He really does make the most sense
Mood:  smelly
Topic: politics
CBS News' own Andy Rooney was quoted in the Daily News today that he believes the memos, originally aired on a 60 Minutes 2 segment a couple of weeks ago, about President Bush failing to fulfill his National Guard duties are fakes and Dan Rather should say so.

Now, I don't believe that there was any malicious intent behind the airing of these memos, but I do believe that the longer Rather refuses to call a spade a spade, the worse this story gets for CBS. Rather has always been dogged by accusations that his liberalism colors his broadcasts to an almost embarassing level. Personally, I think this is an example of the news buisness' obsession with scoops and scandals than anything else.

Not surprisingly, I think the greatest travesty of this whole thing is that fact that this presidential election is stuck in the quagmire of rehashing Vietnam. This war has as much to do with modern America as the Franco-Prussian War, but the media and the political elite are indulging in one more groovy grove acid flashback, while people our age will be forced to pick up the tab. I hate to sound like a broken record (or scratched CD, or, I guess, a low-battered IPOD [this is probably a terrible phrase, since I have no expdeience with this new technology. Anyone with a better phrase, please let me know.], but there are real, honest-to-God issues out there that we are simply not talking about.

One of the reasons I haven't blogged in such a long time is because what I want to write about is this election, but my anger at the candidates and the media has settled into a quiet depression that I don't even want to think about.

But, I'm back, baby. Like crab grass, not pulled by the root, but by the other thing. So, look forward to more Tony posts. We'll talk about uniforms, I'll promise to find something about the Redskins to complain about and we'll continue to bash soft-headed Democrats, Baby Boomers, old people, teachers, labor unions, city government etc.

Thanks for having me back. I feel like Magic Johnson when he came back to the NBA. You know, except for the AIDS.

Tony

We're Not Here To Cause No Trouble
Topic: sports
"We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle!"

Marc

West By God Virginia
Topic: sports
Ralph Friedgen on playing in Morgantown:

"You know they really like us up there," Friedgen said facetiously. "I'll have to dodge the first four whiskey bottles that come out of the stands, and I'm an easy target, so they'll really be throwing them."

He's really not exagerrating. My first year of college, I remember watching a Terps-WVU game on TV at College Park. The ref called a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on WVU for "throwing whiskey bottles on the field".

Here's hoping the Terps beat West Virginia the way West Virginians beat their wives.

Marc

Coup De Grace
Topic: politics
It now looks extremely likely that CBS got the forged memos from Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former National Guard officer and source for the earlier Bush National Guard scandal.

The Post is reporting that the documents were faxed to CBS from a Kinko's in Abilene near Burkett's home - a Kinko's where Burkett has a standing account.

So, CBS' star witness in someone who says the memos are fake; their other source, Ben Barnes is a fundraiser for Kerry; the (fake) documents came from a Bush-hating lunatic. Ol' Dan is starting to sound a little worried:

CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."

"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'"

I advise you not to hold your breath waiting for that one. I'd like to continue paying 24-hour attention to this clusterfuck, but unfortunately, I have to work the next couple of days.

And that's part of our world.

Marc

Run Out The Clock
Topic: politics
Looks like CBS delayed their statement in the hopes of it getting lost in the Ivan coverage. Here is is, for what it's worth (via Drudge):

Statement by the President of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:

"We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing."

Notice the word "accurate" as opposed to authentic - the Fake But Accurate defense.

Marc

Addendum:
NBC had a fairly long (for network news) story on the memos that included the CBS statement. The graphic was the CBS logo with the words "Black Eye" superimposed. Their angle on the forged memos was that the political impact on Bush was nil, and that the real loser was CBS.

Rather Sticks To His Story Tighter Than The Rusted Lugnuts On A '57 Chevy
Topic: politics

Dan Rather To Bush: `Answer The Questions'

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can't deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can't deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it's change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.

"This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.

Man, this is straight out of the Clinton playbook - deny, deny, deny. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming statement just says, "This is all old news - we need to stop being distracted and get back to the important business of reporting on GWB's failure to serve his duty in the National Guard". Too bad Joe Lockhart is busy.

But here's the real CBS defense:

Mr. Rather said he was well aware of reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that had finely detailed examinations of inconsistencies in the memos. And he said he took those reports seriously and appreciated the "competitive response" of other news organizations. But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."

"Fake But Accurate", as the NYT put it. Not quite as catchy as "We Report, You Decide", but what are you gonna do?

Here's an oral bowel movement that you knew would come out of Rather's mouth eventually:

These are unpleasant truths. But they are truths. There was and is no joy in reporting them. But part of what reporters are supposed to do is ask questions, dig for facts and, when truths are found, share them with the public and, when called upon to do so, speak truth to power. This we did.

Some people might say that's what the bloggers did.

