Yesterday I sat in wonder, surfing the net as this amazing story and Blogosphere triumph unfolded. Thank God the NYPost's John Podhoretz recapped the Old Media implosion for us all the morning after, because as a sufferer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, my physical strength fails me and I can't blog. Even if I could, I don't know if I could keep up with the Blogosphere's Woodwards and Bernsteins of Memogate.
Fasten your seatbelt and turn over our your "E" ticket to the attendant, because we're all on quite a ride :
CBS'S BIG BLUNDER?
THE populist revolution against the so-called mainstream media continues. Yesterday, the citizen journalists
[I love this new name for us bloggers!--Jen]
who produce blogs on the Internet — and their engaged readers — engaged in the wholesale exposure of what appears to be a presidential-year dirty trick against George W. Bush.
What the bloggers and their audiences did was call into profound question the authenticity of four documents proudly trumpeted by CBS News in a much-heralded investigative report on Wednesday night's edition of "60 Minutes" about the president's National Guard service in the early 1970s.
These were "previously unseen documents . . . obtained by '60 Minutes,' " the network bragged Wednesday night on its Web site. Their author, supposedly, was Bush's squadron commander, Jerry Killian, who died 20 years ago.
[God rest him.
CBS has no shame...using the dead for their own partisan ends.
Killian's friends and family were so upset yesterday, they contacted the media to assure them that the documents were indeed slanderous forgeries to clear his name and President Bush's, too.
H/T to the inimitable Powerline blog, who's been all over this story like white on rice! They were even linked by Drudge! Yowsa!--Jen]
They "include a memorandum from May 1972," CBS reports, "where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about 'how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November.' " A document dated "18 August 1973" complains that Killian is being asked to "sugar coat" Bush's record. "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job," the document says.
Liberals went wild with glee about the story, especially after the onslaught on John Kerry's Vietnam record by his fellow Swift-boat veterans.
[Sad to say, but the whole media sh*tstorm over these documents almost totally drowned out the press conference of more Vietnam Vets--this time POWs, most of whom spent years in the Hanoi Hilton-- who have some serious issues with John Kerry and his anti-war activities:
they just released a documentary called Stolen Honor in which they call Kerry to account for calling them "war criminals" and they, too, state their firm belief that Kerry is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.
Also like the Swifties, these fine men aren't going away either.
The big question is when, of even if, Kerry will acknowledge their existence and address their very valid concerns about his bid for the White House--J.T.]
Kevin Drum, the most talented of the left-wing bloggers, wrote: "This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift-boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but . . . in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true."
[What Drum refuses to say and what the Dimocrats won't say is that there's a lot more reason to give the 254 Swifties' sworn affidavits about Kerry's Vietnam service and his anti-war activities credence than there ever was any bashing of Bush's NG service, even before the latest documents were proven to be forgeries.]
Drum simply assumed that the documents were above-board. So did The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which put the story on its front page on Thursday.
[Not coincidentally, these 2 papers have been the top 2 water-carriers for the bash-Bush, Blame-America-first Left and because they hate Bush that much and want to "get him" and get him out of office.]
They were doubtless swayed by the fact that CBS said " '60 Minutes' consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic."
[Ya know, this doesn't pass the "smell test" to me!
If these fine, upstanding Media institutions were so convinced these documents were the real deal, why would they have a handwriting analyst and document expert to verify that?
Doesn't all military paperwork carry its own authenticy on its face (prima facie, if you will)?
The tin-foil-hat-wearing VRWC member part of me thinks they knew all along the docs were fakes!--Jen]
Maybe "60 Minutes" should have tried another expert or two.
CBS made the four documents available in their original form on its Web site Wednesday night.
And by yesterday morning, they were being examined with a fine tooth comb.
The Minneapolis lawyers who run powerlineblog.com were on the case early. Two of the blog's readers directed their attention to a note left on an Internet bulletin board on the freerepublic.com Web site — the 47th posting on the topic there.
[Ah, Free Republic!
I was a Freeper once upon a time...
It's a great bunch of nice people who love their country and their President and some of them are serious political scholars who presaged the political web journalist/blogger movement.
Freep on!--Jen]
Post No. 47 pointed out that there was something off about these documents from the 1970s: The spacing between the letters and the words was proportional, and only a few IBM electric typewriters could achieve that effect back then.
