LAT: Rather Rides Out Latest Partisan Storm

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-rather15sep15,1,6928722,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

CBS News' Dan Rather has famously tangled with Republicans since Richard Nixon was president. Now the anchor finds himself in the midst of another major partisan storm, accused of airing forged documents to support a report on President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service in the early 1970s.

In the week since the Sept. 8 report on the newsmagazine "60 Minutes," Rather has twice gone on air to defend his reporting and the documents themselves, which critics have argued could not have been produced by the typewriter technology commonly in use at the time. Tuesday, CBS News executives were preparing yet another rebuttal, expected to be released Wednesday.

But the issue doesn't show signs of dying down soon, partly because of the 72-year-old anchor's volatile history with the Bush family, and decades-old criticisms that Rather pursues a liberal agenda.

"Some people erroneously see Dan as having an agenda," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "He is a fair-minded, tough-minded reporter doing his job. But he is also a celebrity," he said, who has been used as a "poster child for mainstream media agendas."

LAT Editorial

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-cbs15sep15,1,2554965,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Black Eye for CBS News

September 15, 2004

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.

For example, the alleged memos from Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, contain stylistic problems, such as the fact that Killian signs his rank not in accordance with National Guard procedure. In addition, Killian's signature on a memo dated May 4, 1972, is different from one on file in the Pentagon. The part of a memo supposedly written by Killian that refers to pressure from an earlier Bush commander to help out the young fighter pilot is highly dubious. The 1973 memo is dated almost a year and a half after the commander had resigned from active duty. The best CBS can do is to declare that he remained a powerful behind-the-scenes figure. Well, maybe. But how does CBS know that? CBS could tell us more about where these documents came from without having to reveal the names of its sources.

<snip>

CBS may have managed to place Bush's Vietnam-era service off-limits as a campaign issue, after weeks when John F. Kerry's impressive record has been under savage attack. Bush gave a smirky speech Monday to the National Guard Assn., waxing on about the patriotic sacrifices of the Guard's men and women over the years.

[IndianaGreen]

1. I never thought I would see the day in which Dan Rather would stonewall

but that is exactly what he is doing, the same stonewalling that the Nixon White House was so infamous for doing.

[Jim Sagle]

3. Chickenshit bullshit. Rather RAWWWWWWWWWKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

[Born Free]

55. Rather is taking a brave stance

In a day when the coprorate controlled media is afraid to do their job, Dan Rather and CBS are demanding the bush coward step out and show the American people what he is really like. If the media had been this strong after 9/11 thousands of innocent people might be alive today and America a safer place.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. What unadulterated crap. Rather knows what he's doing, and...

...I get the sense that FratBoy will wish that he'd never tangled with him.

[KittyWampus]

6. How Tiresome

[Psephos]

7. CBS is doing Democrats no favors here...

I agree with IndianaGreen - stonewalling is like waving a
hankie on a stick to divert attention from the fact that you
aren't wearing any pants. It didn't work for Tricky Dick and
it won't work for Dan. Rather is starting to make me cringe,
while the Repugs smirk self-righteously. No one needs those
stinking documents to assert that the chimp was a shirker --
there is plenty of other evidence -- but as long as the
spotlight is on the documents' authenticity, it's off Boosh.

[stevedeshazer]

10. Welcome, Psephos

I agree that the focus needs to be, well, refocused.

[KoKo]

20. Comparing Dan Rather to Nixon is smearing him the way the Repugs

smear Dems...I'm surprised to see comments on DU linking Rather to Nixon. He couldn't stand Nixon...I remember...

[wrate]

37. Exactly. There is no pleasing this people. It's either the media is

biased if they don't report the complete story or they are hurting us if they do. CBS has been AMAZING at disclosing the crap that the * Administration has gotten away with. I think they deserve everyone's support here.

[nolabels]

42. I knew Dick Nixon and Dan your no Dick Nixon

>>> From Washington Babylon by Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein, Verso Books, 1996 (from which these photos were scanned):

The photographs of Kissinger , seen pondering affairs at a trade conference in Brazil, originally appeared on the front page of Jornal do Brasil, a major Rio de Janeiro daily, on November 13, 1992. <...>

A few years later, Kissinger's lawyer sent Jornal do Brasil a letter saying the former secretary of state would file a lawsuit for damages if the newspaper did not immediately cease and desist from selling the photos. To its credit, Jornal do Brasil refused to bow to Kissinger's attempted assault on free speech.

