I imagine the scene is similar to Louis XVI's backstage court when they realized the 'fans' parking outside Versailles weren't going to be content with tea cakes.

Podhertz just mentioned LGF on O'reilly factor as a "smoking gun". I think they may have crashed :)

I think the server swelled with pride until it burst. :)

Lysander

WARNING: This may be too 'conspiracy theory' for comfort!

I've been having a hard time trying to figure out just why CBS News would be willing to completely piss away any semblance of journalistic ethics they have. Granted, Rather may have lost it, but you would have thought that by now the top brass at CBS/Viacom -- who surely can't have 100% faith in the documents, and even if they did would be bending over backwards to prove this (i.e. allowing third party experts, etc) -- would be doing everything in their power to end this as soon as possible. So why allow CBS News' reputation to be hammered by pretty much every other news organization (not to mention anyone who has a functioning brain)?

Maybe its not CBS. Maybe its coming from up above. A few months ago I noted how, right around the same time Stern went on his "vote Kerry, Bush is the devil" kick other Infinity talkers started doing the exact same thing. Does someone at Viacom have the power / wherewithal to allow CBS to suffer for the "greater good?"

I'll remove my tin foil hat now.

- "Mr. Heyward... I hate to interrupt your call to the DNC but security is on the phone....they say there's an angry mob of people in the lobby with torches and pitchforks demanding Rathers head on a plate.....What should I tell them...."

"Call the PR people, Have them issue a press release that our experts have examined Rather and have determined that he is not senile, then have them write checks giving everyone in the lobby a new car and have my limo pulled around to the back entrance...I'm outta here for the rest of the week...."

I do believe CBS is only pushing back so hard because they are protecting the Kerry Kamp.

Think about it...if CBS admits they were fooled, the next logical questions are who was the source of the docs and why in the world would you believe them?

CBS can only answer that these docs were given greater credibility because they came from the Kerry Kamp...

This would be CBS' answer if they answered the question of why in the world they would take these docs at face value:
"We trusted them because they came from Kerry...we didn't see any reason why they would pass along such cheap frauds?"

There just *has* to be a revolt occuring at CBS. Remember, they are full of smart people. They are full of people who know fonts very well. They were journalism majors. They worked at newspapers. They know that Newcomer and the rest are perfectly correct. They know you can't blame Laura Bush for not providing proof. (??!!)

I think there is a huge struggle going on at CBS. At least I hope so.

- Nathan - Thats precisely the question that a lot of people have been asking themselves and disscussing for the past four days...In the last analysis why the hell would CBS/Rather be willing to fall on their journalistic sword to defend such a thing....It truly boggles the mind....and the possibility that it leads back to the DNC and Kerry camp looms more and more as the only rational explaination...For CBS to put their entire reason'de tare on the line in the face of such utterly compelling and damning evidence can only mean they are shielding someone or something at a much higher level...

John: I think you've nailed it. Certainly many at CBS know the truth.

I think the calculus they are trying figure out is what to do to mitigate their damage and probably and most especially to mitigate the damage to Kerry/DNC.

The problem at this point is that they have no good way out: the truth does not favor them, nor does their dogged denials these last few days.

The Killian secretary's comments shed light on the single instance of a pseudo-superscript in Bush's personnel records (the one Dan Rather hung his hat on). She says her old manual Olympia typewriter had a special "th" key, but she switched to an IBM Selectric around 1970.

The slightly elevated, small "th" appears on Bush's "Chronological Listing of Service." An entry is added to this military form each year, with a very brief "Description of Duty." The pseudo-superscript appears on the line dated 4Sep68. On 29Dec69, "111th" is typed again, with no special character. In the 1970 and 1972 entries, "111th" also appears with no special character. By the end of 1969, the secretary was using the Selectric, which wasn't able to produce anything even resembling a superscript.

QED. Another pillar in CBS' Rather pathetic defense bites the dust.

