RogerDraftDodger
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Posts: 15
Location: Atlanta, Ga
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 Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:08 am Post subject: Gang of 500 MSM take on forgery |
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The MSM game plan is outlined below and a history of the exposing of forgery: Aired at 8:00PM exposed by 11:59PM
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Playing for Harvard
The Second Draft of History Is Usually Better Than the First
By Mark Halperin, Lisa Todorovich, David Chalian, Marc Ambinder, Mary Hood, Annie Chiappetta, Karen Travers, Brooke Brower, Alexandra Avnet, Jan Simmonds, Nick Schifrin and Teddy Davis
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 10, 2004—
NOTED NOW
TODAY'S SCHEDULE (all times ET)
FUTURES CALENDAR
Morning Show Wrap
Evening Newscasts Wrap
53 days until Election Day
20 days until the first proposed presidential debate
NEWS SUMMARY
At this precise time every four years, the most media-savvy members of the Gang of 500 begin to think about their roles in the premiere post-election forum that revisits the actions and players of the presidential race.
The quadrennial gabfest — hosted by Harvard's Institute of Politics in the winter after each presidential election — features a group of journalists who covered the campaign leading top political players from all camps through a chronological discussion of who-did-what-when-and-why behind the scenes during the course of the nomination and general election periods
...
For the Democrats in Cambridge (under a Kerry loss scenario), the talk will be about August, reliving the Dukakis nightmare, and the press' inability to live up to the shared claim about the historic "importance" of the election.
For the journalists there, questions will be raised about the ease with which the establishment media was led around by the nose by the Internet, cable, and paid media that was just above the video-press-release level.
Some preliminary conclusions, sure to be part of the IOP discussion:
1. As long as political reporters — rather than reporters who cover health care, economics, and military affairs — dominate election coverage, there will always be more emphasis on narrative that implicitly celebrates tactical cleverness and bare-knuckles ruthlessness over narrative that celebrates ideas.
2. Serious scrutiny of four-year plans for deficit reduction, Iraq, homeland security, etc., were crowded out by coverage of polls, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bob Shrum.
3. Neither candidate was made to answer detailed questions about his plans (We particularly look forward to reporters who got pre-convention Bush interviews recounting how about a third of their allotted time was taken up by a presidential speech!).
So between now and the end of the weekend — counting down days 53, 52, and 51 until Nov. 2 — watch to see what dominates the airspace and the inkspace and imagine what will be said about it, in the cold of a New England winter.
...
President Bush and the National Guard: the politics of the documents:
Whether these documents are valid or not, the debate over them has certainly pushed questions about Bush's National Guard service to the background. (And other things — did the politico-media world really process how the House rebuked the White House on overtime rules yesterday? Or actually read the Kaiser report?)
Just ask any reporter you know who works in politics were they focused on the curlicues of apostrophes yesterday? Or on whether Bush knew that he was (allegedly) being coddled by superiors?
Democrats, who deny up and down that they had anything to do with the documents, tell ABC News that they plan to continue their push to question the president's Guard service, irrespective of the CBS situation.
Top Democrats vow to continue to lead the charge against Bush along these four lines
1. Bush allegedly got special treatment
2. Bush allegedly was suspended for missing his medical exam
3. Bush allegedly didn't fulfill his requirements
4. Bush allegedly didn't release all the documents he said he'd release
But they acknowledge that it might be more difficult to break through the clutter of questions surrounding the documents' authenticity.
In less guarded moments, some Democrats express a sense of utter loss at the seeming turn of events in this story.
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos said on "Good Morning America" that "a lot of Democrats think this might have been a set-up" by Republicans — a sentiment we are likely to hear more of in the days to come.
Meanwhile, Republicans can rightly ask about the confluence of all the DNC, outside group, and media focus on revisiting the Guard story.
And Democrats can rightly say that Fox News Channel seems to like the "forgery" story more than the original CBS version.
And, meanwhile, Bush Republicans manifestly want to stay out of the way of this one and let the media work its magic. The sense one gets is that the White House — having disseminated the documents — feels the prospect of forgeries is too good to be true — or is it?
They will watch their friends at CBS twist in the wind, and keep repeating that the president was honorably discharged and all these attacks (get ready to lump the Kitty Kelley book in there!!!) are political and desperate from the side that is behind in the polls.
