Tag: George W. Bush

I can’t believe that Dan Rather had the gall to tell the New York Observer this,

It’s never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn’t show up for a physical. The longer we go without a denial of such things—this story is true.

. . .

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 canÂ’t deny the fundamental truth of the story. If you canÂ’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, itÂ’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.

Rather is completely intellectually bankrupt at this point. Why is such a loser the anchor on one of the big three network news broadcasts?

Source:

Dan Rather To Bush: ‘Answer The Questions’. Joe Hagan, New York Observer, September 15, 2004.

The other experts CBS said authenticated the Killian documents are starting to surface, but they’re saying things that CBS probably doesn’t want to hear. According to ABC News, two of the experts warned CBS that there were problems with the documents,

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.

But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush’s National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.

“I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply,” Will told ABC News.

A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. She said she expressed her concerns to CBS before the 60 Minutes II broadcast.

“I did not authenticate anything and I don’t want it to be misunderstood that I did,” James said. “And that’s why I have come forth to talk about it because I don’t want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents.”

CBS’ response? They claim they have two other document experts who authenticated the documents as well, but they won’t name them (surprise).

The documents are fake. Dan Rather and others involved have permanently damaged their credibility and will have to be suspended or fired for CBS News to retain any credibility. Finally, CBS must reveal the source who scammed it and tried to use forgeries to influence a presidentical election.

Source:

Casting Further Doubt. ABC News, September 14, 2004.

Now the New York Post suggests that CBS’ handwriting expert, Marcel Matley, might not even have any professional training in document authentication or handwriting analysis.

According to the Post, Matley got his start in the pseudo-science of graphology (the claim that you can tell much about an individual’s personality/character by their handwriting),

The expert chosen by CBS to check Dan Rather’s disputed National Guard documents got his start as a graphologist analyzing “Spirituality in Handwriting” and lacks recognized document training, The Post has learned.

Analyst Marcel Matley lists “Spirituality in Handwriting” and “Female/Male Traits in Handwriting” on the Web site for a foundation he serves as librarian. They were privately printed, but another analyst provided portions to The Post.

In “Spirituality in Handwriting,” Matley assesses a woman’s “libidinal energy” based on her handwriting.

“She has an excellent and rich animate nature with a healthy, instinctual libidinal energy which, when integrated, will propel her into dynamic and fruitful activity and self-fulfillment,” Matley wrote in 1989.

In “Female/Male Trait in Handwriting,” the San Francisco-based Matley said he could analyze a woman’s handwriting “to show her how she can have her womanly qualities fully realized.”

The article continued: “For your male client, you will be able to recognize the facade of machismo — and also recognize the hurt boy- child who uses that as a defensive hiding place.”

Moreover, in the past Matley has had to admit that he apparently has no formal training in document authentication,

In addition, in a 1995 California court deposition obtained by The Post, Matley acknowledged that he had no formal training in a document lab, in identification of papers, inks or “machines, typewriters, photocopies.” He also acknowledged he’d had no training from the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, U.S. Army, California Department of Justice or any other law-enforcement body.

Maybe he thought the Killian memos looked masculine and that was enough!

Source:

CBS Writing Ace Has Rather Wacky Background. Deborah rn, New York Post, September 14, 2004.

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.