September 10, 2004
AND HERE'S YOUR SMOKING GUN:
Anatomy of a Forgery (The Prowler, 9/10/2004, The American Spectator)
More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.
"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."
The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from." [...]
A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story.
"The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.' And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different."
The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.
Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries."
The tie back to the Kerry camp would make this Watergate and prove once and for all that Senator Kerry is still stuck in the early '70s. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 10, 2004 12:45 AM
You're right, this could blow up big. If CBS feels like they've been made fools of, I doubt the party affiliation of the hoaxers will prevent them from pointing fingers. I just hope Karl Rove isn't dumb enough to do something like this.
Posted by: PapayaSF at September 10, 2004 1:02 AMIf true, this isn't just a smoking gun but a torpedo directly amidships just as they were trying to get back under weigh. This could be as damaging as Watergate. Are there any relevant statutes concerning improper influence of a Federal Election using forged government documents?
As for CBS being made fools of, consider:
The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story.This means CBS intentionally went ahead with the broadcast when they should have suspected a forgery, making them negligent with malice, and possibly complicit in any illegality.
Posted by: jd watson at September 10, 2004 1:24 AM
9-9 is the media's 9-11.
Posted by: some random person at September 10, 2004 1:24 AMIf the Kerry campaign really did pass this stuff along, it would be the first smart thing they've done-- they correctly assumed that CBS was stupid enough to run with it.
Occam's Razor says that this was some work of some nameless Michael Moore/MoveOn™ type who wants to "stick it to Bush" and who gave them to a friend in some campaign and they kept passing them up the food chain. What is disturbing is that at no time from that first pasing to their appearance last night did anyone stop and say, "These are just too good to be true." and then employ a Devil's Advocate to try and discredit them. Because they knew, deep down, that there were problems, and didn't want to take the chance (or notoriety) of becoming the person who let Bushitler off the hook. In their universe, they looked plausible, and that was all that matttered.
What's really nice about this is that it will make any "gotcha" dump immediately suspect when it appears on 29 October. There are a lot of Dem operatives fuming right now because those idiots at CBS have screwed up years worth of prepration and planning . Even if the dump is true, no one is going to take it at face value until too late.
And if CBS really did employ people to validate these things, they should sue to get their money back.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at September 10, 2004 1:25 AMOrrin, thanks for posting this article. I have been unable to load it due to errors on their site.
Posted by: some random person at September 10, 2004 1:31 AMDunno about CBS's culpability, but forging military documents is a non-trivial matter.
Posted by: ghostcat at September 10, 2004 1:35 AMStill doesn't make up for that toll-road tomfoolery a few days back.
Posted by: joe shropshire at September 10, 2004 1:36 AMForget legal actions. That's a distraction from the real issue— that Kerry has surrounded himself with people who are willing to use obvious forgeries to further his candidacy, and to elect him now is to put another Nixon in the White House.
Agree with your main point, Raoul, but how dare you defame RMN?
Posted by: ghostcat at September 10, 2004 1:46 AMAll interstates should be toll roads, but gently, gently.
Maybe only during rush hours.
C'mon, let's face it. Tricky Dick got off easy, and got what he deserved. And to his credit, he could be shamed into doing the right thing, unlike Clinton, and it seems, Kerry.
Here's another thing that struck me— if CBS had not made those documents available on its website after the show Wednesday night, none of this could have happened. Let's see if the lesson learned by it and other similar organizations is to not make so much of this stuff available any more.
Wow. I thought the vermin wouldn't turn on each other until late October...
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the final paragraph of the story, which claims that a segment of ABC reporters are convinced that Karl Rove is the evil genius behind all this. As if the incompetence of the Kerry campaign is still in question...
Posted by: brian at September 10, 2004 5:38 AMIf true this is huge: The journalistic equivalent to the storming of the Bastille. (Asssumuing that CBS is busted via the Microsoft Word's 'th' feature to have foisted onto the mass public provable fakes for 1970s docs -- and it looks likely to date.)
The collateral damage to journalistic integrity would be incalculable. Who is going to believe '60 Minutes' in the future?
Posted by: Gideon at September 10, 2004 5:54 AMGideon:
Your grandma and mine. Those are the only true believers left.
Posted by: Jeff at September 10, 2004 7:27 AMI might offer an alternative. The guy shopping these docs to DNC op research also shopped them to CBS. In other words, it wasn't the Kerry camp that passed them along, they were passed to both places by the same source.
