Dan Rather REPLACED!

lokstah

Regarding your document analysis experience -- permit me to refer to the actual experts, thanks. Since plenty of them doubt the papers' authenticity, I think you can allow me that.

Regarding the great liberal bias of the media, well, that's another story (and another thread entirely). Though Fox would never have dredged these documents up, I don't think the TNG papers represent the best case, so much as they represent poor fact-checking and ratings-driven shoddy investigative journalism. Niether you nor I know how CBS came upon these papers, but it's far more likely they were produced by an anti-Bush source and shared with a scoop-hungry CBS, than that they were penned by Dan Rather in his basement after a night of love with Molly Ivins.

Weisse Luft

No kidding. They were probably pecked (clicked?) by Bill Burkett and David Van Os, both Democrat activists in Texas. They were faxed to CBS from an Abilene TX Kinko's Copy Center, just 21 miles from Burkett's ranch and Bill has a standing account with that Kinko's. If that is't bad enough, David Van Os is running for a judicial position as a Democrat. And both have sponsored Democrat rallys, fund raisers and generally assisted in the Kerry campaign.

And Bill Burkett is retired from the TX Army National Guard and has been claiming medical disability from an overseas deployment. He claim his medical treatment and disability was denied under then Governor George Bush.

This is getting mighty damning for Kerry-Edwards. They better distance themselves and in a hurry.

lokstah

But the content of the documents -- with the possible exception of the "sugarcoat" remark -- are simply referrences to items we've been hearing about for a while now. The "value" of the documents to the anti-Bush effort was simply that they put a little more filler, and a face, to the slacker story. It was just a little icing, not a bombshell.

All the more reason that the conspirators, if they exist, are complete clods. If you're going to construct a piece of shameless bunk for the sake of damaging a political figure, for crying out loud, go for the jugular.

lokstah

More or less true. The bigger this thing gets, the sillier it's going to seem. It had some minor value as a character piece, but it's also the kind of story that would have made a bigger difference in 2000, when America was just getting to know the guy.

At this point, if there's a side of Bush which screams "I'm a smirking slacker brat," he's already been forgiven for it.

It's only been dredged out to counterbalance the Vietnam-Kerry connection, but even that has been poorly managed. You know the Kerry campaign is struggling when it can't make the Bush-Kerry military service comparison look favorable.

Ah, hell.

Bikerman2004

I understand what you're saying. However, forging documents to prove a point only makes people wonder if the rest of the story is true. The Dems had a better case before these 'documents' came out.

Weisse Luft

In legal terms, its "fruit of the poisoned tree". Illegal searches invalidate the evidence gathered, no matter how incriminating. If Col. Killian's secretary didn't type, how would she recall the words? Her testimony is trivial.

Weisse Luft

Want to see a real Col Killian memo on 1LT Bush?

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/3-nov-70-bush-praise.pdf

Bikerman2004

I hold you responsible for the mental image I now have in my head. Thanks.

lokstah

Yeah, that was my point too. I thought Bush looked bad enough (well, not bad really; just sort of dopey and snotty) in regards to the TNG records without some overzealous Democratic grad-student intern attempting to create a bigger story, if that's in fact what happened.

Oh well. I consider it one of a string of significant setbacks for the Kerry campaign since July. It's all gone very nearly to hell.

Yes, well, sorry.

Saucy

I wasn't "reaching" on anything. My entire post was simply describing the 60 minutes episode in case others had not seen it. That's why I used the words "according to 60 minutes" and "she said" and "she seemed". If you have a different interpretation of the episode or feel that Kilian's secretary was lying then feel free to post why you think so.

From watching the episode it seemedthat Rather was already acknowledging that the docs were forged (so I'm not sure why everyone keeps debating this ad nauseum here). He is arguing that the content was valid. Based on the secretary's interview (and unlike Rather, she seemed very credible) the content of the documents mirror those of the original CYA file that Killian kept. I have yet to year anyone provide evidence that the content of the docs are fake: 1) Bush defied his CO 2) Bush failed to show up for a physical as directed by his CO 3) Bush did not fulfill his service requirements. This information has been corroborated elsewhere.

There is no question that this is shoddy journalism. Dan Rather should have been fired years ago before his descent into senility. He's a total nutbar. Which is why I usually don't watch CBS news (other than Sunday 60 minutes) or any network news for that matter.

Bikerman2004

Again if the documents are fake, why would we think the contents of said fake documents are truthful.

keydates

Think of it like this:

Some documents are found that are supposedly written by Christopher Colombus regarding his exploration of the "New Americas." Turns out they're false. Does that mean that he never explored this area?