1. Dan Rather's Defense, Memos "Could" Be Authentic, Grows Lamer
Dan Rather's second effort Monday night to defend the authenticity of the memos supposedly about President Bush's National Guard record was even lamer that his first attempt on Friday night, though after having denigrated his critics on Friday as "partisan political operatives," on Monday's CBS Evening News he at least conceded that "some" of the questions about the documents "come from people who are not active political partisans." Rather began his defense by highlighting a shot at Bush from a Kerry operative at a DNC press conference and ended by recounting how "CBS News asked the White House today to give direct answers to a number of questions." Of course, CBS News has so far refused to pose any such direct questions to John Kerry or provide any "direct answers" as to the source or agenda of whoever gave them the supposed memos. Rather provided a low standard of proof as he relayed how document analysts "strongly insist" that the documents "could have been created in the '70s." Amongst his defenses, that overwriting MS Word's automatic superscripting is cumbersome, as if a forger wouldn't make the effort!
2. Olbermann Lays Out Right-Wing Conspiracy Behind Faked Memos
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann sees a grand conspiracy in "how the documents came to be so quickly and thoroughly refuted on a right-wing Web site not two hours after they were first revealed on CBS." Picking up on how a FreeRepublic.com poster, "Buckhead," had first suggested a 1970s typewriter could not have produced the memo showcased by 60 Minutes, on Monday's Countdown Olbermann ran through the blogger's resume and concluded, ever so ominously: "So the Killian documents come out and are almost immediately questioned by a lawyer with Republican ties and are distributed to other news organizations without comment by the White House and they suddenly have one of their principal endorsers retract his endorsement. How many rats do you smell?"
3. Killian Colleague Calls Memos "Absurd," Experts Doubt Signature
FNC on Monday morning brought aboard retired Colonel Earl Lively, who ran the Texas Air National Guard operations in Austin during George W. Bush's tenure, and he declared that the memos from his former colleague, Jerry Killian, put forward by CBS News are "absolutely absurd. Anybody that knew anything about the Guard in that period can just read those memos and see that they are completely unrealistic." He also explained how Bush did not jump to the front of a long waiting list. Later in the day, FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume highlighted two document experts who doubted the authenticity of Jerry Killian's signature on the CBS memos as Jim Angle pointed out that CBS's handwriting expert, Marcel Matley, who validated the Killian signature, wrote in a professional journal a couple of years ago that signature's cannot be confirmed from photocopies, which is all CBS has.
4. CBS Expert Denies Authenticating, WPost: Likely Word Processor
In what should be a devastating blow to CBS News and Dan Rather, the Washington Post's Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz reported on Tuesday that "the lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard," Marcel Matley, "said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves." On Friday's CBS Evening News, Dan Rather had declared: "Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real." The Post duo concluded that an analysis "shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS's Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word."
(the above are summaries, the full text of these 4 articles can be found at the link below)
http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberal...20040914.asp#1