Effective draw.

Kerry did very well, slightly better than Bush - but Bush also turned out a workmanlike performance on his most passionate issues, and I don't think that this exchange will have a massive impact on the electorate either way. Kerry beat Bush in terms of aesthetics, which is suprising.

That being said, I think that Kerry will grow stronger in the domestic debates and pull close to the bottom margin-of-error by election day.

UPDATE: Bill Kristol:

"If you are a Kerry supporter, you were heartened."

But ...

Kerry was tougher than I had expected, which is good -- except that you never know what he'll say next time. If I hadn't been paying attention to the campaign, though, I'd be fairly impressed -- and Kerry has to hope that most people who watched the debate fall into that category.

UPDATE: Did I miss this?

UPDATE: Gallup has the post-debate poll results:

Kerry Wins Debate
Viewers also more favorable to Kerry, but opinions about Iraq and military leadership still favor Bush

I always get nervous when Bush suits up to go into battle and represent my positions on war and peace. I've found his public speaking in defense of pre-emption to be repetitive, simplistic and full of rhetoric, a style that gives the impression of evasion and cognitive dissonance. In particular, the failure to discover stockpiles of WMD tends to trip up Bush, and I sincerely hope that he has some new, perceptive responses to put into play against Kerry.

Kerry could be very interesting; he's bleeding heavily in the polls and certainly views the debates as his only real chance to mortally wound Bush. Keeping with the tone of his campaign, he could get too aggressive and drastically overreach.

Let's watch ...

UPDATE: Llamas are live-blogging the debate. (Scroll upwards)

Also Commissar, Spoons.

UPDATE: Body armor, Viet-ny-am, oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllll.

UPDATE: For my money, the Llamas have the best live coverage, with updates like this:

YES!

Zombie ghost of FDR rolls onto stage, punches Kerry in the nuts.

UPDATE: Then again, Spoons has ...

Kerry: "I will hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever they are."

Did John Kerry just say kill?!? He just got Andrew Sullivan's vote.

Ha!

UPDATE: Ok, I'm not live-blogging this debate, but I can't let this one slide - Kerry: "35 - 40 countries in the world had a greater capability to make weapons than Iraq ..."

How many of those countries were shooting at us, Senator?

November 18, 2002

STARR: Wolf, that is the essential question that is facing the Bush administration, because it's becoming increasingly clear day-by-day that the Iraqis have absolutely no intention, according to administration officials, of stopping this shooting war with the United States over the no-fly zones.

More ...

Iraqi gunners opened fire 60 times on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the north this year. Warplanes struck back 10 times, bombing Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries or radar stations. The attacks have been more intense in the larger southern zone, with almost twice as many strikes.

The last time the Iraqis opened fire in the north was Wednesday. A mission was canceled Thursday, apparently due to stormy weather.

The shooting varies in intensity. Burgess said the Iraqis open up -- usually with anti-aircraft artillery or machine guns -- about once an hour during the flights, but sometimes shoot as much as three times an hour.

The shooting, he said, has been fairly constant during his year commanding air operations.

Although no pilots have been shot down during the history of the flights, there is always a risk.

"They shoot at us quite a bit," said "Bartdude," an F-16 pilot with the Ohio National Guard who has flown over the no-fly zone for the past month. For security reasons, pilots of "Bartdude's" 112th Fighter Squadron have been ordered to speak only on condition that they are identified by their Air Force call signs and not their real names. Pilots are rotated into the region on 90-day assignments.

Is the concept of containment realistic or acceptable when the country in question is actively shooting at US military personnel, in addition to failing to disclose the fate of its weapons systems and stockpiles? The Iraqi non-solution was unravelling; there was no possibility of leaving Saddam Hussein in power without at the very least sacrificing the populations of Northern and Southern Iraq to a terrible reckoning from Saddam Hussein. The no-fly zones were simply unsustainable, and we were already in a lukewarm military conflict.

UPDATE: Stephen Green is drunkblogging the debate ...

7:36pm. Time to mix another drink. I might miss the mext question.

Admirable dedication, Steve.

INDC merits a brief mention on Hume's Political Grapevine segment, and the Daily Recycler posts a video link along with some kind words.

As an aside, I've had some Jammie-wearers-in-arms good-naturedly crack on my tendency to glowingly link to instances where INDC Journal is featured in the MSM. Some have said it's egotistical and self-centered; others have opined that it's ironic that bloggers are still thrilled to get ink or air-time in mediums that we deride with such frequency. These are accurate points.

But that was Special Report. Special Report is what 60 Minutes used to be before it turned into "60 Minutes," if you know what I'm sayin' ...

I'll play it like the Fonz on the next one.

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Ta-DAH! Ta-DAH! Ha ya like me nah?!

UPDATE: Beta version for my more mature new readers:

"Well now, the Wizbang fellow certainly gave that man what-for, did he not? Why yes, he did. That was the 'bees-knees!'"

UPDATE: Pre/Im-mature triumphalism aside, Paul needs to explain his case better - how is the "th" definitively revealed to be a crude addition to the original? Am I dense?

UPDATE: A Wizbang commenter adds:

Simple explanation: [he] cut and pasted the TH into the image of the document to make it look like the TH he created on his typewriter matches the TH from the CBS memo. If you look at the PDF and the PSD files, you can see that the 72 in the date "1972" a few lines above the superscript TH also appears to be pasted in.

UPDATE: Wizbang beaten down? Another helpful commenter:

If you read page 8 of the prof's report, Wizbang has misfired.

The Prof isn't claiming that he typed a matching memo, he's claiming (w/r/t that page) that by using photoshop, he can show that his typewriter font is a closer match for the documents than Times Roman.

In other words, he specifically admits to photoshopping in the report.

I'm just going to sit this one out until resolution.

Now NBC?

UPDATE: At least they mentioned that Rangel sponsored the legislation ...

UPDATE: A commenter cuts NBC some slack:

Actually, I was surprised NBC mentioned not only that it was the Dems that introduced the bills, but that the military doesn't want the draft - and why.

That portion sounds fair to me, but I haven't seen the piece. And what about the background on the activist?

UPDATE: Another commenter:

I saw the piece. I think Malkin is overreacting.

Let's get some video.

UPDATE: NRO:

NBC's/MSNBC's favorite "Republican" 9-11 widow, Kristen Breitweiser, is now featured in a two-minute Kerry-endorsing ad on the DNC web site.

Contrarian argument: she's got to pick some candidate - does that invalidate her opinion? Need video!

Despite my recent legal research, I missed this:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has launched a criminal investigation into forged military records allegedly obtained from President Bush's National Guard file that were aired by CBS News three weeks ago, referring a congressional request for the probe to the investigative division of the Texas Rangers.

Supoena power, here we come.

(Thanks to Pete Wright)

UPDATE: Look for the obligatory New York Times hit piece that highlights George Bush's nefarious former financial ties to the "Texas Rangers."

Beautiful Atrocities highlights the latest (indirect) mainstream endorsement for Markos "Screw them" Zuniga: the NEA:

Carrion feeder Markos Zuniga: 'I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.'

In Matthew Klam's good-natured NY Times profile of leftie blogger Markos Screw'em Zuniga, aka the Daily Kos, Zuniga crows that after sponsors (including John Kerry) abandoned him for gloating over the mutilation murders of 4 American workers in Iraq, he easily found new ones. In fact, his most high-profile sponsor is currently the National Mobilization for Great Public Schools, an octopus comprised of 6 partisan political organizations, including MoveOn.org, the NAACP, & - the NEA.

"Teach the children well," I suppose.

UPDATE: This post and the linked post refer(red) to the NEA as a taxpayer supported organization, but I can find no direct financial links to the government; they're a non-profit membership/lobbying organization:

Founded in 1857 "to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching and to promote the cause of popular education in the United States," the NEA has remained constant in its commitment to its original mission as evidenced by the current mission statement ...

That being said, it's still important to review the nature of their membership:

Anyone who works for a public school district, a college or university, or any other public institution devoted primarily to education is eligible to join NEA.

No word about how they feel about the murder and brutal dismemberment of American defense contractors.

(Thanks to Boyd for fact-checking INDC)

UPDATE: Commenter Laddy elucidates the indirect link:

NEA is comprised of public school employees whose salaries are paid by the taxpayers. The teachers' NEA dues, deducted from their salaries, fund the NEA. I would guess that's what is being referred to.

I'll be on Cam Edwards' show at 4 PM (Eastern) today. You can listen via Sirius Satellite radio or catch a live stream at NRANews.com. We'll be discussing CBS News.

CBS Evening News reporter Richard Schlesinger.

*** Exclusive ***

Yesterday I interviewed several CBS News employees about their controversial story highlighting the possibility of a draft reinstatement. I spoke with Richard Schlesinger, the story's reporter, Sandra Genelius, a CBS Spokeswoman, and Linda Karas, the producer of the piece.

First I spoke with Mr. Schlesinger, who was eager to talk to me about the motivation and issue that drove the story. He expressed a firm belief that they "played it straight."

INDC: "First of all, what motivated CBS News to run this story?"

Schlesinger: "The point of the piece was taking look at issues through the eyes of people who feel that those issues are the most important ... in the campaign. People who are vitally concerned. We've done many of these stories on many topics. I did another one around affordable housing ... and minimum wage, for example."

INDC: "A lot of people have a problem with this issue though, because it's specifically something that's been used by the Kerry campaign as a recent talking point. Did this influence ..."

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(By Cox & Forkum, via Ace)

Did they do it again?

Does this compare to 60 Minutes? We'll find out.

UPDATE: Powerline was Drudge-lanched again; this time they've maintained signal.

UPDATE: More.

That's just some unadulterated fun, that's what that is ...

And it's too good not to pass along. You've all heard Kerry get abused for his famous statement:

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

He decided to clarify his position on Good Morning America:

It was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of
those moments late in the evening when I was tired in the primaries and
didn't say something clearly.

The rest of the clarification aside, there's one problem with his chronology:

"I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," he told a group of veterans at a noontime appearance at Marshall University.

Heh. At least he didn't claim to be in Cambodia when he said it.

By way of apology for the self-gratifying, jargon-crippled exposition posted below, I'd like to offer up the following:

If John Kerry were an inaminate object, he'd be a generic copy of a Swiss Army knife with a dull blade and broken scissors. Or an overcooked Ramen noodle.

Discuss.

UPDATE: Commenter Bullwinkle points us to a clarifying link.

Christopher Hitchens is a genius on a roll:

He explains that he believes the moment the left's bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. "The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women's rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists." He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali's books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. "It's explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings."

And he echoes an evolutionary theory that I absolutely endorse:

Can he ever see a defeat for this kind of Islamofascism? "This kind of theocratic fascism will never die because we belong to a very poorly-evolved mammarian species. I'm a complete materialist in that sense. We're stuck with being the product of a very sluggish evolution. Our pre-frontal lobes are too small and our adrenaline glands are too big. Our fear of the dark and of death is very intense, and people will always be able to profit from that. But nor can I see this kind of fascism winning. They couldn't even run Afghanistan. Our victory is assured - so we can afford to be very scrupulous in our methods."

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. This evolutionary race has ironic and depressing implications when one compares the pace of advancement for human tolerance to the pace of destructive technological innovation and ubiquity, a concept that's magnificently explained in a book titled "Why We Hate," by Rush Dozier, Jr.

(Via Allah)

I've previously applied Hitchens and Dozier's thoughts about evolutionary theory to domestic politics in addition to Islamofascism. To be clear, I'm not directly comparing American political affiliations to violent theocracy, but a watered-down version of human nature plays itself out in moderately similar forms in our civil society. For the most part, it's the vitriol without the violent action. The following is a cleaned-up version of a long, boring comment that I left on Allah's blog awhile back:

Read More »

* James Joyner roots around in a trash can and says, "Look what I found!"

* Real Clear Politics has a supraphysiological dosage of Bush-Cheney smack-down for poll junkies.

* Dean explores the phenomenon known as "Instapundit-envy." My personal story of Insta-obsession is documented here. I'm much better now.

* Florida Cracker has been doing some fantastic hurricane blogging. Start with this post and keep scrolling.

* Rusty teaches us Arabic swear words. INDC Bill is a link-"sharmoota."

* Jeff Goldstein has the aforementioned "Instapundit-envy."

So sad. So very, very sad.

Is CBS mirroring Kerry campaign talking points?

Three weeks after he denounced the internet as being "filled with rumors," the embattled CBS anchor ran a story on his Tuesday "Evening News" program hoping to stir up fear of an impending military draft.

In a story that was a textbook example of slipshod reporting, CBS reporter Richard Schlesinger used debunked internet hoax emails and an unlabeled interest group member to scare elderly "Evening" viewers into believing that the U.S. government is poised to resume the draft.

To me, the video comes off as a scare piece. Read the analysis and watch the clip here.

UPDATE: Ace has the siren up.

UPDATE: Captain Ed thinks that John Kerry has "a severe case of projection."

UPDATE: Charlie Rangel wants you! And VodkaPundit comments.

UPDATE: Say Anything piles on.

Please go to this link, register with the Washington Post and vote INDC Journal the "Best Inside the Beltway" Blog.

I have been nominated and matched up against my potty-mouthed, left-wing, light-weight, strawberry-blonde nemesis and certainly much worse, a man that derives grim satisfaction from the death and mutilation of Americans in Iraq.

I certainly won't mind losing to "the Corner."

I can even live with losing to Joshua Michael Jeremiah Marshall's Buddy Holly glasses and turtleneck; he can actually write.

But if there is any semblance of justice left in man's universe, I will not lose to Markos Moulitsas "Screw Them" Zúniga, or the pimpette of the blogosphere, known to longtime INDC readers only as She Who Will Not Be Named or Linked.

That being said, it's a reader poll, and both of those sites severely spank me in traffic levels, so the outcome may be a foregone conclusion. Help me at least make it close.

Go to this link, and don't be lazy; take the 10 seconds to register so that you may vote. Then scroll down and look for ...

Best Inside the Beltway

Talking Points Memo
National Review - The Corner
Wonkette
INDC Journal
Daily Kos

And vote your conscience. Spread the word. If we can ruin Dan Rather's day, we may just have a shot at taking a swipe at the worst of the (paid) New Media as well. If you prefer, by all means vote for NRO. This may be the second most important ballot you cast this year. Ok, third, perhaps fourth or fifth, if you have to cast a ballot for your co-op or condo board, or something.

In addition to an explicit shout-out to IMAO in the humor category, below the fold are INDC's other endorsements:

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An earnest Kerry supporter writes a critique of the GOP's windsurfing ad in the Boston Globe:

USING JOHN Kerry's windsurfing as an indication of his waffling and changing with the wind is proof that Bush and his campaign lack an understanding of not just the sport of windsurfing but of the real world.

In windsurfing it is important to keep a keen eye on the water to detect wind shifts and changes in conditions. Is it not equally important in the global arena to do the same and make deliberate adjustments in response to changes? Kerry stayed on his board despite gusty conditions because he detected changes and was prepared to respond to them.

I consider his ability to make adjustments an asset for any leader.

SALLY AUSTIN-RUNCI
Duxbury

Very poetic, Sally. The RNC will certainly think twice about running any more iterations of that ad.

(Via reader Mike Sierra)

Protesting media bias in jammies, Nixonian couture and white long white socks with hush puppies; these guys put the 'sense' in fashion sense.

On Sunday, a small crowd of Rathergate protestors gathered outside of CBS News Studios in Washington, DC. They were few in number. They were polite. They were angry. And most of them were in pajamas.

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Ha. And double-ha.

UPDATE: Uh, I just got my memo:

Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill pimps John Kerry's grand Iraq strategy to NPR:

Cahill: "Well actually, I think that some of the people who have done the most with this around the world are the Irish and the French, and that if we could draw them into this, helping us train Iraqi nationals, that would be a huge step in the right direction. But they won't do it so long as we have the leadership that we have right now."

Of course, Mary Beth's campaign strategy hinges on the idea that you don't read Drudge or the FT:

French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2.

There's still the Irish!

"Ok, despues de este partido, que te parece si les tiramos unos manisitos a los detenidos y luego nos hechomos una par de tremendas jineteras? Good times, 'Himmie.' Good times."

President Carter made some big announcement that's supposed to be critically important to the election, but I can't absorb his message. The thing is, I've had a fundamental inability to listen to anything that the man has to say, ever since he decided to enthusiastically jettison any infinitesimal shred of credibility that he may have once possessed as a rational political analyst:

Carter responded to personal question as well. He said his two favorite movies are “Casablanca” and “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

To be perfectly clear, I have nothing against Casablanca.

Intel Showed Iraq Smuggled Out WMDs

Thank you.

UPDATE: Also, the WaPo has an excellent, gut-wrenching article about the continuing demand for positions within the Iraqi security forces, despite deadly attacks from terrorists:

A war within a war is playing out across Iraq. On one side are the jobless and underemployed young men who continue lining up to apply for positions in the reconstituted police and National Guard. On the other side are the insurgents working assiduously to kill them.

The "insurgents" in Iraq aren't merely "rebels" fighting the will of a foreign occupier; they're terrorists intent on using murder and destruction as a means to political ends that extend beyond the disengagement of the United States.

Aka "You never know who's reading:"

Bill,

Enjoyed the poll, but a couple of notes:

(1) I haven't been a sub for Rush for years -- with the exception of a two-day stint last year, during his rehab. I host my own syndicated radio talk show these days on the Fox News Radio Network.

(2) As for the "partisan" label: It might be worth reviewing my work on Fox News Sunday. The biggest complainers were conservatives, who said I was too nice to liberals.

(3) I demand a recount on the finals. I'm a Hume guy.

(4) Most importantly, however, you spelled my name right. That trumps all other considerations.

Love the site.

Best,

Tony Snow

I'm glad that Mr. Snow is apparently a good sport. That being said, I'm crossing my fingers that Jeff Greenfield and Charles Osgood don't read INDC ...

Blogging is largely curtailed due to today's extremely busy schedule.

New INDC readers: I recently ran an incomplete "Best Of" series before my aborted RNC trip. If you like what you've seen since Rathergate, you might enjoy some of these selections. If you read nothing else, I'd like you to check out my all time favorites: INDC's coverage of the National World War II Memorial Dedication Weekend, Parts One and Two (especially Part Two). Enjoy.

Also, regarding my offer of a reciprocal blogroll to interested bloggers: to be honest, the comment and e-mail response was larger than expected, and I'm not sure that I can add 75-100 web sites to my sidebar. I haven't decided what to do about this yet, so sit tight.

Stay tuned for new coverage later in the day.

UPDATE: Also, please check out "The Carnival of the Liberated" over at Dean's World, featuring this week's round-up of posts from Iraqi bloggers. Surpass the MSM narrative and read the words of those that actually live the conflict.

George Bush may have volunteered for service in Vietnam ...

"The Air Force, in their ultimate wisdom, assembled a group of 102's and took them to Southeast Asia. Bush volunteered to go. But he needed to have 500 [flight] hours, but he only had just over 300 hours so he wasn't eligible to go,” Morrisey recalls.

... and John Kerry owns an assault weapon.

"My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam," Mr. Kerry told the magazine. "I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."

(WVLT link via BC)

UPDATE: Tim Worstall discusses the death rate associated with flying an F-102 fighter-interceptor.

UPDATE: He had an assault rifle before he didn't.

Senator John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that Mr. Kerry did not own a Chinese assault rifle, as he was quoted as saying in Outdoor Life magazine, but a single-bolt-action military rifle, blaming aides who filled out the magazine's questionnaire on his behalf for the error.

Aides "filled out" a "questionnaire?" The snippet from the original article certainly looks like a direct quote to me ...

UPDATE: Heh. Malkin has more thorough criticism:

[WHICH AIDES?! WHO ON KERRY'S STAFF WOULD HAVE WRITTEN SUCH A THING IN KERRY'S NAME WITHOUT KERRY'S PRIOR APPROVAL? COME ON, JODI. THIS IS NOT STENOGRAPHY CLASS.]

*** Exclusive ***

Bob Schieffer was kind enough to grant me a brief, impromptu interview outside of CBS News Studios in Washington, DC.

INDC: "Mr. Schieffer, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions about the CBS memo scandal?"

Schieffer: "Uh, sure, go ahead."

INDC: "I was just wondering if you had any comment on what you think may happen with this entire (forgery) situation ..."

Schieffer: "Here is all I can tell you: we made a bad mistake. We've admitted we made the mistake, we've appointed some distinguished outside people to help us figure out how not to make that mistake again, and we're gonna have to live with our mistake. [W]hat we have to do ... we've been hurt by this and ... what we have to do is get back our credibility one story at a time, one day at a time. This is not something that we can fix by just turning the light switch on and off. And, uh, it's been a really tough thing for us... both from the standpoint of credibility and emotional. I mean, those of us who work here really love this place and ... we want to fix it and get on with it."

INDC: "Has there been any extreme reaction inside CBS to the allegation that (Mary) Mapes was in contact or collusion with the DNC, or more accurately, with Joe Lockhart?"

Schieffer: "Well, you know, in any political campaign, you're gonna have people on one side that are gonna slip a reporter something because they think it'll hurt the guy on the other side. But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate. And if you make that judgment, then, uh, that's a legitimate story to do. But to somehow join up with a campaign, that's totally improper. I don't know what happened here; I wanna wait and see what this commission finds out about this before I make a judgment on what happened here, because really that part of it, all I only know about is what I read in the papers. I'm not gonna make a judgment on that yet, but we have no business joining up with a campaign on either side, and saying, 'let's all work together here.' That's not what we're supposed to do."

INDC: "Has this scandal affected you personally, with your impending moderation of one of the (Presidential) debates?"

Schieffer: "Well, there's been some e-mail that says that I should excuse myself ... but both the White House and the Kerry campaign have said that they think that I can do a fair and honest job. So as long as it's ok with them, I think it's ok."

INDC: "Ok, well I'll let you go. Thank you very much for your time."

Schieffer: "Ok, thank you."

Today I received a direct mail solicitation that pitched a subscription to the New York Times. I think that I'll take a pass.

It's surprising when I really stop to consider it, but I can't even read the Times anymore; the fact that its agenda mortally cripples the quality of its reporting doesn't even merit regular criticism. And that's somewhat remarkable because there are many papers that I don't typically agree with that still have premium placement in my daily reading list. In contrast, I no longer even bother to scan the homepage of the New York Times. It's that much of a joke.

So much for "the paper of record."

UPDATE: Maybe I spoke too soon (see Allah's update).

UPDATE: David Frum comments on the NYT blogger story:

Disregard the heckling. The piece is riveting: vivid, remorseless, and deadly. Klam has that magic interviewer's gift for inducing his intended victims to place their lives in his hands. Yes, he dealt with left bloggers only. The right-wing bloggers should be grateful to have been spared. Anyway, why shouldn't Klam focus on left-wing bloggers? They’re an important story - from the point of view of the Times and its constituencies, a supremely important story.

Just to avoid confusion, I didn't mean to leave the impression that I was angry about being left out of the story (as implied by a commenter). The larger point of my post is, "It's the NY Times, so who really cares at this point?" The feature may eviscerate the leftie bloggers (Kos's treatment is specifically hilarious), but it's still a warped portrait of the blogosphere, and warped portraits are a specialty of the NYT. The rest of Frum's piece makes some excellent points about the impotence of the hired guns in the leftie spectrum of the New Media, so make sure that you read the whole thing.

In order to get beyond the campaign rhetoric and dig deeper than the predetermined sensationalistic or defeatist narratives written by certain analysts for the major dailies, you should read blogs. I'm not going to excerpt it; read the whole thing.

