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Mark Steyn: CBS defense of Rather hints at bigger story (FR and Buckhead mentioned)
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | September 19, 2004 | BY MARK STEYN

Posted on 09/18/2004 7:05:14 AM PDT by badfreeper

Of all the loopy statements made by Dan Rather in the 10 days since he decided to throw his career away, my favorite is this, from Dan's interview with the Washington Post on Thursday:

''If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story.''

Hel-looooo? Earth to the Lost Planet of Ratheria: You can't ''break that story.'' A guy called ''Buckhead'' did that, on the Free Republic Web site a couple of hours after you and your money-no-object resources-a-go-go ''60 Minutes'' crew attempted to pass off four obvious Microsoft Word documents as authentic 1972 typewritten memos about Bush's skipping latrine duty in the Spanish-American War, or whatever it was.

The following day Charles Johnson of the Little Green Footballs Web site drove a stake through your phony '70s memos by overlaying them with modern MS Word documents, whose automatic word wrap is amazingly an exact match with Lt. Col. Killian's ''typewriter.'' And every document expert agreed with Johnson your memos are junk, including your own analysts.

By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.

So the only story you're in a position to break right now is: ''Late-Breaking News. Veteran Newsman Announces He's Recovered His Marbles.'' And, if last week's anything to go by, you're in no hurry to do that.

Instead, Dan keeps demanding Bush respond to the ''serious questions'' raised by his fake memos. ''With respect, Mr. President,'' he droned the other day, ''answer the questions.'' The president would love to, but he's doubled up with laughter.

I was prepared to cut the poor old buffoon some slack a week ago. But Dan's performance has grown progressively more outrageous, to the point where it's hard not to conclude he's colluding in the perpetuation of a massive if ludicrous fraud. Dan's been play-acting at being a reporter for so many years now -- the suspenders, the loosened tie, and all the other stuff that would look great if he were auditioning for a cheesy dinner-theater revival of ''The Front Page''; the over-the-top intros: ''Bob Schieffer, one of the best hard-nosed reporters in the business, has been working his sources. What have you managed to uncover for us, Bob?'', after which Bob reads out a DNC press release. Dan's been doing all this so long he doesn't seem to realize the news isn't just a show.

Round about the middle of last week, he was reduced to shoring up his collapsing fantasy with Bill Glennon, a Cliff Claven figure who was a typewriter repairman in the '70s. But, because every other CBS expert had abandoned Dan's sunk ship, Bill suddenly found himself upgraded to ''document expert.'' This guy's been insisting that you could produce Dan's bogus memos on a 1972 IBM typewriter: ''The Model D had a lever that when pushed put a rubber stopper in front of the keys so they did not strike the paper. You centered the paper using the paper scale, put the carriage on the middle mark of the front index scale, typed your heading and then made note of the number it stopped on. You then moved the carriage back to the corresponding number on the left side of the index scale and retyped your heading and . . .''

Yeah, right. Every time I want to type a memo saying Bush is unfit to be president, that's what I do, too. Look, if Dan thinks this guy's theory is correct, let's put him and his IBM Model D and me and my computer in a room at CBS News for an hour and see which one of us emerges with the closest replicas of these four documents. I'll give him ten thousand bucks for every memo he reproduces exactly, and round it up to an even 50 grand if he gets all four right.

Any takers, CBS?

So the question now is why won't Dan and Co. just admit their docs are crocks and let it go? On Wednesday, CBS News head honcho Andrew Heyward, in a slippery statement, announced that ''we established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate.'' Note that word: not ''genuine'' but ''accurate'' -- i.e., if Lt. Col. Killian had had one of those IBM Model Ds and been willing to remove the carriage return and replace it with a rubber stopper on the front index scale while turning the crank, etc., these are the memos he would have written. Rather and Heyward are adopting the rogue-cop defense: The evidence is planted, but the guy's still guilty. Or as the New York Times' headline put it: ''Memos On Bush Are Fake But Accurate.''

Why has CBS News decided it would rather debauch its brand and treat its audience like morons than simply admit their hoax? For Dan Rather? I doubt it. Hurricane Dan looks like he's been hit by one. He's still standing, just about, but, like a battered double-wide, more and more panels are falling off every day. No one would destroy three-quarters of a century of audience trust and goodwill for one shattered anachronism of an anchorman, would they?

As the network put it last week, ''In accordance with longstanding journalistic ethics, CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which '60 Minutes' Wednesday received the documents.'' But, once they admit the documents are fake, they can no longer claim ''journalistic ethics'' as an excuse to protect their source. There's no legal or First Amendment protection afforded to a man who peddles a fraud. You'd think CBS would be mad as hell to find whoever it was who stitched them up and made them look idiots.

So why aren't they? The only reasonable conclusion is that the source -- or trail of sources -- is even more incriminating than the fake documents. Why else would Heyward and Rather allow the CBS news division to commit slow, public suicide?

Whatever other lessons are drawn from this, we ought at least to acknowledge that the privileged position accorded to ''official'' media and the restrictions placed on the citizenry by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform are wholly unwarranted.

As for Heyward and Rather, the other day I came across a rare memo from April 20, 1653, typed on a 17th century prototype of the IBM Selectric. It's Oliver Cromwell's words to England's Long Parliament:

''You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!''


TOPICS: Editorial; Free Republic; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cbsnews; congrats; killian; marksteyn; rather
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To: badfreeper; Buckhead

Great article!

And more kudos to Buckhead!