One purchaser of the photos was the advertising agency Woolward & Partners, which bought the pictures of Kissinger for use in an ad for computer equipment. Woolward & Partners also received a letter from Kissinger's lawyer demanding that it make no further use of the Nobel prize winner's image.
(snip)
http://jwz.livejournal.com/2002/12/09/

[KoKo]

44. Ewwwwwwwwwww......disgusting...what does that have to do with Rather?

I could have done without seeing Henry doing that.....blech

[nolabels]

50. It's a 180 spin

You never heard the famous line on laid on Dan Quayle? Somebody that compares "I am not Crook" Nixon to Dan Rather needs to wake up. Kissinger was much of brains behind Nixon, just like Rove with bushco (I don't know that it's brains so much as just calling the shots behind the curtain)

If you think that is sick you ought to really study up on old Henry. Rent, buy , borrow the Movie "The trials of Henry Kissinger" I viewed on my free 2 week trial with Netflicks. I am no expert but heard the book was quite good also

Back the point what that has to do with story is Kissinger is he was mostly the behind squeeze that got Nixon into office, involved him in much trouble including especially in South East Asia. When Nixon left and took the fall, Henry stayed on with Ford after many around Nixon were disgraced and had to leave for one reason or another. To this day many don't know any of the real story.

The reason it's such a bugaboo with me is that a lot of times you will be looking some nefarious thing that went on during that time period and his name always pops up. So I started this thread because of it

Is Henry Kissinger a war criminal, fascist or just misunderstood
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=345935

On edit: syntax and to say this all about image, which I try to ignore except when it gets in the way

[KoKo]

52. funny...I just got "Trials" from the bargain bin at Blockbuster and

watched it a week ago. I posted on DU that everyone should rent it if you didn't have time to read the book. It's excellent. I just didn't get the connection between the poster who compared Nixon to Rather, and then your post about Kissinger pops up when I was defending Rather as "no Nixon." Crossed wires, I guess. :D

Kissinger should be in jail and maybe one day if he lives long enough, he will be.

[Psephos]

54. Agreed - Kissinger was the puppet master

First, thanks for the several "welcomes" that were posted.

Second, I would like to be clear that I was not comparing Dan Rather to Nixon, only comparing what Rather seemed to be doing recently to something that Nixon did. BIG difference. Rather has a long tradition of professional inquiry and hard work; I hate to see him off his game. Democrats need reporters who will ask the hard questions. I said it before: Rather is not helping anyone (donks included) by clinging to questionable documents. There's plenty of hard evidence that there are gremlins in Boosh's TANG woodpile...but that evidence won't rise in public awareness while everyone's hyperventilating about fonts and word processors.

Third, I agree with nolabels that Kissinger was the real Dark Lord of the Nixon administration. The DVD is good, but I urge a reading of Christopher Hitchens' book The Trial of Henry Kissinger (look it up on Amazon). It's a masterful indictment, absolutely devastating, and it rises above the garden-variety polemic by virtue of its extensive documentation and citation of sources. (Which is to say, it can be used effectively in arguments with wing-nuts.) After you read it, you'll want to sic Dog the Bounty Hunter on him.

[nolabels]

56. Nothing personal, the echo machine does it, check out this cartoon

http://www.uclick.com/client/nyt/gm/

This cartoonist is part of it. Checking out the Archive of the guy I would say he gets his cues from the morning VRWC briefings. This cartoon was in my Reich wing rag of a paper yesterday morning which means he had to at least been drawing it the night before. He must of spent a whole 15-20 minutes to be sure. But this is one of them talking points other's have bit on.

on edit: typo

[sassy2u74]

30. I agree CBS is hurting us

As long as they have this debate are they phony? That's all the media can talk about! Let's get back to some real issues the economy,deficit,jobs,health care the mess in Iraq. Come on media quit being led around by the nose!!!! Talk about the real issues!!!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

48. Here's a real issue for you...did FratBoy serve honorably or not....

...and if not, how can he justify sending REAL soldiers into the Middle East based on even more lies?

[Bandit]

33. Well it has certainly been working for the Bush* Cabal

Or have you seen the Energy Task force Meeting minutes or the Presidential Papers or virtually everything/anything the Cabal touches. They stonewall everything and get by with doing so.