(Via Vodkapundit)

UPDATE: And when you're done with that, read Gen. David H. Petraeus's column in today's WaPo.

(Via reader jdwill)

A few days ago, I asked you to nominate the best TV news anchor based on the dual criteria of fairness and accuracy. Let's tackle some of your responses:

Chris Wallace (FOX): He's good, sure, but Wallace telegraphs what team he's playing for to anyone that regularly watches him. Proof: a disturbingly positive review of the Bush twins' cringe-worthy performance at the RNCC. Disqualified.

Tony Snow (FOX): Highly competent and very smart, but pretty damn smug and way too partisan to win this contest. Proof: subs for Rush Limbaugh. DQ.

Jeff Greenfield (CNN): Tends to be a straight shooter, but Jeff's not an anchor. Tends to whine. As a child, may or may not have been mercilessly pantsed by his classmates. Disqualified.

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Allah!

UPDATE: Perhaps Goldstein wasn't born to Photoshop, but he surely picked it up at a young age. Mr. T is priceless.

Hitchens may have an intermittent relationship with good taste, but he's always a deadly commentator. From the transcript of last night's episode of Scarborough Country:

But for journalism and its standards do matter, not just to me. I don‘t think of myself now as in the same profession of Dan Rather. And Dan Rather showed himself, it seems to me, to be—not for the first time actually—a very poor specimen of a showbiz type. He‘s not in journalism at all anymore. It‘s an absolute scandal that this stuff ever got on the air.

And it‘s wrong for us to call it forgery, even. A forgery is an attempt to fake something that‘s worth having. If I could get my printer to give me a $100 bill and I handed it to you and you took it, the handshake between us would be of that kind. But if I printed a $99 bill and handed it to you, you would be a fool and I would be a crook twice. This is not a forgery. This is fabrication.

And we help Rather out, it seems to me, every time we say forgery. Forgery is the cover story now. That‘s what they‘re back to. They‘re saying, well, it‘s essentially true. All the documents are fake, but the story is true. This is unpardonable.
...
I don‘t think it could fall any lower than this, in other words. And whether there is collusion with the DNC or not, I don‘t know. But there really had better not be, because I can‘t think—having said it couldn‘t go any lower, that‘s as low as it could then go.

A tremendous rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs. Enjoy and be at peace.

(Via Flea)

This whole Rathergate deal has helped INDC top the half-million mark in site visits. We're at 550,591. I suppose that the top sites do that in a slow week, but it sure feels like a lot of "F5" to me.

INDC also entertained well over 100,000 unique visitors in the month of September.

Thank you for your support.

UPDATE: I'd also like to thank my top 15 traffic donors, in terms of frequency and/or number of visits:

Allah
Andrew Sullivan
ASV
Captain's Quarters Blog
Dean's World
Hugh Hewitt
Instapundit
LGF
Michelle Malkin
Outside the Beltway
Politburo Diktat
Protein Wisdom
QandO
Vodka Pundit
Wizbang!

Fine blogs, all.

Yes, yes, of course I'm kidding about Sullivan; substitute Powerline, Rathergate, the Kerry Spot and the Corner. Also, thanks to the too-numerous-to-individually-name smaller blogs that link me with frequency, and a special shout out to Dean and the Commissar for getting me started and providing early encouragement.

Sending a trackback to a blog without linking his or her work in your post is very bad blog etiquette. Feel free to ask any burning questions about blogging protocol in the comment section.

UPDATE: Before getting too involved in new questions on trackbacks, I should probably point you to this helpful post:

Trackbacks - The Peoples' Version

In fact, the Commissar has devoted an entire series to newbie blogging questions and explanations of how software and protocol merge in the blogosphere. Visit his how-to-blog archive and just keep scrolling for answers.

I'm pretty blown away by the largely positive tone of the WaPo's profile of Allawi:

Iraq's Dynamo
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Generates a Can-Do Aura

He is, said a U.S. congressional official who follows Iraq, a tough guy trying to bring to Iraqis the thing they really want.

"They want a badass guy who is going to solve the security problem," this official said.

And they've got Allawi.

The article sucks some of the oxygen out of Kerry's disturbing choice to directly attack Allawi's speech to Congress. I realize that candidates have to spin things as negatively as possible in the months just prior to the election, but Kerry's choice to directly confront the prestige of a struggling ally is nakedly unscrupulous, and hence constitutes a foolish political move as he attempts to sway moderates that still believe in the possibility of a successful Iraq.

But even if one believes that everything that Kerry said were true, a much wiser course of action would have compelled him to focus all of his criticism on Bush, effectively inferring criticism of Allawi. His strategy to attack the Iraqi directly befuddles me, and his decision to exploit the event deeply offends me. Kerry's stump speech perfectly reinforces the popular perception that he values political advantage over the greater good.

To be honest, I'm not sure how Iraq will turn out with another Bush Administration, but it seems fairly evident where the policy will head under Kerry's captainship.

UPDATE: Using some uncharacteristically pointed language, Glenn Reynolds expresses a similar sentiment about Lockhart's supplemental attack on Allawi:

This is behavior that is absolutely unacceptable coming from a Presidential campaign in wartime, and it's not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of such behavior. Joe Lockhart should apologize for these remarks, and Kerry should fire him. Otherwise you're going to hear a lot of people questioning Kerry's patriotism. And they'll be right to.

Hmmm. Maybe they should talk about the Texas Air National Guard ...

UPDATE: The motivation behind Kerry's new line on Iraq is revealed in a new poll by the Economist (links to a pdf file):

ECONOMIST/YOUGOV POLL SAYS VOTERS ARE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT IRAQ BUT CONVINCED AMERICA IS DOING GOOD

New York, NY Barely six weeks from polling day, the spotlight in America's election this week swivelled from a war that ended some 30 years ago in Indochina to the war raging right now in Iraq. Neither George Bush nor John Kerry is giving a completely straight account to voters. The American people, however, are making up their own minds about the war and according to the latest Economist/YouGov poll, the majority are pessimistic about how it is going but convinced that America is doing good.

Read More »

Almost. Maybe. Not quite. From the NY Times:

Mr. Kerry still mentions his service frequently, often in the context of his challenge to Mr. Bush on Iraq, but he has not said a word about Mr. Bush and the National Guard since the night after the Republican National Convention. "We've moved past it," explained a senior strategist, Joe Lockhart.

That's awful smart of them. The DNC? Not so much:

But the Democratic National Committee is pressing forward with its efforts to use the National Guard questions to try to undercut the president's character and credibility on jobs, health care and Iraq.

I repeat my assertion that Terry McAuliffe is a very, very "special boy." A continued focus on Bush's National Guard service is analogous to the sacrificial Charge of the Light Brigade, except instead of charging nobly into overwhelming cannon fire with sabres held high, the Dems are packing rubber chickens and water balloons.

UPDATE: GASP! I think that the "Weekly World News" may have figured out what happened to Lucy Ramirez ...

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are looking high and low for Brimbaw, Texas, a once-booming financial center of 1.2 million people that investigators say vanished from the face of the earth on June 17, leaving behind just one man who remembers it.

"This is like something out of the Twilight Zone -- and the more I think about it, the weirder it gets," says an FBI agent working the strange case from a field office in Dallas.

"We're talking about a city of over a million people -- a huge banking and financial center -- gone . . . poof! -- just like that. "And all we've got to go on are the recollections of just one man who is struggling to provide us with details.

It may be worth noting that at this point, I trust a ridiculous rag that has a regular feature on "Alien & UFO Reportings" more than CBS.

UPDATE: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram withdraws the major bombshell of the story, thus invalidating much of the analysis below (boy, this is getting old):

This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, "They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents." The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.

The original post follows:

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a big scoop, namely Bill Burkett's first non-CBS interview since the scandal broke (registration required (UPDATE: changed to non-registration link), and I had it before Drudge, so "nya").

The suddenly "impeachable source" warms up by taking a swipe at Rather:

"It caught CBS very flat-footed. They were not prepared. And I had warned them ... that this would probably be one of the most highly coordinated vicious attacks that they would ever have to face," Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guardsman, said in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Burkett said that he and CBS News anchor Dan Rather spoke "forcefully" after questions arose about dated Guard memos supposedly from Bush's commander and provided to the network by Burkett.

Burkett said he agreed to a taped interview with Rather on Monday as suspicion about the memos mounted, putting the network's reputation at stake. He said key portions of the interview were never aired.

"He snipped it apart to cover them," he said. "That's all that that evening news was - to find a fall guy. And it was me."

Like the appetizer? Good? Good. Now for the meat, baby:

He said, however, that during the meeting in which he gave the memos to CBS, he was also told by a producer that his phone number would be passed on to Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart.

"I was absolutely and clearly told that that was as far as anyone could go without crossing the line of (journalistic) ethics," Burkett said.

Are you ready? Are you ready for it?

During a single phone conversation with Lockhart, Burkett said he suggested a "couple of concepts on what I thought (Kerry) had to do" to beat Bush. In return, he said, Lockhart tried to "convince me as to why I should give them the documents."

Beautiful.

Let's review Lockhart's recollection of the phone call:

Lockhart said he phoned Burkett at the number provided by CBS. Lockhart also said that the documents never came up in his conversation with Burkett.

Who to believe?

Grab a seat, get comfortable, whip up some popcorn and savor the delicious irony as the Dems, CBS and the larger media descend like flesh-eating locusts on the reputation of this "well-regarded Texan."

UPDATE: Let me explain my read on why Burkett said something that contradicts Lockhart:

First of all, he's clearly incompetent (look at the forgeries) and probably unstable, and he probably never saw or perhaps absorbed Lockhart's quote. In his clumsy read of the situation, he thinks that he's protecting Lockhart by implying that he wouldn't give them the documents. This does two things:

1. Enhances Burkett's sense of self-importance in the narrative; the Kerry campaign wanted his help.
2. In Burkett's mind, it insulates the Dems from the charge of forgery.

If the Dems couldn't get their hands on the documents, then they have no responsibility for awareness that they were forgeries; but what Burkett may not realize is the fact that Cleland and Lockhart already went on the record with a denial about any knowledge of or conversation about the documents.

We all knew that the denial of any conversation about the documents was bullshit, of course, but now we have one of the parties, no matter how incredible, on record to back up part of the suspicion.

UPDATE: Commenter "Prakk" over at the Commissar's thread gets why this is still a big deal, despite Burkett's crazy incredibility as a witness:

This is ENDGAME. True or false Burkett just moved the piece on the board that forces the issue.

UPDATE: While Lockhart claims no mention of the documents in his conversation with Burkett, this NY Post editorial suggests that Mapes told him about the documents:

And while Lockhart insists that the documents were never mentioned in their conversation, he conceded "it's possible" Mapes just happened to mention the memos when she asked him to give Burkett a call.

Yesterday, he explained it this way: Mapes asked Lockhart to speak to "a guy who is being helpful on this story," adding that she just happened to mention that "there are some records that might move the story forward" without telling him what they said.

Maybe CBS isn't the only one with a credibility problem.

"The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Sen. Kerry's campaign to attack the president is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation," said the White House.

That's putting it mildly.

"[I]t's possible" that Mapes mentioned the memos? As if the memory of someone informing the Kerry Campaign of explosive documents that were harmful to Bush wouldn't be seared, I mean seared into Joe Lockhart's memory? That he wouldn't have sprung wood at the mere mention of such incendiary documents?

Who is buying this crap?

FBI: "At this time we are making no comment."

DOJ: "No comment."

The Feds, they bounce me around like a ping-pong ball ...

UPDATE: "Winemaker" has set up a site devoted to discussing the legal angles of Rathergate.

"I'm a special boy."

UPDATE: Premature gotcha moment; NRO retracts after discovering that the RNC Press release was wrong/misleading, and McAuliffe was only quoting from the news article that was posted prior to the CBS broadcast. INDC follows suit and apologizes for the premature conclusions, but still firmly stands by its position that Terry McAuliffe is, in fact, "a special boy," with all of the connotations inherent to such a description. Geraghty's statement:

FINAL UPDATE: I spoke to Jano Cabrera, DNC press guy. He politely explained that there was teleconference on Bush's military record, but McAuliffe did not use the phrase "sugarcoated" — and there is a transcript. The "sugarcoated" remark came in an e-mailed statement that was distributed to reporters as the "60 Minutes II" story was beginning, and was based on the posting of the memos on CBS' web site.

Via Jim Geraghty, the RNC rolls out a press release titled "CHRONOLOGY OF CHARACTER ASSASSINATION:"

9 HOURS BEFORE THE CBS REPORT: "Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe said, 'George W. Bush's cover story on his National Guard service is rapidly unraveling. ... George W. Bush needs to answer why he regularly misled the American people about his time in the Guard and who applied political pressure on his behalf to have his performance reviews 'sugarcoated.'" (Terence Hunt, "Questions Raised About Bush Guard Service," The Associated Press, 9/9/04)

(Emphasis mine)

Let's re-read that memo, shall we?

Any doubt that any rational person (or a premature reactionary that smells blood -- ED) had about the DNC's prior knowledge of these specific documents just shattered into a thousand pieces, probably along with Terry's career (finally). It appears that Joe Lockhart lied to you. Max Cleland probably lied to you. And predictably, Terry McAulliffe was the one that certainly lied to you and opened his mouth one too many times.

And Jim's already covered this angle, so I don't have to:

"Sugarcoated." What an interesting word. McAuliffe could have said that Bush's performance reviews were covered up, spun, masked, smoothed over, soft-pedaled, glossed over, prettified, veiled, whitewashed, hushed up, concealed, varnished, suppressed, or distorted. But he just happened to pick a word that appeared in the memos that were supposedly unveiled to the world hours later.

Because you just know what set of excuses are probably coming down the pike:

"'Sugarcoated' is a common colloquialism that Terry uses at least eight times per day. It's a regional New York thing. He just told me this morning at breakfast, 'ay-oh, ay, George Bush sure sugarcoated that friggin' speech to the UN, eh? Hey what's that you're eating, is that freakin' sugarcoated?'" -- Jano Cabrera, DNC Communications Director.

(Speculative, satirical quote, folks, that's not real. We'll see if my prediction comes true - Ed.)

Riiiiight.

UPDATE: To be perfectly clear, I am not saying that the Dems knew that the documents were fake, rather only offering my opinion that it's pretty obvious that the DNC knew about the existence and contents of the documents, and likely had copies prior to the CBS broadcast.

UPDATE: Also relevant - let's ignore the forgery angle and assume that the DNC thought that the docs were real - at the very least, it's now even more apparent that a CBS News producer helped feed relevant attack information that was intergrated into the DNC's "Fortunate Son" campaign. The bare minimum of collusion between a major network news outlet and a political campaign is certainly the greater issue. Mapes needs to go immediately, along with Heyward and Rather.

UPDATE: Cam Edwards made a good point on the radio today - what if promos for the 60 Minutes piece used the phrase "sugar coated?" I'm not sure how to verify this, but it would certainly invalidate the "ah-ha" moment.

Though I'm sure that 95% of you have already been there, I feel obligated to shoo all of you over to Allah's latest link-dump. It seems that a torch-bearing crowd of MSM op-ed villagers is beginning to form up and chant Rather's name. Also, all due credit: his ET photoshop has me giggling like a shackled loon.

One item I'll excerpt directly is the third installment in Pinkerton's "smack-down" series, where among other demands, he throws down the following gauntlets:

Third, for Mary Mapes, the CBS producer who honchoed the Guard story: the Associated Press described Mapes as "a dogged and talented journalist who made no secret of her liberal political beliefs." If so, in the interests of transparency and full disclosure, shouldn't she detail all her contacts with the John Kerry presidential campaign, as well as the Democratic National Committee? Also, come to think of it, Mapes wasn't the only CBS employee working on the story - let's all 'fess up.

Fourth, for Kerry operative Joe Lockhart, who says that he didn't know why he was supposed to call Bill Burkett, the apparent source for the phony documents - only that he did because Mapes asked him to: Hey, Joe, doesn't the idea that a busy muckety-muck like you would call a stranger flunk the laugh test, unless it was part of a deal with Mapes and CBS? So let's get all phone and e-mail records, please, so that the voters can assess any possible improper Kerry-CBS collusion.

Amen, brother. It's nice to see these concepts gain traction outside the blogosphere.

I have a schedule full of meetings and spreadsheets, so more light posting today. In the meantime, go read Ace's profanity-laced tirade on why Rathergate matters, and why the media insults your intelligence when they claim to have no ideological bias.

Second, as Kausfiles also points out, this is in fact a major story, no matter how much the liberal media or their political wing, the Democratic Party, would like to pretend it isn't. You've got a high-ranking Kerry aide, former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on the phone with a CBS producer and an unhinged Texas Democrat who is at least the conveyer of forged documents.

We're told again and again that the media doesn't care which party a story may damage; they're only interested in a juicy story. Well, here's an objectively juicy story, ladies. And yet it keeps getting reported deep in the interior of the paper, and every night we have to listen to sermonettes from you insufferable pricks about what a "distraction" all of this silly CBS-abetted-political-forgery-to-corruptly-change-the-outcome-of-a-political-election seems to be.

Third -- and this is my point -- it sure seems to me that this was considered a "real issue" two weeks ago when it was assumed the documents were authentic and showed that Bush got special treatment in the Guard over thirty fucking years ago.

Harsh? Check. Truth to power? Double-check. Imagine for a second that the Bush campaign had been in contact with some right-wing nutball that peddled forged documents regarding Kerry. Even my liberal readers can't possibly envision that this story would receive the pompous poo-pooing and muted treatment it's getting now, if it had a chance to take down the Bush Administration. Read the whole thing.

I think that Ace may have actually convinced Eric Alterman with that one ... or at least caused him to wet his pants with fear.

Later today, I'll reveal the answer to one of yesterday's questions.

NY Times UPDATE: In case anyone's interested, Rathergate.com spoke with Jayson Blair about the scandal.

More importantly, William Safire tackles the Federal crime angle:

Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. " U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343.

UPDATE: What liberal media bias? In an e-mail, Patterico writes:

Remember when the L.A. Times said Arizona was "in play" for John Kerry -- and then it turned out Bush was leading by 16 points? Now the L.A. Times is reporting that Kerry leads Bush by 15 points in California -- and the L.A. Times says California is "all but locked down" for Kerry!

The contrast could not be more stark.

Read his post on the matter.

UPDATE: Goldstein continues to mine the JFK-Photoshop angle.

Remember those ex-green berets that were recently found guilty of running a private jail and torture chamber in Afghanistan? They may have been a CBS source:

In a week in which it was burnt by at least one high-profile source, CBS News is being accused by another of having used and abandoned him. The Observer has learned that CBS News and Dan Rather made use of Jonathan (Jack) Idema, a former Green Beret, mercenary and rogue soldier, who was tried and sentenced on Sept. 15 to 10 years in an Afghan prison for operating a private jail and torturing civilians he claimed were Al Qaeda operatives.

Mr. Idema is now accusing CBS News of abandoning him after having what appears to have been an ad hoc arrangement with the mercenary soldier in which he used CBS equipment and personnel to transmit information to Mr. Rather for possible use in CBS broadcasts.
...
Mr. Tiffany claimed that his client had an active role as a source for Mr. Rather, and network sources said that Mr. Rather had hoped to get access to suspected Al Qaeda operatives—and, possibly, Osama bin Laden, whom Mr. Idema has attempted to capture in the past.

In 2002, Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Idema for 60 Minutes II as an expert on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. His financial arrangement with CBS was undisclosed.

Between this and Mary Mapes' previous disregard for federal regulations during her aggressive pursuit of another story, it looks likes the hits on CBS just keep coming ...

UPDATE: More on Mapes and the TxANG story:

According to sources, Mapes told "60 Minutes" bosses that the questionable memos at the heart of the controversy were authenticated by four document experts.

In fact, only two experts authenticated them — and could not vouch for the documents themselves, only the signature, the sources said.

Mapes is said also to have told her bosses that her source for the memos — Bill Burkett, the former guardsman — wanted to be put in touch with high-level officials at the Kerry campaign, apparently as payback for providing the documents to CBS.

She was denied permission — but went ahead and did it on her own, the insiders contend.

(Via blogicus)

So I was whining about being tired ...

Well, does everyone remember the scene in the Godfather where Don Corleone slaps around Johnny Fontaine?

Don Corleone: You could act like a man.
[slaps Johnny Fontane]
Don Corleone: What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become, some [MSM] finnochio that cries like a woman?
[mockingly imitates Johnny]
Don Corleone: Oh, Godfather, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?

I think that's essentially what Geraghty just did to me with this post:

Do not be swayed by the recent heady wave of blogger triumphalism. Dan Rather's "apology" was nothing. It was eleven days late and truly written in the evasive, illusory style of Grima Wormtongue. Killian's son and widow are merely two of many who deserve a specific apology. As we advance, remember that Rather and his minions like John Roberts contended for many days that there was "no concrete evidence" that the documents were fake — long after we had raised dozens of reasons to doubt the memos. He dismissed us — we, the outraged news consumers of the Left, Right, and center — as insignificant "partisan political operatives."
...
While that mystery is being unraveled, we must not let CBS escape our righteous wrath.

He's right, you know; it's not enough. Despite his apology, as late as yesterday, Dan Rather still argued that he believed in the veracity of the memos; it seems rather evident that Mapes has colluded with a political campaign; the Killian family, Staudt, forensic document examiners and other members of the TxANG have been denied a voice, and some of their names and reputations have been directly besmirched by CBS's continued refusal to take full responsibility for their actions and reveal all aspects of the story.

It's not enough for Dan Rather to apologize.

It's not enough for Mapes to lose stature.

It's not enough for CBS to appoint an independent review panel to investigate the story.

None of this is enough. Two major things need to happen, now:

1. CBS needs to fire Rather, Heyward and Mapes.
2. CBS needs to file a criminal complaint of forgery and fraud with local and federal authorities. Their status as an injured party in this case gives them the almost unique ability to propel a legal investigation, and supoena power is the only thing that has the ability to accurately and forcefully deconstruct the incident.

Anything less than these measures indicates that CBS is more interested in a cover-up than it is in finding the truth and accepting full responsibility for airing a story desgned to sway a Presidential election with forged documents.

The supoena power of a legal investigation is the key; nothing less than the threat of jail time will compel accurate and complete testimony from the involved parties.

Look up your local CBS affiliate and contact them today.

Polite. Short. Factual. Non-partisan.

Slate passes judgment on Dan Rather's mental health and revisits some of his greatest hits:

Rather's most famous showdown with a Republican came against George H.W. Bush, when he harangued the vice president about the Iran-Contra scandal. Bush responded with so much vitriol—Rather was left to sputter, "You made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world!"—that the veep temporarily quelled the "wimp factor" and marched through the Republican primaries.

Just for kicks, I reviewed the video over at the Media Research Center. Two observations:

1. Rather is such a fantastic jerk. "You made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world!" Way to play it straight, newsman.

2. It's fairly amusing that Rather's attempts to influence Presidential elections tend to backfire with such spectacular effect.

Over at Drudge:

The Honorable Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press, will comprise the independent review panel that will examine the process by which a recent 60 MINUTES Wednesday report was prepared and broadcast.

They might want to start sifting through blogs for investigative leads.

UPDATE: Ernest Miller's thorough after-action report is a good place to start:

Incompetent AND Unethical: The Story of CBS News' Response to Criticism of the Killian Memo Forgeries

Part I: September 8 - 13

Part II: September 14 - 21

That is an impressive body of work.

