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We've pursued this story with ferocity, and tried to be relatively fair and factual. But now I'm going to bring emotion into this, because if what Allah mentions (via Michele from Command Post) is true, I'm outraged:

[Hannity] had on both [Ben] Barnes' daughter -who admitted she was being pressured to recant everything she said yesterday - and Killian's son, who said - get this - that CBS interviewed both him and his stepmother prior to the airing of the 60 minutes show. They BOTH told the interviewer (somebody named Mapes, a female) that they didn't believe the documents could be real. They both refuted that their father had anything to do with this. They gave a myriad of reasons why they don't believe any of it.

CBS never put any of their words on the show. Not only that, but the son offered up names of people who flew with Bush and could offer rebuttals to any stories about him shirking his duties and not only did Mapes not call them, she actually said about one of them, "Well, he's pro-Bush, so I'm not calling him." The son and stepmother are LIVID about this and the daughter of Barnes is under so much stress you could hear her voice shaking. Someone is putting an enermous amount of pressure on her to go against her former word (that her father is a liar) and she refuses to back off.

If true, this has already gone beyond typographical issues, but I'll withold outrage until I see it myself. Watch Hannity and Colmes tonight for more.

UPDATE: Go read Jeff Harrell.

UPDATE: MSNBC is running a fair-minded story that quotes a few experts that argue in favor of forgery ...

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised “th” in “111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron” — as evidence indicating forgery.

Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.

“I’m virtually certain these were computer-generated,” Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer’s Microsoft Word software.

Of course, we've moved beyond just the issue of the superscript, though the identical nature of the documents produced in Word are of course significant. Also quoted are Lt. Col. Killian's family members and a man that was personnel chief in Killian’s unit at the time:

“They looked to me like forgeries,” said Rufus Martin. “I don’t think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years.” Killian died in 1984.

The burden of proof is on CBS. Why weren't these people mentioned in the original story?

UPDATE: Hannity has Killian's son on right now, and he swears that CBS ignored his testimony about the veracity of documents and his father's opinion of Bush. Killian also named other officers that knew Bush, including his primary instructor and roommate, but 60 Minutes used none of these sources. Killian's son refuses to outright accuse them of bias, however, saying they "didn't do their homework."

Posted by Bill at September 10, 2004 08:12 PM | TrackBack (3)

Comments

Posted by: Allah at September 10, 2004 08:15 PM

Posted by: Lornkanaga at September 10, 2004 08:27 PM

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Posted by: milowent at September 10, 2004 09:27 PM