Rather Forges Ahead, Leaving Career in the Dust.

RatherBiased.com ^ | September 14, 2004

[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:

1. Rather finally stated that not all of his critics are politically motivated, something he was unwilling to do last Friday.

2. Rather's report did not feature a single quotation from any of its critics, something that an objective news organization would do if it were covering the story of accusations made by political campaigns against each other. For CBS Evening News viewers who have not been following the scandal, this must have been a strange spectacle. To receive no background on the story and only one side of it.

3. Bill Glennon, the typewriter repair guy whom CBS featured tonight said that the documents "could have" been prepared on a 70s-era typewriter with "custom feature" attachments, hardly a ringing endorsement, especially since he failed to specifically name a typewriter which did have the capability. That a hypothetically very expensive typewriter using optional parts could even be found in a National Guard unit which normally operate with hand-me-down office equipment from the full-time services hardly seems likely.

4. Richard Katz, the "software designer" of unnamed employer clearly is not familiar with Microsoft Word. To disable its automatic superscripting, all one has to do is put a space after a word before typing the "th". What kind of software expert is not aware of that?

5. Referring to one of the memos which appears to use the letter "L" instead of the number one, Katz according to Rather, says that "would be difficult to reproduce on the computer today." That is complete nonsense. Is it really that hard for someone to type "L" instead of "1" within Microsoft Word?

6. Does the el versus one point made by CBS hold water? One of our readers responds:

   "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.

7. Rather's defense failed to note any of the arguments made by Jerry Killian's family who said he never took notes, said he did not have others make them for him, and said that CBS refused to put them on the air. The anchor also failed to respond to remarks from many of CBS's sources who have either backed away from, or outright denounced the memo story as false.

8. Just days after a former CBS official denounced internet forum posters and bloggers as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas," it appears that CBS may have used one such pajama person as a new "expert" source. According to The New York Times, Bill Glennon, typewriter repairman, is said to have "posted his thoughts on the memos on a blog."

9. CBS's original expert, Marcel Matley, who has since backed away from supporting the network's case that the documents are genuine, has a very checkered past according to New York Post. In 1995 court testimony, Matley acknowledged that he had had no formal training in a document lab, or in "machines, typewriters, photocopies." The paper also discovered that Matley has published works on "spirituality in handwriting" and "female/male traits in handwriting," with such lines in them as: "For your male client, you will be able to recognize the facade of machismo--and also recognize the hurt boy-child who uses that as a defensive hiding place."

10. Rather also failed to respond to a barrage of charges raised by Washington Post, including confirmation of a scoop first reported by RatherBiased.com that Bush's Air National Guard office did not use expensive IBM typewriters capable of printing documents in a proportional font.

11. Other Post charges: More typographical concerns raised by a genuine expert in fonts, Joseph Newcomer, incorrect addresses, improper military signature lines and abbreviations, quotes from Thomas Phinney, a font developer at Adobe (the company which oversaw the late 1980s modification of Times New Roman into its current form), and more backtracking from Matley.

12. At the end of the piece, reporters Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz talk to Sandy Genelius, one of our favorite spokesfriends at CBS News. She apparently didn't get the memo from Dan to defend at all cost, backpedaling tremendously from Rather's knee-jerk: "In the end, the gist is that it's inconclusive. People are coming down on both sides, which is to be expected when you're dealing with copies of documents."

13. Rather's response also failed to respond to critics who raised finer points about the font issues, including one point about kerning raised by Stephan Braddy, a software engineer who appears to have launched a new blog with a first post on Memogate stating that all available evidence suggests that "it is a mathematical certainty that the CBS Bush National Guard documents are fraudulent."

    "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."

14. It's also worth noting that the two "experts" used to support its evidence Monday night were not involved with the original authentication and had merely looked at the online copies of the documents, something which Rather on Friday said he had a problem with, given that "deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced and the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded and are far removed from the documents CBS started with which were also photocopies." Strangely, Dan did not repeat this assertion Monday night.

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.

