[dickmc]

As you know, CBS has just appointed two people to the Commission that is to look into the documents matter. They are former Atty Gen Dick Thornburgh and former AP executive Lou Boccardi.

Concurrently, most of you know that the Free Republic CBS Memo Forgery Project has just completed a major effort running some 20 pages. This includes:
* Conclusions and Recommendations (shown below in blue and red)
* Main CBS Memo Forgery Report (pages 1 to 10)
* Executive Summary (pages 18 to 20)
* Technical Appendix MSWord Overlay on a forged CBS Memo (pages 14 to 16)

We are now thinking that the time is close to sending it to Thornburgh and/or Broccardi. Alternately (or concurrently), we may also want to send it to the CBS News Division with request that they forward it to the newly established Commission in the interest of a full and fair review of this matter. We could also ask them for a response.

We would tell CBS, and Thornburgh and Boccardi in the cover letter that the Project Report is (1) a definitive, scholarly work primarily intended to establish that the documents in question are forgeries, and (2) recommends certain actions that the Project authors believe must be taken to restore CREDIBILITY to CBS and its news division. And, that we believe that the Commission is a first and right step in this process.

Before I raise some questions that we now need relatively prompt Freeper attentions and effort, the key section is the Conclusion and Recommendation shown below:

IT IS THE CONCLUSION OF THE PROJECT THAT:
CBS DID NOT EXERCISE REASONABLE PRUDENCE IN PUBLICATION OF THE FORGED MEMOS ON 60MINUTES

In addition to the many items detailed in the Project Report, the following were immediate red flags:

1. The superscript "th" in the 04 May and in the 18 August Memos would have been a clear forgery indicator to anyone familiar with a manual typewriter, the only equipment available in 1972.

2. The layout of the documents including proportional spacing should have caused any staff member to try to replicate the memos in Microsoft Word default settings. A simple overlay held up to the window would have revealed the forgery.

3. The use of the "0" in the 04 May and in the 01 August Memo dates and the lack of a distribution list for the these purported orders would have led anyone with past military experience, even at the private level, to know that the documents were not valid.

4. The use of a validator with no admitted typographic expertise. Moreover, that validator was instructed to validate only one Memo signature from a photocopy, despite that validator's own previously published statements that a photocopy could not be used to determine signature veracity.

IT IS THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE PROJECT THAT CBS AND 60MINUTES:

a. Issue a clear and unambiguous public apology to the American Public and to President Bush:
- on CBS News and on 60Minutes
- on the CBS web site

b. Terminate or accept the resignation(s) of those CBS person(s) asserting the authenticity of Documents on CBS News and on 60 Minutes.

c. Post on the CBS web site the source(s) of the forged memos and a chronology of the events relating to this matter specifically including contacts in electronic, telephonic, or written form with any 527, DNC, or Kerry Campaign employees, representatives, or agents. Also, immediately take steps to preserve all such notes and records.

d. Produce within 14 days a follow-up CBS 60Minutes presentation detailing the facts and circumstances relating to the acquisition and use on 60Minutes, CBS News, and the CBS web site of the forged documents.

e. As the forging and use of forged military documents, especially during a national election, is a serious and possibly criminal issue: formally notify the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission of the details concerning the acquisition and use of the Documents and fully cooperate with any subsequent investigation(s) and, if appropriate, any prosecution(s).

.

All of the report is downloadable as a MSWord document here or as a pdf .

.

Now for the immediate issues and action items:

1. WE NEED A ROUTE TO DICK THORNBURGH AND/OR FORMER AP EXECUTIVE LOU BOCCARDI AND/OR THROUGH THE CBS NEWS DIVISION: We do not want to send 20 or 30 copies of this report "to whom it may concern". Also, while the Investigative Group may have an address someday, they will likely be deluged with hundreds of pounds, it not tons, of mail. Likely anything we send by that route will not get much, if any, attention. We need a better route that is based on some kind of professional or personal relationship. This might be with Thornburgh or Boccardi. Alternately, it might be through one of the influential local station CBS presidents.

If you have a route or a suggested route, please Freepmail to Pharlap . You need not give your real name or E-Mail. Simply describe the suggested route and the relationship which will make it work. Pharlap will then get back to you if it appears a prime choice. At that point you will need to get in touch by separate E-Mail and/or telephone. You should probably not rule out having to make some personal contact to the "route" to assure the delivery works.

