENOUGH TO GIVE A OPINION AS OTHERS. MAYBE I JUST SIT BACK AND NOT FEEL WELCOMED.
Plus won't Danny Boy be doing 60 Minutes tomorrow night? He will have more time to entertain us then with his limited modified hangout.
I prepared some of my college term papers using an IBM selectric. I had to create superscripted footnotes and endnotes by manually shifting up half a line. The footnote was the same size font as the rest of the text. I even used italic to emphasize some words by swapping out the font ball for the italic ball!
However, if you would overlay a page of one of my college term papers typed in 1970 on to the same text created in MS Word, it is mathematically impossible that the text would overlap exactly like the "Killian Memos" do.
Wssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You missed it again. Strike Three your out.
A few suggestions for the crowd:
Rather NOT
FontFace Dan
OldMedia Dan
DingDong Dan
StoneWall Dan
Cast your votes!
Not only that, but ONLY the low production, highly expensive IBM "Selectric Composer" which could do proportional fonts, the regular IBM Selectric I or II was NEVER able to do such proportional fonts. The IBM typeballs for the Selectric were MONOSPACED only.
This leaves the IBM Executive as the only possible typewriter in the running for creating these memos, and someone has already used one to attempt to recreate the said four memos. It doesn't match up...
dvwjr
I have to go back into devil's advocat mode here. What they are really saying is that it would be hard to type a lowercase "l" that has the same spacing as a numeral "1".
Their pitch is based on the fact that after generations of faxing and copying, some of the digits have serifs that look like the letter "l". I have to admit they do.
Of course all the real experts say you can't tell anything about serifs from low res scans, and the spacing remains unaltered by low res scans.
However, I admit I didn't know Scott McLellan had expressed White House concern about the 'Rather documents' as possible forgeries, and I had thought that one of Rather's 'experts' who formerly said the documents were forgeries later recanted and said he thought they could have been produced by an IBM Selectric, which, tellingly perhaps in respect to his credentials as an expert, he said he had not previously known was available in 1972. I'm especially grateful to KC Burke (post #99) who sized things up precisely and consisely. My schadenfreude will be no less than that of others at FR if Dan's career ends in the disgrace he helped inflict on Nixon.
I hope I will not (further) offend when I say that, solely by conviction, I remain agnostic (the 'jury selection' process demands it), however skeptical, until and unless Rather decides on full disclosure, and agrees to submit 'his' ORIGINAL documents -- which have, of course, been inaccessible to Rather's opponents -- to FBI testing. Surely an analysis of the quality of print laid down by typewriters in 1972 would be readily distinguishable from print laid down by word processors. I am especially curious to know if Rather's ORIGINALS are really originals, or simply photocopies thereof.
It will surprise no one who has previously read my FR posts, beginning in 1998, that my political philosophy, being Nixonian, is considerably to the left of most FR posters, but like Nixon, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Burkean. And hey, Nixon seems to be O.K. with Arnold!
Here's more shooting your point #2 all to hell:
Former secretary says she didn't type memos 04:10 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 14, 2004
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
HOUSTON The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bushs Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.
Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.
These are not real, she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. Theyre not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.
Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed unfit for office and selected, not elected.
I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it, she said.
Thanks for your post, but not for your characterization of the bearing of this secretary's evidence on my point #2. I had seen that item. It has only ambiguous bearing on the authenticity of the 'Rather documents', which may well have been typed by someone else. If Killian knew this secretary's views about W's service -- which she seems to have viewed very negatively -- Killian may well have gone to considerable lengths to keep his formal views about W away from her. Possibly he even went 'outside', to a legal secretary, to be sure such sensitive information was on record by way of protecting his own ass, for the record. This secretary's views about W's disservice to the Guard are highly unflattering and they are detailed at some length in the Drudge Report
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE SEP 14, 2004 17:48:35 ET XXXXX TEXAS GUARD SECRETARY SURFACES: SAYS CBS DOCS 'FORGERIES', BUT STANDS BY ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BUSH
The DRUDGE REPORT has found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary who claims that the Texas Air National Guard documents offered by CBS in its 60 MINUTES II report filed by Dan Rather last week are indeed 'forgeries'.
"I did not type these particular memos. I typed memos like these," Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT from her home in Houston.