UPDATE: Even better:

"Some people broke the cardinal rule and screwed us all," one "60 Minutes" veteran said Tuesday.

UPDATE: Maybe not so good.

A man named Danny Schechter spins a completely delusional yarn in Newsday:

The Republican National Committee operates its own 24/7 anti-news network to monitor coverage and orchestrate a rapid response. Salon reports that the story casting doubt on the documents was first pushed into the news stream by Creative Response Concepts, a Republican public relations firm. Then, selected bloggers went to work led by an Atlanta lawyer who helped get President Bill Clinton disbarred and was the first who called the memos fakes. His charges spread like a prairie fire through the rabid conservative grapevine and amen corner. The goal: Focus the media on Rather, not Bush. CBS initially stood by the documents, then hedged, saying that even if they were flawed, the story that Bush had disobeyed his commander's order to have a physical was accurate in essence. But it finally had to concede it was a mistake to run the story.

Mr. Schechter, take your medication and those bad people will stop chasing you.

UPDATE: In case anyone's scratching their head, the symbol "*" in my headline represents the letter "i."

UPDATE: Ah! Mr. Schechter vindicated? I just received my first Bush-Cheney campaign press release:

Just minutes ago, we announced the release of the campaign's newest
television advertisement, "Windsurfing." The ad highlights John Kerry's
tendency to go whichever way the wind blows on the most important issues
facing our nation, including the War on Terror, education reform and
health care.

INDC Quick Review: Tying John Kerry's tendency to unscrupulously shift positions to his effete windsurfing habit and setting it to classical music constitutes nakedly patronizing political theatre that is simply wrong, all wrong.

I would've put him on the bike:

Those diabolical Republicans will never take me alive! GET OUT OF MY HEAD WITH YOUR DASTARDLY MIND-CONTROL RAYS, KARL ROVE!

UPDATE: Michele tipped me to the article, and she has some thoughts that are predictably worth reading.

UPDATE: To borrow a term from Ace, Jeff Goldstein slices like an f'in hammer!

—“selected”? Selected by whom? Cheney? Rove? Nixon’s Ghost? Oliver Stone?—

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Way to piss off a deity, Danny.

Light posting today.

A couple of questions for the day:

1. Who is the most fair and accurate national TV news anchor? (this includes cable, but not local)

2. Print reporter?

Discuss amongst yourselves ...

UPDATE: At the end of the day, I'll give you the correct answers.

UPDATE: If you pick Brit Hume, please pick an alternate as well.

CBS Producer on Thin Ice After Guard Story

I don't think anyone believes that this woman can hold on to her job after essentially destroying CBS News.

"She definitely was someone who was motivated by what she cared about and definitely went into journalism to make a difference," Carlson said. "She's not the sort of person who went into journalism to report the news and offer an array of commentary."

Ah, I love it when activist journalists peddle forgeries and shoot tips to the opposition party in order to help swing a Presidential election. This woman should never be allowed to work at a "neutral" journalism outlet ever again. Period.

Congratulations Mapes: you've certainly made "a difference."

UPDATE: The ice just got thinner:

CBS News said yesterday that the producer of its flawed report about President Bush's National Guard service violated network policy by putting a source in touch with a top aide to Senator John Kerry.

"It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda," the network said in a statement.

UPDATE: And thinner.

Karl Rove takes credit for Rathergate:

"I just can't contain myself any longer!" crowed Rove during a routine White House press briefing. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel. I am un-f***ing stoppable!"

In what's otherwise a pretty good article about blogging and Rathergate, the Christian Science Monitor makes the following goof:

Since the CBS furor, the blogging community has been showered with accolades in opinion pages and editorials. Still, it's premature to start awarding Pulitzer prizes to the laptop set. Professional journalists have been the ones consulting experts and following up promising leads.

(Emphasis mine)

This is an inaccurate statement, contradicted a few graphs later:

By noon, Bill Ardolino of the INDC Journal blog had seen the Power Line stories and interviewed a typeface expert. The expert's doubts about the memos appeared that day on Mr. Ardolino's blog.

I can also confirm that several other bloggers and myself have been spending time tracking down various other leads related to this story. Not all of these efforts result in publication because they often hit a dead-end.

Other than this inconsistency, it's a good article. Also noteworthy:

"We can't be too quick to equate the bona fides and journalistic chops of a blogger with that of any mainstream media organization," says Christopher Klein, a former executive vice president of CBS News. "The bloggers do not have any system of checks and balances. My issue is simply when we start elevating these journals of opinion to the level of newspapers of record, so to speak."

Despite the given first name, is this actually Jonathan Klein, utterer of the infamous "pajamas" comment? I'd be careful not to hold anyone up to a standard of the "newpapers of record," if I were Mr. Klein.

UPDATE: ACK!! Mentioned in the same sentence as Michael Moore and Kitty Kelly!

From muckraking author Kitty Kelley, whose new book on the Bush family was published this week, to director Michael Moore and his anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11," to blogs such as Powerline.com and indcjournal.com, who challenged the authenticity of documents that CBS News said proved Bush had shirked his National Guard duty 32 years ago ...

I need a shower.

UPDATE: EDITORIAL: New century finds a new journalism

I spoke to Lt. Robert Waggoner about whether they plan to pursue the criminal angle of the forgery scandal.

INDC: "Are you currently investigating the incident centering around forged documents that originated in Abilene?"

Waggoner: "We need an injured party to call us with a willingness to cooperate. We've had several calls from various individuals that feel that they've been injured, but ... you and I know who the injured party in this is, but it's not the general public."

INDC: "So the President of the United States is the injured party, but isn't that a catch-22? I mean, he's probably not going to bother to file charges ..."

Waggoner: "Well, he wouldn't necessarily be the only injured party."

INDC: "You mean that CBS could file charges?"

Waggoner: "If they desire to pursue that angle here, they feel that they were (defrauded), they are welcome to file a complaint. But there are also a lot of state lines that this crossed, and the FBI might be taking a look at this. The FBI might not let me invesitigate, they might want to take it from me."

INDC: "So a credible injured party needs to file a complaint?"

Waggoner: "Somebody needs to come in and file an affidavit, and someone needs to present us with the documents in question. At that time we'll unhitch and we'll pursue it."

Looks like the ball is in CBS's court. Considering that they are likley to get get sued by Burkett, they should certainly want to pursue a criminal angle.

UPDATE: In the comment section, Cody points out that Walter Staudt was mentioned in the memos and would certainly constitute an injured party.

UPDATE: Spelling of Lt. Waggoner's name has been corrected in the body of the interview. My apologies.

Reader Michael Kim catches this line in a Chicago Tribune story about CBS's apology:

In an interview Monday evening, a repentant Rather conceded it had been a mistake to broadcast the documents. But even though he could not vouch for their authenticity, he said he still did not believe that they were fakes.

"Do I think they're forged? No," Rather said. "But it's not good enough to use the documents on the air if we can't vouch for them, and we can't vouch for them."

(Emphasis mine)

Can someone run that by me again?

I'm tired, and it's been a long week-and-a-half of hard work. If you'd like to support independent journalism and drop a dime in my bucket, I'd be most appreciative.

Besides my unquenchable thirst for material gain, what inspired me to feature the donate button? Check out the latest from Andrew Sullivan:

"Two weeks ago on my four-year-old blog, AndrewSullivan.com, I had 100,000 readers in one day alone. After four years of blogging, I haven't lost a cent and have eked out a small salary."

"Small salary?" Michelle Malkin has previously analyzed Sullivan's pledge drives for "gold-plated bandwith:"

By comparison, Sullivan raised somewhere around $120,000 from his readers last summer. A previous pledge drive raised $79,020.

I have absolutely nothing against Andrew Sullivan making money, but I think that it's a bit disingenuous to make the pitch that it's needed to cover "bandwith" expense, and then mischaracterize a gross of $200,000 as "a small salary" that's somehow representative of blogging. But more importantly, who knew that so many people were willing to pay for a blog?

So, in the spirit of capitalism and full disclosure: last time I looked at my PayPal account, I'd netted about $450 from doing my small part to help hand you Dan Rather's ass on a silver platter and expose the journalistic incompetence and deception of both CBS News and the Boston Globe. And if you'd like to edge me closer to the figure from Sullivan's summer pledge drive, that'd be just fine.

Thanks!

UPDATE: Heartened by a few initial donations, I've decided to leave this post up until we match or beat Andy's $200,000! Actually, why not just shoot for a cool $ million?

Some great analysis of Rathergate thus far. Comes complete with a handy DNC-CBS timeline.

(Via IP)

UPDATE: Jeff from Beautiful Atrocities tries to hunt down Lucy Ramirez, Bill Burkett's alleged source. I'm pretty sure that he may have just inadvertently assaulted some poor innocent Mexican woman, but as Dan Rather taught us, "journalists make mistakes."

I have no idea; you be the judge.

Anyone know any forensic photography analysts?

(Via ISU)

UPDATE: Comments say, "The earlobes! Check the earlobes!"

UPDATE: Hoax-Hoax debunked? Or is it? The mind reels.

UPDATE: Hoax-Hoax debunked!

From today's New York Sun:

Bill Burkett, the man identified yesterday by CBS as the source of the controversial documents used in its September 8 "60 Minutes II" report questioning President Bush's Air National Guard service, plans to sue the network, according to Mr. Burkett's former lawyer, David Van Os.

The CBS statement said: "Burkett ... admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

Mr. Rather attached a statement to the CBS News release, saying, "I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers."

Mr. Van Os, the lawyer, said in a telephone interview with The New York Sun that his former client had "several meetings with lawyers to determine the best course of action." He said the planned lawsuit would center on what he termed "defamation of character and libel."

A war between CBS and their source certainly adds a new dimension to the picture. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Goldstein:

"[T]hat giant, stunned CBS eyeball (the one that crazed loon Bill Burkett hopes to own one day, at which point he’ll no doubt affix it to the roof of his house and instruct it to keep a lookout for black helicopters and limber government spies—or maybe for a squadron of flesh eating nano-marauders from the planet How in the Hell Could Anybody Ever Take This Crazy Fucker Seriously?"

(Perfect sentiment, but c'mon Steve - pixelation on the inserted text?)

Via the Llamabutchers, who have a really great site that I check at least three times a day.*

* Even though about one-in-three posts is devoted to mercilessly lampooning me.

Via Overtaken by Events, Jim Pinkerton's new column:

So the "de-massification" of the media has been ongoing-and will keep going. In the '90s, Internet-based news-most notably the Drudge Report, which burst on the scene in 1998 by breaking the Monica Lewinsky story-proved that the "new media" could blow past older media. And now we have even newer media: the bloggers, the folks at home in their pajamas who collectively broke the "Rathergate" story.

The two key concepts in this never-ending techno-saga are the increasing ubiquity of Internet-based technology and the decreasing barriers to entry into a public forum. That is, anybody with a computer and a modem can be a blogger, and any blogger can be a media-player.
...
So today, Rathergate is just so much foam on the surface. The deep current of our time is that the old networks have lost their power to a bunch of scruffy no-names. Techno-change is shaping history yet again.

It's certainly an unavoidable new paradigm. Pinkerton also makes the case that we've heard the death knell of network news, a point that he also ferociously argued with Neil Gabler on Fox News Watch. To be honest, I find it kind of funny that the concept is even being contested, seeing as the last time I really sat down and watched any of the big three anchors was probably when I saw them interviewed on Larry King or Bill O'Reilly.

Who is Lucy Ramirez?

In earlier conversations with USA TODAY, Burkett had identified the source of the documents as George Conn, a former Texas National Guard colleague who works for the U.S. Army in Europe. Burkett now says he made up the story about Conn's involvement to divert attention from himself and the woman he now says provided him with the documents. He told USA TODAY that he also lied to CBS.

Burkett now maintains that the source of the papers was Lucy Ramirez, who he says phoned him from Houston in March to offer the documents. USA TODAY has been unable to locate Ramirez.
...
"I didn't forge anything," Burkett said. "I didn't fake any documents. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. And that has been the limitation of my role. I may have been a patsy."

Let's revisit an excerpt from Burkett's op-ed titled "Bush lies about his service, smears Kerry's and seeks exoneration for the Abu Ghraib brass" in the publication "Online Journal:"

George W. Bush, you may be the president [sic]. But I know that you lied.

I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not fulfill your oath, taken when you were commissioned to "obey the orders of the officers appointed over you".

(Emphasis mine)

I suppose "reassembled" could mean that Burkett merely gathered files from different sources, but many people are going to have a hard time believing that a man who compared Bush to a Nazi, peddled a refuted story that he witnessed destruction of Bush's records, urged Democrats to fight back hard and dirty, and revealed on an activist message board that he'd "risked everything" to take down the President, had nothing to do with forging these memos.

From INDC's research into Texas laws covering forgery and fraud, it's pretty evident that Mr. Burkett is trying to slide out from under prosecution with a claim of ignorance, a tactic that actually may work as a defense from these statutes. Then again, I'm not sure that his claim holds water if the authorities can't identify and locate the woman that he implicates, Ms. Ramirez.

Burkett's own doubts about the authenticity of the memos and his inability to supply evidence to show that Ramirez exists also raise questions about his credibility.

Burkett's emotions varied widely in the interviews. One session ended when Burkett suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair. Earlier, he said he was coming forward now to explain what he had done and why to try to salvage his reputation. In the past week, Burkett was named by many news reports as the probable source of the documents.

"It's time," Burkett said. "I'm tired of me being the bad guy. I'm tired of losing everything we've got," a reference to his financial and health struggles since he left the Guard. Turning to his wife, Nicki, he said: "We've lost it all, baby. We've lost everything."

There's your unimpeachable source.

And a detour for some regional color: here in Washington, DC, there are storied locations that served as dead drops for the legendary spies, handlers and surveillers that played cat and mouse during the Cold War; the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge comes to mind. Rathergate builds a new tradition of Texas intrigue with this revelation:

Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted.

"I didn't even ask any questions," Burkett said. "Should I have? Yes. Maybe I was duped. I never really even considered that."

The chicken show! Newman! Go read the rest of the interview and you'll get more Machiavellian tidbits about burning envelopes, "cold storage" and other details that sound like "damn sci-fi movie[s]."

I've also received word of an upcoming interview with David Van Os, the man that's been previously named as Burkett's lawyer and associate. In the interview, Van Os claims that Burkett is huddling with libel lawyers and considering a possible case against CBS.

It's pretty obvious that the denouement of this scandal is going to be messy and confusing, and that it's up to the public, bloggers and certain members of the MSM to keep our eye on the balls: why was CBS News collaborating (false) stories and information with a well-coordinated DNC campaign designed to attack President Bush's National Guard Record? Why did CBS News egregiously compromise its own journalistic ethics and standards of conduct?

The responsible parties must be held accountable for both the fraud and the breach of conduct. As a start, Heyward, Rather and Mapes must go.

UPDATE: My legal guy, "winemaker," tells us in the comments:

If it's 2 or more government documents, burden shifts to defendant - the document package is almost like "contraband."

The very fact that they are in your hands (or fax machine) extablishes intent. Sorta like being in bed with a minor...your good faith belief that, "I thought she was 18," is irrelevant. Strict liability crime.

UPDATE: Allah performs a more exacting, profane dissection:

Also hilarious is Terry McAuliffe having to eat shit on the forgeries today to the point where he actually allowed these words to escape his lips: "Now that we know what's not true, let's focus on the facts." Perhaps most hilarious of all, DU wackbags are so distraught at the fall of the house of Rather that they're talking about leaving the country because of it. Who cares if he suppressed some evidence -- it was all in "good faith", right? I tell you, when they make the movie of this story, the whole soundtrack is going to be calliope.

UPDATE: The Commissar:

Phone records, comrades. Phone records. Now.

UPDATE: Best headline ever?

Burkett’s story fractures – source undergoes sex change

I realize that the text is not wrapping in some of the comment boxes, and people need to scroll back and forth to read it. And yes, it's very annoying.

Working on it.

UPDATE: Using his patented "Send a TRIPLE Trackback to an Unrelated Maintenance Post That No One Else Would Possibly Link To in Order to Siphon Traffic" technique (STTUMPTNOEWPLTOSTT), Marble draws my attention to this shocking revelation:

However, within hours of the photos release, various web logs, or "Internet Pajama Parties" scrutinized the picture, questioning it as a possible forgery.

"It's obviously a fake", declared Burke Billet, a member of the website Free Underground. Burke and other 'Frunders' as they are known examined the photo looking for tell tale signs of possible manipulation.

"It was obvious that this was a fraud. The TANG jar looks plastic, and plastic hadn't even been invented back then."

First Max Cleland, now Joe Lockhart? Why are members of the Kerry team even admitting that they spoke with Burkett in the recent past?

Lockhart said Mapes asked him the weekend before the story broke to call Burkett. "She basically said there's a guy who is being helpful on the story who wants to talk to you," Lockhart said, adding that it was common knowledge that CBS was working on a story raising questions about Bush's Guard service. Mapes told him there were some records "that might move the story forward. She didn't tell me what they said."

Do they fear a criminal investigation that would reveal phone records or compel testimony from Mapes?

Why?

UPDATE: And now that I think about it, why is Mapes vetting an anti-Bush source with the Kerry campaign? Why would she be setting up phone meetings?

Isn't this confessed collusion between a political campaign and a media outlet?

UPDATE: A commentor answers:

I can think of no good reason for a CBS producer to be talking to a Kerry campaign advisor other than coordination of their efforts to destroy Bush.

The media has been awful careful to keep partisan motivations out of this story, but I can think of no other possible reason for such unusual coordination. Whatever the scenario, Mapes is toast. So is the credibility of CBS News, probably for good unless they gut the organization.

UPDATE: USA Today:

Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn't recall the producer's name.

Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would help arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign.

The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This "poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization," said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

(Emphasis mine)

Uh, I'll say it does, and I'll also say that it cuts both ways. So does the White House:

The White House said CBS' contact with Lockhart was inappropriate. "The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Sen. Kerry's campaign to attack the President is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director.

This is a rare White House statement that's totally bereft of spin.

UPDATE: This tidbit was erased by a server move, so I'm reposting a comment from reader Kitt:

"While listening to Drudge on his Sunday night radio program ... while debating with a caller, I heard Drudge say that he had gotten the word from the Dems via his 'inside contacts' to "watch out, they're coming, they're coming!".....

I recall Drudge's original scoop about "Operation Fortunate Son" that was posted well before the memo angle broke on 60 Minutes. Now, with admitted contact between Burkett and two Kerry campaign officials, it seems pretty evident that the Dems were coordinating their operation with the official release of these documents.

That was perhaps the most satisfying few minutes of television that I have ever experienced; the interview clips with Burkett were pure comedic gold.

I eagerly look forward to the extended director's cut.

Let's rewind:

9/14
Dan Rather To Bush: "Answer The Questions."

9/20
Dan Rather to Everyone: "I'm sorry."

Ahhhhh ... that's the stuff.

UPDATE: It still feels so sweet.

UPDATE: So very, very sweet.

UPDATE: On a pine-scented Christmas morning in 1985, I ripped into a big box under the tree and found a Nintendo gaming system, perhaps the most wondrous gift in the world. And after a huge breakfast of homemade pancakes and orange juice, I went out into the yard and played football in the foot-deep snow for hours, then came back inside and drank hot cocoa while I excitedly played Super Mario Brothers and the Legend of Zelda. Some time later, warm from the cocoa and suffused with the joy of the day, I slowly drifted off to sleep, and at the very moment before my eyes closed, curled up in a soft down blanket, I felt ... pure perfection.

This is kind of like that. Dan Rather, "all your credibility belongs to us."

UPDATE: Jennings? Jennings? Anybody up for Jennings? Who's with me?

UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, "not adequate." Let me savor the moment.

UPDATE: Ok, back to business. Who is the "unimpeachable source," Dan?

UPDATE: Oh, the sweetness is back!

FALLOUT: SENIOR BUSH OFFICIALS WANT CBSNEWS MODERATOR OFF DEBATE

UPDATE: Cadethappy creates a photoshop that refocuses my sense of purpose:

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... tie a noose, put it around their necks, throw it over a tree branch, and stand on a stool ...

... and then proceeds to pick its jaw up off the floor and scurry in to kick the damn thing out from under them.

As I mentioned last week, this DNC strategy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Ratherbiased.com's hosting company had a fire in the building and the site is down. They are trying to resolve the issue ASAP.

UPDATE: Ratherbiased is now temporarily posting at Mudville Gazette.

Via Drudge:

EXCLUSIVE // Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

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On Friday I spoke with Robert Kepple, the Executive Director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, and we discussed the relevant statutes and methods of investigation that would apply to a forgery case that took place in the state of Texas.

According to Mr. Kepple, "[I]n the right factual circumstances, there are a a couple of Texas statutes that apply:"

Section 37.10 of the Penal Code
TAMPERING WITH GOVERNMENTAL RECORD

(a) A person commits an offense if he:
~ ~ (1) knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of, a governmental record;
~ ~ (2) makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record;
... [etc.]

Addressing the question of whether the memos from Killian's "personal file" constitute "a governmental record," Mr. Kepple said that records "created and kept in the normal course of doing business should qualify. A prosecutor can make a pretty good argument that that's a government record."

Next, we have ...

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I just spoke to a reporter that works at a daily in a big market, and the general consensus among his fellow reporters, editors and colleagues at other papers is:

"None of us would ever take a hit for a Burkett or a Van Os (Because of their partisan incredibility and low stature). I was talking to my editor, who used to work for (major dailies) ... and he said that there's got to be somebody larger that has a name and a title. There's too much heat. There's got to be a method to Dan Rather's madness."

Who might be the credible connection between CBS and Burkett? I have little doubt that Burkett faxed the documents, but it also seems likely that someone else vouched for their veracity.

A letter to the American Spectator from David Van Os, Burkett's lawyer, makes it look like my predictions were correct: "Fake but True" and "Burkett may have passed the docs but he didn't create them," will be the CYA themes of the upcoming interview.

On the documents:

Based upon my personal knowledge of Bill Burkett's character from knowing him and knowing of his reputation among his peers, I will state unequivocally that Bill Burkett did not falsify or create the "CBS documents." I do not assume that anyone falsified or created those documents until more is known, but if anyone did, it was not Bill Burkett. I will stake my reputation and good name on this certainty. Further from my knowledge of Bill Burkett's character and integrity, I will state unequivocally that if, hypothetically speaking, Bill Burkett handled documents that were recent creations rather than true copies of originals, he would have done so only because he had reason to believe they were true copies rather than recent creations.

The "real" story:

The entire focus on Bill Burkett is being foolishly used to deflect attention away from other questions that are more relevant for the American citizenry at large. Colonel Killian's secretary, Ms. Knox, has publicly stated that although she did not type the "CBS documents", they may be attempted re-creations of documents that may have existed, and the contents of the documents do reflect what was actually going on with George Bush and the Texas Air National Guard.

I think that we may need to revisit the chewbacca defense as a prep tool for this one. It's also pretty amusing how Mr. Van Os can't help himself from going off the rails with some BDS* in the last paragraph of his letter:

Mr. Bush should trust the people and give them a chance to handle the truth. That might show that he has more appreciation for self-governing democracy than his actions have generally shown.

Look for much more of the same from Burkett in the 60 Minutes segment, brought to you courtesy of a fawning interview by Dan Rather.

* Bush Derangement Syndrome

Reports of the recent National Intelligence Estimate highlighted the very real possibility of an Iraqi civil war we fail in our efforts.