2. WE NEED TO GET THE REPORT SIGNED BY PARTICIPATING FREE REPUBLIC MEMBERS: If we send it over signed the "FR CBS Memo Forgery Project", it is not going to be very effective if no one stands behind the work. Obviously, screen names including "ihatedan" and the like are not going to work. Nor do we have the option of cutting an pasting dozens of signature jpg's or circulating a signature page from person to person.

After some thought, one option is to have a known and trusted FR member collect Freepmailed signature names and paste them into a MSWord table, so that we can alphabetize them and use Kauffman type signatures to paste into the FR CBS Memo Forgery Document's signature page. The results would then be something like:

To do this we needed a Freeper Volunteer to read the Freepmails and put the "signatures" into a MSWord table. As a "signer" you would need to supply: Mr. or Ms., First Name, Last Name, a few word description as shown. Your Freepmail would be deleted so that you would continue to be anonymous to this group. Thus, we need a Freeper Volunteer who has been around here long enough to be trusted. The volunteer would need to make up the name list so that it can be appended to the document. We will, however, not do this and send it to CBS unless we are assured of at least 30 signers. I will, so that means at least 29 others. Hopefully, well would have at least a hundred. Although, we do not intend to publish the signed document, you should assume that if it goes to CBS that the signature page may well appear somewhere.

3. WE NEED AN ADDRESS. Jim, may I assume that we can use Free Republic's mailing address as the address in the cover letter to CBS????????

Needless to say, we would appreciate inputs and volunteers regarding the above.

[The Old Hoosier]

Most people don't read vanities.

[Hank Rearden]

I don't respond to solicitations, unless they use every color in the Internet rainbow.

Yours fell a bit short, spectrumwise.

[Mike Fieschko]

I read the post last night, but I didn't see where you asked for freepers to volunteer to sign it. I read the post as a call for a freeper to volunteer to gather the signatures.

I will sign it.

I'm poor at MS Word and my typing is 'hunt and peck', so I wouldn't be a good one to create the doc with the sigs on it.

[hellinahandcart]

Hey, I'll sign. I had no idea you needed signatures.

I had no idea you were doing this, actually. Some many threads lately, and things moving so damned fast...

[hellinahandcart]

Pinging some people with ping lists...

[wildbill]

Since I made a few miniscule additions or edits, I will be proud to sign it.

although it is probably too late, I think we should have a go at proving the collusion between CBS and the Dems. There are too many clues--and this is the real crux of the matter.

The only reason the forgery is important is that it was designed to sway the election by letting BIG MEDIA like CBS carry the water for the Kerry Campaign.

The Kerry Campaign announced they were going to be using the National Guard story early in the year. For a good timeline, look at the article WHO Knew? on American Thinker.com. A link to them is on this site from the iconoclast.

In full disclosure, I must proudly say that I contributed to the article on that website as it now stands

[SubMareener]

This post is really OFFENSIVE! If Freepers don't do what you want, it is your fault, not the fault of the Freepers.

[The_Reader_David]

The request was too arcane. It looked like you needed a volunteer to collect them before anyone needed to sign, and since I wasn't going to be that volunteer (lots of grading and a grant proposal due at the moment), I didn't respond.

BTW: point 11 which is largely based on my posts is weakened by the suggestion that the unsuperscripted 111th's in the letterhead weren't done in the simplest way: using lower case L's (Word doesn't autosuperscript after lower case L's). It's a much simpler explanation for the two tell-tale superscripts and the spaces to assume the forger made only two errors with regard to suppressing superscripts: not spacing after the 187 and using ones (1) out of habit rather than using lower case L's in the 111th which had a superscript, rather than some roundabout route with backspacing or inserting th's late. (That explanation is almost as convoluted as the way one would get superscripts with an IBM Composer.) Certainly one can get unsupercripted ordinals in Word with the defaults on by inserting the suffix after the fact, or backspacing, but we want Occam's Razor to cut in our favor on all points.

[TexasCajun]

I thought Dan Rather and other liberals were the only ones to talk down to Freepers?