121 posted on 09/18/2004 6:50:52 PM PDT by Amelia
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To: The Sons of Liberty; Buckhead
It's pathetic that the L.A. Times tries to question the "computer-did-it" conclusion on the documents by attacking Buckhead as a "Republican partisan." EVERYONE who's looked at these documents honestly has noticed the justified type. Buckhead merely noticed it FIRST, and deserves the credit just like everyone else who climbed the mountain, flew the Atlantic, won the seven Gold Medals, or anything else, FIRST.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "The Manifesto of Pukin Dog"

If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.

122 posted on 09/18/2004 6:51:23 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (Visit: www.ArmorforCongress.com please.)
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To: Lijahsbubbe

I believe this is pretty close to what Bernard Goldberg said in his article. I also heard Bernie say it on Hannity's radio program.


123 posted on 09/18/2004 7:17:52 PM PDT by CyberAnt (Sen.Miller said, "Bush is a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel")
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To: Made in USA
Dan Furby Rather DOA... his chalk outline
124 posted on 09/18/2004 7:26:28 PM PDT by SunnySide
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To: badfreeper
Anatomy of Dan Rather
125 posted on 09/18/2004 7:28:41 PM PDT by SunnySide
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To: badfreeper
Doesn't CBS have shareholders? Are they ready for their fortunes sink with SeeBS's Rather? It's time for Rather to go...

By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.

126 posted on 09/18/2004 9:20:24 PM PDT by GOPJ
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To: Pokey78

Bumpity bump!


127 posted on 09/18/2004 9:26:43 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (Kerry's testimony before the Senate was instrumental to America's defeat in the Vietnam War)
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To: Budge

"How in the world did someone other than Killian's family get his privet records when at least two family members are still alive?"

That's one of the questions which has no answer since the documents were never part of Killian's records. The original reason no one asked of course is that these "ethical journalists" never discuss anonymous sources, or their handiwork.


128 posted on 09/18/2004 9:33:18 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (I, the jury)
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To: Semi Civil Servant
Document source is "unimpeachable".

Ah yes, but what you don't realize is that is an entirely true statement. Since the one who furnished the memos will never be elected president, he is obviously "unimpeachable".

129 posted on 09/18/2004 9:43:46 PM PDT by McGavin999 (If Kerry can't deal with the "Republican Attack Machine" how is he going to deal with Al Qaeda)
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To: Cicero

"They had a whole eight-weeks timeline laid out, with various people breaking various aspects of it as if by coincidence, and it would, as you speculate, have led up to that old charge they used in 2000, that Bush was a druggie."

I believe this is exactly right. Depending on how well the smear campaign went, they would have ended with charges that GW was an unstable risk for relapse, or preferably float a story that he had been back on drugs during his term in the White House.

CBS would of course have been in the middle of it all, coming up with carefully planted stories to move the saga along at critical points.


130 posted on 09/18/2004 9:46:08 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (I, the jury)
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To: mylife

That passage is a beautiful thing! LOL!


131 posted on 09/18/2004 9:48:31 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (I, the jury)
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To: hinckley buzzard

Smear campaign? Did I hear you say smear campaign? Why does the name Sasso come to mind?? That's his specialty.


132 posted on 09/19/2004 7:54:24 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: badfreeper
BUMP

CBS seems to be clinging to ol' Rather still though.

GO AHEAD AND LIE! NOBODY WATCHES YOU ANYMORE ANYWAYS!

I guess, they expect people to forgive, forget and get fooled again.

133 posted on 09/19/2004 10:03:05 AM PDT by AmericanCheeseFood (Only place Kerry has to go now is to the glue factory.)
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To: badfreeper

Thanks for posting what may be the original thread for this oped.

The link below is an index thread by Howlin with the Freeper exposure of the fraud and the lies that followed:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220090/posts


134 posted on 09/19/2004 10:04:22 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop lying to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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To: badfreeper; All
Here's what I have gathered:

-60 Minutes to Infamy- those forged memos and The Shot Heard Round the World--

-Pajamahadeen Rule... rise of the New Media--

135 posted on 09/19/2004 10:07:05 AM PDT by backhoe (Just a Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the Trackball into the Dawn of Information...)
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To: Semi Civil Servant
You let out the really big and good B, Buckhead!
136 posted on 09/19/2004 10:09:02 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop lying to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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To: billhilly

bump


137 posted on 09/19/2004 10:12:18 AM PDT by stockpirate (Kerry; supported by, financed by, trained by, guided by, revered by, in favor of, Communists.)
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To: ozaukeemom; 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub

overhere


138 posted on 09/19/2004 10:17:33 AM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: cyncooper; tiki

I noticed Susan Ostrich on Fox yesterday. She was quite subdued and almost sounded pro-Bush. I think sumthin's up.
I missed Estrich but posted the same thing about seeing Joe Trippi on Hardball last night. A few other freepers confirmed my report of his tone and demeanor and we had the same idea; sumthin's up.

I said I think he knew an investigation was coming and coming quick.

Our DIL saw the vile mouthed O and felt that the O knows that her involvement in this mess is about to be exposed. She agrees with both of you.

This is like the Wilson/Plame blogs/lies and spins that suddenly stopped after the 9/11 report showed that it was a massive lie with no truth.


139 posted on 09/19/2004 10:27:51 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop lying to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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To: alwaysconservative

"I totally agree: the "source" of the forged documents is even more radioactive than the documents themselves. It is either the sKerry campaign, the DNC, or the Shrillary cadre. Don't you think it is one of these?"

How about covert involvement by all three along the way for close to 5 years.


140 posted on 09/19/2004 10:28:52 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop lying to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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