It Isn't About Bush: Rather Slanted – and Duped Into Aiding the Kerry Cause (A should-read!)

The Richmond [VA] Times-Dispatch ^ | September 19, 2004 | Ross Mackenzie

[quidnunc]

"This is not about me," Dan Rather insists. Well, it's certainly more about Rather and the credibility of CBS News — now — than about Rather's intended target, the President of the United States.

As just about all the world has learned, CBS has four purported memos faxed from an Abilene, Texas, Kinko's. They allege that when he was in the Texas Air National Guard, George W. Bush — among other things — (a) ignored a direct order and was grounded, and (b) generally received preferential treatment to avoid service in Vietnam.

Yet regarding the memos, as a colorful Virginia pol used to say, there's a lot going around in the dark besides Santa Claus.

The memos have a distinct odor about them strongly suggesting they're fakes. Typographically, they contain all sorts of elements common to today's word processors but practically non-existent on typewriters in 1972 and 1973, when they supposedly were written by Bush's squadron commander, who died 20 years ago. They're stylistically suspect, containing abbreviations not used in the squadron at the time. The commander's secretary, now 86, says she didn't type them. The commander's wife and son say he didn't write them, didn't type, and didn't feel about Bush the way the memos indicate he did.

-snip-

[El Gato]

I have just sent them a reply to this email to the effect that Rather and CBS are complicit in criminal forgery and lies, and that after considering their response I do not think such activities fall within the description of freedom of the press to express opinions about political matters.

More importantly, from the FCC's standpoint, criminal forgery and deliberate lies do not serve the public interest. Radio and TV stations, those that use the public airways, must operate in the public interest. That's the law. CBS is hardly operating in the public interest, which makes their affiliates, who actually hold the licenses, in violation of the law. That's why some radio affiliates, those not owned by ViaCom of course, are no longer carrying CBS news, switching to other providers for their "top and bottom news".

[willyboyishere]

I will bet you ONE MILLION DOLLARS he is not let go on
January 12, 2004.

[Travis McGee]

Good grief, that's a well stacked congress critter! If she needs any help cinching that belt, she can contact me directly.

[Squantos]

Is that former Atty Gen of Florida Kathrine Harris ???? If so she washes up reeeeeeal goood !

Stay Safe.......Y

[Squantos]

Or was she Sec of State for Florida ? Doh ?!?!?!?

Stay Safe.......Y

[Travis McGee]

She can go horsey riding with me ANY time!

[Southack]

Senator Kerry and his African colonialist wife Teressa just taped a TV show with "Dr. Phil" per U.S. News and World Report...presumably claiming that "Bush lied" about healthcare. It airs in October.

The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again For All Americans!

[wardaddy]

Save a Horse...Ride a Cowboy as they say.....

I'll be her huckleberry anytime...lol

[L.N. Smithee]

As much as that pic of Katherine Harris in the saddle makes my heart beat faster, it's nothing compared to the thrill she gave me when she stood fast in the face of overwhelming pressure and stated her authority to confirm the results of the Florida vote.

I was in my car returning from work that November 2000 evening, listening to Michael Savage rant away, when word came of the press conference she had called. As I anticipated that she was going to allow the clueless, leftist Florida Supreme Court, the Democrats and the media to bully her into backing down, I started tearing up. I said to myself, "They're going to get away with it again. They can't be stopped."

Then Harris stepped up to the mic and said, in effect, 'The Florida Supreme Court says that I make the decision whether or not to certify the vote, and that's what I'm doing!'

It was a feeling that I can only describe in terms of come-from-behind sports victories I have witnessed: Dick Witcher's catch of a John Brodie pass, putting the 49ers in the playoffs in 1972. Dwight Clark's catch of Joe Montana's pass in the 1981 NFC Championship Game against the Dallas Cowboys. Joe Morgan's game-winning homer knocking the Dodgers out of the playoffs in 1982 (returning the favor L.A. did the Giants the day before). Will Clark's single up the middle off the Cubs' Mitch Williams in the 1989 NL Championship Series, sending the Giants to the World Series for the first time in thirty-seven years. And, yes, Mike Eruzione's wrist shot past Soviet goalie Vladimir Myshkin in the 1980 Olympic Winter Games.

I rolled down the window, pumped my fist, honked my horn and screamed like a banshee. The sense of impending doom was replaced by elation. It was that big a moment.

Thanks, Katherine. You have a special place in my heart forever.

[madison46]

nice

[Just mythoughts]

" The point being that this huge (hugh) media company is involved in all these efforts to sway this election. Is Viacom the Dem's "Halliburton"?"

Actually you could call them another 527.

There is one last show CBS could put together for the finale of this reality drama.

Drather could bring in "John Edwards" of Crossing Over fame, then Drather could have Killian tells us the veracity of these memos.

[snooker]

I wish they would lay off the snooker angle ... :-}

[beyond the sea]

Rather:

June 18, on Larry King Live: "I read the book [Bill Clinton's My Life] completely. And I think it compares very favorably with Ulysses S. Grant's gold standard of presidential biographies."

ROFL! A sick, demented, twisted Dan Rather speaks on a sick, demented, twisted man.

[beyond the sea]

Save a Horse...Ride a Cowboy as they say..... ---

One funny song.

[igoramus987]

Rather didn't get duped. The longer he can stonewall, the longer he can air hit pieces on Bush.

CBS's document examiners:

1. Emily Will of North Carolina, one of the experts CBS had asked to examine the memos, sent Mapes an e-mail outlining her concerns over discrepancies in Killian's signature. She also phoned CBS and raised more questions about whether the typography in the memos existed in 1972 and differences with other military documents. "They looked like trouble to me," Will said.

Linda James, a document examiner who lives near Mapes, was raising similar questions. The two memos she looked at "had problems," James recalled telling CBS, and she could not rule out that they had been "produced on a computer."

Document analyst Marcel Matley flew from California to New York, and Rather interviewed him on Labor Day, Sept. 6 -- footage that would end up on the cutting-room floor. But Matley limited his examination to Killian's signature, which he believed was probably valid, but not certain -- the lowest endorsement he offers. Because the memos were copies, Matley said in a recent interview, "there's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them. . . . I can't say either way from my expertise, the narrow, narrow little field of my expertise." (link)

2. James J. Pierce said on 9/16, that he was still "in the middle of studying them... CBS is wrong, CBS is wrong". (link)

[auggy]

"DUN BLATHER HAS BEEN A philosophical Commie for decades. He's been deliberately complicit in undermining our Republic for decades. He's a traitor of the worst sort--smiling and denying all the while."

Very well said. Philosophical Commie, Excellent.

I worry that their plans are to put their philosophical ideas to action, which, really has already happened. In a free country they can believe what they want, but undermining the people with lies and criminal acts in order to regain power is nothing short of treason with deception.

The average Democratic voter in this country has no idea, their party is actually communistic in beliefs, and that the leaders of their party have in fact, met with Communist China, Vietnam, and Russia during time of war, to influence the war against their country. Deception at it best, or is it worst.

We desperately need to uphold the law against these traitors and start naming names and prosecuting. This will probably not be the case and our treasonouos Democrats will continue with their deception on the American people.

[OregonRancher]

Get in line, Travis, age before beauty.......

[Lancey Howard]

Great post - thanks for that!
Being from Philadelphia, it's a little hard to relate to those sports analogies (we're usually the team on the other side, eg., Mitch Williams vs. Joe Carter) but I share your feelings about Katherine Harris. The guts she displayed in the face of a blistering Democrat attack machine (including the liberal "mainstream media") will forever make me proud. It was definitely pump-fist-in-the-air time.