In light of its content, I'd like you to read this recent letter from a Marine serving in Iraq:

It is not my place, nor am I allowed by the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, to tell you how to vote. But I can explain to you the truth about what is going on around you. We know, and have known from the beginning, that the ultimate success or failure of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the future of those countries, rests solely on the shoulders of the Iraqi and Afghani people. If someone complains that we should not have gone to war with Saddam Hussein, that our intelligence was bad, that President Bush's motives were impure, then take the appropriate action. Exercise your right to vote for Senator Kerry, but please stop complaining about something that happened over a year ago. The decision to deploy our military in Iraq and Afghanistan is in the past, and while I believe that it is important to the democratic process for our nation to analyze the decisions of our leadership in order to avoid repeating mistakes, it is far more important to focus on the future. The question of which candidate will "get us out of Iraq sooner" should not be a consideration in your mind. YOU SHOULD NOT WANT US OUT OF IRAQ OR AFGHANISTAN SOONER. There is only one coherent exit strategy that will make our time here worthwhile and validate the sacrifice of so many of our countrymen. There is only one strategy that has a chance of promoting peace and stabilizing the Middle East. It is the exit strategy of both candidates, though voiced with varying volumes and differing degrees of clarity. I will speak of Iraq because that is where I am, though I feel the underlying principle applies to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
...
If we leave before these things are done, then Iraq will fall into anarchy and possibly plunge the Middle East into another war. The ability of the United States to conduct foreign policy will be severely, and perhaps permanently, degraded. Terrorism will increase, both in America and around the world, as America will have demonstrated that it is not interested in building and helping, only destroying. If we run or exit early, we prove to our enemies that terror is more powerful and potent than freedom. Many nations, like Spain, have already affirmed this in the minds of the terrorists. Our failure, and its consequences, will be squarely on our shoulders as a nation. It will be our fault. If we stay the course and Iraq or Afghanistan falls into civil war on its own, then our hands are clean. As a citizen of the United States and a U.S. Marine, I will be able to sleep at night with nothing on my conscience, for I know that I, and my country, have done as much as we could for these people. If we leave early, I will not be able to live with myself, and neither should you. The blood will be on our hands, the failure on our watch.

The bottom line is this: Republican or Democrat, approve or disapprove of the decision to go to war, you need to support our efforts here.

Read the whole thing at Blackfive.

In today's NYT:

After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air.

Ratherbiased has the relevant commentary.

Why is running a personal web site so much fun? Because you get helpful feedback like this:

Take no offense, as I like your commentary, but you have a Bill O'Reilly streak in you in two ways. One, you knock off this middle-of-the-road non-partisan sanctimony now and then, and two, you put yourself in your stories too often. So often you post about yourself, your relation to other bloggers, or how you're not getting the resepct your deserve. All a part of your self-involved link whoring I suppose. But I always hate it when Bill O'Reilly talks about "Bill O'Reilly."

It just seems to make what is otherwise solid investigative blogging into prom-queen drama. Just my $0.02...

Other than that, keep up the good work!

chris

Thanks Chris! No offense taken, don't be ridiculous.

I think that I may need Michele's help on this:

Quarterly Notice About Owing You Something

If anyone else wants help me out with some constructive criticism that will help me to better serve your needs, by all means, leave a comment.

Then perhaps you should look up the contact information for your local affiliate and call, write or e-mail them.

Polite. Short. Factual. Non-partisan.

Will Dan Rather lean into the pitch and take one for the team, as rumored?

And would such a largely symbolic act be enough to salvage CBS's credibility? I don't think so, and neither does Ernest Miller.

PS - I also doubt that Dan Rather is going to resign, especially because of his upcoming interview with Burkett, so assign your own value to that rumor.

The statement was still being hammered out last night after Rather went to Texas to tape an interview with Bill Burkett, the retired Guard official widely believed to have helped provide "60 Minutes" with the memos. Burkett, who has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks," would not comment in an e-mail to The Washington Post on whether he had been CBS's confidential source.

I shudder to think of how they'll spin this interview ... fake but true? Burkett just passed along anonymously received documents but did not create them? The proper course of action is to out the source of false information and be done with it, not give him a free pass to take a swipe at Bush in front of a national television audience.

Over at the American Thinker we read this:

Unless someone has hacked the Security and Exchange Commission’s website, it would appear that Viacom’s Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone chose to sell almost $12 million worth of stock in the midst of the Rathergate scandal roiling its wholly-owned subsidiary, CBS. A copy of the SEC’s Form 4 “Statement of Changes in Beneficial Ownership” posted on their website indicates that the billionaire exercised 341,500 options, and sold the stock on the same day, September 14, 2004.

But an INDC reader tells me:

What they are seeing is a paper transaction of a stock option being
exercised, which is the paper sale of some shares at $35
to cover the lower cost ($15) of the option shares. There was no actual
sale of shares, no cash gain, and Redstone will not have to pay taxes as
a result of exercising his stock option, which is a common practice in
corporate America. The reason for the SEC filing is that he is on the
Board of Directors of Viacom.

To be honest, I received the lowest grade of my college career in Finance, and the subject matter tends to make me scratch my head, twitch and shift uncomfortably in my seat. Is my reader right? Is this a blogospheric rumor run amok?

UPDATE: Seems like everyone else performed poorly in Intro to Finance as well ... "Bueller? Bueller?"

UPDATE: Reader Mark Wilson comments:

Your reader is wrong. The options were exercised and the stock received upon exercise was sold. However, it is not surprising for a major shareholder to periodically sell shares for a variety of reasons. Sumner Redstone sold less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the shares of Viacom he directly or indirectly controls.

I've been meaning to comment on this picture that many right-wing bloggers have been throwing around as proof of some innate cruelty of "the inherently violent left-wing beast." At the risk of alienating fellow bloggers and many readers, I think its use in a broad extrapolation that paints liberals and/or people that support the Kerry/Edwards campaign as evil child-haters is a pretty laughable attempt at propaganda, and I was a little surprised that so many people ran with that particular ball. A few things, assuming that it's not a hoax -

1. I'm not criticizing everyone that wrote about it
2. The guy who ripped the sign is indeed an evil man
3. The guy who used his small child as a prop is an idiot or a jerk
4. Yes, there is a common breed of liberal that ironically acts out with intolerance and hatred while preaching peace and love (I've met so very many), but ...

I'm sure that you didn't appreciate it when liberal pundits made sweeping generalizations about all conservatives or Republicans based on that incident where a young Republican kicked a woman, did you? Such characterizations might be unfair, don't you think?

Get a grip, and I'm with David on this one.

UPDATE: As a reminder, below the fold is a picture that I took during my coverage of the DC Pro-Choice march earlier this year:

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Fox News ambushes Dan Rather. They are having way too much fun with this ...

The reporter, from the local Fox affiliate, asked Rather if he felt he was duped. Rather shot back, "You work at Fox. Do you feel duped?"

Glass houses, Dan, glass houses.

UPDATE: Video of Dan and the Fox anchor!

UPDATE: Less funny: The Columbia Journalism Review falls down on the job.

CNN's Reliable Sources talks about blogs and the concepts of open-source journalism and a self-correcting marketplace of ideas:

SESNO: We've democratized the world -- the news business, and let every news organization beware, because anybody who has access to any information can be their own investigative reporter, and they're going to hold you the news organization to account in at least the same sort of way, with the same pressure as the news organization is trying to hold others to account.

KURTZ: But are they always going to do it in a fair way?

SESNO: They're not always going to do it in a fair way, they're not always going to be right, it's not always going to be orderly, but the pressure is always going to be there.

OVERHOLSER: And it will sort itself out. And it's great. The democratization is exactly what we needed.

KURTZ: This is a healthy development to you.

OVERHOLSER: It is. And a lot of it is messy. I don't mean we should always say, oh, the blog, I mean, with all due respect. Heaven knows, they're doing plenty of things.

SULLIVAN: The point is not an individual blog, because an individual blog can get stuff wrong. The point is the system, which is self-correcting. The collective mind is a corrective one. And this is another example of CBS' arrogance. Jonathan Klein, the former producer of "60 Minutes," says bloggers don't have any checks and balances, they're just a bunch of guys in pajamas. Well, it doesn't matter what you're wearing if you get it right.

SESNO: News organizations aren't used to having the whole wide world peering over their shoulders. They're not used to having their methods and their sources questioned, challenged and pushed. And they're going to have to get used to that. They're going to be -- going to have to be much more transparency and accountability to the public.

Once again, I believe that blogs primarily make a necessary companion to the MSM, rather than representing some sort of replacement.

UPDATE: John Hawkins makes some great points:

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Goldstein's site went down last night because of problems with his host, so go visit Protein Wisdom and rehabilitate his traffic.

Yes, there are more important things in the world than MemoGate, as indicated by the fact that Time Magazine just e-mailed me a bunch of early releases:

* TIME: Joe Klein – WH Press Sec Scott McClellan ‘Is Starting To Sound Like Baghdad Bob’

* TIME: Insurgents Tied to al-Zarqawi Conducting Patrols on One of Baghdad’s Major Streets – Within Mortar Range of U.S. Embassy / As many as 100,000 Insurgents In Iraq

* TIME Exclusive: U.S. Has Initiated Talks with Syria That Could Lead to Joint U.S. – Syrian Patrols of Syrian/Iraq Border – Talks Aimed at Creating ‘Military-to-Military’ relationship

There you go Time, I gave you your links. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Time magazine (and many others) is trying to tell all of us that other things are going on in the world. To this legitimate sentiment (also expressed to me personally by some commentors and e-mailers) I have this response:

A blogger is more analogous to a single reporter than he or she is to a news organization. Please do not rely on me for all of your information needs.

There are all kinds of important things that deserve attention, but I don't have time to cover all of them as I choose to focus on Rathergate. For example, you don't see Michael Dobbs from the Washington Post writing about Iraq right now, do you? I'll try to work in more diverse coverage soon, but seeing as I'm pressed for "Time," here's all I can muster for some quick and dirty commentary on those articles:

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Bush knew! Or more accurately, it's sort of also the White House's fault ...

White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.

Half an hour later, Roberts called "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes with word that Bartlett was not challenging the authenticity of the documents. Mapes told her bosses, who were so relieved that they cut from Rather's story an interview with a handwriting expert who had examined the memos.

At that point, said "60 Minutes" executive Josh Howard, "we completely abandoned the process of authenticating the documents. Obviously, looking back on it, that was a mistake. We stopped questioning ourselves. I suppose you could say we let our guard down."

(Emphasis mine)

So Dan Bartlett didn't challenge the memos and CBS then assumed that they were real documents. As Bartlett says:

Later, Bartlett would explain why he did not challenge the documents with a question: "How am I supposed to verify something that came from a dead man in three hours?"

Exactly. CBS had the memos since September 3rd. The blogosphere debunked them definitively within about two or three days. How was the White House supposed to make such a determination in three hours, the day of the broadcast?

And watch as CBS executive John Howard still tries to get away with this line:

As the days begin to blur for Josh Howard, he embraces the same logic: "So much of this debate has focused on the documents, and no one has really challenged the story. It's been frustrating to us to see all this reduced to a debate over little 'th's."

I have two responses to this:

1. What's left to hold up the story? Killian's wife and son deny that the sentiment in the memos is accurate, as does one of the men actually mentioned in the documents and several other contemporaries in the TxANG. All CBS really has left is the testimony of Democratic operative Ben Barnes (which has been challenged by his daughter) and the recollection of a pool secretary that thinks that Bush was "selected, not elected." Whether their charges are true or not, this flimsy testimony is certainly not enough to prop up a story on 60 Minutes.

2. It's humorously ironic that Howard's logic is also prominently featured in a recent issue of Pravda.

And as always, Allah pieces together a coherent timeline.

UPDATE: INDC commentor "The Drill SGT" gives the WaPo some credit for the print coverage:

assuming you are gonna speak on todays WaPo Page 1: The WaPo story in print is actually more impressive than in the e-version.

It starts as a "below the fold" page 1 story and then goes to a 2 FULL page spread later in the first section. For those who no longer read the WaPo or other MSM, section 1 is 90 percent ads. This article is 2 FULL Pages, only part of 1 of which is in the e-version. The rest are pictures of the key players on the text page and another FULL page that does a side-by-side document comparison that points to all of the problems between Real 70's Killian memos and these. The sort of Jury exhibit that I'm sure Beldar has built and used many a time. I think the article is a masterpiece. Pulitzer grade.

Do make sure that you read the rest of the article and some of the WaPo's other coverage, as I merely cherry-picked my focus from one four-page piece.

Here's something for the the crack reporters and amateur typeface analysts at CBS, the Boston Globe and the Daily Kos.

"Meep! Meep!"

Audio of Bush's statement.

UPDATE: Did the DNC have the memos before CBS? It occurs to me that all of the reporting that buttresses Allah's timeline would have to be accurate ...

Who Tends the Fires has a really, really long, great post that's filled with many interesting thoughts on this whole forgery scandal, but one thing really stands out to me after my experience with the Boston Globe:

So.... take the congratulatory "Bloggers get the credit!" and "Blogdom strikes it big!" major media stories and enjoy the hell out of them while the praise and the plaudits are rolling in. The plaudits are well deserved, they were damned well earned, and they're long, long, looonnnnggg over due for a lot of us. Enjoy them, and clip out the articles and laminate and frame them on the wall for posterity - especially if you belong to Powerline or LGF or Free Republic or INDC, or if you're Allah or Ace or the Commissar. Enjoy the cheap "Pajama Pundit" shots too - they wouldn't be fired off if the shots hadn't hit home with stinging effect. Ya'll did yeoman's work here and there, and the plaudits are sweet and well deserved.

But always remember thou art mortal, milord.

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You may remember this gentleman from some of my previous coverage. He's employing a crude device that moonbatologists refer to as an "Indy Prop."

You want a break from my CBS coverage? Go check a site that's devoted to wading through the cesspools of Indy Media:

Indy Media Watch

Go forth and enjoy(?) the missionary work amongst that colony of moral and intellectual lepers; you'll be back to INDC after only a small dose. And you'll be begging to read posts containing excerpts from Viacom's Annual Report that are interspersed with naked pictures of Dan Rather.

You'll see.

UPDATE: Don't believe me? Listen to the words of the site's author:

Some other wit described me as "the proctologist of the Internet".
I fear I have painted myself into a corner having denied myself the
ability to run screaming from Indy Media like so many normal,
intelligent, rational readers prior to myself...

BONUS: If you click on the post that I reference in the picture's caption, you'll get a taste of some previous CBS chicanery!!

Jonah Goldberg:

The fact is, good reporting isn't liberal or conservative — though it can be either. What good reporting does is expose those who would lie for a "higher truth." Which, ironically, is why so much of the criticism of Rather is not really "partisan" at all — it's good reporting.

Read the rest of it.

Why should I bother rounding up links when Jeff Goldstein's done it for me? Besides, my version wouldn't include this line:

Seriously, my nipples are like diamond drill bits. Called upon to do so they could etch Dubliners onto a glass vase.

Reading Allah is, of course, a requisite.

They out "Buckhead:"

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

And then come the partisan conspiracy theories:

The identity of "Buckhead," a blogger known previously only by his screen name on the site freerepublic.com and lifted to folk hero status in the conservative blogosphere since last week's posting, is likely to fuel speculation among Democrats that the efforts to discredit the CBS memos were engineered by Republicans eager to undermine reports that Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard more than 30 years ago.

GASP? The efforts to discredit the memos were "engineered" by ... Republicans?

OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS, HOW HAVE I BEEN SO NAIVE?

I mean, what kind of shadowy, conspiratorial world do we live in when Republicans could stoop to actually defending their candidate from obvious forgeries?

But of course, then we get to the heart of the matter, namely Dark Master Rove, cackling maniacally from the seat of his blood-drenched throne (crafted from the skulls of slain orphans):

While bloggers and some conservative activists hailed Buckhead as a hero in their longtime efforts to paint the mainstream media as politically biased, some Democrats and even some conservative bloggers have marveled at Buckhead's detailed knowledge of the memos and wondered whether that suggested a White House conspiracy.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe even speculated openly to reporters that the whole thing could have been orchestrated by White House political advisor Karl Rove. The Bush campaign called the allegation "nonsense."

The horror. Two things severely undermine this sort of conspiracy theory:

1. As much of a masterstroke as such an act would be, it's highly unlikely that a Repub would risk the possibility that no one would successfully challenge the story. For one thing, how could they possibly guarantee that CBS would post copies of the documents on their web site?

2. Can anyone sanely imagine a scenario where CBS would merely take the documents and ignore the repeated warnings of many of their experts ... if they received them from a Republican operative?

I'm almost inclined to believe that Karl Rove is that sneaky, but I have an awful hard time buying the idea that Dan Rather would also be complicit in the matter.

(Via Michael Kim)

UPDATE: TallDave reminds me of the trump card that overrules my logic:

"Karl Rove has evil mind-control powers that he uses to make every bad thing in the world happen."

In fact, he just made me write this post. Think about it.

UPDATE: Commentor jd watson brings up a good point about the non-guarantee that CBS would even post the documents:

They couldn't, but IIRC the White House released the copies they got from CBS to all the other news groups.

Touche.

UPDATE: Does Patterico have something to say about the LA Times? Of course he does. On a side note, between you and me? That guy is obsessed, you know? I mean, look at his site, it's all "LA Times this," and "LA Times that." Get a life, buddy. At least I switch back and forth between CBS and the Globe ...

UPDATE: Another comment about Rove:

Obviously Rove has a far better grasp of the incompetence at CBS than either you or I. The man is a super-genius.

Excuse me, my transmitter is beeping.

* CBS messes with another one of their experts. (one of the real ones)

* Charles also tells the PR firm (CRC) that claims credit for blog incitement to take a hike.

Could CBS be that stupid? No ... they couldn't, could they? In an exclusive, Ratherbiased gives us the answer:

Bill Burkett, the disgruntled former National Guardsman widely believed to be the source of the disputed documents shown last week on '60 Minutes,' has been colluding with CBS News for quite some time. RatherBiased.com can report that Burkett has been giving documents to Dan Rather and his colleagues. These documents have been used in CBS's reporting.

Unbelievable. I guess this means that Michael Moore and Kitty Kelly have been feeding them their Iraq coverage, eh?

Ok, let's review the claim of my alleged puppetmasters:

Creative Response Concepts (CRC), the VA-based agency promoting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, used right-wing blogs and news sites to turn a CBS report casting doubt on President George W. Bush's National Guard service into a potential black eye for both the network and the Democrats.

A CRC client, the Cybercast News Service (CNS), was among the first to voice suspicion that documents suggesting Bush had received preferential treatment in the Guard were forgeries.

"After the CBS story aired, [CNS] called typographical experts, got them on the record that these papers were fishy, and posted a story by 3pm Thursday," said CRC SVP Keith Appell. "We were immediately in contact with [Matt] Drudge, who loved the story."

My response: using every bit of self-control possible, I'd like to politely state that this assertion is ludicrous. INDC's coverage was not influenced, motivated or coordinated with any PR firm working with the SwiftVets, and any attempts to claim some special hand in formulating the story is a load of delusional horsecrap. I performed research based on the cogent argumentation found on the Powerline post and my highly skeptical reading of the documents themselves.

Lest anyone buy this ridiculous narrative, there is no "there" there.

And for the record, blogs scooped CNS by hours. I mean, Dr. Bouffard and I had made up silly nicknames for each other by the time they called their first expert ... (ok, maybe that's not's true)

UPDATE: And another thing that strikes me: how absolutely tone deaf does a PR firm have to be in order to trumpet their influence on the situation when they are a firm that is affiliated with the SwiftVets (generally assumed to be a partisan entity). From a public relations standpoint, this is pure incompetence.

UPDATE: Think again Kos, they're not that good. Look at the time stamps, Inspector Gadget.

UPDATE:

Instapundit
Powerline
World Wide Rant
dislogue
LGF
Wizbang
Allah

UPDATE: CRC apologizes and clarifies, and it's good enough for me:

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Speaking Out
Air National Guard Colonel Denies Bush Got Preferential Treatment

Looks like CBS's story just hit the pivotal iceberg.

UPDATE: Likely response from Dan Rather: "She's taking on water, but full speed ahead!"

UPDATE: Alternate likely response from Rather: "BLIGGITYBLAGGITYBOODDDOOOOOO!! DOO!"

Jim Geraghty has some thoughts on how the blogs can "beat Rather:"

Critics of the report must focus on three alternative targets that are more vulnerable to public pressure: the local CBS affiliates, other CBS employees, and other media. Members of those groups right now are in a state similar to Rather and Heyward's — mildly criticizing Rather and Heyward, looking the other way, or shrugging their shoulders. That course of action is less painful than forcing CBS to make the hard choice about Rather and the fake memos. But a steady and intense campaign of criticism — one targeting them for not taking steps to demand a CBS admission that the network deliberately portrayed fake memos — could alter that balance. Inaction could become more painful than action.

I'm starting to think that the affiliates are key, as their markets are much more sensitive to changes in revenue that result from losing the oftentimes ferocious local news ratings battle (which have widely different landscapes than the national picture). But this all causes me to wonder: why is it necessary to use what essentially amounts to economic pressure in a bid for CBS to recognize its own published "News Standards and Practices?" It's sad, really.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Local affiliates feel a pinch:

The general manager of WCIA-TV in Champaign, Ill., Russ Hamilton, said his station has gotten between 100-125 E-mails “strongly criticizing” the [“60 Minutes II] broadcast. He said advertisers, who have traditionally understood that the networks’ news division is something he has no control over, are starting to get upset.

“We have lost a little revenue so far, nothing serious, but if this drags on, I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” he said. Mr. Hamilton declined to place a dollar figure on his lost advertising, but said the viewer’s anger and revenue drop was acceptable “given our dominant position within our market.”

KCTV’s general manager, Kirk Black, said his station, based in Shawnee Mission, Kan., said he has received about 50 e-mails from viewers, all of which “were clearly angry at CBS, and even us, for the broadcast.” He said he had seen “a slight dropoff” in advertising revenue due to the controversy, but nothing we are worried about.” He declined to give a dollar figure on lost advertising, but said his concern was prolonging the controversy, where “we — CBS affiliates have to spend more time and energy — defending the judgment of the news division. My job is hard enough.”

UPDATE: Would you like to look up your local CBS affiliate?

All due credit: thus far, the Washington Post has been doing a very fair, accurate and thorough job on the forgery story. But look at this piece on A5:

Suspected CBS Source Is Well-Regarded Texan

In adjacent Taylor County, which includes the city of Abilene, Burkett is viewed as an intelligent activist or statesman of sorts by Democratic officials -- the crusading voice against what is wrong with the Republican Party in general and with Bush in particular.
...
"I have no idea; I have no individual knowledge about that," said David Haigler, chairman of the Taylor County Democratic Party. "All I know is that I trust Bill Burkett. He's been a citizen soldier who decided to stand up and say what is on his mind, and he's got nothing but grief for it."

Knowing what we already know about Burkett's ideology, personal animus for Bush and tendency to throw around unsubstantiated charges, I'm a bit taken aback by the tone of this article. Have they vetted Burkett's past quotes comparing Bush to Napolean and Adolf Hitler? Do they mention the fact that he has a serious axe to grind against George Bush regarding a chronic illness? Does it mention Burkett's quote that "we" have "reassembled" Bush's records?

And do they interview any sources that have a different opinion of Burkett? I have very little doubt that such sources are abundant, and that some of them are Democrats; I'm basing this statement on some of my personal research.

