Friday, September 10, 2004

That's it?

So Dan Rather doesn't address the 30 or so discrepancies noted about the memos, but instead focuses on the content. CBS's "expert" only addressed the authentication of the signature and nothing else period. Does not address kerning, perfect centering, or proportional spacing, does not talk to the family, who said that the memos are frauds. Rather also claims that the documents displayed on the Internet were corrupted by being downloaded so many times. (???) Also, according to several posters on Free Republic, Times Roman has been available since 1931, but only in linotype printshops...until released with Apple Macintosh in 1984 and Windows 3.1 in 1991. From Instapundit:

JUST WATCHED DAN RATHER ON CBS: The thing that struck me most was his voice -- as in the CNN interview linked below, he sounded as nervous and uncomfortable as any news anchor I've heard. Compared to the voluminous material about these documents on the Internet and in the Washington Post and on ABC, his story didn't offer much. And nothing about the widow and the son, who dispute the authenticity of the story: They say that writing memos like this would have been out of character for Killian; Rather instead produced an author of anti-Bush books who said it was in character, but ignored the comments of people much closer to the facts. All told, it was consistent with Power Line's prediction.

On Blogs for Bush, their rundown points out:
CBS again asked its lone expert to reaffirm his initial claim of authenticity and, because he did, the documents are, therefore, real.
CBS did not attempt, at all, to air the opinions of the many handwriting, typographic and forensic experts who disagree.
CBS claimed that typewriters existed when the letter was purportedly written and that Times New Roman font existed as well and that, therefore, the documents are real.
CBS did not defend the claim that the Times New Roman font was not offered on the typwriters used at that time or that such a low-level function as National Guard clerical work would have had what was then a highly sophisticated and expensive word processing system.
CBS ignored the issue of fixed-pitch versus proportional pitch.
CBS ignored the fact that, using Microsoft Word's default settings, today one could write an EXACT replica of the supposed letter.
CBS dismissed the statements of the purported author's family that such a letter was out of character.
CBS interviewed one contemporary of the purported author to support the legitimacy of the documents, but not others who dispute his account.

Also, it would appear that he told the Blogsphere in a roundabout way to go f@#* themselves.

Bad move, Dan. Real bad move.

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