[JimmyJazz]

38. Welcome

:toast:

I respect your opinion, however, I think that without the controversy over the documents, the issue would have been dropped by the media a long time ago. As you may recall, his service in TANG was brought up during the 2000 campaign and quickly dropped. This time around it's a bit different. Part of the difference is that this time, we are at war, but part of it is these documents. As long as those documents are being discussed, Bush's behavior is going to be part of the discussion. I hope the outcome of the discussion will be that even if the documents are not authentic, the content within them is the truth.

Remember, even thought the Not-So-Swift Boat people were quickly proven to be liars, the media kept the spotlight on them and, at the same time, on John Kerry's actions.

[w4rma]

32. Are you the original IndianaGreen? You don't sound like her. (nt)

[KoKo]

43. agree...it sounds like "Indiana to the "dark side." Hard to recognize..

:eyes:

[krkaufman]

2. Well, at least the Times got one thing right and commented on The Smirk.

[EndElectoral]

4. C[mon LA Times...like you'd reveal your source info...or Novak would....

[girl gone mad]

8. Wow. If only..

they had gone after the administration's trumped up WMD claims with equal veracity.

But, I can see why they think debunking 30 year old memos which only substantiate information already in the public record is more important.

[Carolab]

9. I think CBS

should offer a reward to anyone who can prove the memos and their contents are fraudulent

[Spinzonner]

11. No one has proven that the memos are fraudulent

There has been nothing identified in them that has been proven to be unprodicable with the commonly available technology of the time. They are only repeating debunked claims to the contrary and ingoring the subsequently identified equipment.

That is not the same as proving they are not fraudulent since that would require a chain of possession to be shown and perhaps Duplicates elsewhere. Since they were reportedly prepared 'for File', that seems unlikely.

The statements of individuals - on either side - that they did or did not sound like Killian or that he would not have done such memoing are contradictory. As such, they likely represent points of view and opinions subject to all kinds of limited knowledge and biases and should both be minimized in importance.

[nlik]

12. What is curious is...

It should be so easy for CBS should just show one of these typewriters typing up a reproduction of the memo (if such a machine existed at the time). A 30 sec spot showing that would stop a lot of criticism.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. All that would prove

is that you could fake the documents today, using old equipment.

This is right up there the Kerry metals brouhaha.

It's a bunch of crap, put out by freepers, to distract from the real issue. Did W go AWOL and desert the National Guard?

[nlik]

24. Most of the criticism says,

That a typewriter of that era readily available to the NG offices could not produce the memo. Either such a machine existed or it didn't. Showing old typewriter advertisements isn't very convincing. Seeing is believing, so simply take one of these things and type out the message on the air. Bang!... more than half of the naysayers, and so called experts have lost a lot of credibility.

[RivetJoint]

25. Another problem is the content

there are too many things in the memos inconsistent with the way the military actually works/writes.

[6000eliot]

13. The most amazing

thing about this story is that it demonstrates the evil genius of Karl Rove and his gang of scumbags. They have framed the story as being about the veracity of the documents rather than about the substance of the accusations. Damn them to hell!

[rustydog]

14. Why so much attentionto these alleged forgeries

yet the media conveniently paid polite attention to known forgeries Bush used to invade Iraq.

[girl gone mad]

15. If it was a Karl Rove conspiracy..

and that's a big if, then CBS outmaneuvered Rove.

Now that the secretary has verified the content of the memos, the possibility that they were forged is much less important.

[RivetJoint]

17. C'mon

The Washington Post even has issues with this. It's obvious to a military person that at least one of the memos is a fake.

[lostnfound]

18. Did Bush snort & fail a physical, or was he just lazy, when he went AWOL?

That isn't the question. Nope, the Great Republican Spin Machine has dictated that the real question is whether one of these memos might have been fake..

[RivetJoint]

19. He didn't fail...he didn't even show up!

And you are right...they have got us focused on the WRONG thing. There's no doubt in my mind these memos are bogus; and it was prob the repukes who suckered Rather.

[KoKo]

21. Notice how they say conservative bloggers debunk type but not Liberal

bloggers proved that it could have been typed on IBM Selectric with proportional type an scripting. There were over a hundred posts on DU alone from people familiar with the selectric who debunked the myth that it was MS Word. But the two articles prefer to mention "conservative bloggers."

[Bridget Burke]

22. I'd vote for the IBM Executive rather than the Selectric

The Selectric Composer could have done it, but it would have been overkill to use one in a regular office setting.