I'm sure that many locals have a high opinion of Burkett, and that many people agree with his views, but the paucity of dissenting opinion in that article is somewhat odd.

UPDATE: And on the other end of the spectrum, Drudge headlines:

CBS DOCUMENT 'SOURCE' COMPARED BUSH TO HITLER

Which leads to this Houston Chronicle piece:

Texan has a history of attacks on Bush
Possible CBS source has had his credibility questioned before

Keep in mind, the WaPo's piece, the Chronicle's story and Drudge's take are all completely accurate; but why do we have to root around and piece together our news like we're working on a damn jigsaw puzzle?

UPDATE: Here is a pretty thorough round-up on Burkett.

I'm really too tired to take a swipe at the Globe's new editorial, so I'll just let Hugh Hewitt do the heavy lifting:

"UNLESS THE documents used by "60 Minutes" in a broadcast on President Bush's National Guard service were fabricated by a campaign operative, they are part of a story relating to the news judgment at CBS and have little to do with presidential politics."

"[N]ews judgment at CBS?" Didn't the Globe run with these docs as well? Has there been a retraction I missed? And does the Globe allow its editors to live in a different reality, because the CBS/Globe forgeries were used to attack the campaign of George W. Bush.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Ernest Miller presents a comprehensive timeline that tracks CBS's response to the allegations. I suspect that this will be cited in J-School and Public Relations curriculums at some point in the future.

No wonder Mr. Rather thought he had one hell of a scoop. But within minutes of the broadcast, the story began to crumble. To its credit, CBS News posted the documents on its Web site, allowing any and all to take a look. By midnight, the first question appeared, from a reader of the conservative FreeRepublic.com who went by the nom de net "Buckhead." He questioned the type font used in the memos, saying it appeared to be the product of a modern word-processing program, not a 1972 typewriter. "I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old," Buckhead wrote. "This should be pursued aggressively."

And it was. By last Friday, two days after the broadcast, the questions were coming from all directions--often from previously little-known Web sites like powerlineblog.com, littlegreenfootballs.com and indcjournal.com. Checking reference guides and consulting experts, the bloggers were doing the kind of legwork on the documents' authenticity that should have been done by CBS.

Correct. It probably bears mentioning that I did the majority of the work on my lunch break.

Read the whole thing.

Light posting today. Thanks for your patience.

Message to all of you that are new to reading blogs or are members of the mainstream media: Allahpundit has a very important message for you. Seriously.

Sorry, the host seems to be having hiccups. The page will always eventually pop up if you have patience.

As longtime readers should be aware, I've written extensively about the concepts of link-whoring, comment spam and other posting gimmicks that can effectively obtain exposure for an underappreciated blog. It seems that Gordon from Cranky Neocon is taking my advice.

PS: Normally I'd probably just let you visit his site and figure this out on your own, but in light of the recent subject matter ... it's not a real interview.

PSS: And you got it wrong, Gordon; Glenn Reynolds still doesn't take my calls.

The Captain has a pretty revealing catch:

Burkett said on August 25th of this year that he had "reassembled" Bush's TANG file and specifically called out the years 1972 and 1973 - the same years that the Killian forgeries were purportedly written. As Bandit notes in his discovery of this hateful rant, he repeatedly talks about "orders" and being "ordered" to attend specific drills or tasks, which again the forged memos also reflected.

So we have Burkett writing this rant on August 25 -- and within two weeks, the memos are faxed to CBS from a Kinko's 21 miles away from Burkett's home.

Besides just nailing down that Burkett had something to do with it (which looks likely, if not by any means proven), I think that the remainder of the story is going to involve figuring out what other parties were complicit in the forgery. Unfortunately, plausible deniability covers a lot of asses. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: No one seems to have picked on the fact that he says "we:"

"I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did
not fulfill your oath, taken when you were commissioned to "obey the orders
of the officers appointed over you".

"WE."

UPDATE: I removed the Michael Moore reference in this post because I do not want to imply that Micheal Moore had anything to do with this (I don't think that he did). But be sure and read Burkett's bio at the bottom of his editorial, and it may help you understand the nature of his perspective.

Woman wearing 'President Bush You Killed My Son' T-Shirt disrupts First Lady's rally...

I interviewed Ms. Niederer back at the beginning of July. She was angry and in quite a bit of pain, but otherwise pretty reasonable.

Rathergate.com is having legal issues regarding their automated campaign to communicate with CBS shareholders. If you are a lawyer, you might want to give him some advice.

I'll be doing The Pat Campbell Show on Orlando talk radio tomorrow morning at about 7 AM. It's 540 AM on your dial, station WFLA. I'm told that they are 50,000 watts, so the signal probably carries as far as Ft. Myers.

Unfortunately, there is no live internet stream of the show.

UPDATE: Link removed because of legal issues.

Rathergate.com automates contacting CBS Shareholders.

Remember, keep it SHORT, POLITE and NON-PARTISAN.

This is a serious issue about CBS's credibility.

UPDATE: For a helpful illustration of why this isn't a partisan issue, you should all check out this scenario.

Lest any funny business happen, I'd like to publish that INDC has made sure that the Kinko's video tapes for the Abilene branch are pulled and saved from deletion in order to guarantee future scrutiny. Kinko's assures us that they will be saved from the erase button, which is typically pressed every thirty days.

(Thanks to Thad O. for the help)

To actually supeona the tapes we'll need a civil or criminal case or investigation, but that's not hard; initial research efforts reveal the following (thanks to Left Coast Winemaker):

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Michelle Malkin makes me smile with this song of lyrical beauty:

This episode is also a powerful rebuke of the MSM's Wonkette-ization of the blogosphere--which enabled Old Media types to take comfort in gossip blogger Ana Marie Cox's bosom and minimize blogging as a clownish fluffball enterprise. They'll still visit her site for an occasional fix of penis jokes and fabricated rumors, but she'll no longer be in their daily must-reads, where she has been replaced by bloggers of substance who don't need to go slumming to command deserved attention from newsrooms across the country.

Yes, there is a place for silly humor, I'm probably too hard on Ms. Cox and INDC itself engages in tons of ridiculous buffoonery ... parodies, cartoons, etc.

But Wonkette's breakthrough to acclaim isn't an accurate representation of the more serious merits of the blogosphere, and thus far, the MSM has ignored this concept with abandon and at its own peril. No more.

I also can't help myself in pointing out one of Ms. Cox's recent statements during a panel discussion at the 100th Meeting of the American Political Science Association:

"For a Revolution you need to leave the house."

Oh really?

UPDATE: I knew that the sentiment sounded familiar ...

About this:

Rather Concedes Papers Are Suspect

CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."

By Dan's own logic, doesn't this now make him a right-wing operative?

UPDATE: A little Looney Toons satire from Iowahawk:

NEW YORK - Veteran anchorman Dan Rather implicated White House Political Director Karl Rove as "the mastermind behind the so-called Acme Group" after his rocket-powered roller skates exploded during a Wednesday CBS Evening News investigative report.

Rather had donned the controversial Acme skates -- along with an Acme brand Bat-Man suit -- in a complicated sting operation to reveal what he termed a "deep conspiracy between the White House and internet partisans to cover up George Bush's shameful military records."

(Via IP)

I haven't been very kind to Andrew Sullivan in the past few months, but all due credit for this post that succinctly cuts to the heart of the issue with CBS News:

I'm not backing this president for re-election. But all that is completely beside the frigging point. Journalists are supposed to provide accurate evidence for their claims. CBS didn't. And its response to the critics is to stonewall and try and change the subject. The correct response - the one they'd teach you in kindergarten journalism class - is immediately to check the authenticity of the documents as best you can, and if the doubts persist, to apologize immediately and yank the story. Can you imagine what CBS News would do if a government official found to be peddling fake documents refused to acknowledge it? And kept repeating his story nonetheless? They'd be all over it. But, you see, they are above politicians. They are above criticism. And they are stratospheres above bloggers who caught them red-handed.

Considering Sullivan's track record with scalping Lott and Raines, the ferocity of his sentiment almost makes me believe that CBS will soon taste a heaping helping of red hot justice.

Now certainly isn't the time to go wobbly, people. Now is just the time to get really fired up.

Courage.

(Via Vodka Pundit)

UPDATE: Though I did catch this howler in a lower graph:

Which brings us to the real, juicy question: who did this? I don't know. Michael Dobbs' story in today's Washington Post obviously points toward Bill Burkett. Was he sophisticated enough to create fakes? Did anyone help him?

Default settings in Microsoft Word. Photocopier. Faxed from Kinkos. The anemic skeptical intelligence skills of Dan Rather. Using Army terminology instead of language consistent with the Air Force. I'd hardly describe that package as requiring any degree of "sophistication."

UPDATE: And let me generously excerpt Michele (welcome back) here:

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Report: CBS Docs Traced to Kinko's

I guess that if Dan Rather won't play by the rules of his profession and reveal a source that passed him false documents in an attempt to influence a presidential election, then we'll have to reveal it for him.

UPDATE: Someone please get Howard Kurtz a raise. And this time, it's on the Page A01. One funny graph:

"Dan knows that trying to do a story about a Republican president is immediately going to stir up a hornet's nest from the conservatives who have jumped on him since the Nixon days," Bettag said. "He could have been excused for saying 'I don't need this kind of grief.' But he didn't."

I wasn't even alive in the "Nixon days," I think that I was in middle school when he ambushed Bush 41, and truth be told, I haven't paid any attention to Dan Rather in the years since I aquired political consciousness or became addicted to the news. Which all leads me to wonder; how much angrier would I be if I'd had to deal with this guy for 30 years?

More on the Burkett/Abilene connection at Kerry Spot:

JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH ABILENE KINKOS: Bill Burkett has a standing account with the Kinkos in Abilene Texas, and while the lady who answered the phone would not be more specific she did say Burkett was in there last week - she waited on him on last (a week ago) Tuesday....

Boy, we don't have evidence that would convict Bill Burkett in court, but it strikes me that it would certainly be thick enough gruel to merit a story on 60 Minutes.

UPDATE: INDC commentor "Manhattanite" needs to start writing a blog (I'd read):

Bill writes, "how much angrier would I be if I'd had to deal with this guy for 30 years?"

I have had to deal with him for 30 years and honestly up until last week I actually liked him. Not that he wasn't biased--he always has been, frequently ridiculously so--but I've always thought of him as quite a character and very entertaining in his own weird way. And I'm confident enough in the validity of my own political opinions that I can easily accept dissenting views, even every night for decades on the evening news.

Now, though, I'm seriously angry. These amateurishly fake documents and the motivations behind CBS's continued support of them can't be charmed away or dismissed as a wacky anchorman's personal quirk. This is deliberate fraud in an attempt to use the public airwaves to influence a presidential election in a time of war and if CBS thinks it's going to retain even longtime viewers like me they're sorely mistaken.

It took CBS News 50+ years to establish their credibility. It only took Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and their lapdog executive overlords 5 days to utterly destroy it. We viewers aren't nearly as stupid as they seem to think we are. I'll be watching other channels instead from now on.

UPDATE: From the sound of this recording, it seems that the Kinko's in Abilene has been getting deluged with calls. (After initial audio, wait through a long silence for about 20 seconds)

UPDATE: In the midst of all this intrigue, Goldstein's cracking me up. So are the Llamas. So is Beautiful Atrocities, with this list of blogger sleep/blogging-wear. Except, why is Wonkette at the top of this list?

UPDATE: Who is Bill Burkett? Ace has the skinny.

UPDATE: More Ace - this time, he hands the NYT their ass by revealing some pretty shadowy links. Is there any doubt in any reasonable person's mind that if this scenario had played out on the conservative side of the fence, the hounds of the NYT would have cut loose from the front porch with doggie abandon and righteous fury?

Statement by the President of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:

"We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing."

Sounds like a sliver of sanity is fighting and clawing its way into the newsroom.

UPDATE: Maybe not. Once again, that report sounded suspiciously like a classic Chewbacca Defense.

UPDATE: This interview with Killian's secretary is outrageous. It's propaganda ... how can they interview Killian's secretary, but not Killian's wife or son?

This is unbelievable. Dan Rather essentially has a witness unequivocally disparage the authenticity of the memos (yet says that the authenticity is still in question), but then expects us to simply move on and value her other testimony about the spirit of other memos that she says existed. And keep in mind that even her testimony about Killian keeping memos is contradicted by his wife and son, who both swear that he never dictated thoughts or wrote anything down. How would a family member know what his habits were at work? Besides the obvious credibility of spousal intimacy, his son later served with him as a Captain in the TANG.

Now they even state that the CBS forensics experts maintain their story!

I ... I ... I'm speechless. I've held out hope that there is some vague sense of justice left in this society, but this sorely shakes my faith. I'll comment more on this later, but right now I'm simply unable to process where we should go from this point.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, Killian's son is disputing the secretary's version of events on Hannity & Colmes. He said that she was a pool secretary, not Killian's personal assistant, and she "wouldn't have insight into that situation."

"I think that they're in way over their heads."

"That's what I find so despicable about this whole thing, that they would use my deceased father (for political purposes)..."

UPDATE: Pat Caddell is fantastic.

... when it's trumpeted by an MSM/Blogospheric double agent? Michelle Malkin's latest column:

The death cry of snob journalism

She must be stopped! To the internment camps with her!

At KerrySpot:

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.

One question: where is my damn check, Karl? I mean, at least NRO is paying Jim Geraghty ...

UPDATE: Fulfill Dan Rather's paranoid narrative and give the Dancing Monkey peanuts! Of course, only donate if you like to fund "right-wing operatives." (That means you, Mr. Rove)

The speed of this newscycle is giving me whiplash. Since I have other obligations and I'm only faithfully covering certain unique angles, I hope that you're still getting the best round-up over at Allah's place.

Also, Ace authors a meticulously detailed analysis of one of the potential sources that passed off the forgeries on CBS. It's speculation, but it's impressive work, an excellent example of well-synthesized secondary research that's constructed to buttresses an investigative hypothesis.

In short, real journalism, folks.

UPDATE: And lest we lose total perspective, let's check out this brand new poll from the Economist:

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2004

ECONOMIST/YOUGOV POLL: BUSH'S SERVICE RECORD NOT AN ISSUE TO MOST VOTERS
Voters Split on Whether He Told the Truth

New York, NY -- According to the latest Economist/You Gov poll, when asked, "How important to the presidential election is the issue of Mr. Bush's service in the National Guard?," 37% say it is "not very important" and 27% say it is "not at all important". Only 13% felt the issue is "very important" and another 18% say the issue of service is "fairly important". The sample was drawn from a recruited sample and weighted to be representative of the US over-18 population with a margin of error +/- 2%.

When voters are asked whether they believe Mr. Bush told the truth about his service record during Viet Nam, voters are more evenly split: 40% feel he has not told the truth; 37% feel he has. It will be interesting to see whether voter opinion will be influenced by a potential Congressional investigation to determine whether documents used by CBS News pertaining to President Bush's National Guard service record were falsified. The investigation has been called for by Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA), Chairman of the House Policy Committee and Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

When the partisans spin and say, "the forgery isn't the point, it's whether George Bush fulfilled his obligations," it's not just an intellectually dishonest exercise that displays a fundamental disregard for the well-being of our country's fourth estate, it's also dumb spin that accomplishes nothing for John Kerry.

UPDATE: Speaking of dumb partisans, this is something that I did not know about Susan Estrich (or cheese sandwiches, for that matter):

Susan Estrich sounds like Carol Channing; a cheese sandwich sounds like Fred Thompson

... from the Kerry campaign, with the following subject line:

Don't let them hide from reality

My palms started to sweat with excitement over the prospect that even the DNC had turned on Dan Rather, but then I read the message. It was about George Bush and Dick Cheney.

UPDATE: I just received a last e-mail from Dr. Bouffard that I'd like to place at the top of this post as a preface to my analysis:

I have no problem if you wish to publish the e-mail. You have been very fair throughout our relationship. Thank you. Phil B.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'd heard that Dr. Bouffard may have said that he was misrepresented by my collection of quotes that voiced his opinion about the reporting by the Boston Globe. Late yesterday, I got an e-mail from Dr. Bouffard that buttresses this claim. Essentially, he's expressed that he was commenting only based on the negative phone calls and e-mails that he received and on my recitation of the headline of the story, not the body copy, which he has since read and describes as a fair treatment.

To boil it down, the headline was his problem and the only basis for his quotes to me:

"Authenticity backed on Bush documents"

The Globe has issued a retraction of the headline in today's edition.

I also spoke to some representatives of the Globe, and the general sentiment seems to favor a draw in the matter because of Bouffard's new sentiments about the fairness of the body copy and their subsequent retraction about the headline. They also seem to think that Bouffard's latest communication impugns my accuracy or credibility, because he was only commenting on the "headline." I personally find the idea that the headline and the copy are two completely distinct organisms that warrant totally separate, non-contextual analysis to be an argument so semantical that my head is in grave danger of implosion, but this is admittedly a subjective determination.

(Helpful advice to readers: In the future, we must all keep in mind that all headlines are their own separate stories that should be treated as mini-featurettes. These mini-featurettes may or may not have anything to do with the body of the piece.)

I also still personally disagree with the Globe and Dr. Bouffard because I think that the Globe's copy reporting was incomplete and inaccurate (though not dishonest) based on two factors:

Read More »

The NY Sun writes about a USA Today investigation:

The chairman of Boston University’s Department of Journalism, Robert Zelnick, said CBS should at least launch an investigation. CBS said it has no plans to do so.

“USA Today is following the responsible course in reexamining their reporting and it would be nice if CBS did the same,” said Mr. Zelnick. “If [USA Today] backs off the credibility of these documents, CBS will regret their stand. They will have made themselves the story and they will have completely isolated themselves.What will be their defense then?”

Mr. Zelnick, an ABC News correspondent for 21 years until his retirement, said news organizations that make highprofile mistakes can often salvage their reputations by offering a “full and fair accounting” as soon as possible.

He said Mr. Rather “has the whiff of combat in his nostrils” and does not recognize the damage he will be doing to CBS News’s franchise by not engaging “thoughtful critics.”

I'll say. Dan Rather's making himself into a J-School course on inappropriate conduct in journalism. Suggested title:

"What not to do when a source burns you like the tarmac of a Laredo parking lot: Dan Rather 101"

The CNN segment in question wasn't about the memos, it was about how internet skeptics broke the story that the memos were forgeries. If you consider the fact that the left-wing bloggers were still defending the memos with amateur and ludicrous typeface analysis, while some of us had already contacted nationally-renowned forensics experts, then you may understand why the skeptics, no matter what their political ideology, were featured in a story about the investigation over documents that are now surely forgeries. They weren't chosen because they were righties, they were chosen because they were right.

And no, it's not "the charges, stupid," it's the fact that a highly trusted media organization passed off fake documents in order to make those charges. Close your eyes, count to ten, breathe deeply, and try to focus your mind on what your reaction might be if John Kerry was accused of disobeying a direct order while in the military, based on fake documents. Now root around a little deeper into the recesses of your reptilian brain and imagine that these charges were true to one degree or another. Now tell me: how you would feel about what the media organization did with those obviously fake documents? Wouldn't it be important? Can you grasp the implications for the well-being of the press and the function of our society as a whole, and how it could be a separate issue that's more important than John Kerry or George Bush?

(Oliver squints, shakes his head and quietly whispers, "Chimpy McShrubben Bushitler. Halli-halli-halliburton.")

Nevermind, of course you can't.

I've come to the conclusion that your judgment is so infected by partisan madness, that I'm not sure that you should even be allowed to leave the house or make phone calls to other humans, much less publish a blog.

Write about the hurricane, or the Redskins or something. Seriously. You're embarrassing yourself, Kool-Aid Man.

Bets? Will they still do the unthinkable?

(Dean's taking bets as well, though he missed the third option mentioned above)

UPDATE: CBS's Schieffer tries to stop the madness:

CBS News' Bob Schieffer said Tuesday he hopes the network does more reporting to definitively prove the authenticity of memos 60 Minutes II received about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard.

"I think we have to find some way to show our viewers they are not forgeries,'' Schieffer, CBS' chief Washington correspondent and host of the network's "Face the Nation,'' said at a news conference in Sioux City. "I don't know how we're going to do that without violating the confidentiality of sources.''
...
"He is very confident of his sources,'' said Schieffer, who has talked to Rather daily during the flap. "He says he is absolutely convinced these documents are real.''

If Dan's got an unimpeachable source with impressive credentials against Bush, then so be it for us Bush supporters, trot him out. The docs themselves are forgeries.

UPDATE: CBS ANNOUNCEMENT: WHATEVER IT IS, IT AIN'T A RETRACTION

UPDATE: On the web site of CBS News we have ...

Questions About Bush Memos Linger

(CBS/AP) CBS News continued to defend the legitimacy of its recent story about President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard, even as two experts it hired to examine records CBS used told ABC they could not vouch for their veracity.

Meanwhile, a former secretary in the guard said Tuesday she believed the documents in question were fake, although they accurately reflected the thoughts of one of Mr. Bush's commanders.

This is just bizarre.

Tucked in the lower left-hand corner of page two in today's print edition:

For the record

September 15, 2004

Correction: Because of an editing error, the headline on a Page One story Saturday on whether documents released by CBS News about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are genuine ("Authenticity backed on Bush documents") did not accurately reflect the content of the story. The story quoted one analyst saying that the documents could have been produced on typewriters available in the early 1970s, but the analyst did not vouch for the authenticity of the documents. A second analyst quoted in the story said he doubts the documents are authentic.

(Emphasis mine)

Now my question: is that enough?

I don't think so. At the very least, I believe that a column from the ombudsmen is in order.

And, because of an "editing error?" Whoops! Just to remind everyone, lest the Boston Globe skulk away unseen while Dan Rather goes up like a roman candle: from what I understand, the Globe was essentially the print companion to the 60 Minutes piece. They were given copies of the documents and had plenty of time to verify them before running a big feature that hyped the 60 Minutes piece.

"Editing error?"

How jaw-droppingly stupid do you think we are?

Doesn't the Globe share some of the, ahem, credit with CBS?

I mean, why didn't the Globe hire their own experts that could tell them this? Because they wanted it to be true?

Either way, it's sheer journalistic incompetence that borders on willing fraud. Let me know what you think.

MINDBLOWING UPDATE: What is wrong with these people?

Today, the Globe insists on running a story focusing on questions about Bush's Guard service, with only a small section devoted to what they still consider the possibility that these obviously fake documents are fake!

As questions about his service persist, Bush addresses Guard

No Boston Globe, the questions are no longer about President Bush; the questions are about you. We will not stand for this any longer.

Readers familiar with some of the more notable left-wing bloggers that tried to poke holes in the forgery theory will get a big kick out of the parody comments found under this post.

You guys are cracking me up!

The real story isn't whether these are forgeries, the real story is whether Bush kicked a dog or not!

At least ... I think that it's a parody ...

(Via Dean)

Some of my new readers might not get the impression from reading this week's coverage, but I'm not usually moved by whispers of conspiracy theories. Which is why it surprised me when I initially bought the forgery theory at Powerline and felt the need to move on it. And let's face it; taking the time to investigate all of the conspiracy theories on a Free Republic board would be a full-time job.

Those disclaimers aside, I get the distinct feeling that Allah may have added a valid new wrinkle to this story.

These possibilities are starting to make my head spin.

UPDATE: Go check the post again, he's got updates that buttress the claim.

