RATHER DIGS IN: THE DOCUMENTS ARE AUTHENTIC

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

The DRUDGE REPORT: is now saying Dan Rather has decided to drag CBS down with him.

DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be — there’s no — what you’re saying apology?

QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or…

RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don’t like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.

Not the fastest sled on the slope, that Dan.
(shrug) So be it, then.  So it is that the MSM and the Democrats both end up with whale poop on their keels… both in one election.

Power Line managed to get their server running again. Says Hndrocket, who must be tripping on all of this…..

Tomorrow morning, dinosaur media across the country will be headlining the 60 Minutes “scoop” as a blow to the Bush campaign. Before their newspapers are even printed, not only is the story obsolete, but CBS is in full retreat. As Stephen Hayes reported earlier today, Power Line “led the charge” against the 60 Minutes hoax today. But the credit really goes to the incredible power of the internet. We knew nothing; all of our information came from our readers. Many thousands of smart, well-informed people who only a few years ago would have had no recourse but perhaps to write a letter to their local newspaper, now can communicate and share their expertise in real time, through sites like this one. The power of the medium is incredible, as we’ve seen over the last fourteen hours.

A line from a favorite book of mine comes to mind: “There’s a new player on the field… with a very formidable bat.” The player, of course is the ‘net.

I told you last night this was gonna get good.

It turns out the source for those documents was the Kerry Campaign.

The Prowler posted this last night… Since I’m doing auto-capture these days, I was able to grab it before the server went down under the combined load of 60 zillion people wanting the truth, and what appears to a few Kerry Freindlies executing a denial of service attack against the Spectator’s systems, to keep the truth from becoming widely available.

“Anatomy of a Forgery
By The Prowler

Published 9/10/2004 12:09:06 AM

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was “a retired military officer.” According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

“More than a couple people heard about the papers,” says the DNC staffer. “I’ve heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity.”

The concerns arose from the sourcing. “It wasn’t clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn’t confirm from what file, from what original source they came from.”

The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush’s personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them.

According to a Kerry campaign source, there was little gossip about the supposedly hot documents inside the office of the campaign on McPherson Square. “Those documents were not something anyone was talking about or trying to generate buzz on,” says the staffer. “It wasn’t like there were small groups of people talking about this as a bombshell. I think people here weren’t sure what to make of it, because provenance of these documents was uncertain.”

A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story.

“The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush’s file that had Killian calling Bush ‘an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.’ And someone who Killian said ‘performed in an outstanding manner.’ Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different.”

The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. “This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn’t show it,” says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. “There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we’d do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we’d get more information,” says the producer. “If that’s the case, then we’re bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries.”

ABC News’ political unit held a conference call at 7:00 p.m. Thursday evening to discuss the memo and its potential ramifications should the documents turn out to be a forgery. That meeting took place around the time that the deceased Killian’s son made public statements questioning the documents’ authenticity.

According to one ABC News employee, some reporters believe that the Kerry campaign as well as the DNC were parties in duping CBS, but a smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the opposition.

“

JOHN PODHORETZ in today’s NYP suggests that between this forged document business and putting Ben Barnes on the air… (Barnes who I gave quite a few photons to yesterday… pan down) that CBS may very well have unmasked themselves at last.

And interestingly, John points to Bloggers and Freepers for getting this story out…

Well, here’s one you won’t see in the mainstream press.

WASHINGTON(Talon News) — :” A former soldier who accused American troops of committing war crimes in Vietnam has recently come forward to recant those charges. Steven J. Pitkin appeared at the ‘Winter Soldier Investigation’ conducted in Detroit in 1971 by former Navy Lieutenant John Kerry and his group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, but now says that his statements were coerced.
In a sworn affidavit on August 31, 2004, Pitkin said that he rode in a van with John Kerry, a national leader of the VVAW, Scott Camil, and others from Washington, DC to attend the conference. The event was intended to publicize alleged American war crimes in Vietnam, but Pitkin maintains that he did not intend to speak at the inquiry since he had no knowledge of such war crimes.”

