According to the Washington Post, the handwriting expert Dan Rather claimed had analyzed the documents and “says he believes they are real” now claims that he never authenticated any of the documents for 60 Minutes II. According to the Post,
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.
The Washington Post also points out a number of stylistic problems with the memos, including several raised by retired Col. Bobby Hodges whom CBS originally said had also authenticated the documents. According to The Post,
Stylistic differences. To outsiders, how an officer wrote his name and rank or referred to his military unit may seem arcane and unimportant. Within the military, however, such details are regulated by rules and tradition, and can be of great significance. The CBS memos contain several stylistic examples at odds with standard Guard procedures, as reflected in authenticated documents.
In memos previously released by the Pentagon or the White House, Killian signed his rank “Lt Col” or “Lt Colonel, TexANG,” in a single line after his name without periods. In the CBS memos, the “Lt Colonel” is on the next line, sometimes with a period but without the customary reference to TexANG, for Texas Air National Guard.
An ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, whom CBS originally cited as a key source in authenticating its documents, pointed to discrepancies in military abbreviations as evidence that the CBS memos are forgeries. The Guard, he said, never used the abbreviation “grp” for “group” or “OETR” for an officer evaluation review, as in the CBS documents. The correct terminology, he said, is “gp” and “OER.”
The case for CBS gets worse and worse. The longer CBS waits before starting an internal investigation parallel with an external independent look at the documents the more its credibility is going to be harmed if the documents ultimately prove to be fakes.
Source:
Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn’t Authenticate Papers. Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, September 14, 2004.