(Update: credit Allah, I think he had it first)

As of this evening, a CBS source reveals that they will put out a release tomorrow that indicates that they're standing by their story. (No word on whether they are furiously revising after Howie Kurtz just turned up the heat).

When pressed point-blank about when CBS will give up, the response was: "This comes from way above me."

Like lemmings, I tell you. Lemmings.

UPDATE: In the meantime the LA Times(!) turns on CBS:

A Black Eye for CBS News

CBS News has been had. It's hard to reach any other conclusion about newly discovered documents that CBS and anchor Dan Rather are defending as revealing the truth about George W. Bush's military service.

Despite Rather's statement Monday that the network "believes the documents are authentic," the evidence keeps mounting that they are not. As The Times reported, conservative bloggers detected glaring inconsistencies, such as a Microsoft Word type style. So many other discrepancies have since emerged that it would require a willful suspension of disbelief to take them as merely coincidental

By the way, the rest includes some surprisingly nasty Bush-bashing for an editorial ("Bush gave a smirky speech Monday").

(Via PD)

UPDATE: Earnest Miller points me to some more work done by the LA Times that includes a bonus timeline of Rather's feud with the Bush family. It seems that Dan's committed to going down with the ship:

Rather said he has no intention of giving in to those pressures. "Say what you want to about me, I keep my word," Rather said. "No, I'm not going to reveal my source."

"I think we've gone out of our way to reveal more of the process than most journalists do," Heyward said. "We're going to have to take the criticism."

In the end, both Rather and Heyward said, the issue may never be solved, with dueling rosters of document authenticators lining up in equal measure to proclaim them both real and fake.

"If you report this kind of story, you have to know everybody is not going to like you or how you did it," Rather said, adding "the documents may be a `he said, she said,' but the story will stand up."

My prediction for tomorrow? Dan Rather responds with the Chewbacca Defense on CBS Nightly News!

(Via commenter Brett)

UPDATE: Beldar may have a point:

Dan Rather was complicit in defrauding the American public in an attempt to defeat a sitting President. Rather must be fired now. Congress should subpoena CBS News' lawyers and all documentation of their advice.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt calls for hearings.

Gets it right:

But if the bloggers have power, it's because they form a robust intellectual marketplace, in which assertions must prove themselves before a jury of cyber-peers. In the words of James T. Smith, of critical-thinker.blogspot.com, "The blogosphere is the people." To be sure, the marketplace can make mistakes, but on the whole, like democracy itself, the more folks participating, the better the functioning.

Howie Kurtz tells Dan Rather again: "You Just Got Served!"

Document Experts Say They Warned CBS of Doubts

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 15, 2004; Page A10

A document expert retained by CBS News for the disputed "60 Minutes" story on President Bush's National Guard record said yesterday that she had warned the program that the memos involved "had problems" and that she had questioned "whether they were produced on a computer."

Asked whether CBS had taken her concerns seriously, Linda James, a forensic document examiner in Texas, told The Washington Post: "Evidently not."

Devastating.

I just thought of something: my condo is basically across the street from CBS's DC office. Should I set up shop outside and start a 24-hour hunger strike?

UPDATE: Self-immolation? Now that tends to attract attention ...

(Via SondraK)

UPDATE: I've been e-mailed and told that the burning man is inappropriate. If it helps, it's, um, strictly metaphorical. And I'll start being proper and pc when you guys start paying me to blog. Sorry.

Remember, be POLITE and KEEP IT VERY SHORT. And to those of you that are righties, no deranged ranting about the Democrats or Kerry, or they won't listen to you.

CBS Email Addresses and Phone Numbers

CBS Evening News
212 975-3691 and 202 457-4385
fax 212 975-1893
fax 212-975-1998
evening@cbsnews.com

CBS News
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
Evening News is same address, Studio 47

Executive Producer: Jim Murphy
Senior Producers: Susan Bean, Ingrid Matthews

Dan Rather
212 975-3691

Senior Broadcast Producer: Lynne Pitts
212 975-2258

60 Minutes II
212 975-6200
fax 212 975-9353
60II@cbsnews.com
Executive Producer Jeffrey Fager

555 West 57th St
New York, NY 10019-2985

CBS Administration:

President CBS Television: Leslie Moonves 323 575-2345

CBS News President: Andrew Heyward 212 975-7825, ajh@cbsnews.com

Senior VP Marcy McGinnis 212 975-5007, mam@cbs.com

UPDATE: Your local affiliates may be the way to go in addition to this; they're much more sensitive to the opinions of their viewers.

Need to look up your local CBS affiliate's contact info?

Rathergate has another list.

Now:

My source familiar with the internal discussions at CBS describes the atmosphere at the network offices tonight as "madness" and "toxic". Apparently a real bunker mentality is setting in; there is reportedly a great deal of anger at ABC for running a scathing report about the memos.

UPDATE: In case anyone on the planet still hasn't seen this, game over on the veracity of the memos:

The DRUDGE REPORT has found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary who claims that the Texas Air National Guard documents offered by CBS in its 60 MINUTES II report filed by Dan Rather last week are indeed 'forgeries'.

"I did not type these particular memos."

There are more details about how she believes that the spirit of the memos was correct, and how she hates Bush, but frankly, I nodded off before getting to the end.

UPDATE: Patterico has some thoughts about one of the other holes in CBS's story:

And this is starting to look a hell of a lot like reckless disregard for the truth. At a minimum.

Via Allah, Jim at the Kerry Spot notes:

Dan Rather and John Roberts just ignored everything that has been revealed about the memos in the past few days, and these two truth-whacking goons had the guts (and that's not the word I want to use) to claim, "Laura Bush became the first White House insider to doubt the authenticity of the documents. But she offered no evidence to back up her claim."

The world has gone mad.

The Powerline boys to wear make-up tonight: Scott W. Johnson will be appearing on Special Report with Brit Hume and John H. Hinderaker will be on Paula Zahn.

I sincerely hope they wear pajamas.

UPDATE: I didn't see Johnson on the second segment of Hume, and Hinderaker has been bumped in favor of Glenn Reynolds! I'm a huge fan of Reynolds and think it's great that he's usually our spokesman (really, who is better?), but this bothers me. Why does he have to be the face of this blog story, when Powerline broke it open? Big media likes known quantities and standard narratives.

NOTE: I don't blame Reynolds for this, it's no doubt the simplistic decision of CNN.

UPDATE: Johnson is now coming up on the third segment of Hume.

UPDATE: I thought that he did a fantastic job. Fox made no mention of Allah or INDC (waa). A screenshot would have been worth quite a bump in traffic, I gather.

UPDATE: I want to make something clear here (after a conversation that I just had with another blogger): whatever the relative contributions of this blog or the other thousand that swarmed to the story, Powerline broke this story, and when the history is written, that's how it should read. Yes, distributed intelligence spreads the credit to "the blogosphere," and many people did quite a bit of hard work, but publishing it first is publishing it first. Period. They deserve to speak on this.

UPDATE: A producer with the Paula Zahn show just told me that Hinderaker is still going to be on, with Reynolds. I think that that's the perfect segment/combo for this story. CNN gets it right.

UPDATE: The producer misinformed me. Reynolds and a FREEPER were on.

And now, who is interviewed in the final segment? MORE TIME THAN THE PREVIOUS SEGMENT IS TOTALLY DEVOTED TO WONKETTE. Because potty humor and jokes about ass-sex are certainly more important than perhaps the biggest media controversy in a generation. CNN - you are idiots.

Now pardon me, I must go have a stroke.

... except the fact that it makes me laugh every time I listen to it, let's review the message to Dan Rather:

"You've been served!"

See, this is why blogs are great; you're just not going to get links like that at the WaPo.

UPDATE: And whatever your musical or cartoon tastes, everyone should find this hilarious.

At Rathergate.com:

Bouffard backing up? Not likely.

"Like anything that requires some research, it takes time to test the various hypotheses. One of these is the possibility that an IBM Selectric Composer, a typewriter like machine, available in the late 1960’s, could also have produced the Memos, as do computer word processors. It appears that it cannot, but not for the reasons previously given : “th", centering, etc."

Read the rest at Rathergate.com. The content of that e-mail and the address are entirely consistent with everything that Dr. Bouffard told me.

Someone has tipped me to the possibility that Dr. Bouffard may have told the Boston Globe that he now regrets his statements to me because he was merely reacting to the headline. Apparently, he may now have since read the whole story and come to the conclusion that the body copy wasn't that bad.

So to be completely transparent and avoid confusion as the Globe tries to wiggle free:

A. I quoted Dr. Bouffard directly and accurately, with no alteration.

B. It's true that I did have problems with the Globe's analysis in the body of the article (presented in my initial analysis here), but the main and continued focus of my ire (and what should be yours) is the blatant mischaracterization in the headline. Let's revisit the Globe's headline:

Authenticity backed on Bush documents

I give the body copy a pass (at least in making my major case) because it can be selectively interpreted by different eyes; the headline is the smoking gun. Note that this is still consistent with what I've heard is the crux of Dr. Bouffard's new statement.

C. For the reasons above, in my conversation with the ombudsmen of the Globe, I largely gave them a pass on the body of the article. Instead, I repeatedly stressed to Christine Chinlund that the headline was a pure deception that has negatively influenced the national debate.

Just FYI. I'm opening the books and am willing to share all e-mails with Bouffard and create pdf's of my handwritten notes to back my claims (good luck reading those). I'll also submit to a lie detector test, chinese water torture and electroshock, if necessary.

I'd also like to note that I am sorry that I have dragged Dr. Bouffard into a tug of war over this issue, but to quote him directly:

Read More »

Not to stray too far from Rathergate and get all partisan, but the DNC is ...

A. Ignoring President Clinton's advice.

B. Using 60 Minutes as a main source in their attack. The clip features Dan Rather!

C. Timing the attack in conjunction with the debunked exposé of fraud regarding other National Guard allegations made by CBS.

D. Officially making attacks on Bush's service; this isn't a 527, it's the DNC.

My political leanings aside, this is a completely incompetent strategy. As the page says, by all means:

Tell Your Friends
Fill out the form below to tell your friends about our new ad.

If you'd like to hit Bush where it won't hurt him and damage the credibility of the DNC, that is ...

UPDATE: A liberal agrees in the comments section:

As a liberal Democrat who supported Dean, I'm mystified by this strategy. True, the commericial didn't reference the discredited memos, and one can argue that Bush was casual about his Guard service, but who on earth cares! That was over 30 years ago. If he's an incompetent president (and I surely do believe so) then we should be able to make the case against him on the basis of his last four years in the Presidency. We should be able to make the case based on his conduct in the war against Al Qaeda, the war in Iraq, and the economy.

Now let's have a talk about this support of Dean, Rick ... :-)

But seriously, that nails it. Kerry is avoiding focus on the issues that may not resonate with hawks like me, but rather the 50% of the populace that disagrees with Bush and wants their position put forth by a champion. And swing voters could be swayed by a selective interpretation of the economy. I think that George Bush is certainly very beatable, but the National Guard angle is a pointless and misguided strategy.

This afternoon, former FBI agent and forensic expert Gerald Richards (he of the heavily-equivocating USA Today piece yesterday) will be on NRAnews.com at 3:20 Eastern time to discuss memogate.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds will be on at 4:40 Eastern, and Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) will be on at 3:00 Eastern to talk about his D.C. Personal Protection Act (which would end the DC gun ban).

I'm not a huge second amendment activist, but considering the nature of crime in the District (and my own experience getting randomly beaten in a decent part of town), I'd say that this is an idea whose time may have come.

There's a lesson for Dr. Bouffard in the middle of Frank J's latest screed:

* If ever asked questions by the MSM, say, "No comment." The best they can distort that to is "Comment no."

Though this may apply to me ...

* If a reporter grabs your leg in an attempt to get an exclusive, you may have to gnaw it off to escape.

UPDATE: Completely unrelated, but this is just mean.

Please consider blogrolling INDC Journal.

Thanks.

UPDATE: If you'd like me to reciprocate, leave a message in the comments.

I won't be posting with furious frequency today, as I've got a very busy day at my job; you know, the one that pays for my food and buys all of my jammies. Make sure that you check out some of the best up-to-minute coverage at Allah, Powerline and Instapundit.

I've got one or two original angles in the works, and I'll post about them if they pan out.

And one more thing - as the scandal started to develop, CBS had a chance to make a simple statement that offered to look into the matter as legitimate questions were raised about both the documents and the methodology of the investigation that propped up the story. Instead, they've decided to muddy the water and blatantly mislead the public.

It's time to say this with confidence and purpose: Dan Rather and the producers responsible for the the original story and the matter's blatant obfuscation need to resign.

UPDATE: Captain Ed agrees.

And for their part in abetting the cover-up of the scandal with a misinformation campaign, the Boston Globe needs to run a retraction and an apology.

UPDATE: Also be sure to check out Jonah's fantastic column on the matter:

Something similar is going on with the Media Empires of today. Powerline or the blogosphere generally — which would be the "Black Hand" in this analogy — spotted the now-obvious fraudulent nature of these documents immediately. The charge is the journalistic equivalent of an assassin's bullet for Dan Rather. Had he refused to go to war in defense of these documents, he might have survived. Instead he's determined to go the way of the Hapsburgs and his career is over.

Oh sure, he'll probably ride out this election and retire in the next couple years with crates full of gold watches, plaques, awards, and attaboys from the establishment media. But the inevitable fact is that he will be drawn into a war he cannot win. The very best he can do is defend the slender possibility that these documents could be real. At this point it seems impossible that he can prove they are real. Indeed, Rather has already largely conceded all this. His defenses are all about how you can't prove the documents are false, as if the burden of proof for a journalistic icon is for other people to prove what he says is wrong rather than for him to prove it is right.

UPDATE: Read Podheretz:

There's no need to pull any punches now. I'm going to be blunt here: Anybody who spends an hour reviewing the evidence and the expert testimony knows they're forgeries.

The discrediting has gone on now for five straight days. The conclusion isn't just overwhelming, it's inarguable.

The documents aren't just forgeries, they're bad, blatant, ludicrous forgeries. They're forgeries so easily detected that in the space of a few hours after CBS released computer photographs of them on the Internet, they had already been pegged and deconstructed.

(Via IP)

UPDATE: And for those of you that are still caught up the sideshow about signatures, Jeff Harrell patiently explains why they don't matter.

Howie Kurtz to Dan Rather: "You Just Got Served!" (Link is a WAV file, listen to the whole thing)

Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers

By Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 14, 2004; Page A08
...
A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military terminology to different word-processing techniques.

Yep, it's on.

UPDATE: Dan Rather to the rest of the planet: "Fools! I am Professor Chaos! Bringer of destruction and doom!"

UPDATE: NYTimes cites internal dissent:

Even inside CBS News there was deepening concern. Some of Mr. Rather's colleagues said in interviews that they were becoming increasingly anxious for him to silence the critics by proving the documents' validity and as new questions about their origin arose. Most declined to be quoted by name.

(Via George)

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty at NRO has more on internal dissent at CBS:

I have recently talked with an individual who claims to be familiar with the internal discussions at CBS News.
...
This individual told the Kerry Spot late Monday night that some of CBS’ news talent who were campaigning for the anchor desk when Rather retires, are more than a little pleased with the recent turn of events. These individuals, who, admittedly, have a great personal stake in getting Rather out the door, are contending in internal discussions that the blame belongs with Rather, not with any lower-ranking producer.

Read the rest.

(I don't want to publicize a rumor)

Of course, we know all this, but now the following is actually up on CBS's site:

Retired Col. Maurice Udell, the unit's instructor pilot who helped train Mr. Bush, said Friday he thought the documents were fake.

"I completely am disgusted with this (report) I saw on 60 Minutes,"' Udell said. "That's not true. I was there. I knew Jerry Killian. I went to Vietnam with Jerry Killian in 1968."

Killian's son also questioned some of the documents, saying his father would never write a memo like the "sugar coat" one.

In a report on Friday's "Evening News,"Dan Rather, also reported that typewriters were available in the early 1970s which were capable of printing superscripts. CBS pointed to other Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House that include an example of a raised "th" superscript.

That superscript, however, is in a different typeface than the one used for the CBS memos, according to some others who have soken up. Document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Ariz., who examined the documents for the AP, said she was "virtually certain" they were generated by computer.

Some forensic experts were quoted by news organizations, including The Associated Press, saying the memos appeared to have been computer-generated with characteristics that weren't available three decades ago.

Going, going ...

UPDATE: Maybe not:

Dan dives in the tank again...

Tonight Dan Rather tried to defend the documents again. He repeated the claim that CBS had multiple experts authenticate the documents but still only showed footage of Marcel B. Manley. He repeated the "but everyone know George Bush sucked" line of defense.

Potentially Dan's weakest moment came when he tried to argue that since one fact in the memo was true, all the memos must be authentic. He said (paraphrased), "See, right here it say Bush was suspended from flying on this date... And in this other document obtained earlier it says he was suspended from flying on that same date. So the documents must be authentic." By Dandy Dans method, since they got Bush's name right the documents can't be forged. Pathetic.

Unbelievable. Want to watch Dan lie to you?

UPDATE: Captain Ed has analysis.

Join the Jammies Brigade today!

UPDATE: The Daily Recycler has video of the comment that started it all!

I'd originally seen the entire discussion on Fox, and perhaps even more insulting than the jammies comment was the way Klein twitched and condescendingly smirked as Stephen Hayes defended bloggers. You can see a bit of it at the end of the clip ...

What a supremely arrogant asshole.

Check out this screenshot.

... to all of you that have hit the tip jar over there on the right. I think that I'm going to use the money to buy some nice, silk pajamas.

UPDATE: These look nice ...

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In the WSJournal:

A watershed media moment occurred Friday on Fox News Channel, when Jonathan Klein, a former executive vice president of CBS News who oversaw "60 Minutes," debated Stephen Hayes, a writer for The Weekly Standard, on the documents CBS used to raise questions about George W. Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service.

Mr. Klein dismissed the bloggers who are raising questions about the authenticity of the memos: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at '60 Minutes'] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

He will regret that snide disparagement of the bloggers, many of whom are skilled lawyers or have backgrounds in military intelligence or typeface design. A growing number of design and document experts say they are certain or almost certain the memos on which CBS relied are forgeries.

And she is fully aware of the situation and Dr. Bouffard's subsequent quotes. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE: Also, did Ace pick up on something incredibly ironic concerning the Globe?

I haven't commented too much about the possible short-term consequences of this story yet, because I've been busy gathering facts and trying to avoid sounding prematurely triumphalist ...

... but more and more, I'm starting to believe that Dan Rather may be the one wearing "pajamas" soon ...

Newsweek (which likes the word "discredited") has apparently begun an external investigation: it names "a disgruntled former Guard officer" as a principal source for CBS, noting "he suffered two nervous breakdowns" and "unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses."

Blood in the water.

UPDATE: Hewitt fires off a great one-liner:

William Safire's column in the New York Times concerning CBS' and Rather's credibility collapse is the equivalent of an intervention performed by friends and colleagues on a substance abuser.

(By Cox & Forkum)

Via Instapundit, who as usual has a fantastically thorough round-up. Just keep scrolling.

Er, "listen."

First of all, the big story is that the Joseph Newcomer, the document expert that has gone on the record unequivocally about the inauthenticity of the documents, will be discussing his analysis of the CBS memos on NRAnews.com this afternoon at 3:40 Eastern.

And I'll be on at 4:40 Eastern to discuss Rathergate.

You can catch it on Sirius Satellite radio or streamed live on the web at NRAnews.com.

When asked about the possibility that the typefaces are too similar to those found in common web browsers, Mr. Rathers responded "This is real. Those who are trying to say that this is some sort of scam are mostly Internet writers who have an agenda. I am taking my $45,560,000.00 and leaving this job and doing anything that doesn't involve having my judgment questioned by men who write in their pajamas. Besides, I had a handwriting expert agree that this is not handwritten and therefore authentic."

Go check it out.

UPDATE: More Rather funny:

Glaring into the camera, Rather leveled a stern denunciation of his skeptics, terming them "hateful" and "jealous."

"I have told you again and again the tales of my ascension, my travels and adventures amongst the Cloud People, my ongoing struggle with Lord Gnarl and his Carved Army of the Fateful Forest. You've heard the facts, and that's the end of it. You think you can challenge my claim to the throne? Go for it. But you can't, can you? You can't, and you know it. So let's just get past this."

UPDATE: Protein Wisdom, poet laureate of the blogosphere.

UPDATE: Microsoft Forger XP.

(Via Ace)

Via reader Mike Sierra, I see that the ombudsman of the Globe mentions the following stories:

Here is an attempt to sort out at least a few of the issues that have dominated the ombudsman mailbox in recent days.

Story at issue: Wednesday's Page 1 story suggesting President Bush failed to meet his National Guard commitments.
...
Story at issue: The main story on the fourth day of the GOP convention, reporting on the speech by Democrat Zell Miller and others.

These issues have "dominated the ombudsman mailbox?" No e-mails about the Globe's verified misrepresentation of their interview with Dr. Philip Bouffard?

Hmmm. Maybe you should send one:

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com
617-929-3020 / 3022

Remember, it's her job to deal with this sort of incompetence, and ombudsmen work off of feedback provided by readers. Drop her a line, and be civil and factual, without any rude wingnut ranting about "that there evil librul media!"

Such tactics undermine what should be a non-partisan argument about misrepresenting a source.

Via John of Argghhh, this one is from 1976. And by the way, that's not a "recycled paper symbol at bottom left, it's a stamp celebrating the bicentannial.

Below the fold:

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How Four Blogs Dealt a Blow to CBS's Credibility

BY RODERICK BOYD - Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 13, 2004

Four little-known online commentators - known as Web-loggers, or bloggers for short- were instrumental in landing a blow to CBS News with their reports that documents involving President Bush's Air National Guard service may have been faked.

The four - John Hinderaker, William Ardolino, Charles Johnson and the pseudonymous "Allah" - led an interconnected real-time investigation into the authenticity of four documents that CBS, in its "60 Minutes II" broadcast last Wednesday, said proved that Mr. Bush applied pressure to get out of his Air National Guard service in August 1973.

Starting Thursday morning, the four bloggers - simultaneously doing original reporting and investigative work - created enough skepticism over CBS's reporting that the network was forced to dedicate the opening segment of last Friday's "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" to defending itself.

The allegation leveled by the four bloggers is that the documents CBS used are sloppy and politically motivated forgeries. They base their claims on assertions that the documents contain spacing and typographical constructions that were impossible to make using electric typewriters available in 1973.

CBS News, which did not return a telephone call from the Sun, has said it stands by its report. During last Friday's "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" broadcast, Mr. Rather defended CBS News' use of the documents, asserting "Definitive proof has not come out to refute them."

Seeing as the Sun is subscription only, I'm reproducing the rest of the article below the fold:

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... and I are on the same wavelength (again):

You guys (and some others) are openly speculating about the identity of the person who forged Dan Rather's fraudulent National Guard memos. But you're only guessing, and you're doing it in public, in front of potentially tens of thousands of people.

Guys: Open-Source Journalism is a very, very powerful thing when it investigates verifiable facts, like looking at technology. But you guys are now speculating about a private citizen, and you are seriously in danger of vindicating those who say the blogosphere is nothing but a gossip mill.

I think it's more acceptable to openly speculate in the blogosphere than Dean suggests (it's the nature of the beast), but I also think that bloggers might do the credibility of the story some favors if they tempered their claims or actually buttressed them by picking up the phone and contacting sources.

I mean, even Drudge makes or takes a phone call when he runs one of his hot exclusives (I'd imagine).

