Side by side

The Washington Post has a side by side comparison of a real and fake memo so that even a slack-jawed fool can see that CBS has pulled a fast one.

Meanwhile, CBS seems to be overwhelmed with glee that it has been learned that "Buckhead" from Free Republic is (get ready) a republican activist! Oh NO! We're shocked, shocked to hear of such a thing! A conservative! On a site that's called an "online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web." What is the world coming to?

Stating the obvious

From the RNC:

"Bill Burkett, Democrat activist and Kerry campaign supporter, passes information to the DNC; Kerry campaign surrogate Max Cleland discusses "valuable" information with Bill Burkett; Bill Burkett talks to "senior" Kerry campaign officials; an apparently unsuspecting news organization uses faked forged memos and an interview with Ben Barnes at the same time the Democratic National Committee launched Operation Fortunate Son; and Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill was among the first to call Ben Barnes and congratulate him after his interview. The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear."

New scare tactic

Here's the latest scare tactic that the DNC is trying.

Elect George Bush, some Kerry surrogates said last week, and you or your children will be drafted to fight in Iraq.

Of course, what the MSNBC article doesn't tell you is who is really sponsoring the reinstatement of the draft in the House and Senate. So let me help out here.

Bill Summary & Status for the 108th Congress S.89. Hollings (D-SC) sponsored it. It has no other sponsors. The Republicans have kept it bottled up in committee for nearly two years.

Bill Summary & Status for the 108th Congress H.R.163. Sponsored by Rangel (D-NY). All the co-sponsors are Democrats. Not one Republican. It's been held up since March 2003.

The Mainstream Media lies again, this time by omitting the facts. Don't believe anything they say. Nothing.

UPDATE: The Blind Pig Blog breaks down the democrat's "logic" on this issue.

More DNC thugs

If tearing up little girl's signs wasn't enough, now the democrats are punching out local GOP chairmen.

Politics in Gainesville turned rough and tumble Thursday night when, police say, a social behavior sciences instructor - a Democrat - punched the chairman of the Alachua County Republican Executive Committee in the face.
David Philip McCally, 55, of Gainesville faces misdemeanor battery and criminal mischief charges after he was accused of hitting both committee chairman Travis Horn, 32, and a life-sized, cardboard cutout of President George Bush.

Read the whole story. And if you think this is just an isolated thing, read this.

Then check this out as well. It would appear that the terrorists aren't the only enemies we face. One day, some of these thugs are going to try this with a conservative who's a kung fu master...or someone with a licence to carry a firearm.

Good overview of the whole Rathergate mess

From the Weekly Standard.

Meanwhile, from the New York Times:

Bill Burkett, the former Texas National Guard officer who has been caught up in the mystery of how CBS News acquired memos that seem to question President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, unsuccessfully offered information and advice to help the Kerry campaign attack Mr. Bush, according to a posting Mr. Burkett wrote in an e-mail newsletter.
"I spent some time on the phone with the Kerry campaign seniors yesterday," Mr. Burkett wrote on Aug. 21 in an e-mail letter circulated to a list of about 600 Texas Democrats.
He complained that he had to "get through seven layers of bureaucratic kids trying to get a job after the election."
"I talked with Max Cleland," Mr. Burkett continued, referring to the former senator from Georgia who has been supporting Senator John Kerry's Democratic presidential bid.

And in the Washington Post:

The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who earlier said he overheard Bush aides conspiring with the commander of the Texas National Guard to "sanitize" the president's military records, has refused to comment on reports that he could be CBS's confidential source. In e-mails yesterday to The Washington Post, he said he would speak out "at the appropriate time" but "that time is not now."

It took long enough for someone to report it...

The charge has been out there since Unfit for Command was published months ago, and only Fox News appears to have finally found the stones to report it:

John Kerry's opposition to the Vietnam War led him to many places, including Paris, where he met with the North Vietnamese in 1970. Kerry said then, and says now, that the meeting was a part of an effort to learn more about U.S. POWs. But some question the propriety of a commissioned Naval officer meeting with the enemy at a time of war.

Of course, this blog and many others have been asking questions about this for weeks...nearly a month ago, when you get right down to it. This mere fact shows why the Blogsphere is eating the MSM's lunch...and why they are so biased.

Here's more:

John Kerry, director of the Vietnam Veterans against the War, testified before special session the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for two hours

"I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh's points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned."