IF — IF these end up being forgeries, one of the interesting subplots will be the timing and method by which they were exposed.
We always favor looking at the content and substance over WHO is offering up the information, but in the war that will ensue about WHO gave CBS the potentially phony documents, it is interesting to Note that the right (Drudge, Fox, right-leaning blogs, others) led the way in pointing out the questions we have all been asking — and they were onto the questions, with remarkable detail, relatively soon after the documents were made public.
Here's part of how this story got here . . . from a little Marc Ambinder back-lurking on the blogs . . .
At 8:00 pm ET Wednesday night, CBS News does the story . . .
at 11:59 pm ET (8:59 pm PT), the documents come into question via a poster named Buckhead on the Free Republic Web site: LINK
Buckhead seems well-read on his forensic document examination skills.
"Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old."
Well, this is bandied about by dozens of Freepers, as they're called and is picked up at 8:30 am ET and added to by www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ — this little green football guy is a very popular conservative blogger . . .
It's expanded upon by www.powerlineblog.com/ in the early morning:
and also by www.spacetownusa.com/hmmm
and here, at 10:36 am ET: www.allahpundit.com/.
Around midday, the popular author Roger L. Simon praises the blogosphere for getting this story . . . LINK
Between this time and mid-day, reporters in the MSM — that's the Main Stream Media to these folks (that's us) — are alerted by some sources to the blogosphere's agita . . . others have read the blogs themselves.
At 2:41 pm ET, one blogger even consulted his own forensic expert and told anyone using the blog that, well, they must credit him: indcjournal.com/.
To Drudge, around 3:00 pm ET . . .
and the Weekly Standard . . . around 5:00 pm ET . . .
to Fox after 6:00 pm ET and then the AP and then ABC . . .
John Podhoretz credits the blogosphere, as he should: LINK
In other stories:
The Washington Post 's VandeHei and Edsall report on the "multi-front attack on President Bush's National Guard service" by Democrats yesterday. Notably there is only one line about the controversy over the authenticity of the documents unearthed by CBS News, with the paper dealing with that separately in another story Noted below. LINK
The Boston Globe does not get into the debate about the documents, focusing instead on the full-throated DNC push on Bush's service. LINK
A New York Times editorial on the new documents and Bush's Guard service does include a reference to the documents' authenticity being challenged. LINK
The White House lobs claims that the Kerry team is behind attacks on Bush's military service record. The Washington Times ' Bill Sammon reports White House press secretary Scott McClellan describes it as desperate measures for desperate times. "You absolutely are seeing a coordinated attack by John Kerry and his surrogates on the president." LINK
The New York Daily News writes that the revival of debates over Kerry and Bush's military records is turning New York voters off. LINK
Corky Siemaszko of the New York Daily News reports President Bush' former Harvard Business School proof, Yoshi Tsurumi, has come out of the woodwork to say his former student supported the Vietnam War but did not want to fight it. Tsurumi says Bush claimed his father's connections got him into the Texas Air National Guard. "But what really disturbed me is that he said he was for the Vietnam War," said Tsurumi.. "I said, 'George, that's hypocrisy. You won't fight a war that you support but you expect other people to fight it for you.' He just smirked." LINK
Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times writes "For years, the Democratic attacks have centered on two charges, including one that Mr. Bush failed to meet drilling requirements from mid-1972 to early 1973. A less-persistent accusation was that he used his father's status as a prominent Texas politician to win entry into the Guard after he graduated from Yale and faced the military draft in 1968. That charge has never been proved. And the White House thought it had snuffed out the question on non-drill compliance last winter, when it released records showing he was paid for the drills during the period in question and that he received sufficient points to achieve an honorable discharge in October 1973 as he entered Harvard Business School." LINK
CBS News in Crisis(?):
CBS's "Early Show" did a tell this morning on the document story.
An anchor read: "The authenticity of those documents is now being questions. Family members doubt that Killian would have written an unsigned memo . . . "
And "there are questions about the typography, which some experts say appear to have been done on a computer."
"CBS News says it stands by the story."
And then they quoted from the second CBS statement (not the third) that said that CBS was "convinced" the documents were authentic.
That conviction was dropped from a third CBS statement, which they asked ABC News to use instead of the second.
