I have a question. Knowing how anal retentive the government is about records and record keeping, wouldn't the GAO or the USAF procurement office have the records as to what exactly was used by the office staff of that era?
I mean somebody had to order the equipment and typewriters to stock the facility.
The DUers were calling for someone to grab any old typewriter and go on CBS News and demonstrate typing up the letter. They thought they could have it settled in five minutes.
I agree, I'd love to see CBS trot out an 'expert' to type up this simple memo and compare it on live tv.
Dan Rather's stand
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
http://cnn.usnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Dan+Rather%27s+stand+-+Sep+10%2C+2004&expire=-1&urlID=11603991&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FUS%2F09%2F10%2Frather%2Findex.html&partnerID=2004
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This is not the first time Dan Rather has found himself in a serious dispute with a U.S. president.
There was this exchange in 1974 during the height of the Watergate scandal with then-President Richard Nixon:
Nixon: Are you running for something?
Rather: No sir, are you?
And there was this exchange with then-Vice President George Bush in 1988 over the Iran-Contra scandal.
Rather: I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. vice president.
Bush: You do, Dan.
Rather: No -- no, sir, I don't.
Bush: This is not a great night, because I want to talk about why I want to be president, why those 41 percent of the people are supporting me. And I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash of Iran. How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?
Now, the 72-year-old CBS News anchor finds himself in yet another confrontation with a Republican president.
"I want to emphasize: I stand by my president. We are in a time of war, and I stand behind my president. There is not joy in reporting such a story, but my job as a journalist is not to be afraid, and when we come with facts, and legitimate questions supported by witnesses and documents that we believe to be authentic, to raise those questions no matter how unpleasant they are," Rather said Friday.
At issue is his report on "60 Minutes" that aired Wednesday -- a report that included documents purporting to show that the current President Bush, while serving in the Texas Air National Guard, did not meet all his military obligations.
"They [the White House] have not answered the question of did or did the president not obey or obey an order? Was he or was he not suspended for failure to meet performance standards of the Air Force? If he didn't take the physical, why didn't he take the physical?" Rather said.
But now, there are questions about the authenticity of the documents released by "60 Minutes."
The Washington Post says the "60 Minutes" documents are not consistent with other documents released by Bush's Air National Guard unit in the early '70's.
"If you compare the documents that CBS produced with the documents that we know to be authentic, that did come from Bush's National Guard unit, none of those documents use proportionate spacing. And that's only one of the anomalies," says the Post's Michael Dobbs.
Experts contacted by CNN say there are some inconsistencies in the type style and formatting -- noting those styles then existed on typewriters but were not common. They also say only a review of the original documents -- not copies -- can completely resolve the matter.
Beyond that, surviving relatives of Bush's then commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the author of the purported documents, insist they are fake. They say Killian always believed Bush was an excellent pilot and that he never wrote these documents. Killian died in 1984.
"The story is true. The story is true," Rather said. "The questions raised in the story are serious and legitimate questions."
Rather denies there is any internal CBS News investigation under way -- a statement backed by the network.
Rather also said the possibility of issuing any kind of recant or apology was "not even discussed. Nor should it be."
So9
This memo is phonier than a Michael Moore movie!
Dan Rather is not fit to be a successor to Edward R. Murrow.
Here’s something that bothers me and I have not seen it pointed out before. Look closely at the CBS documents and you will see any numbers and their corresponding th or st are separated by a space, are superscripted, or follow the character l (which could be a the letter vs. a number)
Microsoft word automatically superscripts “th” and “st” following numbers.
If I was trying to prevent superscripts on Microsoft word I would skip a space or use the letter l for the number one.
It’s clear to me someone was trying to prevent superscripts and forgot to leave a space on those superscripted numbers.
With all the significance of this issue, it's important to eliminate all possibilities. This analysis focused a. lot on the heading. It was common elsewhere (I did it in my business) during this era to use pre-printed stationary for many things. It was also common to have a typeset master on a metal sheet, then the master was run through offset printers to create the useable stationary to be typed on. Is it conceivable that pre-printed, typeset letterhead stock was used?
The whole problem with this will be the Sandy Berger Effect. The SBE means that a damning story erupts and simply gets ignored. That's what will happen here. It will be denied and soon ignored. Independent voters won't have a clue what went on, and all Rather has to say is that the challenges to his credibility are "partisan internet and talk radio" people, and the independent voter will understand that this is nothing.
So we must figure a way at FR not just to uncover this kind of thing, but to also carry it through to completion.
Ping (and gather the clans).
This kind of stuff should be forwarded to as many new agencies as possible.
That's a great article; real investigative journalism. I'm absolutely satisfied that the Killian memos are fraudulent.
If Dan Rather wants to contend there is a possibility that 1973 typewriter technology could have produced the documents they used for their 60 Min II story, I reply to him: "There is a possibility you could survive a jump from the Capital Records tower without serious injury; care to demonstrate your belief in the likelihood of that possibility?" (His refusal to jump would demonstrate just fine--I'm not advocating for his actual demise.)
Two supposedly manually centered letterheads typed months apart on an electromechanical wonder from 1972 line up pixel by pixel on a computer. Not "closely." Exactly.
See there? Mrs. Killian said her husband couldn't type!! Ha, ha, ha... tough way for ol' Dan Blather to end his crummy career, eh?