Did anyone *see* that ABC report on tonight's news? Two different document analysts consulted by CBS now say they warned CBS the documents were fakes in advance of them airing the stories. That confirms CBS was cherry-picking whatever expert was willing to sign off on authentication. So much for the idea that Rather is just plain incompetent!

Notice the language redirecting the issue. She states that the memos were not written by her but that they reflect what was in other "typed documents with this information". How long until we see new memos or notes purporting to be of the era?

An outfit like CBS has written standards and the like for how to do their fact checking. The people responsible for fact checking do it quite often. It should be clear to most people that someone high up essentially made a decision to bypass these standard practices ( although they still made a half ass effort ). The question is who and why?

The why is probably that someone was so ramped up about them and it was so tempting to assume their authenticity because they were hearing alot of chatter about this stuff.

The who is probably Dan Rather himself, but could be more convoluted. But I am guessing on this one.

But this still does not explain the insane stonewall. Absolutely no one understands it. Everyone i have heard or read is mystified and so am I. Some of the posts I have seen may explain this. Maybe a cadre in the news room has essentially gone to war on this and has lost all reason like Nazi germany. But I'm shooting in the dark. I have gone from triumphant to confused.

I just emailed CBS News and the local affiliate here in Ft. Myers, FL... we've just got to keep at it... they can't ignore their viewers (the local guys at least).

- Well O'Reilly sort of did a mini-spin on today's show, leaning a little more directly in the direction of sanity regarding Memogate ( None of the MSM will use the term Rathergate - *chuckle* ) and then giving CBS both barrels about the "why in the world would you do this" of it all.

Nobody outside the CBS parking lot can figure out why CBS insists on committing journalistic suicide. Well it's probably closer to the truth that no one wants to even think its what it very well may turn out to be. I mean think of whats at stake if this all tracks back to the DNC or Kerry's election people.

This could simply doom Kerry as a viable candidate, and this late in the election cycle when there would be no chance of a reasonable recovery by the Dem's.

Even the most rabid of the liberals would be at a loss to support a man for president who would condone outright fraud for the sake of winning. Has it happened on both sides. I don't believe in the easter bunny. Of course. But never in such a duplicitous manner where the MSM is caught in the web so completely.

I'm seriously worried about what this could do to the whole election process with November right around the corner. Its one thing to beat your opponent, quite another to destroy the whole damn process. I truly hope there's a more palatable explanation. Sadly I doubt it.....

Hunter, I agree with everything you said except this:

Even the most rabid of the liberals would be at a loss to support a man for president who would condone outright fraud for the sake of winning.

That is wrong. Dead wrong.

After reading Hunter's post a thought occurred to me.

Maybe they aren't sure if this can be tracked back to Kerry but are afraid it will. So they stonewall while they check and damage control if it does.

- Bill I was obviously being generous to a fault... Who could seriously believe some of the moonbats and great unwashed of the socialist left would care if Kerry was the antigod...What I should have said is that the more moderate Dem's, many of whom already do not really like Kerry and are mondo pissed at the hijacking of the party by the extreme left would have little choice but to jump ship. But in another regard they're hatred of Bush, even the moderates, is so vitriolic that they well might vote for Kerry no matter what. Problem is Kerry could no longer face the American electorate as a viable candidate which I think, as a matter of self preservation, the majority of press would trumpet. Remember this may just pick at the scab of the more serious of the swiftboat accusations that the MSM was fairly sucessful in burrying, let alone Kerry's post war actions such as going to Paris to meet with North Vietnam leaders. Something that if seriously investigated could well raise the spectre of treason......

A certain talk radio personality says that the production of the forgeries was a criminal act. At this point, CBS and Rather are trying to cover their source for the documents, to attempt to prevent them from having criminal liability. One scenario for this was that the Kerry campaign had supplied these documents to Mary Mapes, a CBS producer in Dallas.

The Kerry campaign either produced these, or got them from the unbalance Army National Guard officer (which seems likely). In any case, they may have some liability, as well.

The one scenario has CBS ready to continue stonewalling indefinitely, to protect the Kerry campaign.

