Posted on 09/28/2004 6:22:52 AM PDT by ancientart
I always expect a presidential election to be something of a circus, and this one is no exception. In one ring you have John Kerry trying to balance his positions on Iraq. In another President Bush is juggling his own sentences. Each has a team of clowns ready to rush out to explain what the candidate meant to say. I call that the greatest show on earth.
But I wasn't prepared for what took center ring on Sept. 8 - 60 Minutes II ran one of its trademark exposes on George W. Bush's days in the Air National Guard. The segment focused on a number of memos apparently written in 1972 by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. The memos seemed to establish two damaging facts: that Bush had ignored an order to get a physical exam, and that Killian had been pressured to sugarcoat the young airman's record.
The other networks duly repeated the story, and if they had still been in control of the news that might well have been the last word. But something novel and interesting was going on. Minutes after the broadcast ended, political junkies were posting the documents on their Internet web logs, and a vast network of inquiring minds went to work picking them apart. Soon a long list of suspicious facts was circulating in cyberspace.
To mention a few, the lettering on the document was proportionally spaced, something few typewriters in the 1970s could produce. They included such features as curly apostrophes and a reduced size and superscript "th" after 111, and were in Times Roman Font. Some letters curved over into the space of others, something no typewriter of that era could do. It was easy, on the other hand, to produce facsimiles of the documents on a modern computer, and when the newly produced versions are placed over the originals, downloaded from CBS, they match line for line.
The documents that Dan Rather relied on were in fact forgeries, produced not on a typewriter but on a personal computer, using Microsoft Word. Two days after the broadcast everyone with an Internet connection knew this. It would take CBS another agonizing week to not quite come clean. They tried to pass off as experts a man who analyzed the spiritual content of handwriting and a typewriter repairman. But Rather now admits that the memos "cannot be authenticated." That's like saying that the papier mache goblin under glass at the county fair might not really be the devil.
It's not hard to see why Rather and his news crew hung on so long. The victims of con jobs will often insist for years afterward that their mysterious partners were really honest men, and that they will show up any day now with the prize money. Having invested himself in the story, and CBS its prestige, Rather was loath to admit he'd been suckered.
Nor is it difficult to see why they were easy marks in the first place. People get conned because they are greedy. CBS News, struggling in the ratings game, was greedy for a big story. But they were greedy for something else. CBS apparently obtained the documents from Bill Burkett, a retired guard officer with no love for Bush. In return Producer Mary Mapes arranged a conversation between Burkett and Joe Lockhart, a former Clinton aide now working for Kerry. This involves a lot of coordination between campaign and network. The 60 Minutes segment as a whole suggests the same. Apart from the memos, Rather relied on the testimony of Ben Barnes, one time lieutenant governor of Texas. But Barnes is a Kerry fundraiser in Texas, and he got a call of congratulations from Kerry's campaign manager shortly after the segment aired.
Jonathan Klein, a former CBS executive, contemptuously described the bloggers who exposed the forgeries as "guys sitting at home in their pajamas." But, better at home in your pajamas than on TV in your underwear, especially when the boxers are decorated with clown balloons. What CBS cannot accept is that the world of national news has become a great deal more democratic. Pompous pinheads like Klein and Rather are now exposed to the lowly but broad band enabled. That, fellow circus watchers, is entertainment.
Kenneth C. Blanchard Jr., is a professor of political science at Northern State University. He is director of NSU's honors program. His columns appears occasionally in the American News. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent those of Northern State University.
LOL! That's a keeper!
...and for CBS...OUCH! That's got to hurt. Going to leave a big red mark that one.
Times NEW Roman - just like this post.
When virtually every typewriter used Courier New fixed-width font.
Remarkable.
The memos are clearly forgeries, and not even very good ones at that, yet See-BS still will not admit it.
Because he was NOT suckered!
He wa sthe perpetrator, not the victim!
When a news organization uses fake evidence, then is slow to come clean - there are indications of larger troubles than a fake story.
Your DNC Clown Volkswagen needs to be posted on this thread showing Komrade Kerry's Klowns rushing to his defense.
It would not surprise me to learn someday that this entire "news story" was a planned event from the get-go. Dan Blather and his cohorts at CBS obviously see the train coming down the track (a Bush victory in Nov) and made this story up from whole cloth to try to derail that train.
Lead clowns for the Kerry entourage.
Nice picture of the slithering Asps of the Kerry group!
The problem is why the rest of the mainstream media held on for so long, and the dike cracked so slowly, when it was obvious to anyone with a modem and a brain that Danny Boy and CBS were hunkering down to brazen out the indefensible.
The one on the left, poking his head up, looks a lot like Kerry. The one sticking his head up on the right, bears a strong resemblance to Rather. Proof positive of their collusion. LOL!
Thanks for the photo of Komrade's Kerry's Klowns running to their next photo op at NBCNNBC BS! That was probably just the group assigned to be interviewed by the Perky Katie and the so light in the loafers, Mattie Boy.
When you see a group like that, you drop the mower on your John Deere and put it into high rotary gear as you run over them.
With the self-mulching lever kicked in!
The Story by CBS is true! Bush's National Guard service is bogus! Anyone who does not believe my husband is an IDIOT!
Why won't you believe me? You must be a Republican SCUMBAG
/sarcasm off
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