Marc

Ba-Dum Chhh
Topic: politics
Drudge says CBS long-delayed statement is now scheduled to be released in about... 60 Minutes.

Marc

The End?
Topic: politics
Well, ABC lowered the boom on the CBS forgeries last night on the evening news:

Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.

And the Dallas Morning News reports that even the Bush-hating secretary who would have typed the memos is saying they are fake:

Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1957 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.

"These are not real," she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. "They're not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him."

Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed "unfit for office" and "selected, not elected."

Howard Kurtz wraps up both these developments in the Post:

In a separate telephone interview, Linda James said that she told CBS the documents "had problems" and that she had questioned "whether they were produced on a computer."

Asked whether CBS took her concerns seriously, James said: "Evidently not."

Frank Abagnale, the master forger who was played by Leonardo di Caprio in "Catch Me If You Can", is saying the CBS memos are lame forgeries:

"If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been, 'Catch Me In Two Days.'"

Meanwhile, CBS will reportedly release a statement at noon. It's getting harder to see a way out for CBS other than giving up Rather's head on a platter. This sort of crap:

Rather Rides Out Latest Partisan Storm

Likewise, he [Rather] said, his critics are "people who for their own partisan, political agendas can't deny the core truth of this story ... and want to change the subject and make the story about me rather than have the story be about the unanswered questions about President Bush's military service."

isn't going to fly when you've got ABC and the Washington Post calling you out. Last I checked, they weren't part of the right-wing conspiracy.

Plan B is that CBS just stonewalls, keeps saying the memos are real against all rational opinion, and just becomes the FOX News of the left - i.e. turning its already transparent liberal bias into a selling point.

The other question is what impact does this this have on the election. Obviously, Bush voters are only reinforced in their beliefs, and are now inoculated against any late bombshells like the 2000 drunk-driving story because they know the media is lying to them. The LA Times provides an early indicator of the leftist response in this editorial. They admit the obvious - the memos are fakes:

CBS News was had. It's hard to reach any other conclusion about documents that CBS and anchor Dan Rather have defended as revealing the truth about George W. Bush's military service.

But just because they were fake, doesn't mean they weren't true!

Whatever the truth, CBS' real error was trying to prove a point that didn't need to be proved. It doesn't take documents for anyone to realize that Bush pulled strings to get into the National Guard. And, during the Vietnam draft, nobody went into the National Guard out of passion to defend his country. It also doesn't take new documents to establish that Bush shirked even his National Guard duties when he moved to Alabama and then to Harvard Business School in Massachusetts.

The brouhaha all but managed to place Bush's Vietnam-era service off-limits as a campaign issue, after weeks in which John F. Kerry's impressive record has been under savage attack. Bush gave a smirky speech Tuesday to the National Guard Assn., waxing on about the patriotic sacrifices of the Guard's men and women over the years. All of that is true, but not about him.

And now we see the cocoon at work - "of course, Bush was AWOL; of course, Bush is a liar". I think the left is so used to having the mainstream media as an ally that it takes that advantage for granted, and hasn't yet absorbed the full implications of a major network lying to the public.

I may not be one of them, but there are still a lot of people who think that what comes out of Dan Rather's mouth is "the truth". That number is about to get a lot smaller, and that isn't good news for the Democratic party.

Marc

CBS Forgery Update
Topic: politics
The Washington Post demolishes the two experts who propped up CBS's Monday night defense of the forged documents - Marcel Matley:

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

"There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them," Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed" from the originals.

and Bill Glennon:

In its broadcast last night, CBS News produced a new expert, Bill Glennon, an information technology consultant. He said that IBM electric typewriters in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and proportional spacing similar to those used in the disputed documents.

Any argument to the contrary is "an out-and-out lie," Glennon said in a telephone interview. But Glennon said he is not a document expert, could not vouch for the memos' authenticity and only examined them online because CBS did not give him copies when asked to visit the network's offices.

This is CBS' odd response:

Asked about Matley's comments, CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said: "In the end, the gist is that it's inconclusive. People are coming down on both sides, which is to be expected when you're dealing with copies of documents."

What does this mean? Are they admitting that they don't even know if the things are real? Or are they saying, "Yeah, they're fakes, but go ahead and try to prove it"? Kausfiles notices some weasel-words in Rather's segment last night:

"What is in the '60 minutes' report CBS news believes to be true and believes to be authentic."

Of all the people to walk the plank for, Dan Rather picked John Kerry???

Marc

Addendum:
Trace CBS' expert witness Bill Glennon's rapid ascent from typewriter repairman to "technology consultant" to "document expert".

And another authentic memo surfaces.

Proof that nothing good has ever happened in California
Topic: schadenfreude
Todd Marinovich, former USC star and first round pick by the Raiders is serving a 90 day jail term for methamphetemine posession. Sad.