From there it was off to the races. Once anyone who had had experience writing and typing in the 1970s began examining the documents, it was impossible not to see some weird anachronisms that suggested they had been crafted not on a 1970s typewriter, but using Microsoft Word.
Charles Johnson, who runs the wonderful littlegreenfootballs.com and is a friend of mine, simply typed one of the memos over using Microsoft Word's New Times Roman font and, lo and behold, the document came out exactly identical to the one on the CBS site, down to the letter spacing.
The documents contain such features as superscript lettering, which is done automatically by Microsoft Word,
[Apparently, the superscript "th" that is automatically inserted by Word when typing "187th" was the dead giveaway]
and curly quotation marks. A brief glance at a Web site called selectric.org, run by an amateur typewriter fanatic, reveals dozens of IBM electric typefaces — and none of them has curly quotation marks.
By 3 o'clock, the very careful and honest Jim Geraghty, who produces invaluable material every day on nationalreview.com's Kerry Spot,*[*This should be another stop on your daily reads during the rest of the campaign.
There's always lots of great stuff there!--Jen]
was saying flatly, "CBS had better have one heck of a defense for this."
[Of course, they don't, Jim.
They just want their boy Kerry to beat Bush any way he can, including cheating, lying and smearing.]
Yeah, it had better. I thought on Wednesday that it was scandalous for "60 Minutes" to turn over a good deal of its time on Wednesday night to one Ben Barnes, a one-time Texas political powerhouse who now claims he got George W. Bush into the National Guard.
[Ah, yes! Ben Barnes...not exactly one of Texas's better productions, but definitely a "made man" in the Dimocrat party machine.
Tom Daschle has been known to call Barnes "our (the Dimocrats') 51st Senator."
Read all about Barnes here:Ben Barnes: John Kerry’s Unbelievable Last-Ditch Weapon.
Not only were "60 Minutes" documents exposed as forgeries, but their "big get" interview of Barnes shouldn't have happened either!
Barnes is a proven liar with plenty of not-so-hidden ties to the Kerry Campaign.
Shame, shame, shame, CBS!--Jen]
The problem is not, as some would have it, that Barnes has raised half a million dollars for Kerry. The problem is that Barnes has already lied about this on videotape, and I use the word "lied" without difficulty, where he says he pulled strings for Bush when "I was lieutenant governor of Texas."
The thing is that George W. Bush was sworn into the National Guard in May 1968. Ben Barnes didn't become lieutenant governor until 1969.
[Dare I mention that given the state of Texas politics now and then, with the GOP working hard to change Texas politically and ideologically into a "Red State" from its solid Democrat history since Reconstruction, why would the Republican Bushes ask Dim party man Barnes for any favors at all ever?
Inquiring minds wanna know!
President Bush discovered the beauty of bipartisan cooperation as Governor of Texas working with the late, great Bob Bullock.--J.T.]
From the lies of Ben Barnes to the apparent forgeries of who-knows-who-did-it — why has "60 Minutes" exposed itself in this way?
We all know why. Its producers and others in the media think George Bush deserves to be beaten up now because of the beating administered to John Kerry in August. In some weird way, the editors and producers believe this is fairness at work.
[I disagree with Poddy here: First, CBS and Old Media started this onslaught on Bush and the GOP long before this summer, as I don't have to tell you.
Secondly, Kerry is such an awful person and candidate and has run such a terrible campaign, that he's virtually administered that beating to himself without any help from Bush.--J.T.]
Instead, they have unmasked themselves. Or rather, they have been unmasked by ordinary people who can see what they and their hired experts evidently could not.
Bush, Conservatives and Conservatism and it is so rabid and vicious that it has literally blinded them to journalistic basics like facts, truth and real sources.
The consequent gains made to reveal truths to the American people, the momentum to re-elect the President that is building and the triumph of Truth over Lies continues apace!
Part of the new war is being fought online and in the blogosphere and I'd say that this is definitely a
Surely this is what President Bush means when he speaks of the blessings of Liberty...Is this a great country or what?!
(Maybe it's just me, but the burning question now is "From whence did these forged documents come?"
The answers to that will tell us even more about this riveting political scandal that has exploded less than 2 months before the "most important election of our lives.")
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