Actually it is more specific than even WAPO. There is a common thread between the fair but firm stories in WAPO. That thread is Michael Dobbs. He wrote a good piece on the SwiftVets. It was critical of them but it was by and large, fair. Then there was the front page article breaking Rathergate. Then this piece. While we are writing letters, let's write some to his editor. The man deserves a raise.

Another "smoking gun" issue has come up re the memos: one of the memos states Bush was leaving to work in "his dad's campaign" during a time in which Bush Sr. was actually serving in an appointed position.

I think that's right up in the indisutable proof of forgery class, along with the 13-point vertical spacing and perfect centering of a proportional font.

Expert analysis is of course a must, but remember: they have the trial lawyers on their side in this campaign -- and OJ walked despite a mountain of expert forensic evidence. The expert analysis will need to be distilled into a few key phrases that people who aren't news junkies can readily understand and accept.

Pending confirmation by experts, I think those are the three issues that can be boiled down to easily explained sound bites.

More about Rathergate from Dr. Newcomer (through http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/).

"The probability that any technology in existence in 1972 would be capable of producing a document that is nearly pixel-compatible with Microsoft’s Times New Roman font and the formatting of Microsoft Word, and that such technology was in casual use at the Texas Air National Guard, is so vanishingly small as to be indistinguishable from zero."

I recognize Newcomer right away because I am a geek and have familiar with his works before the year of internet.

Link to his article
http://www.flounder.com/bush.htm

Bill, looks like we were right about it not being kerned, at least according to the article linked above.

The WaPo being my hometown paper, I've had the opportunity to observe it for quite some years now. They were pretty bad in the 1980's, but, interestingly, after the Washington Times was established and got traction, the WaPo started improving. Like Bill says, they're still about .500, but I think they've been a lot better than, say, the NYT on the war and on observing the Bush administration generally. This carries over to the editorial page, which, while often harshly critical of Bush, tends to be a good deal more evenhanded than their op-ed writers (when you're talking about op-ed'ers like Dionne, Meyerson and Cohen, that's easy to say, actually).

The comments by Newcomer are significant. He is not some hack; he is the real deal in his field. Check out his resume on his website.

Write to Fox News and encourage them to interview this guy...he is fantastic and expresses the case against these docs well, such as this gem:

If someone had come forward presenting a “lost” painting by Leonardo da Vinci, which used acrylic paints including Cadmium Yellow and Titanium White, art experts would roll of the floor laughing at the clumsiness of the forgery. (Acrylic paints were not known until the 1920s, although some histories date them as late as the late 1940s, and some as late as 1955; Cadmium Yellow was not known until 1840, and Titanium White was not available as an artist's pigment until 1921). Yet somehow a document which could not be created by any of the common office technology of 1972 is touted as “authentic”.

Another Thought:

Unless of course the da Vinci forgery cast doubt on Bush's Guard service. Then Dan Rather would be claiming "some Renaissance painters DID use acrylics."

The link now leads to a Tombstone page. Same for the link on the WP front page.

Somebody being punctillious about removed content?

The statement that they're batting 500 is probably close enough, but it doesn't speak to the variance of the sample-- sometimes it's fair, ( like this article which I agree, is as fair as I could ask of the LM ), but then other times I find them not merely biased but truly *infuriating*, just like the NYT on a bad day.

I should have saved the link, but the last Dana Milbank article was pretty, gasp, fair. I mean, I usually click on his articles when I'm in a good mood and feel like a good laugh. But... The last one was a surprise. I wonder if he actually wrote it?

Saying that, I would put the Post at less than 50% and the pitiful thing is that that's good these days.