Kerry went to Paris and is siding with Madam Binh and her eight demands. In 1991 Kerry chaired a Senate Select Committee for POW/MIA Affairs. Lack of human rights in Vietnam and their apparent continued holding of American POWs and MIAs had stood in the way of a profitable U.S.-Vietnam relation. Kerry persuaded the committee to vote unanimously that no POWs existed in Vietnam. With the blocking of the proposed human rights legislation which had passed on the House, Kerry gave President Clinton the ability to begin reopen trade that kept the Marxist Vietnamese dictatorship afloat. In December 1992 Vietnam signed its first huge commercial deal worth at least $905 million to develop a deep-sea commercial port at Vung Tau to accommodate all the trade that was to come. It signed the deal with a company called Colliers International. At the time, the Chief Executive Officer of this company was C. Stewart Forbes, Senator John F. Kerry’s cousin.

Swift Boat Vets fire torpedo #5...

...and score another direct hit.

About yesterday's crying little girl photo...

After the photo of a union thug ripping a Bush sign out of a three year old girl's hands was posted by the AP, the incredible outrage that followed was enough that the union to which this scum belongs to actually issued a statement condemning it.

What happened in Huntington, West Virginia yesterday is an affront to everything we, as a union, pride ourselves to represent. We extend our apologies to the Parlock family, especially Sophia, for the distress one of our overzealous members caused them.

I have personally taken steps to address this issue internally, and will take immediate disciplinary action to the fullest extent allowed under U.S. Department of Labor regulations and the constitution of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

It is my hope that this incident reminds all of our members that every last citizen in this country has the right to express his or herself freely. Not one single one of us has the right to tell them otherwise.

I'd bet that brave fellow who had the guts to take on a toddler is probably the most hated man in America right now. Too bad that her big brother (pictured in the lower right of the photo)didn't clean his clock.

Another nail in the CBS coffin

ABC News: Air National Guard Colonel Denies Bush Got Preferential Treatment

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle takes apart Bill Burkett and leaves him twitching and bleeding...

And here's a graphic for those of you keeping track of this mess, via Blogs for Bush.

Kofi Annan, call your office

Kofi Annan recently sparked international outrage when he said that the Iraq war was "illegal." Me thinks that he protests too much...and he's probably going to be screaming like a little girl once this story starts getting around.

Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations oil-for-food program to help fund Al Qaeda?

Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam’s overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda that continued after billions of oil-for-food dollars began pouring into Saddam’s coffers and Usama bin Laden declared his famous war on the U.S.
Now, buried in some of the United Nation’s own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort. (To review a series of documents, audits and other stories related to oil-for-food, click here.)

Photo bias?

Make up your own mind.

Burkett: I 'Reassembled' Bush Guard Files

More at the Captain's Quarters.

Picture that's worth a thousand words

Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio. (AP Photo/Randy Snyder)

The thug on the left can be seen with pieces of the sign in his hand. Notice the little boy at far right. Looks like her big brother is wanting to kick some union tail.

More here.

Twenty questions

Peter Kirsanow has twenty questions for John Kerry, and they are good ones. It would be nice if he would answer questions, though.

Kerry has a form to sign

I've been beating this issue to death, but the Navy finally said what we've all expected:

The U.S. Navy released documents Wednesday contradicting claims by Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry that all of his available military records have been released.
The Navy, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, also referred interested parties to Kerry's campaign web site for government military documents.
Navy Personnel Command FOIA Officer Dave German wrote in an e-mail to Judicial Watch that the Navy "withheld thirty-one pages of documents from the responsive military personnel service records as we were not provided a release authorization."
A "release authorization" would have to come from Kerry filling out and signing a Standard Form 180, something he has yet to do. A Standard Form 180 would authorize the complete release of all his military records. Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in August to obtain Kerry's military records.

At least Judicial Watch is finally good for something.

Narrowing the Focus

It would appear that other segments of the media are closing in on a main suspect of the source of those fake CBS memos:

Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network.

Howard Kurtz is even reporting that Dan Rather is now having doubts as well:

"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.' "

The Washington Times is on the trail as well and catching the same scent about the source.

Ann Coulter is hitting the nail on the head, as usual.

Of course, Rather continues to act like a DNC spin master and insist that everyone change the subject and question Bush, instead of his shoddy reporting:

A defensive Dan Rather suggested last night that although he may have used forgeddocuments in a CBS report criticizing President Bush's military service, the "thrust" of his report was true. "Those who have criticized aspects of our storyhave never criticized the heart of it, the major thrust of our report," he toldviewers on "60 Minutes." "George Bush received preferential treatment to getinto the National Guard and, once accepted, failed to satisfy the requirements of his service."

Pure B.S.

Click here. We waited all day for this? Meanwhile, Ernest Miller rips the C.B.S. statement to shreds.

After that, read this:

Veteran Nashville broadcaster, Teddy Bart on his daily radio show, “Teddy Bart’s Roundtable” may have given us a clue about who knew about the documents nearly a month ago. It appears that Bob Tuke, who was a guest on the show on August 11th knew that something was about to happen with regard to President Bush’s alleged failure to show up for a physical examination.

