Safire Challenges Rather

[Roguish Lawyer]

I am surprised that the NY Times would actually publish this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/13safire.html

Those Discredited Memos
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: September 13, 2004

Washington — Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax: the "documents" presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment in Lt. George W. Bush's National Guard service have all the earmarks of forgeries.

The copies of copies of copies that formed the basis for the latest charges were supposedly typed by Guard officer Jerry Killian three decades ago and placed in his "personal" file. But it is the default typeface of Microsoft Word, highly unlikely to have been used by that Texas colonel, who died in 1984. His widow says he could hardly type and his son warned CBS that the memos were not real.

When the mainstream press checked the sources mentioned or ignored by "60 Minutes II," the story came apart.

The Los Angeles Times checked with Killian's former commander, the retired Guard general whom a CBS executive had said would be the "trump card" in corroborating its charges. But it turns out CBS had only read Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges the purported memos on the phone, and did not trouble to show them to him. Hodges now says he was "misled" - he thought the memos were handwritten - and believes the machine-produced "documents" to be forgeries. (CBS accuses the officer of changing his story.)

The L.A. Times also checked out a handwriting analyst, Marcel Matley (of Vincent Foster suicide-note fame), who CBS had claimed vouched for the authenticity of four memos. It turns out he vouches for only one signature, and no scribbled initials, and has no opinion about the typography of any of the supposed memos.

The Dallas Morning News looked into the charge in one of the possible forgeries dated Aug. 18, 1973, that a commander of a Texas Air Guard squadron was trying to "sugar coat" Bush's service record. It found that the commander had retired from the Guard 18 months before that.

The Associated Press focused on the suspicion first voiced by a blogger on the Web site Freerepublic.com about modern "superscripts" that include a raised th after a number. CBS, on the defense, claimed that "some models" of typewriters of the 70's could do that trick, and some Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House included it.

"That superscript, however," countered The A.P., "is in a different typeface than the one used for the CBS memos." It consulted the document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Ariz., and reported "she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."

The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics' "motivation."

After leading with that response, Post media reporter Howard Kurtz noted that the handwriting expert Matley said that CBS had asked him not to give interviews, and that an unidentified CBS staff member who had examined the documents saw potential problems with them: "There's a lot of sentiment that we should do an internal investigation."

Newsweek (which likes the word "discredited") has apparently begun an external investigation: it names "a disgruntled former Guard officer" as a principal source for CBS, noting "he suffered two nervous breakdowns" and "unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses."

It may be that CBS is the victim of a whopping journalistic hoax, besmearing a president to bring him down. What should a responsible news organization do?

To shut up sources and impugn the motives of serious critics - from opinionated bloggers to straight journalists - demeans the Murrow tradition. Nor is any angry demand that others prove them wrong acceptable, especially when no original documents are available to prove anything.

Years ago, Kurdish friends slipped me amateur film taken of Saddam's poison-gas attack that killed thousands in Halabja. I gave it to Dan Rather, who trusted my word on sources. Despite objections from queasy colleagues, he put it on the air.

Hey, Dan: On this, recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and papers. Courage.

[Gypsy]

I am surprised that the NY Times would actually publish this.


I'm shocked as well but perhaps they are actually afraid of being dragged through the mud on this one. How CBS stands by this is beyond me.

Here's an article on the producer who obtained these "documents". There is such an ironic statement by blather that I have highlighted...he doesn't report the whole story and then has the nerve to say this?

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/september/0913_mapes_documents.shtml

CBS Producer Who Obtained Questionable Guard Documents Identified
By Jeff Gannon
Talon News
September 13, 2004

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Mary Mapes, a Dallas-based producer for CBS, has been identified by Talon News sources as the person who obtained the documents that suggest President George W. Bush did not fulfill his National Guard obligations 30 years ago. The documents, which have been judged to be forgeries by many news services and forensics experts, are at the center of a scandal that threatens the credibility of the network.

