WORRIED THE CBS MEMO STORY WILL FADE OUT? NOT YET
Some readers have e-mailed in, expressing fears that the memo story will die out in a little while in the face of CBS' stonewall. So far, that isn't happening, and other mainstream media sources continue to press the network on what the deal is with these documents.
William Safire brings up the topic on the New York Times' op-ed page. He doesn't mince words:
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.
USA Today reports, "Two retired FBI forensic document examiners who studied the memos at USA TODAY's request said Sunday that they probably are forgeries. Four other authorities interviewed by USA TODAY, including typewriter and type font experts, said the technology existed at the time to create the documents. None of the experts consulted offered an unequivocal opinion."
John Fund writes on OpinionJournal.com, "A defensive Dan Rather went on the air Friday to complain of what he called a "counterattack" from "partisan political operatives." In reality, traditional journalism now has a new set of watchdogs in the "blogosphere." In the words of blogger Mickey Kaus, they can trade information and publicize it "fast enough to have real-world consequences." Sure, blogs can be transmission belts for errors, vicious gossip and last-minute disinformation efforts. But they can also correct themselves almost instantaneously — in sharp contrast with CBS's stonewalling."
THE CBS MEMO DEBUNKERS JUST GET BETTER (AND LONGER, AND MORE DETAILED)
Extensive, detailed examinations of the CBS memos by computer typesetting experts don't come any more extensive or detailed than this. Here is a short excerpt:
We have the following two hypotheses contending for describing the memos:
* Attempts to recreate the memos using Microsoft Word and Times New Roman produce images so close, that even taking into account the fact that the image we were able to download from the CBS site has been copied, scanned, downloaded, and reprinted, the errors between the "authentic" document and a file created by anyone using Microsoft word are virtually indistinguishable.
* The font existed in 1972; there were technologies in 1972 that could, with elaborate effort, reproduce these memos, and these technologies and the skills to use them were used by someone who, by testimony of his own family, never typed anything, in an office that for all its other documents appears to have used ordinary monospaced typewriters, and therefore this unlikely juxtaposition of technologies and location coincided just long enough to produce these four memos on 04-May-1972, 18-May-1972, 01-August-1972, and 18-August-1973.
DID NEWSWEEK FIND THE GUY WHO GAVE CBS THE DOCUMENTS?
The Blogger Ace of Spades thinks he's uncovered something worth Drudge's sirens.
Bill Burkett, which Newsweek says CBS relied on for its story (but doesn't quite point the finger at regarding who gave the network the memos) "happens to also be a source for Jim Moore, author of "Bush's Brain," and Dan Rather's last "Source" interviewed during forged-documents defense."
The appearance of Jim Moore in CBS' report defending the documents was one of the oddest points. The guy has written a book slamming Bush. Big deal, everybody's done that, or so it seems when one walks into Borders these days. He's got no credentials, so far as anyone knows, in document forensics. No specialized knowledge. Apparently he's won an Emmy as a television news correspondent. Why is Rather dragging out this guy to make the defense?
Unless he helped pass on the documents. The memos originate with Burkett, who passes them on to Moore, who passes them on to CBS News producer Mary Mapes, who convinces Rather of their veracity.
Are Burkett and Moore the "solid sources" Rather was citing to defend the report?
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