"I typed memos that had this information in them, but I did not type these memos. There are terms in these memos that are not Guard terms but that are Army terms. They use the word 'Billets'. I think they were using that to refer to the slot. That would be a non-flying slot the way we would use it. And the style... they are sloppy looking."
But Marion Carr Knox stands by the accusations contained in the allegedly fraudulent documents that Bush skirted a medical and flight exam without suffering institutional repercussions.
"The information in these memos is correct -- like Killian's dealing with the problems."
"It was General Staudt, not then Lt. Colonel Hodges [who succeeded Staudt], that was putting on the pressure to whitewash Bush. For instance he didnt take his flight examination or his physical. And the pilots had to take them by their birthdays. Once in a while there would be a reason why a pilot would miss these things because some of them were commercial pilots. But they had to make arrangements to take their exams."
Knox speculated as to how she thought the forgeries were created saying, "My guess is that someone in the outfit got hold of the real ones and discussed it with a former Army person."
Knox worked for the Guard from 1957 until she retired in 1979, and she was Lt. Col. Killian's secretary during the time President Bush served in Texas.
"But if Staudt had put pressure on my dad, there would have been a blow-up -- instantly. It was one of the reasons they got along so well. They had a mutual respect for one another."
"As has been pointed out by so many others, then Col Staudt had been out of the unit for 18 months. And I stand by my previous comments regarding my dad's admiration for Lt. Bush and his regard for him as an officer and pilot -- which was exemplary."
Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT that she did not vote for Bush in 2000 because he is 'unqualified' for the job, and does not intend to vote for him in 2004, either.
"Bush was not the only person of privilege who had a spot in the Guard. Senator [Lloyd] Bensen's nephew was in headquarters. There was a big jewelery store, Gordons. Their son was in the Guard. The owner of Batelstein's, a posh department store in the area, his son was in. The other kids couldn't get in like that. Hugh Roy Cullen's grandson was also in. He was a big oil man."
Knox, however, did have some kind words about then Lt. Bush.
"[Bush] was always pleasant and gentlemanly to me," she said. "I never noticed him not being respectful. I thought he was a nice young man and that he must have had very nice parents to produce a son as nice as he seemed to be."
Knox has been following the story since last week when the 60 MINUTES II broadcast aired, and on Friday she contacted the HOUSTON CHRONICLE wanting to tell her side of the story. Since then the DALLAS MORNING NEWS has also contacted her.
"What really hecked me off was when it was somebody on TV, associated with the White House, who said that all of this information was lies. And I got excited at the time because I knew that I had typed documents with this information because a person like Bush stood out from the others -- because of his association with his father."
Asked about reports that Lt. Col. Killian's wife and son saying he didn't type, Knox stated, "He didn't need to. He had me."
Knox explains that the August 18, 1973 date typed on one of the "forged" documents proves that they were faked. Group Commander Staudt, who allegedly had been putting pressure on Killian, retired in 1972.
To the best of her recollection, Knox explains that Staudt must have put pressure on Killian in 1972 -- the year he retired.
"If my father was going to type a CYA memo, which he didn't," Gary Killian responded. "He would have typed it himself because he wouldn't have wanted anyone to see it. But it's academic because Colonel Staudt had been out of the unit for 18 months -- as is well documented."
Contacted at his office in Bartlett, Texas, former Major Dean Roome, who served with Lt. Bush, responded to the latest information.
"If the memos are fraudulent, then why were they generated? Roome asked.
"Marion Carr Knox is validating what the rest of us are saying. She says once in a while a pilot would miss a physical because some of them were commercial pilots. I was also a commercial pilot with Continental Airlines. The clinic did not just open up for us to take a personal physical. The Flight Surgeons had to be there along with a full complement of medical personnel. We took our physical during the Uniformed Training Assembly (UTA) just like everyone else."
"The 'former Army person' she references is the person we believe may have created the fraudulent documents in an effort to injure President Bush. He has his own agenda and I doubt that he has any 'real ones' [documents].
Ms. Knox states emphatically that she is not acting for political motives, and has no formal relationship with any political party. She says she just wants to set the record straight.
Developing... -----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge Reports are moved when circumstances warrant http://www.drudgereport.com for updates (c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004 Not for reproduction without permission of the author
Rahter admitted on his news program that he does not have originals, but only copies.
How ever does one make tea at your house? You need hot water. Aqua caliente.
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