Compare two sequential statements released by CBS News last night:
New: "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 MINUTES report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts. As importantly, 60 MINUTES also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."
Old: "As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on 60 MINUTES was thoroughly investigated by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity. In addition to analysis of the documents themselves, CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written."
The Washington Post 's Dobbs and Allen report that "A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that 'these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.'" LINK
"'These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people,' the CBS News official said. 'Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles.'"
"The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as 'the trump card' on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas."
And let us not be the last to point out that if a(nother) major corporation was withholding information related to serious allegations made against the president of the United States, "60 Minutes" would be all over them, demanding to know about their documentation and expert back up.
What's going on in the halls of 57th Street and M Street today? (Note our use of superscript!!!)
We'll know more by 6:30 pm ET we bet.
Journalists play Gil Grissom: the documents:
It's important to point out from the outset that not a single piece of hard evidence has been uncovered that categorically proves these documents were forgeries.
Still, ABC News consulted yesterday with more than a half dozen top forensic document experts, including William Flynn, considered one of the best in the world.
Flynn and another leading expert agreed on several points, namely that the proportional spaced Times Roman font does not appear to have been the result of available technology in 1972 and 1973. They questioned the superscripts, the spacing between lines (13 points separated each line, which, again, was not a technology that was available in typewriters back then.). Then there's the apostrophe, which is curled to the left in one of the documents — not something typewriters did with their apostrophes.
Richard Polt, a philosophy professor in Ohio and an amateur typewriter enthusiast, said he was 99 percent certain that no typewriter he knew of could have made the typed impressions that cleanly.
And two members of Killian's family (who certainly could have agendas of their own) told ABC News that they had suspicions.
Marjorie Connell, Killian's wife at the time, said she "just can't believe these are his words." Mrs. Connell said her late husband would be "turning over in his grave to know that a document such as this would be used against a fellow guardsman." She used the words "appalling," "sick" and "angry" to describe her feelings about Killian's name was "being battled back and forth on television."
She made it clear that Lt Col Killian was a fan of Bush: "I know for a fact that this young man as a lt was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the guard and was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th."
She also mentioned her late husband was no typist. "He would not have typed because he did not type." When Killian did take notes his wife said he usually wrote on whatever scrap of paper was handy but "he was a person who did not take copious notes he carried everything in his mind." For more, see: LINK
Deb Orin and Ian Bishop of the New York Post key off of the radio interview with Mrs. Connell and a document expert to point to potential forgery. LINK
The New York Daily News reports forensic scientist Sandra Ramsey Lines says the superscript in the Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's notes are evidence of forgery. LINK
CBS News sent reporters a previously validated document last night that does appear to contain a superscripted "th," which confounds some experts we spoke with, including Katherine Koppenhaver, who said she is 75 percent certain even still that the new documents are forgeries.
The New York Times ' Seeyle and Rutenberg were careful to ask the political affiliation of their experts, which we think is a good idea. LINK
"Philip Bouffard, a forensic document specialist from Ohio who created a commonly used database of at least 3,000 old type fonts, said he had suspicions as well. 'I found nothing like this in any of my typewriter specimens,' said Dr. Bouffard, a Democrat. He also said the fonts were "certainly consistent with what I see in Times Roman," the commonly used Microsoft Word font. However, Dr. Bouffard said, a colleague had called his attention to similarities between the font in the memos and that of the IBM Selectric Composer of the early 1970's. But he said it would be unusual for Mr. Bush's commanding officer to have had the IBM machine because of its large size."
The Los Angeles Times talked to Killian's daughter: "Nancy Killian Rodriguez said only that her father, who died in 1984, had 'admired George Bush and was proud of the fact that he pinned his [flying] wings on him.'" LINK
ABC News Vote 2004: Bush v. Kerry:
The Boston Globe 's Kranish brings the National Guard story back to Kerry: "With the revival of questions about whether President Bush fulfilled his National Guard duty, some of Kerry's critics have begun to focus on what Kerry did in the Naval Reserve, asking why he hasn't released records of his reserve service." LINK
...
"Shell-shocked Democrats said Kerry must turn things around in a week or two to keep hope alive and one said Kerry strategists 'are trying every possible message against Bush in focus groups but nothing is sticking.'"
...
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html
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