How do you go from being a first round draft pick in the NFL to a meth/heroin addicted skateboard beach bum in you mid thirties?

At least he wasn't a Steeler.

Draper

Rather Curious
Topic: politics
Well, if you haven't yet made up your mind about the CBS memo controversy:

This is the CBS memo in question, superimposed on the same memo recreated by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs using Microsoft Word (not a commonplace technology in 1973). There's all kinds of technical analysis of the memo, and the technology used to produce it here; credit is being given to Power Line for initially exposing CBS' fraud; there's a timeline of the whole thing at Slate.

Although most people are hailing this debacle as a victory for 'bloggers in pajamas' over the mainstream media, I am actually watching the CBS network news for the first time in years. Admittedly, I am tuning in mostly for the chance to see Dan Rather weep on-air.

Marc

What did we learn yesterday class?
Topic: gloating
With the first week of pro football action in the bag we've had a few surprises, some business as usual things, and yes, proof that sometimes Marc is wrong, and better yet, Draper is right.

First the principals:
Ravens 3 Browns 20
Redskins 16 Bucs 10
Steelers 24 Raiders 21

What do these scores tell us? Well, first, the Ravens and their Wonder bread lame ass QB need to run that Jamal Lewis guy 40 or 50 times more a game. Better yet, just direct snap it to him. Take Boller out and put another 400 lb. tub of guts up there to block for him. Already we can see the Boller is superfluous. As for the Redskins, and god this kills me to say, they looked solid. All around, solid, a playoff team, maybe. But it was the Bucs and they quit playing sometime last season. The Bucs are just a bunch of check cashers at this point. And then there is the Steelers. I remember one naysayer jerk in particular saying that they might go 0-4 to start the season. Oh no. For now we will gloss over the 300 and some yards that the ancient Rich Gannon threw against them. Time to bask in the reflected glory.

Reflected glory....ahhh.

Draper

Why Yes, I Am Ready For Some Football
Topic: sports
Just wanted to get these on the record before kickoff tonight:

Steelers: 6-10. Sorry Draper.
Redskins: 9-7, Wild Card. Check the weak schedule.
Ravens: 9-7, AFC North champs. EEED REEED!
Super Bowl: Chiefs over the Saints. The NFC sucks big-time, hence the Saints.

Marc

"Department Of Wellness": Will It Cover Botox?
Topic: politics
Courtesy of Kausfiles - who calls it "spirit-crushing foolishness" - Evita Teresa proposes Department of Wellness:

The other head-scratcher uttered by Kerry in the past two days came Wednesday in Greensboro, N.C. There, in response to a question from a woman about the health problems caused by mold and indoor air contamination--and her complaint, "There's not one agency in this government that has come forward" to deal with the problem--Kerry endorsed the creation of a new federal department. "What I want to do, what I'm determined to do, and it's in my health-care plan, is refocus America on something that can reduce the cost of health care significantly for all Americans, which is wellness and prevention," Kerry said. So far, so good. But then, "And I intend to have not just a Department of Health and Human Services, but a Department of Wellness." Again, what? Apparently this idea comes from Teresa Heinz Kerry, who told the Boston Herald in January 2003 that she would, in the Herald's words, "be an activist first lady, lobbying for a Department of Wellness that would stress preventive health."

Marc

Electoral Engineering
Topic: politics
Thanks to the only man I know who owns an Electoral College t-shirt - the one and only Joenado - for sending me a WSJ story on possible electoral nuttiness.

The focus is mainly on the Colorado initiative to split that state's electoral votes proportionally - an effort sponsored by Democratic backers hoping to pick up a few more electoral votes for Kerry. But a nationwide proportional system would still have resulted in a Bush presidency:

But if this system had been in effect nationwide in 2000, Mr. Gore would have edged out Mr. Bush, 269-263, with Ralph Nader picking up six electoral votes, all in large states. This would have thrown the election to the House, where Mr. Bush presumably would have won.

But even if the Colorado initiative doesn't pass, there is still an opportunity for the election to go to the House:

Shifts in electoral votes and the realities of an evenly divided nation mean there is a credible case that the final tally in Bush vs. Kerry could be 269-269 -- an outcome that would throw the election to the House of Representatives.

If all states repeat their 2000 outcomes, except for New Hampshire and West Virginia going Democratic, the result would be a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. You think the Democrats were mad last time? Just imagine how they would react to a president elected by Congress!

But wait, there's more! The prospect of a rogue elector has reared its ugly head:

South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb said today he may vote against George W. Bush in the Electoral College, even if the president carries West Virginia's popular vote.

Robb, long known as a maverick Republican, said he is considering using his position as one of the state's five Republican electors to protest what he believes are misguided policies of the current administration.

Exciting stuff.

Marc