perfidy

I have watched from the sidelines as many members of the blogosphere (or pajamahadeen as some are now calling themselves) have taken aim at the tiffany network, and put shot after shot right through the unwinking eye. Within hours of the broadcast, the nitpicking had begun. By midday Thursday, most of what we know about the memos had already been determined - that there were a wide array of inconsistencies and anachronisms that could be sorted into three broad categories - typological, formatting and character. The story in infinite detail can be found all over, in fact you can hardly swing a cat in the blogosphere without hitting minutely detailed commentary on Rather/Memogate. I’ve been following it mostly at Allah Pundit, Wizbang, Ace of Spades and The Kerry Spot. Here are the highlights:

The first began with the superscript "th" but quickly metastasized. Bloggers focused on the font - Times New Roman, the proportional spacing of the letters, evidence of kerning, and most of this was captured in LGF blogger Charles Johnson's experiment. He typed the text of one of the memos into Microsoft word, using the default settings, and the result was a near perfect match. While I can't personally vouch for the validity of other criticisms of the memos, these analyses are compelling to me. I am a professional technical writer, and I work with this stuff every day. The likelihood that any typewriter in 1973, no matter how capable and advanced, would generate an exact match of the settings of a word processor from three decades in the future is vanishingly slim.

Other bloggers with experience of matters military weighed in on other inconsistencies. Improper formatting of titles, incorrect references to regulations, and improper use of acronyms were among the many factors that led them to independently conclude that the documents were bogus. Finally, both bloggers and non-CBS mainstream media have tracked down witnesses who have something to say about just how improbable it was that Bush's superior officer would have composed (let alone typed and saved) a memo like this. Among the critics were Killian's widow and son, along with several other guard officers.

Over the last week, many newspapers and networks have hired their own document forensics experts, and the consensus is that they are indeed forgeries. Most recently, CBS' own experts have also come forward saying that the memos are bogus. Yet CBS and Dan Rather persist in defending the authenticity of the memos. [Pauses to check a couple blogs –ed.] This in spite of the fact that in just the last few minutes, it has been discovered that the memos were faxed from a Kinko’s in Abilene, Texas. Bill Burkett – a prime suspect in the eyes of many bloggers – lives very near Abilene, and in fact has an account at that very Kinko’s. Will wonders never cease?

This story gets worse for Rather and CBS every five minutes. But what is the final answer? What will come of all of this? Blogger Beldar has taken a hard line on the Rathergate scandal:

CBS, through its affiliates' licenses to use broadcast frequencies that belong to the public, is a repository of the public trust. Its employees, acting within the course and scope of their actual and apparent authority, have deliberately and knowingly abused that trust for the most venal of motives - motives that are antithetical to the function of the press in a free and democratic society.

For all the focus on the minutia of the forged memos, the larger story is really this: a major media network - possibly with foreknowledge and intent - passed a forgery on the public intended to defame a sitting president and influence an election. Dan Rather’s bias is well known, but up until this point I never allowed myself to believe that it would lead him to forego all journalistic integrity just because the story had to be true. CBS’ most recent defense of the story is basically that no matter what issues are raised about the authenticity of the documents, they remain essentially accurate. This is so lame that it almost beggars description. The fact that the story is based on forged documents invalidates the story, period. Just because you really, really believe that the story must be true does not make it so. If that were the case, I would have a billion dollars in my bank account, a light saber hanging on the wall in my office and Ingrid Bergman waiting patiently in bed for me to finish blogging.

This gets us to the interesting bit. Even if the source of the memos is never connected to the Kerry campaign (though there are rumors that Kerry staffers knew about the memos before the original broadcast) this scandal would at minimum totally discredit any further attacks on Bush’s service in the guard. But, in a stunning display of pigheaded stupidity, the Kerry campaign linked itself to the scandal by beginning a series of ads using clips from the CBS story.

It is completely beyond my comprehension why the Kerry campaign insists on lashing itself to the mast of a sinking ship. It has been evident for some time now that focusing on Vietnam was not doing Kerry any good. Besides the fact that most of the voters don’t care about what happened thirty years ago, that focus actually opened Kerry up for massive criticism both on the basis of his service and much more significantly on his actions after returning from the ‘Nam. Compounding that stupidity by trying to convince the electorate that Bush’s service in the guard somehow disqualifies him from getting the job he already has is even more pointless. Attempting that right after some democratic hack attempts a thumbfingered forgery to drive home the point is stark raving insane. Double plus uncunning, in fact.

A broad coalition of the pathetic is vying for the title of least helpful Kerry supporter. The smart money was originally on the unknown forger, who by rendering a whole line of attack on the incumbent politically radioactive through his transparent forgeries seriously hindered the Kerry campaign. But coming up on the backstretch is Dan Rather and CBS, who (at best!) through daydreaming gullibility combined with mulish arrogance first ran the story and then refused to admit that they had been rolled. In so doing, they kept the story front and center for a full week. Combined that with a convenient Karl Rove masterminded media hogging hurricane, John Kerry has barely appeared on the TV at all. This with only weeks left before election. But entering the final turn, several others are leaving the pack and gunning for the lead: the Clintonistas who joined the Kerry campaign and seem to be the driving force behind the foolish ‘fortunate son’ attack campaign, any Kerry staffer who knew about the CBS memos ahead of time and made any record of it, and finally Kerry himself, who can’t seem to focus his campaign no matter how dire the need.

New polls are showing that Bush might have a lead in New Jersey, and that Minnesota and even fricking Illinois are in a statistical dead heat. If Kerry is to have the slightest chance, he can’t have his base moving into the ‘battleground state’ category. And if he wants to prevent that, he’s running out of time to try something else besides running a campaign based in the early 1970s.