The fact the Kerry Camp sat on them for 6 weeks means nothing. Timing is everything. But the risks involved in passing along a forgery to a major news outlet to one's campaign, as well as the party, is simply too great to run. Too few people care enough about what Bush did 30 years ago to make a significant impact on the election. For most of the electorate its the war and the economy today, and the next 4 years, rather than the past. (Which is why John Kerry's Vietnam experience ain't getting counted for much)
Plus, if you burn a news organization, especially a friendly one like this, they are going to turn on you and burn you right back. So passing an obvious forgery from the DNC to CBS is more likely to kill the Kerry candidacy, as well as the DNC, than harm Bush or the Republicans in any meaningful way.
The DNC would have to be monumentally stupid to pull such a stunt. It would burn their supporters at CBS, and discredit not only their candidate, their mouth piece, but also themselves. It would risk losing the election altogether. While it is my opinion that the Dems are insane and not too bright, I don't think they have hit the level of stupidity and insanity to pass suspected forgeries off to the press like this.
Posted by: Ben at September 10, 2004 7:37 AMI'm not sure this is what Susan Estrich had in mind.
Posted by: Jeff at September 10, 2004 7:40 AMIf you go back and look at all of the intellectual superiority claims coming from the left -- basically anyone who supports Bush and is not an evil Hallibruton or Enrom executive must be an idiot -- then the idea of passing off these documents as real makes more sense. If the other side is a bunch of idiots, than surely they could never, ever figure out that at least two of the four documents were craftily written just months ago on someone's office computer. They probably thought once they got the documents past the CBS vetting system (assuming there was one and that noone on the project was actually in on the scheme), the yahoos on the Republican side would never catch on.
As for the ABC reporters' efforts to pin this on Karl Rove, I suppose to them finding out that your side might be engaged in blatent document forgery is akin to finding out your star hitter has been using a corrked bat all season. Before acceptance comes denial, and right now they're hoping that there's some way this will turn out not to be the fault of the people they consider ideological soul mates and are rooting for in the upcoming election.
Posted by: John at September 10, 2004 8:11 AMAs stated above, the level of stupidity by CBS, the Kerry campaign, etc is so high I keep wondering whether they are all Karl Rove moles. Even if the documents were true it probably would have had minimal impact on Bush since it is an old story and he isn't running on his actions 35 years ago (unlike Kerry). In other words the reward (slightly dinging Bush) was vastly outweighed by the risk (getting caught and humiliated). Yet another reason I don't want these guys anywhere near the White House.
Posted by: AWW at September 10, 2004 8:28 AMYou know what I find amazing? The nuts-and-bolts detailed knowledge of the intricacies of typefaces, fonts, typewriters, et al. that is on display at the various sites that are covering this story. Who, before yesterday, had heard of the word kerning? Certainly not I.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at September 10, 2004 8:36 AMMr. Cleaver;
Me.
But typographic expertise is actually widespread among web geeks. It doesn't take much fooling around with the look and feel of a website until such details are important (although I was a typophile long before the Internet).
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at September 10, 2004 9:03 AMI suppose if this proceeds to a finding of forgery someone in the blogosphere should be in charge of sending flowers to Bill Gates. I humbly nominate OJ.
Posted by: Pilgrim at September 10, 2004 9:27 AMActually, typography and fonts were obsessions with many hackers long before the advent of the WWW.
Posted by: Joe at September 10, 2004 9:57 AMHeh - Good on Ya', AOG and Joe. I've observed before, you must have your ducks in a row when posting on this site...no matter how recondite the topic, someone out there knows quite a bit about it.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at September 10, 2004 10:04 AMUnbelievable...
Barnes, major Kerry financial contributor, perhaps 3rd highest, not counting Theresa, seems shady enough to do it, in conjunction with his "confession", to protect his investment and with the knowledge of McAuliffe's desperation driven stupidity.
The MSM is getting desperate as well. What a joy to see Peter Jennings announce the ABC poll results last night. He wasn't snidely smiling.
Posted by: genecis at September 10, 2004 11:13 AMDo you suppose the folks who made up these documents are planning a Reichstag fire?
Posted by: Brooks at September 10, 2004 9:13 PMPilgrim, you may already know this, but oj pictures Bill Gates with a patch on one eye and a parrot on his shoulder.
Posted by: at September 11, 2004 5:24 PMI'd love to be a fly on the wall at CBS News right now. The only question is whether Don Hewitt, Mike Wallace and co. are willing to let Dan Rather run their ship and their lifetime's work aground on the sandbar of his hubris. Someone who wants CBS to have a future has to be thinking about putting the knife in ol Dano's back right now.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at September 11, 2004 9:37 PM