[GoldenOldie]

23. I think Rather and CBS are holding info

Rather knows what he is up against. CNN devoted 6-reporters(?) to investigate 2-memos???? They seemed to have done all their work via telephone, never leaving their desk, never requesting George W. Bush's actual ANG records, never researching National Guard military regulations and specifically those regulations during the Vietnam era. My 8th grade granddaughter is more qualified to do research than these bozo's.

The so called reporters of CNN, FOX, NBC, etc., are scurring to get their words just right so they are all echoing the same mantra of the Bush WH. How many uninformed, overpaid, messengers are running around with reporters credentials.....shouldn't this be illegal???

[Papa]

35. And we know how frugal the military traditionally is.

IT's incomprehensible to me that the Military would buy a piece of equipment that is overkill, spend more money than what they have to. <sarcasm>

Im not attacking you, but the argument that it was overkill does not hold water to me. It's the damn military we are talking about. The same ones that spent $700 on a hammer and $500 on a toilet seats.

[The Stranger]

26. Black Eye for the Los Angeles Times

Black Eye for the Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times has been had. It is hard to reach any other conclusion about the fact that they seem to realize that the CBS News report is unimpeachable outside of the questionable status of a few documents. The fact that even if the documents at issue are not authentic, there are other documents lost that say the same thing, seems lost on the Los Angeles Times.

Whatever their truth, The Los Angeles' Times' real error was furthering the journalistic lie that the documents needed to be proven for the story to be correct. But the real question is why the Los Angeles Times would perpetuate this lie, and why would the the Editors of such a prestigious newspaper fall for it?

[RivetJoint]

27. Wait a minute...

What you're saying is that info on a document is correct EVEN if the document is fake, becasue there alledgedly there are LOST documents that say the same thing? What kind of logic is that?

[The Stranger]

28. Take as long as you like.

The story could have been presented without the documents, and it would still have been every bit as true. This is the position taken by CBS News, although the LA Times either doesn't understand it, or is misrepresenting it. If someone thinks the story does not represent the facts, they can sue CBS News, and, in my opinion, lose.

[RivetJoint]

29. However if you put forth

fraudulant documents to back up your story, it undermines your credibility and the message you were trying to get across. CBS screwed the pooch on this one.

[The Stranger]

36. If they were duped into providing the documents, that would not

undermine their credibility. It would only show that they made a mistake including the documents with the rest of the story. "The story is true," to quote Dan Rather and CBS News. I'm repeating myself here, but even if there is a question about the documents (a question is all that has been raised, no proof they were inauthentic, much less any fraud), the facts are supported, and the facts are the facts.

CBS News is taking a stand, and the Los Angeles Times looks like a high school paper for publishing editorials like this.

[funnymanpants]

41. fraudulent docs undermind story

If you try to prove something with a lie then you look like a fool. I've followed this story very closely and after looking at all the evidence cannot help concluding that the documents are forged. I think DUer's should really consider the evidence so they don't get caught.

Although all the features such as superscript and proportional fonts existed on typerwritters during the time, *all these features did not exist on one typewritter.* This is why the freepers are offering something like 10,000 bucks for anyone who can reproduce the documents on a typewritter. On the other hand, one can type the documents in MS Word and get essentially a perfect copy. What are the odds that a machine over 30 years ago would have the exact same leading (space between lines) and kearning (space between letters) as Word uses? Moreover, the heading for the docs is perfectly centered, not even 1 mm off. You cannot get such perfect centering with a typewritter.

Defenders of the documents point out that the the MS Word reproductions don't match up exactly. But keep in mind that MS Word does not print documents; a printer does, which can account for the slight alterations of the baseline. In addition, copying and faxing documents might also allow for the discrepencies.

Here's my guess as to what happened: someone knows exactly how Bush avoided Vietnam and how he didn't fullfill his guard service. This person knew all the details, but didn't have any smoking guns, so forged some documents. CBS got ahold of these documents and it asked other people if their contents were believable, and of course people in the know, such as the secretary, said yes. CBS passed the documents to the White House, who looked at them and said holy shit! This is exactly what happened. So the White House didn't denounce them. At the same time, CBS ignored some critics who stated that the documents were foged:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21675-2004Sep14?language=printer

They went ahead with the story, and now we have forged documents that state the truth.

[The Stranger]

46. One thing you may want to keep in mind.

I stopped arguing the documents one way or the other last week when I read the first CBS News statement. But:

What are the odds that a machine over 30 years ago would have the exact same leading (space between lines) and kearning (space between letters) as Word uses?

