Les Jones

Media Behaving Badly > Dan's Rather Lame Response

That took longer than I thought to blog because I had to make dinner in between my last post and this one.

Rather was in siege mode. Cover-up time. CYA, just like the Killian document.

Rather started by characterizing the questions about the CBS report as attacks. He then re-iterated all of the charges against Bush regarding his National Guard service, a repeat which took 40 seconds and previewed what was to come.

"Today on the Internet and elsewhere, including many who were partisan political operatives, concentrated on the key questions of the overall story, but on the documents that were part of the support of the story."

Partisan political operatives? That's funny, I don't recall cashing any checks from Karl Rove. Translation: the jury didn't believe the witness, so they ignored the witness's testimony. Therefore CBS is going to claim the jury was rigged.

Rather showed some other Bush military records that included a superscript. However, the superscript on those authentic documents was noticably different: it was vertically centered with the other letters on the line. The superscript on the CBS Killian document was raised considerably above the line of text. That didn't seem to bother Baghdad Dan. UPDATE: Brian Carnell has a screen capture: go see for yourself.

Next, Rather sat up a straw man, saying that some people claimed the Times New Roman font wasn't available in 1973. True, some people have said that. And Rather noted that one company had produced the font since 1931. But that would most likely have been for typesetters rather than typewriters. He was basically right, but it's a weak point. He failed to address the curly quotes in the document, or the use of centering on other documents, or the striking resemblance between the Killian document and the same document produced using the default settings in Microsoft Word.

"Document and handwriting expert" Marcel Matley was brought out as an expert witness for the documents. "He says he believes they are real, but is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some people now questioning the documents. Because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced, and the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned, and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with, which were also photocopies."

UPDATE: RatherBiased found this quote from Matley: "The Problem with Copies: Do not passively accept a copy as the sole basis of a case. Every copy, intentionally or unintentionally, is in some way false to the original. In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries." You don't say! "Further, a definite finding of authenticity for a signature is not possible from a photocopy, while a definite finding of falsity is possible." Ya think he told CBS that?

An obvious point is that most people questioning the documents are using the PDFs that CBS News posted on their Web site. Computer files are digital: they do not suffer any degradation when downloaded. I can't imagine that any of the bloggers questioning these documents scanned or faxed them. The only scanning done was by CBS News, who scanned the photos and placed the PDFs online.

The next part of the segment focused on Matley's analyis of Jerry Killian's signature. What's the point? If the documents were digitally forged, the signature is meaningless. Anyone forging a document would find a copy of the person's signature, scan it, and paste it into the document. The fact that CBS News has a photocopy of the document rather than the original makes the signature meaningless.

DAN RATHER: When you read through these documents, is there any doubt in your mind that these are genuine?

ROBERT STRONG: They are compatible with the way business was done at that time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being. I don't see anything in the documents that are discordant with what were the times, what were the situation, and what were the people involved.

DAN RATHER: (Voiceover) Strong says the highly charged political atmosphere of the guard at the time was perfectly represented in the newly-revealed documents.

ROBERT STRONG: It verged on outright corruption. In terms of the favors that were done, the power that was traded. And it was unconscienable, from a moral and ethical perspective it was unconscienable.

OK, but while that confirms some people's beliefs about Bush's service, it really does nothing to authenticate the documents. The fact that a document panders to a viewpoint doesn't authenticate the document.

"It is the information in the new documents that is most compelling for people familair with President Bush's record in the National Guard. Author Jim Moore has written two books critical of President Bush and his service in the guard."

Well, Moore's certainly an unbiased source, isn't he?

"If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it."

I feel reassured. Don't you?

Posted by lesjones