World’s Most Transparently Biased Headline. Ever.

From the New York Times: Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says. Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

Panic in Demville

The snake is eating its own tail, according to CBS:

Longtime Democratic insider Tony Coelho lashed out at the John Kerry presidential campaign, characterizing it as a campaign in chaos. With yet another appointment of a former Clinton administration staffer to Kerry’s team on Tuesday, Coelho argues the problem is worsening. “There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other,” says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign.

And if anyone would know what's going on with the Kerry campaign, it would have to be CBS.

They are beginning to catch on

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Sometimes, it seems media representatives so desperately want an anti-Bush revelation to be true that they lose sight of good journalistic judgment. Let's hope the public never does.

Deeper and deeper

Poor Dan. The mess surrounding those hoaxed memos just keeps getting worse and worse. CBS is expected to make a statement about the matter this morning. Meanwhile, ABC News have really sunk their teeth into this thing:

Two of the document experts hired by CBS News say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of a report citing documents that questioned George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

So has the Washington Post:

"What I was finding was a lot of red flags," Emily Will told The Washington Post last night. She said she listed five concerns in an e-mail three days before last Wednesday's broadcast and that in a call to a producer the day before the program, "I repeated all my objections as strongly as I could." Will said she told the producer: "If you air the program on Wednesday, on Thursday you're going to have hundreds of document examiners raising the same questions."

In fact, the guy that the movie Catch Me If You Can was based on told the New York Post, ""If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been, 'Catch Me In Two Days.' "

Ooooo....

Over at Free Republic, a new poster has presented an interesting theory:

On camera, Ms. Will goes over an enlarged display copy of the document she examined. Therein is the problem and the answer to the question of whether CBS News was honestly just reporting the facts. Unless Ms. Will is lying, CBS News/60 Minutes gave her a document that CBS has never publicly admitted that they had in their possession. Ms. Will carefully reviewed the alleged signature of Jerry B. Killian on the June 24th, 1973 letter addressed to “Sir”.
I first found this same document on the USA Today website as one of six (not four as reported by CBS) alleged Killian documents which I first shared here on September 11th: search under "Killian" for the "Two more 'Killian' Documents" thread. Since CBS News did not make the June 24, 1973 document available at their website as part of their original story, the question for me ever since has been why? As it turns out in perfect hindsight, CBS has made significant efforts to lead the public to believe that they only had four documents.
Just go back and watch the 60 Minutes II, interview again or go see the four documents on their website today. Why only four CBS documents? Recall that Marcel Matley, the respected signature expert used for the 60 Minutes II, interview to support the authenticity of the alleged Killian documents, was also only given one document to examine. Mr. Matley was given the 04 May 1972 document in which Lieutenant Colonel Killian allegedly ordered then Lieutenant Bush to report for his annual physical “not later than” May 14, 1972.
This is a case of authentication shopping!!! It is also fraudulent and it was clearly done with malice as there is no other reason to restrict an honest authentication expert from seeing all of the evidence unless you already know the answer you want to hear.

No Joy in Ratherville

Dan Rather must be in total denial. I didn't catch last night's CBS Evening News broadcast, but Ratherbiased did and it appears that things are not going well for him.

I mean, when the Washington Post piles on you two days in a row, you know you have problems:

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.

Not to mention the fact that the expert that CBS used Friday night has a Rather odd background:

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.

Meanwhile, Jonah Goldburg makes a very good point:

Well, if you agree with Rather, maybe you should give just a smidgen more slack to George W. Bush about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush's sources were more solid by several orders of magnitude than Rather's, and yet it is "obvious" to so many that Bush lied while Rather deserves the benefit of the doubt. George W. Bush had the head of the CIA, the intelligence agencies of all our allies, the Clinton administration, the United Nations, and most of the establishment media generally backing his understanding of the threat from Iraq. Dan Rather had a couple shoddy Xeroxes — not all of which were examined thoroughly or at all. He interviewed a partisan — Ben Barnes — a huge backer of Kerry whose story has changed several times. But because many who hate Bush believe he lied, they are willing to believe any lies that confirm what they already know to be true.

About that latest DNC smear attempt

Drudge is reporting that the DNC is about to go after Bush over 1978 claims in campaign material that he served in the USAF. Well, this didn't take too long for the Blogsphere to shoot down.

Also, Gore is about to rip in the President and say who knows what. By the way, check out the picture at the Yahoo link...he looks awful! Bill Clinton needs to give him a call and discuss his lifestyle...as in "been there, done that...and look where it got me!"

And yes, for the record. I am in pajamas today!