Microsoft Word has adjustable character spacing, word spacing, margins, and centering. Anyone on Earth can adjust these features. Also, the typeface Word uses was specifically designed by Microsoft to have the look of a typewriter.

Rather than a document being typed 30 years ago to look like Word today, you have a complex and powerful program designed by a billion dollar company designed to look like a document typed, and that could have very well been typed 30 years ago.

It is just as likely that these features have been manipulated to create documents that look like an authentic document created 30 years ago, which is entirely consistent with the purpose of the program, and this has been used to manufacture the story that the original documents were created today.

Just a thought.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

49. Another red herring.

[The Stranger]

51. What is a red herring?

It may be futile to argue the documents one way or the other with only the evidence revealed thus far. But what the poster above posted was questionable on its face.

[robbedvoter]

39. Absolutely. As in Arkansas Project times, LAT went with the brown shirts

on this one. The documents are the straw man in this story that so far nor W, not Poppy, not the Army couldn't deny: W was AWOL, didn't perform his duty, disobeyed orders.

[baldguy]

31. The news media followed the Swift Boat allegations

against Kerry to the bitter end - and found them to be nothing but lies.

Rather's critics weren't crying about journalistic credibility and partisanship then, were they?

[donkeyotay]

40. the hypocrisy is off the charts

baldguy makes such a good point: since when did these whores care about journalistic integrity? During Smearboat, lies for war, 2000 selection?

And what about stonewalling, what's wrong with that? Rove deserves a stonewalling monument. How many investigations into republican crime are being stonewalled right now? The latest and most egregious is Asscroft's blocking of the investigation into how our country was hijacked into the Iraqi quagmire.

And speaking of double standards, I spent a few hours reading candidate bush's speeches from 2000. Now, the repo's can claim that Sept. 11th "changed everything," and that bush's presidency should not be compared to what bush the candidate said, but how is it that Kerry can be judged on his war record and voting record but what bush said 4 years ago is irrelevant?

Here's a sample:
From an appearance on Face the Nation, 01/30/2000.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, your dad used to say he was the foreign policy president. That was his expertise. What would you say is your area of expertise?

Gov. BUSH: Uniting people and setting an agenda that's hopeful and optimistic, bringing people together to achieve that agenda. Coming into Washington, DC, and saying it is important to have an administration with a different attitude. We got to reject zero-sum politics pitting group—one—one group of people against another and elevating the debate so that—should I be the nominee, I'm gonna say, 'Give me a chance to bring people together to solve Medicare or Social Security. Give me a chance to cut the taxes or give me a chance to strengthen the military.' I think—I think America'll find that I've got the capacity to do that.

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=687&keyword=foreign+policy+qualifications&phrase=&contain

If we can't hold him accountable for his illegal, immoral war, can we hold him accountable for helping destroy our own country?

[bitchkitty]

34. What I don't understand

is why don't they just obtain records of everyone else in his unit and compare the type to these records.

[Snellius]

45. Journalists who gang up on CBS are signing their own death warrant

This isn't about forged documents its about intimidating the press. Even FOX.

[sattahipdeep]

53. Change the subject

Facing questions it didn't want to answer, the vice president's "political
apparatus understandably, out of necessity, chose to question the
questioner," Rather said. Likewise, he said, his critics are "people who
for their own partisan, political agendas can't deny the core truth of this
story … and want to change the subject and make the story about me
rather than have the story be about the unanswered questions about
President Bush's military service."

His aggressive pursuit of the current story "is not personal. It never is
with me," Rather said. Nor does he feel "beset upon," he said.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday:
"The biggest question I have — and I think the American people have —
is where did the memos come from? We're dealing with the alleged
forgery of government documents to influence a presidential race during
war. This isn't politics as usual. It's dangerous. It's possibly criminal.
This is really serious stuff." :puke:

Rather said he had 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."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-rather15sep15,1,1366024.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Los Angeles Times (subscription)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=4&u=/latimests/ratherridesoutlatestpartisanstorm

[wrate]

47. A taste of their own medicine. That is what CBS is giving the freepers.

While I respect the fact that some people here are afraid the real issues are not being discussed, I beg to differ.
The issues are in fact being reported and please keep this in mind:

For Americans that care about the issues, it HAS to be perfectly clear by now that Bush is a disaster. A failure in every single one of the important issues.
And, the freepers don't care about the issues. They care about their super hero Bush. So any opportuninty to set the record straight about this low life loser is appreciated. Althought I doubt that the freepers will wake up. This people need a piano to fall on their head to get a clue.