Besides, in my estimation, wild speculation is irrelevant at this point, because it's just wild speculation. Make some calls, do some digging and get back to us. And I'll second Dean's disclaimer:

* Update * I want to be very clear that I respect all of these bloggers, I just think they are getting overexhuberant and may be blundering into a terrible error.

... for some humor:

Republicans, however, say Gore's passion on the campaign path has reached an unhealthy fever pitch that could do Democrats more harm than good.

GOP strategist Keith Appell likens him to "some kind of cheerleader on acid."

"Some of the things he has said have been outrageous and he says them in this high-pitched scream," Appell said. "I really don't know what to call that."

Oh yessssss, that's the stuff. Sweet nectar of Gore!

There are a lot of ups and downs with a story like this, but Ace sends me into a brief downer when he links to this transcript of Howard Kurtz's show. Why?

It's depressing when many of the pundits on a show that is dedicated to policing the media and ironically titled "Reliable Sources" peddle the line that a fake memo passed off to a major media outlet as a "reliable source" is just a meaningless sideshow to the underlying political story.

KURTZ: Should CBS have gone with a story about memos from a guy who has been dead for 20 years? I mean, obviously people were going to take some potshots.

E.J. DIONNE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, if the memos are real and if it turns out that these reports of flaws are not true, that they are real memos, then it's a legitimate part of the story.

I think what's curious about this debate, "Time" magazine in its new issue this week, has it right in their last sentence, "the breathless debate over typewriter fonts last week shifted the debate away from Bush's questionable record." In other words, we're arguing about a very narrow piece of the story, and I think the other problem is, in 2000, "The Boston Globe" and Walter Robinson, their reporter, did some excellent work on this. None of the rest of the media picked this up. This issue should have been dealt with in more details four years ago as opposed to the end of this campaign.

(Emphasis mine)

And still more:

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First off, before I start getting a lot of the wrong kind of mail: I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate. I know it is asking far too much to expect the news to be unbiased. But the people involved should not actually lie to us, or promulgate lies created by hoaxers, through their own incompetence.

There has been a lot of activity on the Internet recently concerning the forged CBS documents. I do not even dignify this statement with the traditional weasel-word “alleged”, because it takes approximately 30 seconds for anyone who is knowledgeable in the history of electronic document production to recognize this whole collection is certainly a forgery, and approximately five minutes to prove to anyone technically competent that the documents are a forgery. I was able to replicate two of the documents within a few minutes. At time I a writing this, CBS is stonewalling. They were hoaxed, pure and simple. CBS failed to exercise anything even approximately like due diligence. I am not sure what sort of "expert" they called in to authenticate the document, but anything I say about his qualifications to judge digital typography is likely to be considered libelous (no matter how true they are) and I would not say them in print in a public forum.

I am one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting. I was doing work with computer typesetting technology in 1972 (it actually started in late 1969), and I personally created one of the earliest typesetting programs for what later became laser printers, but in 1970 when this work was first done, lasers were not part of the electronic printer technology (my way of expressing this is “I was working with laser printers before they had lasers”, which is only a mild stretch of the truth).

...

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.

(Emphasis mine)

Read the whole, detailed thing. Case closed, as far as I am concerned.

And this via Allah:

As of this morning, the Boston Globe was still insisting that the memos could have been created on an IBM Selectric Composer. (In fact, their supposed source for that information says no such thing but we've been over that already.) Why not take a moment now to e-mail the link to Joseph Newcomer's analysis to the Globe's ombudsman and to CBS? Maybe we can inundate them with enough messages that they'll be forced to address it. Here's the contact info:

60 Minutes
60II@cbsnews.com

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com

And here, for easy copy/pasting, is the Newcomer link: http://www.flounder.com/bush.htm

Please be brief and be polite.

Jeff at Shape of Days has a nice message for all of the rabid, frothy partisans and (really, really, REALLY) amateur typeface experts that are deluging him with attack e-mails and/or comments.

I agree 100%.

Well, it's definitely not the NYT.

Hatchet jobs by Dana Milbank aside (which are unfortunately significantly featured and relentless in quantity), the WaPo still bats about .500, and tends to put out some thorough, fair pieces of journalism, when the chips are down.

INDC reader Dave Summer sends me the following:

I have been reading your site with great interest. I am retired
Air Force. I was in the inactive reserves 73-74, went active in 75 and
retired in 95. Attached is a jpeg of a memo I still have that I wrote in
1986. Note the date. I typed this one myself, see typo in para (1). I
used dates and unit numbers several times in it. No superscripted "th's"
and no 4 digit dates.

(Note: the memo actually appears to have been written in 1988)

Of course I haven't independently verified its authenticity, but compare it to the CBS memos:

On Fox News' "Ask the Doctor" segment, Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld just stated that men regularly "have to examine the family jewels" in order to watch out for testicular cancer.

Layman's term, I guess.

... even as they hedge on the overall authenticity of the documents. During the course of their new article based on new fakery allegations by a retired major general, they still insist on saying ...

But others have said that the elements were available on an IBM Selectric Composer, an enhanced electric typewriter in use at the time.

... without mentioning Bouffard directly, or correcting their previous error. Let's repeat Dr. Bouffard's money-quote on the IBM Selectric:

"What I said to them was, I got new information about possible Selectric
fonts and (Air Force) documents that indicated a Selectric machine could
have been available, and I needed to do more analysis and consider it...but
after looking at this more, there are still many more things that say this
is bogus...there are so many things that are not right; 's crossings,'
'downstrokes' ...More things were looked into; more things about IBM
options. Even if you bought special (superscripting) keys, it's not right.
There are all kinds of things that say that this is not a typewriter."

Once again, here's the contact information of the Boston Globe's ombudsman:

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com
617-929-3020 / 3022

Remember, it's her job to deal with this sort of incompetence, and ombudsmen often work off of feedback provided by readers. Drop her a line, and be civil and factual, without wingnut ranting about "that there evil librul media!"

Such tactics undermine what should be a non-partisan argument about misrepresenting a source.

No, not at all (sorry, I just love these Drudge-like headlines). But she sure as Hell cuts them a ridiculous amount of slack:

Bill's point is that a major national newspaper misrepresented what its source said in order to create the headline it wanted. Without hearing a tape of the conversation between the reporter and the source, I don't know that's true. Perhaps the source got cold feet after seeing what a brouhaha this turned out to be.

(Exasperated emphasis mine)

I do not believe that they misquoted Dr. Bouffard, because he expressed to me largely the same qualifications about the information. They selectiveley quoted him, and then grossly distorted (even lied) in the headline in order to bolster their case and cover themselves. Solely using the Globe's quotes (not the main source's subsequent angry refutation and denial), let's compare the headline and what Dr. Bouffard said ...

Definitive Headline: Authenticity Backed on Bush Documents

vs. the quote:

Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

"Could have." Even if you accept the Globe's research at face value (though I know that he likely told them it was still a good possibility that they were fake), and completely discount my subsequent interview with Dr. Bouffard where he expresses serious frustration about being misrepresented, the "authenticity" of the documents was in no way "backed," and Dr. Bouffard clearly expressed that a more definitive investigation was ongoing. It's really disturbing to me that any blogger (and I've heard that TalkLeft is one of the more reasonable partisan bloggers on either side) would attempt to help out the Globe on this after they've misrepresented the testimony of a largely retired 78 year-old man that is now receiving quite a bit of angry correspondence based on a supposed fundamental shift in position that did not take place. A man who, by the way, is a Kerry supporter.

She goes on to say:

The real issue is whether the man running for re-election as President lied to the American people about his Guard service, covered up that he got special treatment, or bailed early without permission.

This statement is offensive. Beyond the partisan implications of this news (and let's assume that the National Guard service is an issue), there is an entirely separate narrative here that has gained its own importance; several "real" issues with implications that are distinct from Presedential politics. Is it really ok for the mainstream media to run with flimsy material that may be based on outright forgeries? Would TalkLeft appreciate this if the SwiftVets produced fake 1972 documents that increasingly seem to be printed in MS Word? Would she appreciate a scenario where the National Review falsified or severely twisted the testimony of a left-wing political strategist, for example?

No, she wouldn't. And she shouldn't. And I would support responsible leftie bloggers if they engaged in meticulous journalism that began to lend credence to such theories in an attempt to provide truthful information.

The media is on trial here, and carrying water for them when they rather obviously misrepresent an issue and practice incompetent journalism hurts all of us in the long run.

Oh, and by the way, she also says:

Forensic typewriting comparison analysis is not scientifically valid or reliable.

This is correct and incorrect. It is very true that in many cases it cannot be scientifically reliable, but in some cases it can, depending on the level of fakery in a forgery. A font that simply did not exist, for example, would be a dead giveaway, and Dr. Bouffard developed a computer database matching program that catalogues nearly 4,000 fonts. A font CAN be ruled out based on the date that it was said to have been available in a document.

Also:

No schools provide degrees in these fields.

True enough in today's world. But Georgetown University did provide a certification in this field at least as late as the the early 1970's. How do I know? Because Dr. Bouffard completed this training program at this nationally renowned university, around the same time period that these documents were purported to have been written.

Please don't carry water for the Globe and CBS. We need an accountable media, otherwise the stories that may be important to your side of the political spectrum will lack credibility as well.

This hurts all of us.

Unbelievable! Dr. Bouffard must be irate; I truly hope that he doesn't get more threatening e-mail or phone calls.

Wizbang catches it:

The CBS Evening News just repeated the Boston Globe Lie.

I love the mainstream media. One of them lies and the other one swears to it. I should note that this was their sole line of defense tonight and the blogosphere proved it to be a lie hours ago.

Once again, if anyone would like to contact the ombudsman for the Globe regarding their dishonesty ...

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com
617-929-3020 / 3022

UPDATE: Some might say that this Mainstream Media Meltdown is surreal.

UPDATE: Instapundit reports that CBS even spelled Dr. Bouffard's name wrong on their web site. By the way, Professor Reynolds - they also spelled his first name wrong.

Powerline was credited for breaking the story by Jim Pinkerton on Fox News Watch. He used the terminology "blogosphere" and said that "MSM" was a "term of derision." Gotta love Pinkerton.

Congrats Powerline!

UPDATE: Powerline, INDC, LGF credited in the Washington Times:

"It was like a 'perfect storm' that put us here," said Scott Johnson, the Minnesota-based lawyer behind www.powerlineblog.com, one of several Web sites that questioned CBS' claims through the kind of simple detective work once common to old-fashioned journalism.

Mr. Johnson and fellow debunkers at indcjournal.com, littlegreenfootballs.com, cnsnews.com, freerepublic.com and the Weekly Standard analyzed the typeface from the memos to find they were contemporary in origin, proving them likely fakes. The news was picked up by the Drudge Report and talk radio — and a huge audience.

Yesterday found the big press backtracking, and hiring its own "experts."

"Perfect storm" is right.

Delivers a verdict on Rather's performance.

By the way, if anyone would like to contact the ombudsman for the Globe regarding their dishonesty ...

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com
617-929-3020 / 3022

UPDATE: Jonah has a great quote (as usual):

I don't like to exaggerate, but the forgery story is the greatest story since Noah got all those animals on a boat.

.. to lighten the mood.

My eyes are starting to hurt from all this squinting at fonts.

UPDATE: It Comes in Pints? has a Memogate satire round-up.

A big thank you to the INDC readers that are providing me tips and angles, but the volume is just overwhelming, so I need to narrow it down. If you have a smoking hot tip or some sort of professional expertise in the area of forensics, feel free to contact me. Otherwise, I'm a bit swamped to read any more ad hoc theories (though some may be perfectly legitimate and make a good bit of sense).

Thank you!

INDC EXCLUSIVE!! MUST CREDIT INDC!!

I just interviewed Dr. Bouffard again, and he's angry that the Globe has misrepresented him. He's been getting hate mail and nasty phone calls since last night's story was posted, and he wants me to correct the record. He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries.

Instead of providing my analysis of our conversation, I'm largely going to transcribe his unaltered quotes (please note that he's a rather colorful, engaging older gentleman):

(I'm dynamically updating as I transcribe quotes, so keep refreshing)

"What the (Boston Globe) did now sort of pisses me off, because now I have people calling me and e-mailing me, and calling me names, saying that I changed my mind. I did not change my mind at all!"

"I would appreciate it if you could do whatever it takes to clear this up, through your internet site, or whatever."

"All I'd done is say, 'Hey I want to look into it.' Please correct that damn impression!"

"What I said to them was, I got new information about possible Selectric fonts and (Air Force) documents that indicated a Selectric machine could have been available, and I needed to do more analysis and consider it."

"But the more information we get and the more my colleagues look at this, we're more convinced that there are significant differences between the type of the (IBM) Composer that was available and the questionable document."

"The (new Selectric) typefaces sent to me invalidated the theory about the foot on the four (originally reported to INDC), but after looking at this more, there are still many more things that say this is bogus."

"... there are so many things that are not right; 's crossings,' 'downstrokes' ..."

"More things were looked into; more things about IBM options. Even if you bought special (superscripting) keys, it's not right. There are all kinds of things that say that this is not a typewriter."

"Any form of kerning may be critical (he hasn't rendered a definitive verdict if there is a form of kerning yet). If there is any type of kerning, it obviously isn't a typewriter or it's definitely a typeset document."

On the Globe and others:

"You talk to someone on the phone and it comes out different than you said!"

On the source of the 1969 Air Force Supply Memo:

Dr. Bouffard received an e-mail from the address of Roy Huber, a noted retired forensic analyst in Ottawa, but a response indicated that it was Lynn Huber.

"I presumed that it was a relative of Roy. The document said that there are fonts from the IBM that don't have the foot on the '4.'"

The e-mail also contained an attachment to possible Selectric fonts that indicated that the "4" had a foot, and the Air Force memo that indicated that the military purchase of such a machine was a possibility.

But since having had more time to analyze the fonts of the Selectric:

"We've looked into more and more IBM options and ... there are all kinds of things that say this isn't a typewriter."

UPDATE: These are all the transcribable quotes that Dr. Bouffard gave me at this time. More as the story develops.

I provide his words, you decide ... but I have come to the definitive conclusion that the Boston Globe misrepresented their main source's testimony to stunningly misleading effect.

Whether or not the docs are even forgeries or not is almost secondary in the media narrative at this point. The fact is, Dr. Bouffard was used as the main source to write the following headline in the Boston Globe:

Authenticity backed on Bush documents

Square that headline with the quotes from their source that are listed above.

UPDATE: NOTE TO COMMENTERS - Feel free to parse the details of whether the document is fake or not, if that's your passion, but I think that many of you that bother are missing the real point here. At this point, with this angle, the veracity of the document is almost secondary to the Boston Globe's willingness to mislead you into believing that the case is closed.

UPDATE: Also, to be perfectly clear - Dr. Bouffard is not indicating yet that the the docs are definitely fake, he's just clueing me in on a preponderance of indications that it may be likely. Expert analysis is still underway.

Just want to make sure that I don't present a mischaracterization that is the opposite of the Globe's presentation.

UPDATE: By the way, if anyone would like to contact the ombudsman for the Globe ...

Christine Chinlund
ombud@globe.com
617-929-3020 / 3022

Is misrepresentation by the Globe a pattern?

UPDATE: By the way, read my previous analysis of the Boston Globe story, written before I re-interviewed Dr. Bouffard for this post. Was my analysis correct?

INDC EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW MATERIAL.

HUGE UPDATE: Before or after reading this analysis, please read Dr. Bouffard's direct quotes just given to me in an interview (10:30 AM, 9-11) AFTER the Boston Globe story was run!

If not in letter, in spirit, at the very least by severely distorting the nature of the sourced quotes in order to fulfill a dishonest narrative.

How do I know? Because this time, in this case, they interviewed INDC's expert forensic source, and I have since asked him specific details about his quotes to various mainstream reporters that indicated a retreat on his initial judgment. Here's what the Globe says under the ridiculously dishonest headline "Authenticity backed on Bush documents:"

But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant. Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

For starters, square these two sections with my analysis and clarification that follow:

"the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s"

and

"But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time."

(Bolded emphasis mine)

I interviewed Dr. Bouffard several times; in no way, shape or form did he say that the type formats were "common," or that the typewriters with the capability to produce this font were in "wide use." In fact, he said just the opposite, that it was possible on only perhaps one(?) machine with a potentially matching font that was highly improbable for the work being performed in a National Guard office.

Did he say "could have?" Yes, based on today's analysis, he said it was possible, but he also said that the chance was unlikely. Remote. To directly quote Dr. Bouffard, as of very late this afternoon:

"Because it takes such a stretch to come up with all of the remote possibilities involved in creating the (CBS) document, it is much more likely that it is a computer generated document."

That quote was given after he re-analyzed the documents, after he admitted to me that yes, it may be possible that an approximation of the CBS fonts could have been produced by an uncommon model of IBM type machine that was not typically intended or used for secretarial work. (UPDATE: After the Interpol fonts)

He also told me this after revealing the Globe's new piece of info that supposedly changed his mind (it did cause him to equivocate, but did not in any stretch of the imagination cause him to flip and "back" the "authenticity"):

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Bouffard yesterday provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 -- three years before the dates of the CBS memos -- the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Air Force was possibly going to buy a high-end typesetting machine usually used for high-end print jobs, not typically something used as an office typewriter. The appearance of this memo is noteworthy, but proves nothing about whether the machinery was even actually purchased by the Air Force as a whole, or whether such a high-end specialty machine wound up in a Texas Air National Guard office for use as a secretarial machine.

Also, let's check out this smoking gun memo that was provided to Dr. Bouffard. How can we see the memo? Dr. Bouffard just sent me a copy tonight, after it was forwarded to him by a lone dissenting document examiner named Lynn Huber (its existence was mentioned in my previous post). The terminology looks ok, but he sent it to me in MS Word and it has no official authentication. This is definitive proof? An unverified Word document sent to Dr. Bouffard that was purported to be proof of Air Force product testing in 1969? Without any confirmation of purchase? Once again, in MS Word? It's possible that it's real, but let's see the originals from Ms. Huber, or her source.

(Important Note: Dr. Bouffard sent this to me as a Word Doc, but as of yet I haven't been able to definitively confirm with him that this was the format in which he received it from Ms. Huber. It seems likely, given the time it would take for him to transcribe it into a Word table, but I will verify this ASAP. It is also possible that the miltary provided it to Ms. Huber in this format, but at this point, it's just wild speculation).

Once again, it's possible that the Air Force Memo is legit, but this in no way verifies that the machine was ever purchased by the Air Force in general, or that it would have been available to a Texas Air National Guard unit.

Moving on with more from the Globe ...

As for the raised ''th" that appears in the Bush memos -- to refer, for example, to units such as the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron -- Bouffard said that custom characters on the Composer's metal typehead ball were available in the 1970s, and that the military could have ordered such custom balls from IBM.

(Emphasis mine)

The Boston Globe does not address the fact that Dr. Bouffard (and other forensic examiners) considered these specialty balls and keys to be non-routine. (Note: Perhaps this angle in the Globe's account is relevant, in light of other era documents that appear to have used the superscript "th")

The Globe's money quote:

''You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer," Bouffard said.

I can verify that Dr. Bouffard made that statement, because he also said something similar (to that effect) to me. Combined with the Globe's headline, "Authenticity backed on Bush documents," it certainly closes the matter right?

Wrong.

I will repeat Dr. Bouffard's contexual opinion that was communicated to me several times during our last conversation, a sentiment completely ignored and omitted by Francie Latour and Michael Rezendes of the Boston Globe:

"Because it takes such a stretch to come up with all of the remote possibilities involved in creating the (CBS) document, it is much more likely that it is a computer-generated document."

He qualified the statement with the outside possibility that a machine exists that could produce a "similar" font, certainly, though he still found several structural font inconsistencies when he compared the Selectric font with the font in the CBS Documents. 100% certainty of forgery based on these inconsistencies was impossible because of the poor quality of the reproduction, but some discrepancies were still noticeable to Dr. Bouffard (based on font-matching analysis alone, mind you).

In short, he was professional and cautious, but refused to certify absolutely that it was impossible that the docs were real based on only his analysis of the font characteristics. He left open the possibility that the docs are real, but very clearly expressed to me that he doubted that this was the case, and he mentioned several other forensics colleagues that believe that the memo is a forgery (including Bill Flynn, who was consulted by ABC News).

The Boston Globe is distorting his testimony to the point of dishonesty.

Read the headline again: Authenticity backed on Bush documents.

In truth, nearly the opposite sentiment is true. A perfectly honest headline would read "Expert Confirms Possibility That Documents Are Real, But Still Considers it "Likely That it is a Computer-Generated Document."

I believe that The Boston Globe is lying via omission.

Read my two interviews, and tell me which version of testimony is more complete.

Note: I hate to put Dr. Bouffard in the middle of a credibility tug of war. He is a semi-retired man with heavy family obligations that take up a large chunk of time, and he doesn't have time to deal with pestering, all-day analysis from volumes of reporters. But I stake my personal credibility on the fact that I have not misrepresented what Dr. Bouffard told me. Did he change his initial analysis after getting the documents from Ms. Huber? Yes, he became less certain and admitted an outside possibility of authenticity based on new information. But this is not authentication, and the spirit of his analysis is quite the opposite.

Furthermore, full disclosure, am I biased? In this case, against the media, yes, most definitely. Did I underplay Dr. Bouffard's equivocation? I don't think so, but you be the judge. I have pursued this story based on a belief that the memos didn't "feel right," no doubt aided by my belief that certain news outlets are biased themselves. But I would not misrepresent this legitimate interview to fulfill a narrative.

It is simply amazing to not just suspect media bias and misrepresentation, but actually experience it as an active witness in the story. Readers must also note that along with 60 Minutes, the Globe is the newspaper that initially ran with these documents; they have an incredible interest in burying the forgery story. You be the judge.

UPDATE: My characterizations are called into question almost immediately in the comments. A few points against me and my rebuttals:

Argument #1: "You're misreading the GLOBE article. It does not say that the specialized characters and the typeface were "common." It says that they were "common to" -- in the sense of shared by, or belonging to -- "electric typewriters in wide use in the early '70's."

Indicating that the machines were in "wide use," along with the corresponding ability to create Times Roman documents is a clear misrepresentation of Dr. Bouffard's judgment about the ubiquity of these machines.

Argument #2: "By the way, you should fix your repeated references to the Composer as an "uncommon model of typesetting machine," "high-end typesetting machine usually used for high-end print jobs," etc. That's just nonsense. "

That's how it was represented to me by Dr. Bouffard. To be clear, it's a "typewriter-like" machine (albeit heavy), but it was typically used for higher-end applications that demanded camera-ready documents (again, this is from Dr. Bouffard's recollection). To be clear, it was either a very high-end typewriter (not commonly used for office work) or a very low-end typesetter used for publication work.

I will update (to a certain point), as cogent arguments against my analysis appear.

UPDATE: Allah notes something about the memo ostensibly provided by the Air Force:

There are two points here. First, because Bouffard apparently was given a Microsoft Word document of the chronology instead of a photocopy of the original chronology dating from 1969, one might question the information's reliability. But even if you accept its reliability, note that the April 1969 entry doesn't say that the Air Force was testing Selectric Composers. It says it was testing Selectric typewriters and Magnetic Tape Selectric Composers. According to the IBM Composer hobbyist website, those two machines are entirely different from the Selectric Composer. Click here and read the author's description of the SC; it clearly distinguishes the Selectric typewriter, which apparently wasn't able to produce proportionally spaced fonts. Now click here and have a look at the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer. Look like something you'd expect to see in an Air Force officer's office?