There’s lots more… follow the link.

But think about the implications, here.

This is the document CBS claims is genuine.
It’s not. (drill the document to get the full size pic.)
This is actually a screencap of a PDF from the CBS website. I can post the original PDF, but I though you might like a standard issue JPG better.

Note the use of the subscript.(“th”) Note also the use of a variable width font. Neither of these was available in any typewriter in 1972. The Font is New Times Roman, which is a standard font for installations of WINWORD.

One of two things is going on here:

The document forgeries are so laughably bad, there’s no other option, here. There’s no way around this one… CBS News did not do even the most cursory of investigations on this document. They passed the lot of them off as factual without checking.

Why? I submit they did so because the story the documents told fit into an idea that CBS has been working on selling the American people for over 5 years now… that President Bush lied to the American people about his military service. In doing so, CBS became the liar. And heads need to roll at CBS… starting with Dan Rather.

NOW.

Update:
Matt Drudge is now reporting that CBS is doing what he terms an ‘internal investigation’…  The people he talks with are very contrite in their wording saying that if Rather has to issue the correction himself, he will.

Big hairy friggin’ deal.

Personally, I figure the correction’s a nice start, but it shouldn’t be the end of this story. There should be a federal level criminal investigation into CBS news.  Isn’t trying to throw an election a federal crime? Clearly, that’s what was being attempted here.

As to my take on who is responsible, and what needs doing… Let’s go with the obvious… Dan Rather.

Rather’s been listing to port since the day he came on CBS as a beat reporter, and it has always showed in his product. The fish rots from the head down. Rather runs the show at CBS, and it’s his signiture at the bottom of his on-air copy. Where does the buck stop for his stories?

As such, I want Rather out. No retirement money, no gold watch… just a stripy uniform to wear for the remainder of his overly long life. I doubt he’ll get it, but this is what the man deserves.

And leftists who think this response over the top; consider, please what kind of response you’d be spouting had someone used this kind of forgery against Kerry. You KNOW how THAT would play out. It would make my response to it all seem positively tepid, by comparison. I don’t take kindly to not one, but two attempts at stealing an election by the left and the leftist freindly press. 2000 was the first, this is the second time.

Dummocrats.com speaks to the idea that everyone on the right has been buzzing about this. The answer of course is, yes, the document in euqstion was written by MSWord, as several people have been explaining.  One version, which I was in the proecces of blogging, when I got called away…was up over at Powerline. (Works is the curse of the blogging classes!)

Drudge just linked the post, though, and I gather it threw Powerline’s server for a loop… so don’t expect to get in there for a while. I smell a one day hit record in the making at powerline.

Pick up the Dummocrats.com post for all the details. This story is going to get good, very quickly.

Update:
I was right, it is. Check this post from Little Green Footballs. also, I’ve obtained a copy of one of the documents and have verified it was written in WINWORD.. something after version 6, I’d say. I’ll post the graphic when I get home.

FNC is reporting:

“For the week ending Sept. 4, new applications for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally adjusted 44,000 from the previous week to 319,000, the lowest level since July 3, the Labor Department (search) reported Thursday.
The decline of 44,000 was the largest decrease since the week ending Dec. 8, 2001.”

Memo to John Kerry: remember that advise from Bubba about how you need to focus on Bush’s handling of the Economy? You may just want to re-think that strategy. It’s going to be a bleeping hard sell.

Channel 10 in Philly is one of many sites pushing along an AP report..

“Teresa Heinz Kerry says “only an idiot” would fail to support her husband’s health care plan.

But Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, told the (Lancaster) Intelligencer Journal that “of course, there are idiots.”

Gee, now THERE’S a way to win over the voter, Terry, Good show.

This is what Democrats think you when you decline to be led by them, folks.
Read below, where I quote Mickey Kaus… Different angle, same illness.

What are you when someone seeking your vote takes you for an idiot, and you vote for them?