I'm online everyday and this is the first I've heard of the official Free Republic CBS Memo Forgery Project
I've not gotten any freepmail,
I've not seen your report?
How do you expect me to put my name to something I haven't even seen?
Who is participating in said project? ...the "we" you speak of?

Is the official "Free Republic CBS Memo Forgery Project" endorsed by Jim Robinson?

[Congressman Billybob]

Yes, I will sign. Here's my real world information:

John C. Armor, Esq.
Highlands, NC 28741

I don't have an inside contact to suggest to deliver the report.

Billybob

[ml/nj]

As you know, CBS has just appointed two people to the Commission that is to look into the documents matter. They are former Atty Gen Dick Thornburgh and former AP executive Lou Boccardi.

Wow! They're going to have a "Commission" look into it. That will really help everyone toward the truth. People here aren't quite so naive. The truth has been obvious to most people here since the buckhead post, or maybe a few hours after that. This wasn't a mistake. It was intentional; not by some underling, but by Dan Rather, the Mapes lady and CBS News management. Think your commission will say that?

ML/NJ

[monday]

I am sure that this is a very impressive document. I am also sure that I will never read it. 20 pages? ack, ack,

Some people like detailed reports some don't. Don't take it personally if you don't get the overwhelming response you hope for. It's not that I am not behind you, I just don't read reports unless I am being paid to read them. Sadly, I suspect people at CBS will probably ignore it as well, even though they shouldn't.

[MeekOneGOP]

Are the CBS Forgeries and Free Republic both Moribund?

Excerpt (from comment post #1):

As you know, CBS has just appointed two people to the Commission that is to look into the documents matter. They are former Atty Gen Dick Thornburgh and former AP executive Lou Boccardi.

Concurrently, most of you know that the Free Republic CBS Memo Forgery Project has just completed a major effort running some 20 pages. This includes:
* Conclusions and Recommendations (shown below in blue and red)
* Main CBS Memo Forgery Report (pages 1 to 10)
* Executive Summary (pages 18 to 20)
* Technical Appendix MSWord Overlay on a forged CBS Memo (pages 14 to 16)

We are now thinking that the time is close to sending it to Thornburgh and/or Broccardi. Alternately (or concurrently), we may also want to send it to the CBS News Division with request that they forward it to the newly established Commission in the interest of a full and fair review of this matter. We could also ask them for a response.

We would tell CBS, and Thornburgh and Boccardi in the cover letter that the Project Report is (1) a definitive, scholarly work primarily intended to establish that the documents in question are forgeries, and (2) recommends certain actions that the Project authors believe must be taken to restore CREDIBILITY to CBS and its news division. And, that we believe that the Commission is a first and right step in this process.

Before I raise some questions that we now need relatively prompt Freeper attentions and effort, the key section is the Conclusion and Recommendation shown below .....

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Ironclad]

Just tell me what you want me to do. Why can't this go in the mail to Thornburgh? He'll read it.

[The Mayor]

one giant Ping!

That's about 70 people....

[MrBambaLaMamba]

Any chance to can get Max Cleland to "deliver" it?

[EternalVigilance]

I'm afraid you have a bit of a misunderstanding about how FR works, and its function.

But putting that aside, I FReep every day, and this is the first I've heard about this.

And your communication skills could use some work. I read your vanity at the top of this thread and only vaguely understand what it is you're trying to accomplish.

Most folks would have to dive for the dictionary to figure out what 'moribund' means, as one small example.

But anyway, good luck.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I will stand with and sign the letter.

Thanks

[ThomasMore]

You got my signature.

Deacon Francis Valliere
Westerly, Rhode Island
CIO for a Computer Company

[dickmc]

Ok, Here is who we have to date as "signers":

dickmc
Jbeachgrl5
Mike Fieschko
Hellinahandcart
Wildbill
LakeLady
The_Reader_David (?)
Hank Rearden
John Armor, Esq
JessieJane
HAL9000 (?)
JimVT HuntsvilleTxVeteran

If you think of it, could you send me a Private Reply with the following:
Mr./Ms.
First_Name
Last_Name
Four_or_Five_Words_As_To_How_You_Want_to_Describe_Yourself

The reason for the last, if you feel it is a OK, is to highlight the kinds of skills that went into the effort.

Originally, the thought was to put the signatures at the end of the conclusions. Is that OK or would you rather move them to the cover page. What's the preference?