CBS News source says papers fake - Former Guard commander says documents were not shown to him

"CBS News has stood by its reporting, saying it obtained the documents through a reliable source

Are these people really awake and functioning? What evidentiary procedures would they like to see applied in a lawsuit, where their fitness to own station licenses was being challenged?"

No! CBS was asleep at the wheel and the truck is going down hill fast. If the source was really reliable, the source would be primary (wife or son with originals). Then a *real* authoritative evaluation for authenticity of the signatures could be completed. The source is as reliable Uncle Ben the Lt. Governor. Oops, I mean Speaker of the House.

BUMPmark.

"(On the other hand, it was still almost unheard of to USE a PO Box in a military document rather than the physical address.)"

Unheard of or not, that is what they did. President Bush's "Suspension From Flying Status" clearly bears the P.O. Box number "34567". Of course it also bears the DOD seal, and is from the Headquarters 147th Fighter Group (ANG) on real letterhead. I have yet to see real letterhead for the 111th. Has anyone?

"I've read reports that the deadline was the last day of his birth month rather than his actual birthday. From gut feel, that strikes me as more of a 'military-thinking' way of doing it."

No it's your anniversary date.

Maybe the reason I made the bet was because I had read Bias, and had formed an opinion of Dan Rather's character that didn't include him backing down in a knife fight, but did include his willingness to stab people in the back.

I always thought it was one poor slob working alone in the basement of the DNC.

The documents contain some clues that shout out "THIS IS A FAKE" loudly enough that they had to have been placed there deliberately; the most notable of these is the use of multiple ordinal forms within one document which only makes sense when using MS Word.

My current 'hunch' is that these documents were created by Republicans as a "leak test": leave them in wastebaskets, unlocked cabinets, etc. to which only a few people would have likely access (and where nobody should be nosing around them). Then after the documents are stolen, use Google to locate certain key words or phrases in people's blogs. If two people, one of whom is a suspected mole, share a private office and one of them leaves one of these documents in the trash, and the document later shows up on someone's blog, the identity of the mole can thus be confirmed.

While some might think it would be unscrupulous for the Republicans to create phony documents for such a purpose, these documents were never plausible forgeries. I saw the "fake" threads before I saw the documents themselves, but even if I hadn't I would have questioned them immediately. I might not have discovered the smoking gun if others hadn't, but I would have smelled something amiss with these documents instantly.