[Swordmaker]

As it turns out, Killian's secretary, Marion Carr Knox, who was interviewed by Rather this evening, is alive (age 86), and according to her own account, she did type memos that had the same content as the ones Rather has been displaying nationwide -- excepting only that some of the terms now used are 'army' not 'airforce' jargon. She flatly said the 'Rather memos' are fakes. She has a spirited personality and was likely convincing to a general public.

While I believe Mrs. Knox was the shared serectary/typist for the TANG squadron, I find her testimony to be a bit less than believable. As a long time employee of the TANG (26 years, I believe) she had to have typed thousands of memos. I once worked in an office where I also typed at least hundreds of memos, letters, and other documents. I can guarantee you that I did not remember the content of any of those letters, memos, etc., for more than a week after doing the work. This is fairly common for a typist... they are merely an interface from the author to the page and most often do their work almost unconsciously. For Mrs. Knox to remember SIX memos out of the thousands she must have typed, even those about the son of an obscure Congressman, would require a leap of faith in her powers of recall.

Mrs. Knox has demonstrated her agenda and her bias by making statements such as "Bush was appointed President" and "Bush stole the election." She has even cited the Democrat talking points almost word for word in her conversations with reporters or on talk radio. She has also demonstrated that her memory is less than accurate because she also re-iterated that "it was Staudt and not Hodges that was pressuring to sugar-coat Bush's less than stellar performance," ignoring the well established fact that Col. Staudt had been retired for 18 months before the so-called AWOL events and any memos about them even started. Everyone questioned has agreed that Staudt had no "pull" to do anything after his retirement from duty.

Her statement also flies in the face of other reports and evaluations on Lt. Bush generated from officers other than Killian, Hodges,, et al., who would have been the ones under pressure from Staudt, all of which reported a competent but not outstanding young officer. These reports are not being questioned.

I think that Mrs. Knox is a very nice old lady who happens to be a strong partisan Democrat who has created her memory of "memos" she typed from the current flap. Anything else requires that she have an eidetic memory (possible) but dis-proved by her misrembering Staudt being in a position to pressure anyone.

[I. M. Trenchant]

Forgive me for incorrectly stating your screen-name in my post to ServesURight. Thanks for answering my query about the no-ball IBM Executive typewiter. The photo evoked strong nostalgia. Even in the word processor age, I kick myself for not having kept my IBM typewriter. It served me well and I miss it when I want to fill in hardcopy forms.

I agree that Marion Carr Knox is unlikely to have such detailed recall of the memos. The illusion that she did have was, I think, partly owing to the way Rather staged and edited her appearance on the program. However, I do think she does recall the essentials of Killian's reactions and concerns accurately and probably related them truthfully.

Partisanship aside, she's a pretty sharp cookie. Her speculation that differences between the forged and putative originals may be owing to an attempt by the forger to evade charges [of theft of federal property?] was creditable. This of course leaves open the slim possibility that the originals may still be extant and may yet turn up if they escaped the shredder.

My (and Nixon's) best guess about the identity of Deep Throat of Watergate fame is Mark Felt, an FBI man now in his mid-90s, who left or was dismissed by the FBI shortly after Watergate. I incline to think his identity is being kept secret until after his death in order to evade federal criminal charges that might flow from his Watergate activities.

As you say, there is an outside possibility that Ms. Knox has a Ken Jennings type of recall, in which case she may even be right about Staudt's lasting influence beyond his retirement. My own experience in academic settings has been that the influence exerted by former Deans, Provosts, Vice Presidents and Presidents is often as sinister as it is real.

In this latter respect, I'm reminded of Knox's most actorishly effective moment in last night's interview. When asked about Killian's son's denials, she replied with a cloyingly mischievous expression, and in a voice that was laced with Bogartian vinegar: "He has no way of knowing whether it's true or not."

She may be, as you wrote -- and contrary to what bvw speculated a few posts back -- "a very nice old lady", but I'd not be surprised if she was hell-on-wheels around the office in her TANG days. Again, many thanks for your invaluable assistance. I'll get back to you about that swamp when the profits on my new toll bridge allow for further expansion of my nascent empire.