Read the rest of his analysis.

Perhaps this confusion accounts for the disagreement over my characterization of the Selectric in question as an "uncommon model of typesetting machine?"

UPDATE: The Globe added a line of justification about Interpol fonts:

Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted.

I spoke to Dr. Bouffard about the additional Interpol fonts, and by my notes the results were equivocal. By my notes, he also still noted character differences in the CBS font vs, Selectric Composer font that are only impossible to 100% verify due to the poor quality of the document.

BOTTOM LINE: Nothing on either side is definitive, but the characterization by the Globe that my source somehow verified the authenticity of the documents is a lie. I stress now and will continue to stress that an anlysis by a panel of forensics experts using documents released by CBS needs to take place. As this tally of expert opinion indicates, this action is certainly warranted.

HUGE UPDATE: After reading this analysis, please read Dr. Bouffard's direct quotes just given to me in an interview (10:30 AM, 9-11) AFTER the Boston Globe story was run!

Bit, by bit, by bit ...

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

UPDATE: By bit ...

AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.

CNN has a poll up that asks:

"Should Dan Rather and CBS News reveal the sources of the Bush memos?"

(left-hand side, almost midway down)

Surprisingly, the majority says "No."

Vote your conscience.

... is what I feel, working this story. It's notably annoying dealing with the volume of e-mails from people telling me that I'm a "partisan hack" that hasn't "done enough original research," instead opting to "believe what I want to hear," from a nationally-renowned forensics expert.

Heh. But not really "heh," because that really gets to me after spending so much time trying to be honest and track down truly valid testimony.

So here's a little stress break; some Dan Rather humor blogging, courtesy of the inimitable Jeff Goldstein:

The protein wisdom interview: Dan Rather's Ego

I've heard that Jeff usually does enough "original research," though I'm pretty sure that it just involves ingesting hallucinogens.

Read about the "natural kerning" effect in Word in the second to last paragraph of Allah's post. It's not truly "kerning," but rather a kerning-like characteristic (where letters still overlap) that may be still unique to Word Processing programs.

I think that the only way to lock this down is to get a sworn analysis by a panel of forensic experts. Seriously.

UPDATE: Look, all this blogospheric random speculation about fonts and kerning is useful, but what is needed is a panel of forensics experts to sign an analysis judging the veracity of the documents. I have tried to get a few experts, and I've spoken to two that seriously doubt the documents, but this issue simply will be parsed back and forth by both sides of the debate until an authoritative body makes a professional determination. I'll try and set something up, and I'll heed the results. I feel very strongly that this document is likely a forgery, but I will HEED THE RESULTS OF FORENSICS EXPERTS, WHETHER IT FULFILLS MY BIAS OR NOT.

I am not strictly offering my opinuion, rather trying to do research and gather testimony that offers legitimate expert analysis. After a point, this partisan punditry and amateur forensic typography ceases to mean anything.

Let's take it to the next level, a panel of experts that would carry weight in a civil court case.

UPDATE: A helpful animation of an MS Word overlay of the CBS Documents.

UPDATE: "The Smoking Kern?"

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."

QandO highlights what's likely to be tonight's bit of misdirection from Dan Rather.

Proving that there was a "th" superscript available in era typewriters or documents addresses only one of about 20 angles against the veracity of the documents, and certainly not the most damning evidence of kerning.

UPDATE: Eating crow (but being honest about it) - the document was not kerned. UPDATE: I'm going to verify this via expert before I say unequivocal, so stay tuned.

I spoke with Dr. Bouffard about his equivocation in the NY Times, and first let me say that I get the feeling that the poor guy wants to go into hiding after all of the attention that he's getting from the media. His cooperation, professionalism and patience in this matter is most appreciated. And make no mistake, the mainstream media is pursuing this story. CNN, NYT, WaPo, regional papers, they're all calling him.

There is also an animated discussion taking place within the community of forensic document anlaysts, with the large majority that have spoken to Dr. Bouffard leaning towards or essentially convinced that the documents are forgeries. Bill Flynn, a well-respected document examiner from Arizona with a specialty in computer word processing, is certain that the documents could have only been created with a computer. On the other hand, Dr. Bouffard received an e-mail from a document examiner named Lynn Huber that attempted to bolster CBS's case.

Is Ms. Huber the secret analyst that CBS won't name? I'm not sure, but the documents that she provided were:

* Samples of Times Roman-like fonts from an IBM Composer machine, a rather bulky typsetting machine that was capable of producing a Times Roman-like font that could resemble the CBS documents, but still has notable differences.

* An Air Force memo that indicates that the military was testing the IBM Composer and considering a purchase in 1969. No further documents buttress the concept that the machine was ever purchased (though it's certainly plausible, perhaps likely), or how it would be possible for a large typesetting machine to wind up typing a personal "CYA" memo in the office of a Texas Air National Guard Lt. Colonel, however.

This new information is the cause of Dr. Bouffard's equivocation to the NYT. Based purely on font analysis and given the poor quality of the documents, it is conceivably possible that a somewhat similar document could have been created by an IBM Composer in 1972, though other elements yet to be determined still could render it impossible (see kerning below). The superscripted "th" casts additional doubt on the veracity of the document, but does not slam dunk the case for forgery. It would have been possible (but highly unlikely) to order specialty balls and keys that would create just about anything, including a superscripted "th," but it's important to consider the fact that ordering such a key would also demand additional specialty balls and keys for the superscripted "nd," etc., as well as separate balls for the italic versions of all the characters. It would have been a custom, mean, souped-up typing machine.

What does this all mean? It means that the possibility that this memo was not forged based on typographic evidence alone is contingent upon the possibility that an Texas Air National Guard Lt. Colonel typed a personal "CYA" memo on an ultra-modern, highly-customized typesetting machine that was typically used for professional or high end applications that demanded camera-ready documents for use in printing. And even so, Dr. Bouffard still noticed "a dozen or so design differences" between the CBS document and the possible type of such a rare machine, differences that seem apparent but cannot be confirmed to a 100% threshold because the of the poor quality of the photocopied document.

But even so ...

... what about kerning? Kerning is the process by which letters are placed closer together in the space on the page in a way that automatically adapts to the order in which letters are placed next to each other. For example, in the word "my" in certain fonts, you may notice how the bottom tail of the "y" curls under the letter "m." As Powerline has mentioned, the memo has kerning, something widely believed to only be possible with modern word processing programs that algorithmically adapt to the sequence of letters.

So could an IBM Composer kern? Dr. Bouffard can't say with 100% accuracy, but he does not think it's possible that early machines had the computer memory necessary to complete such a function. The only possible way to find out would be to obtain an IBM Composer circa 1972.

Long story short?

I'm just presenting the analysis one expert forensic document examiner that specializes in typefaces, so, ignoring the statements by Killian's family that disavow the documents, ignoring the inconsistencies in tone, format and the active military status of individuals mentioned in the memo, soley based on forensic typographical analysis, it is highly unlikely that the documents are real, and if someone can verify that a 1972 IBM Composer cannot kern (or auto center, for that matter), then it will be completely verified that the documents are frauds.

Once again, I am not commenting on the myriad of other angles that question this story, merely providing an in depth summary of Dr. Bouffard's findings. To quote:

"Because it takes such a stretch to come up with all of the remote possibilities involved in creating the (CBS) document, it is much more likely that it is a computer generated document.
...
I can't imagine the Composer would have enough memory (to kern)."

UPDATE: A commenter points me to Donald Sensing's analysis of the IBM Selectric Composer:

It is 100% mechanical and has no digital electronics. Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice.

Based on the fact that computer memory is required to possibly create the kerning (and automatic centering) of the CBS document in question, combined with Dr. Bouffard's expert analysis of nearly 4,000 fonts and corresponding machines, I feel confident declaring "game over."

The possible typefaces of these documents have been forensically analyzed, the narrow possibilities have been investigated, and they are almost surely forgeries.

UPDATE: Allah has more analysis on this topic.

UPDATE: A commenter suggests that the model Rather may hold up as an example is an IBM "Executive," not a "Composer." Problem is, Dr. Bouffard's font database invalidated a match between the IBM Executive and the font used in the CBS document.

UPDATE: Blog o'RAM is keeping a scorecard of identified forensics experts and relevant personalities that have provided opinions on the veracity of the documents, and it doesn't look good for CBS.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing comments: " IBMComposer.org says that the first Composer to have memory was released in 1975."

UPDATE: The question has been raise whether the docs were actually "kerned" or not. To my eye it looked like they were, but I don't know, and it calls into question the definitive section of my analysis above if they are not kerned. This still does not answer the question about the other memory-dependent function of auto-centering that is present on the document, or the various other elements that exactly match a Word fascimile. LGF has the details.

UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of feedback that the documents are not kerned. There goes that portion of the analysis.

UPDATE: Maybe not ... skip up to the post titled "Update on Kerning."

Powerline has the details:

A half hour ago, Dan Rather went on CNN and said that he knows the Jerry Killian documents to be authentic, and knows that they are not forgeries. Therefore, he said, there will be no retraction, no correction, and -- apparently -- no investigation. The text of the interview is not yet available on CNN's site, but we'll link to it when it becomes available.

Read the rest of Hindrocket's analysis. I'm going to wait and see how this plays out ... though I have a pretty good idea.

UPDATE: Rather Biased has an exclusive with Bernard Goldberg:

Bernard Goldberg, the former CBS correspondent who in many ways ignited the current debate over bias in the media has now weighed in on the 60 Minutes document controversy, calling it the "almost inevitable" product of liberal media groupthink.

"Assuming that at least some of the documents are indeed forgeries as they now seem," Goldberg says in an email to RatherBiased.com, "This is what happens when a news organziation operates in a bubble--a comfy liberal elite bubble. They WANTED the story to be true, so they apparently minimized or ignored any information that contradicted their pre-conceived notions.

"This is the nature of bias in the news. no conspiracies. Rather never said, 'I know these documents are phoney, but I'll go with them anyway.' He would never do that. The problem is too much like-mindedness, too much groupthink. What happened was almost invevitable. Sooner or later, when you live in the bubble, something bad will happen.

In the NY Times:

Philip Bouffard, a forensic document specialist from Ohio who created a commonly used database of at least 3,000 old type fonts, said he had suspicions as well. "I found nothing like this in any of my typewriter specimens," said Dr. Bouffard, a Democrat. He also said the fonts were "certainly consistent with what I see in Times Roman," the commonly used Microsoft Word font.

However, Dr. Bouffard said, a colleague had called his attention to similarities between the font in the memos and that of the IBM Selectric Composer of the early 1970's.

But he said it would be unusual for Mr. Bush's commanding officer to have had the IBM machine because of its large size.

Dr. Bouffard said he would see if the fonts match more closely on Friday. "The problem I'm going to run into if this matches and Times Roman matches, to the extent of what we are able to see on these poor miserable copies that are passing around,'' he said, "then I don't think anybody's going to be able to say for sure.''

I called the Selectric similarities to Dr. Bouffard's attention yesterday in an e-mail, and he told me that the fonts were still inconsistent. I am attempting to obtain clarification ...

Let's say that right now I'm highly suspicious that the NY Times is playing up an angle, especially considering the number of forensics experts (five? six?) that have come forward and declared the doc a forgery since yesterday afternoon.

(Via Allah)

UPDATE: Check out this comparison between a Selectric typewriter and the CBS Memo.

(Via PW)

The Commissar e-mailed me and we discussed how the significance of this scandal compares to Watergate. A few thoughts:

* If the Kerry campaign is busted floating the faked memo, I'd say that this story is in the bathroom of the sports bar across from the parking lot of the ballpark of Watergate. If it helps, I live only a few blocks from the Watergate Hotel (it's high-end condos now, by the way).

* It's a good thing that Woodward and Bernstein weren't bloggers, because without the proper accreditation they'd be slinging fries at Jimmie's Chicken Shack instead of writing bestselling books right about now.

"Hey Dan Rather ... can you smell what INDC Bill's got cookin'?"

* I want the Rock to play me in the blockbuster movie about the rise of new media.

* We need a new suffix to add to scandals; "-gate" is tired.

UPDATE: Pennywit has a poll to determine the scandal's name! I picked "Forgery Orgy."

I'll be on Cam Edwards show at 2:20 today. You can listen to it on Sirius Satellite Radio or live stream the show at NRANews.com.

UPDATE: Eastern time, for you heathens that live in the hinterlands.

Allapundit.

Just keep scrolling and refreshing.

And Rather Biased is savoring the mortal (?) wounding of their Great White Whale.

UPDATE: The Kerry Spot at NRO also has tons of media reactions.

... in the Chicago Sun-Times:

The morning after the "60 Minutes II" airing, the Internet was buzzing with claims that the documents were forged.

Powerlineblog first aired speculation that there was persuasive evidence from the typefaces and spacing that the documents supposedly prepared in the age of typewriters in the early 1970s showed the unmistakable characteristics of computer printing.

Another blogger, Bill Ardolino at INDC Journal, who had read Powerline, said, "I decided to find a top typeface expert and ran his analysis on my Web site."

Ardolino's expert, Philip D. Bouffard, is a nationally recognized forensic authority in typewriter and electronic typefaces.

Bouffard has the largest collection of full letter impact typewriter specimens in a private collection today. Having worked at NCR and a forensic laboratory for more than 30 years, Bouffard still works with entities such as the State of Ohio on Medicare fraud cases.

Bouffard said the CBS documents appear to have been copied about 10 times in the state he saw them. Nevertheless, he states, "All the documents have been created on the same printer. And the proportional spacing and the common characteristics of numbers like 4 and 7 and letters like lower case c and upper case G are beyond the capabilities of any of the typewriter impact specimens I have in my collection. The centering of headings is also beyond the capabilities of any typewriter I know of."

His conclusion: "It is remotely possible there is some typewriter that has the capability to do all this ... but it is more likely these documents were generated in the common Times New Roman font and printed out on a computer printer that did not exist at the time they were supposedly created."

Unfortunately, no mention of LGF's document overlay (or any of the others). But still, I think this calls for some giddy homespun Dan Ratherisms about the blogosphere:

"That's crackling like a hickory fire!"

"Could be game set and match Republican bloggers."

"That's tight as the pages in a book."

"The blogosphere has aced its first midterm."

"It's beginning to get exciting as the Democrats' fingernails are starting to sweat."

"If a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a hand gun."

Wait a minute ... "if a frog had side pockets?"

What the Hell does that even mean?

You know, Dan may be an agenda-driven, irresponsible journalist and a pompous, dictator-coddling shill, but ... I'm going to miss him.

UPDATE: NY Post mentions LGF, Powerline.

Ace has a breaking angle on the forgery story.

UPDATE: Wizbang figures out how this whole mess started.

The Commissar unearths another secret document.

This happened in less than 24 hours. Blogger triumphalism sometimes gets on my nerves, but this time ... wow.

By the Washington Post, who cites the "internet" for breaking the story and has an interview with Dr. Bouffard, but fails to source INDC Journal. Or Powerline. Oh well.

Related: Think Oliver Willis will believe it now that the WaPo has conducted the interview? Or will he keep spinning? Or will he just pick up and move on without acknowledging the forgery?

The suspense is killing me.

(Via Nomayo)

UPDATE:

Mainstream media coverage:

ABC

Weekly Standard

.. tooting my own horn and offering a general rebuttal to my detractors (partisan and otherwise). I just got done getting interviewed by a mainstream media reporter who basically understood the fact that the expert I tracked down is not just an expert, but pretty much the guy that "wrote the book" on this type of thing (typewriter fonts, forgeries, old typewriters).

So a couple of things to the rabid folks that are accusing me (and others) of clouding the issue or fabricating a non-story:

1. As I mentioned, Dr. Bouffard is perhaps the most notable expert in this area. Stop raging against the machine - I reported this story honestly and thoroughly.

2. Dr. Bouffard is evidently a Democrat that plans on voting for John Kerry.

Sometimes the truth is more important than partisanship, people. I would have reported my findings honestly if the documents had turned out to be real ...

And one last bit of shameless blogospheric braggadacio that I'd like to repeat: This reporter told me (and he was referring to Powerline as well) "You did better than Dan Rather, you did better than the Washington Post; just one guy with a computer!" I'd say that goes for LGF and other portions of the blogosphere today. Kudos to everyone that covered an angle and kept it factual.

UPDATE: Also, for all of the people bugging me about the fact that Times Roman has been around since the thirties - yes, yes, in printing presses, not as a proportional typewriter font. You guys can come up with theories and comment or e-mail them to me all day long, but experts that do this for a living will be likely be able to tell you why you are wrong. That's why they are called "experts."

UPDATE: More on Dr. Bouffard, via Hugh Hewitt's radio interview with another professional document examiner:

FS: (Laughing) As a document examiner, I don't like to bet on documents. Mr. Hewitt, but I would certainly say that if I had to give an opinion right now, the opinion would not go towards it being genuine. I certainly have strong questions about this "th" combination that is being used in the superscript, that we discussed earlier.

In one of the websites I noticed that one of my colleagues had been cited, Dr. Philip Bouffard, and he has indictaed that he is about 90% certain that the documents are not genuine. He had had the opportunity to do a more exhaustive analysis of this than I have.

HH: Is he credible?

FS: He is a very credible individual. As a matter of fact, the program that is used by document examiners, throughout the country, in classifying documents, was developed by Dr. Bouffard.

(Emphasis mine)

Via Allah, please examine Dr. Bouffard's credentials based on this pdf document (scroll down to the bottom entry on page 8).

He's no joke, people; probably one of the two most qualified "old type" experts that CBS should have contacted to verify the veracity of the documents.

UPDATE: It's actually Pacetown that tracked down Dr. Bouffard's credentials. You should read the rest of his analysis as well.

INDC Exclusive. Must Credit INDC.

Based on Powerline's suspicions of forgery over the documents put forth regarding George W. Bush's National Guard service, I decided to do some legwork and track down the opinions of forensic document examiners that may have an expertise in old typefaces.

After contacting several experts, a rather notable Forensic Document Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard took the time to examine a pdf of the documents and perform an initial visual analysis of their authenticity. Dr. Bouffard has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, but got involved in forensic examination of typefaces after working in "graphics" with NCR until 1973 and taking a two-year Certification Program in Document Examination at Georgetown University. After completing the program, he became specifically interested in typewriter classification and went to work for a prosecutor's crime lab in Lake County, Ohio.

Using something called the Haas Atlas, the definitive collection of various typefaces, Mr. Bouffard (and other forensic document examiners) examined the veracity of various documents for over 30 years. Beginning in 1988, Mr. Bouffard hired a programmer to write a computer database program that catalogues the nearly 4,000 typefaces that appear in the Haas Atlas. This computer program is now a forensic standard that is sold as a companion to the Haas Atlas by American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE). Though semi-retired, Dr. Bouffard is one of the top two experts in forensic document examination (regarding typefaces) in the country.

UPDATE: The name of the program that Dr. Bouffard developed is called "The Typewriter Typestyle Classification Program" (C:\TYPE).

What did Dr. Bouffard think of the documents?

First, the necessary caveats:

* The pdf document is of poor quality. It seems to have been copied and recopied several times, blurring letter characteristics.

* Also, certain types of analysis can only be done on the original documents, which don't seem to be available, even to CBS.

So Dr. Bouffard is very clear that his analysis is not 100% positive. That being said:

"It's just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means that it would have been created on a computer. It's very possible that someone decided to create this document on a computer... I've run across this situation before - my gut is this could just well be a fabrication."

The reasons why?

* Right off the bat, Dr. Bouffard noted what others in the blogosphere have been talking about: something called "proportional spacing," which means that each letter does not take up the same amount of width on the page. On old typewriters that do not have proportional spacing, the letter "i" would be as wide as the letter "m." Except for professional typesetting, proportional spacing was only available on a very few models (an IBM model, "Executive" and perhaps one or two other models Mini-Update: Dr. Bouffard e-mails to correct me that it was seven or eight possible models, not one or two - Ed) that were not widely available in 1972-73; the vast majority of typewriters did not have proportional spacing. Because of this, Dr. Bouffard's computer program immediately eliminated "over 90%" of the possible fonts from typewriters that could create such a document, narrowing it down to perhaps 15 fonts used by a very few models.

* Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one character stood out, the number "4." In the document provided by CBS News, the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a "closed top," which is indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer word processing programs. Other characters matched the old proportional spacing fonts (available on only a small few typewriters of the era), but this number did not (please note that this is only an initial analysis with numerical characters).

Dr. Bouffard ran this number and could not find a match in his entire database of over 4,000 typewriter fonts that have been maintained and collected into his computer database since 1988. Otherwise, the font is very indicative of Times New Roman, the font that is only available on computer word processing programs.

The final word?

Once again, let?s not forget the qualifications: it's a bad copy of a copy and we have no original document for review, but, based on the initial analysis of the documents by an industry expert with over 30 years of experience in typesetting and forensic document examination, the documents "could just well be a fabrication."

In light of this information, I think that it would be highly appropriate for CBS News and the Boston Globe to attempt to obtain a copy of the original document for more thorough vetting, and run a correction/addendum to the story.

I still have two other forensic document examiners that are examining the pdf file, and I will update if/when they get back to me. I also plan to ask Dr. Bouffard more detail about the nature of the "th" on the end of dates, though in our first conversation he indicated that some typewriters had the capability to do something in that format.

UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.

Here's why

* He looked through old papers he's written, and noted that he's come up against the inconsistency of the "4" several previous times with forgeries that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a computer word processing program.

* Regarding the small "th" after the date, Dr. Bouffard told me that it was possible to order specialty keys that would duplicate the automatic miniaturization completed by word processors after a numerical date, but it was certainly not standard, and wouldn't make a lot of sense in a military setting. "That by itself, while suspicious, is not impossible, but in conjunction with the (font irregularity of the) number four, it is really significant," he said.

* Dr. Bouffard said that signature analysis isn't that relevant because the signature could have easily been copied and pasted onto one of the photocopied forgeries from another document.

* He said that he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's authenticity, but that there is really only one other man that may be more qualified to determine authentic typefaces than himself. I think that the burden of proof may be on CBS to reveal this information.

I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and he said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."

I hesitate to render verdicts, but based on an initial visual analysis by one of the country's foremost forensic document analysts that specializes in old typefaces, it looks like CBS was duped.

... for all the well-wishes (no further well-wishes required/desired). Things are more-or-less ok, personal stuff, really bad timing. I was really looking forward to covering the convention, but such is life.

I'm not sure when I'll be back to blogging, but a couple of quick notes ...

I caught the President's speech just now, and I'm frankly really surprised with initial pundit reaction that says it was just ok, or too long. I thought that it was fantastic, as good a scripted speech as George Bush has the capacity to give (roughly a B+) , and light years beyond Kerry's painfully inauthentic convention speech.

George Bush has a natural charisma that separates good politicians from ok politicians; this speech very effectively showcased this strength, and he mercifully avoided the annoying tics (i.e. chewing his lip) and strangely inappropriate smiles that mar some of his regular public appearances. The domestic content was middling and uneventful, perhaps average, but his vision for foreign policy was very eloquent.

Post-convention bounce to 52%. I think some pundits need to remember to look at these things from outside their routinely hyperanalytical perspective.

PS - Way off topic, but Dean Esmay is not in any way, shape or form a racist, and if I had any spirit in me right now I would take Oliver Willis behind the woodshed and beat him with a metaphorical shovel. Please offer Dean your support.