Late Friday, CBS spokesperson Kelli Edwards confirmed to Talon News that it was Mapes that obtained the documents (view documents here), but refused to comment on the questions surrounding their authenticity. Mapes did not respond to Talon News requests for comment.

During Friday's network news broadcast, anchor Dan Rather defended the four pages he claims were written by Bush's superior officer at the Texas Air Guard, Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian. Rather talked with handwriting expert Marcel Matley who said that on the basis of his analysis of the signatures, he is pronouncing the documents to be authentic. Not all of the pages carry Killian's signature.

Two others were interviewed for the segment. Robert Strong, an administrative officer for the Texas Air Guard during the Vietnam era, who vouched for the documents.

Author James Moore, a Bush antagonist, said, "They are absolutely consistent with the records as I know it."

**Rather dismissed his critics, saying, "Today, on the Internet and elsewhere, some people -- including many who are partisan political operatives -- concentrated not on the key questions the overall story raised but on the documents that were part of the support of the story."**

But glaring omissions marred Rather piece. On Friday, Killian's son Gary told nationally syndicated talk-show host Sean Hannity that Mary Mapes had contacted him before CBS ran the story. He said that he warned her that the documents might be forgeries.

Following the broadcast, Talon News asked Edwards why Killian's son and wife weren't mentioned during the broadcast.

She said, "I'm not going to debate every aspect of the story. We stand by the piece."

Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, told ABC Radio News, "The wording in these documents is very suspect to me. ... I just can't believe these are his words."

Connell said that 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," and she is "sick" and "angry" that his name is "being battled back and forth on television."

Connell said that her late husband was a fan of the young Bush.

She stated, "I know for a fact that this young man ... was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the Guard, and he was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th."

Rufus Martin, the personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time told CNN, "They looked to me like forgeries. ... I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years."

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor, told ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. He said that CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "Well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

Hodges believes the documents are frauds.

Doubts were being openly debated on rival networks. ABC News reported that they contacted more than a half dozen document experts who said they had doubts about the memos' authenticity.

Bill Flynn, one of country's top authorities on document authentication, told ABC, "These documents do not appear to have been the result of technology that was available in 1972 and 1973."

He continued, "The cumulative evidence that's available ... indicates that these documents were produced on a computer, not a typewriter."

CNN contacted independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines who said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines is a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. She pointed to a superscript -- a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" -- as evidence indicating forgery.

After reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Arizona, Line said, "I'm virtually certain these were computer generated."

One expert counts at least 50 points that suggest the documents are forgeries.

The White House is remaining neutral on the documents' authenticity.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Friday, "We don't know whether the documents were fabricated or are authentic. The media has talked to independent experts who have raised questions about the documents."

He pointed out that CBS has not disclosed the source of the documents.

Newsweek is suggesting that Mapes received the documents from Bill Burkett, who it describes as a disgruntled former Guard officer. The magazine reports that Mapes flew to Texas to interview him.

If the documents are proven to be forgeries, the scandal would go to the highest level of CBS news. Talon News sources say that Jim Murphy, Executive Producer of the CBS Evening News, approves virtually every word that goes on the air. "60 Minutes II" Executive Producer Jeffrey Fager would also be on the endangered list, since his show originated the document story.

But more likely it would be Mapes who would take the fall along with Janet Leissner, the Washington Bureau Chief for CBS News. Leissner orchestrated the interview with White House communications director Dan Bartlett during which he was confronted with the suspect documents. Dan Rather was originally scheduled to do the interview, but White House correspondent John Roberts was substituted at the last minute for an unknown reason.

Mapes is no stranger to controversy as she also obtained the photographs of inmate abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The source of the photographs as well as the documents now in question has never been revealed.

In 1999 Mapes was threatened with imprisonment if she failed to turn over the transcript of an interview that Dan Rather conducted with the third defendant being tried for murder in the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas. CBS ultimately complied with the court's demand for the information.