Posted on 09/14/2004 3:50:28 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
Again, thanks for your reply. I'll leave you to pursue your speculations about Bush in Cambodia etc., and leave it to time to tell us if your broadsides about hypotheticals and anachronisms were valid.
What if the forgeries were recieved from someone involved in the Kerry campaign who also is very close to Rather? Perhaps his daughter?
Remember he's not speaking to an objective audience. The Democratic faithful want to believe. If CBS is smart, and we have reason to believe that there are many people within the network who are,
Sorry the objective evidence is that CBS is not smart, just fiercely partisan to the left
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
None of this matters. CBS "news" is not about news it is about presenting statist propaganda. As long as they don't actually go bankrupt they will continue to present their warped viewpoint of everything American. Blather and CBS news are everything that Joeseph Goebbels wanted to be.
I'm sorry for the rant. I am a bit out of patience with this story. All these points have been made redundantly and ad nauseum.
I am afraid that I don't get your dismissal of Laura Bush. She does live in the White House, is close to the President, and I suspect that her public utterances are cleared ahead of time.
And Laura Bush doesn't need her Hubby to tell her that these documents are frauds.
In the words of Joseph Newcomer:
"It does not take a sophisticated expert in forensics or document authentication to spot these obvious forgeries. The forgery is obvious to anyone who knows the history and technology of digital typesetting, not to mention to any intelligent 12-year-old who has access to Microsoft Word."
As for your final comment, I wouldn't say that my response pre-supposes anything other than the fact that you are abysmally under-informed on every aspect of this story.
You really need to educate yourself on these issues, and I suggest starting here:
http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm
"...for a guy who shirks his own job, Kerry sure is eager to tell others what they should do and what they've done wrong."
Thanks for the new tagline.
Today, the editors are polital comissars of PC-hood -- communisim and secularism.
Funny but very true. (picture of Bagdad Bob) They both have zero credibility.
Again, thanks for your vehemence. I think the White House would be the first to say that Laura is not a spokesperson for the White House, and possibly it will issue a clarification about this in the not-too-distant future. Time will tell who was abysmally this-or-that. Cheers.
By the bye, I noticed that you didn't even take a crack at my final query to you, and this by the way is the nail in the coffin question because it remains a valid question even if all your bogus assumptions were true:
"How would Killian or anyone else know in 1972 exactly how to tweak an IBM Slelctric to mimic a document produced on a computer in Microsoft Word using Apple licensed TrueType technology 15 years before they existed? Was he the clairvoyant of the Age, or a time traveler? It has to be one or the other.
What's your theory?"
Well, what IS your theory? Time traveler or psychic?
To answer your first query - this strategy is in keeping with the general tone maintained by the Bush White House. I have not yet seen a full recounting of the First Lady's comments, but I would imagine that she was asked a direct question regarding the memos, and she gave a direct answer. The White House is not required to prove nor disprove the authenticity of the memos. The President would have no special knowledge of private files of LTC Killian, and therefore is not in a position to positively vouch for or against the authenticity of the memos - although they can (and have) disputed the memos' contents.
The bottom line is this: One must believe that a large number of circumstances came into a single particular orbit in order for LTC Killian to have authored the documents. The vast preponderence of the evidence suggests these memos were produced using Microsoft Word, and that conclusion only requires belief that someone would have concocted them for political gain.
If Rather has a source that can debunk the forgery assertions, it is encumbent on him and CBS to bring the person forward. Even if it is technically possible for the memos to have been produced in the early 1970s, Rather and company need to show that it is PROBABLE in light of the inconsistencies already identified (and validated) with them.
In terms of the "adversarial" issue: I was simply responding to your assertion that the intent was not adversarial. It struck me as "protesting too much", and I thought it warranted a comment.
I don't know if you are ill informed, playing devil's advocate, or trying to pick a fight. I chose to respond to some of your points, others having been adequately addressed IMO by other posters, and then to obliquely inquire why you thought we shouldn't conclude hostile intent.
He's a hopeless cause, I'd say.
Lukewarmity to you, sir!
I wouldn't expect the "White House" to comment on such a campaign charge. It has no bearing on the operation of the executive branch of government.
If this issue of Bush's Air Guard service of thirty years ago begins to appear to have some truth to it, a position that hasn't arisen yet amongst Dan's collegues, then the campaign staff might alude to it in a news conference. It certainly isn't an overall Republican Party issue until after the campaign staff makes a comment on it.
However, right now it has the veracity of the Aussie paper story that posits Bush as Gay, so why should his campaign staff or re-election committee even bend down to brush it aside? The burden of proof, which used to be informally recognized in substative journalism, rests entirely on Rather. By touching the "tar-baby" the campaign staff merely rises to the bait.
Bush should let politicized journalism be recognized and policed by the journalistic peers to the propaganidist in question, Rather.
With 30 years experience in Administration with the ARNG from the unit level to NGB level, no way would any one go to the trouble of subscripting a memo. In fact memo's were basically used as information papers rather than orders. If we didn't cut an order to take a physical, we would have written a personal letter when ordering an individual to take a physical exam. If a memo were used it would have been as a reminder that a physical was upcoming. These documents just don't measure up in my opinion to the methods that were generally used in the military.
Actually, they have said they don't know if they are authentic or forgeries and have noted they are concerned if the latter.
Further, they accurately stated that even the content of the forged documents does not change the record that GWB served and was discharged honorably, something many of us noted upon the publication of these things.
The rest of your points have been more than adequately addressed on this board for days.
I think that someone should research McCain-Feingold and decide if the entire CBS News budget should be counted as a Democrat campaign contribution and if they should therefore go off the air for the 60 days prior to the election.
Surely there is little difference between their promotion, actions and content and Moveon.org.
I think that such a question should be posed on CSPAN as it would be amusing to see a media guest try to answer it. CBS has become so transparent in its propagandizing that such hubris must be met in kind.
we need to get past this ....
Forget it. We'll get past it when consequences are meted out to the perps.
Scott McClellan told the press last Friday they were concerned if the papers were forgeries.
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