My wife has not been following all this, but her opinion is that the truth will come out before long. I can believe it given how much we have learned in less than a week.

The whole business about trying to make something out of President Bush's Air National Guard service is stupid. I guess our leftist buddies believe in the "Big Lie" principle: say a lie often enough and loud enough, and a few people will start to believe it.

I agree that one can now begin to speculate, and it is still just speculation - that CBS is behaving this way because they know, better than anyone, what admitting to this fraud really means for this election. I mean, I know it's weird but, does it seem to anyone else, that the DNC and CBS, in their actions and reactions, (where this story is concerned) are gradually becoming indistinguishable from one another?

Jim I don't honestly believe this can go on for much longer and most bloggers I talk to agree. At the very least CBS will have to yank Rather or face the prospect of losing any credibility of their entire News department. They may not care about the news ratings, but as another blogger said they do care quite a bit about their advertisers. And thats where the unstopable pressure will come from that will push over the house of cards. Advertisers are outright paranoid about brand presentation in the public arena and absolutely panic if they think their products will be tied to a major scandal... We'er talking major major coin here that can turn on a single sentence or phrase spoken at the wrong time, let alone the appearence that a major Network is acting as an agent for a political party with fraud thrown in for good measure. Anyway you look at it somebodies going to take the fall in a big way by the time this is over....

"Even the most rabid of the liberals would be at a loss to support a man for president who would condone outright fraud for the sake of winning."

Just a couple quick comments. At this point I don't see any conclusive evidence that the documents in question came from the Kerry campaign. And even if they did, I find it extremely difficult to believe that they knew they were forged. Partly that's because I don't believe they're that dishonest. But even if I did think they were capable of that level of skullduggery, I still couldn't believe they would knowingly do something that risky and do it so badly.

Personally, I think the poor quality of the documents indicates this was done by an individual who was not altogether stable. I mean, if I were trying to forge memos from the 70's, I'd buy a typewriter on ebay first. Or if I was just too lazy to buy a typewriter, I would at least select a mono-spaced font before creating my document, and I would turn off that little feature that super-scripts automatically. The fact the document was so badly done to my mind makes it unlikely that this was some conscious plot by operatives in the Kerry campaign.

Of course I'm sure most of you are aware that some of the more liberal blogs are speculating that these documents were planted by Karl Rove. Now I think that's preposterous (although it does neatly explain why the forgery was done so poorly :) ). I also think that the idea that Kerry would knowingly plant a forgery like this is also preposterous. It's funny, I've only recently started reading more conservative blogs like this one, but I'm beginning to suspect that liberals and conservatives aren't as different as I'd thought. :)

Unfortunately, we'll probably never know for sure where the documents came from. Regardless of what happens, I doubt CBS will ever reveal its source. This isn't a a matter of left versus right, this is a matter of journalistic principal (not necesarily one I entirely agree with). They were equally stubborn when more liberal commentators were calling on them to reveal their sources in the Plame affair.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

--Rick Taylor

All the rabid liberals I know on the net, seem to have latched on to Terry's "well I believe they are real, but if they aren't Rove did it" defense.

The thing that is bothering me is that these rabid liberals don't seem to be all that concerned about the fact that somebody passed fraudulent documents off to CBS with the intention of influencing an election.

I don't know that somebody in the Kerry camp gave them the documents, but I think it is a pretty safe bet that whoever did, wasn't rooting for Bush in November.

Rick Taylor wrote:

"Regardless of what happens, I doubt CBS will ever reveal its source. This isn't a a matter of left versus right, this is a matter of journalistic principal (not necesarily one I entirely agree with)."

Ummm, I'm pretty sure that "we won't reveal you as a source if you give us some info" goes out the window when the info you get from them is fraudulent. Why would you protect someone that just brought down your whole news department?

Sources trust reporters not to reveal their names and reporters trust sources to be truthful. The source in this case broke the trust first, the reporters are no longer obligated to hold up their side. No, there are other reasons for them protecting their source, but I won't speculate.