CBS Stands Alone

How much worse can it get for Dan Rather? Even USA Today, not exactly a right wing paper, suggests that the Bush memos are fake!

Also, William Safire puts in his two cents. How much longer can CBS stonewall this issue?

The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics' "motivation."
To shut up sources and impugn the motives of serious critics - from opinionated bloggers to straight journalists - demeans the Murrow tradition. Nor is any angry demand that others prove them wrong acceptable, especially when no original documents are available to prove anything. ... Hey, Dan: On this, recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and papers. Courage.

"Professional rumor mill?" Where's my check?

Climate of Fear

You always hear about the "climate of fear" when liberals talk about President Bush and the Patriot Act...but there is another one which some have experienced that is starting to emerge:

Many Republicans are afraid to put Bush-Cheney bumper stickers on their cars or signs on their lawns because they are afraid of physical retaliation from angry liberals.
It is not just that one sees few Bush-Cheney bumper stickers and lawn signs - even in areas in which one knows his support is high. I do not have such a bumper sticker or lawn sign. In fact, most Bush supporters I have asked, even those who are fairly passionate on the topic, just don't think the risk of a key-scratch or broken home or car window, or much worse, is worth whatever benefit one receives from a partisan bumper sticker or lawn sign. There are just too many personal stories of cars and homes defaced and damaged.

Newsweek uncovers CBS Source

Newsweek weighs in today with this item:

Where did the documents come from? CBS won't say. But the trail pieced together by NEWSWEEK shows that in a sulfurous season like this one, the difference between obscurity and power is small, and anyone can get a hearing. A principal source for CBS's story was Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former Guard officer who lives in Baird, Texas, who says he was present at Guard headquarters in Austin in 1997, when a top aide to the then Governor Bush ordered records sanitized to protect the Boss. Other Guard officials disputed Burkett's account, and the Bush aide involved, Joe Allbaugh, called it "absolute garbage." Burkett may have a motive to make trouble for the powers that be. In 1998, he grew gravely ill on a Guard mission to Panama, causing him to be hospitalized, and he suffered two nervous breakdowns. He unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses.

More memo fallout

Power Line takes a look at the L.A. Times article that's up this morning about the CBS memo/Blog caper, crediting Free Republic and others with uncovering the truth about the story. One statement stands out:

Contrast the behavior of the blogosphere with that of CBS. While we have disclosed sources and responded to all inquiries from reporters like Wallsten, CBS has taken its plays from the old Watergate playbook. Stonewalling and misdirection are the order of the day. To the extent that CBS has cited sources, they have not supported the authenticity of the documents. All in all, CBS has behaved like a criminal caught redhanded in a fraud of monumental proportions.

While on that note, take a look at this open letter that one Freeper has penned to the MSM. I hope they heed his words:

On Free Republic alone, there are experts in many fields. We have writers, poets, engineers, aviators, artists, journalists, (they keep that on the down-low), lawyers, historians, teachers, politicians, current and former members of all branches of the military; all who actually know what they are talking about without having a script (or DNC talking points) shoved in their face.
The choice is yours, MSM. You can join us in working to share information with a hungry audience, or you can be replaced. We don't need Nielson, just a web site and an idea. Instead of insulting the remainder of your dwindling viewers, readers and listeners, why don't you just agree to cut the crap, stop the parroting of the NY Times long enough to do your own work, and finally decide to become REAL journalists again.

Evidence of premeditation on the part of CBS???

O.K., I'm not sure of what to make of this one, but if true, Dan and the folks at 60 Minutes have a lot explaining to do.

I believe I have found evidence of premeditation on the part of CBS.
I am particularly suspicious of a CBS web page with the title:
"More Controversy Over Bush Docs"
Once clicking on the link, you should see up in your address bar the following:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml
My eyes latched onto the date in the URL -- 2004/09/06 (the 6th was last Monday). Why would a story that didn't break until late Wednesday, right here on FR, have a URL with last Monday's date, on -- of all web sites -- CBS' OWN WEB SITE?!
Did CBS create and begin preparation on a web page last Monday, to get a jumpstart in the event they would be found out?

The FR thread also has a screen capture. Stay tuned.

Another memo problem

Even if it wasn't for the fonts, kerning and such, there are still factual holes a mile wide in these "memos." Little Green Footballs has more.

And in other news, it seem that even the New York Times has turned on Dan and the boys at CBS.

What the..

Not a good thing to come home to late at night...

SEOUL, South Korea - A large explosion occurred in the northern part of North Korea, sending a huge column of smoke into the air on an important anniversary of the communist regime, a South Korean news agency reported Sunday. The South Korean government said it was trying to confirm the report of an explosion at 11 a.m. on Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China.

UPDATE: The S. Koreans are now claiming the explosion was "non nuclear":