Also, if Rove had done this it would have been a perfect document with one very obscure, but completely fatal error which would be missed by the reporters, but then seized on to prove it a fraud, not this piece of junk that held up for about an hour (actually less since at least two experts now say they told CBS there were problems with the documents before the show ever aired).

Just me wrote:
"All the rabid liberals I know on the net, seem to have latched on to Terry's "well I believe they are real, but if they aren't Rove did it" defense."

I don't think it's all the rabid liberal blogs (hmmm, of course that depends on who you classify as a "rabid liberal"). Josh Marshall said early on that he didn't know much about the typography, but the way the documents could be reproduced in Word was suspicious and CBS had some explaining to do. After reading the Washington Post article, Brad De Long said he now thought the documents were forgeries, and wrote, "Apologies to all I have misled through my reasoning based on the assumption that CBS was even slightly competent." Those are both at least left-of-center bloggers.

I read a lot of liberal blogs, and I'd say a minority seriously suggested Karl Rove was the culprit (though it was still more blogs than I'd like).

Just me wrote:
"The thing that is bothering me is that these rabid liberals don't seem to be all that concerned about the fact that somebody passed fraudulent documents off to CBS with the intention of influencing an election."

I agree with you here. Although if it's any consolation, I think in the end this is likely to hurt Kerry more than Bush.

By the way, the sense of moral indignation that conservatives justifiably feel about this issue is not all that different than what many liberals have been feeling, rightly or wrongly, in the wake of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Kerry. I understand that most people here won't believe this is a relevant comparison. And I am certainly not trying to say that this in any way justifies forging a document attempting to smear the Presidency. But if you're interested in understanding why some Democrats, rightly or wrongly, feel the way they do, I believe it has a lot to do with this.

--Rick Taylor

Twalsh wrote:

"Ummm, I'm pretty sure that 'we won't reveal you as a source if you give us some info' goes out the window when the info you get from them is fraudulent. Why would you protect someone that just brought down your whole news department?"

I agree with you on principal, but I don't think this is the way most journalists think about it. Confidentiality must be unconditional. If it's not, then the source will have to put their trust in the judgement of the reporter (and who's going to do that after this debacle? :) ). Some liberals felt that reporters should be willing to reveal who leaked that Plame was a CIA agent, but nothing ever came of that (at least not so far).

--Rick Taylor

Earlier, Hunter touched on sponsors for CBS. Why not contact them directly? I work 2d shift, so I don't see the news and don't know who the sponsors are.

Rick Taylor-a rabid liberal by my definition is a liberal who is unwilling to change their position in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Also, most of the rabid liberals I have come in contact with are from a specific message board, and not of the various liberal blogs on the net.

I also disagree that the swiftvet thing is an accurate comparison-maybe the frustration in regards to the storyis, but the swiftvets aren't "unnamed sources" they are telling their side of the story, and we are aware of their bias. They also didn't produce a batch of more than likely forged documents to make their point.

I do think the Plame/Novak issue is an accurate comparison on some level, and I honestly think Novak would do well to reveal his source on the matter, although I understand why the various news organizations want to keep sources secret, I think sometimes that secrecy only leads to wrong speculation (for instance right now speculation is that the Kerry campaign provided the documents, but that is entirely speculation).

List of CBS News sponsors has been posted on Fraters Libertas. Along with a pretty comprehensive list of local affiliate contacts. FWIW.

Twalsh wrote:

"Ummm, I'm pretty sure that 'we won't reveal you as a source if you give us some info' goes out the window when the info you get from them is fraudulent. Why would you protect someone that just brought down your whole news department?"

I personally think that one of the reasons the Danites are still vigorously defending this obvious fabrication is that they cannot reveal their source without it being very obviously either (a) a Kerry/DNC operative (b) a Carvillian "dirty trickster" (or is that redundant?) or (c) a vengeful crank (see "Bill Burkett").

Since sources are considered sacred in the news biz (First Amendment and all that), I doubt even a Congressional investigation will get to the bottom of it if it comes to that.