Dan Rather fought for a long time to break this story.
Why? Can you say partisan liberal ideolog?
Turmoil at Eyemark.
Ratherbiased.com
September 09, 2004, 16:18:22 EDT
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Passions are high inside CBS News as the network is facing yet another outpouring of public discontent, this time over 60 Minutes's boneheaded decision to publicize phony documents <font color=blue>"proving"<font color=black> that George W. Bush was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
Many staffers are placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of Dan Rather who they say was the driving force behind a shoddily researched story that ought never to have aired.
Meanwhile, CBS's News publicity flacks have abandoned answering their phones, overwhelmed with calls from angry viewers and inquisitive journalists.
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Was Rather Duped by Anti-Bush Hoax?
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September 09, 2004, 14:00:09 EDT
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During last night's 60 Minute program on President George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, the CBS News touted a number of documents which seemingly indicate that the future president failed to meet his service obligations.
That may well be the case but it is becoming increasingly evident that 60 Minutes, and the Dan Rather, the reporter behind the story, may have been relying on forged documents to prove their case.
Several indicators point to this conclusion including the fact that the four memoranda, which Rather said were written during the early 1970s by Bush's commanding officer Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian, are printed in a proportionally spaced type style similar to the common computer font Times New Roman. But such computer technology had not even been invented when the documents were allegedly written.
This does not imply, however, that the memos could not have originated during the 1970s since IBM, the dominant player in the office equipment at the time had several years earlier invented a typewriter which allowed typists to use proportional fonts.
Such machines, marketed mainly under the model name Selectric had become quite popular by the early seventies even though they were extremely expensive according to Jim Forbes, who collects the now-discontinued machines and operates a web site about them called Selectric.org.
For the most part, organizations who could afford the typewriters only allowed professional typists to use them especially since they were often cumbersome to use. Non-professionals stuck to the older, less-complicated typewriters which printed in the traditional monospace fonts like Courier.
As a government installation, it is quite possible that the Texas Air National Guard had a few Selectric (or its successor models) in its possession. However, examination of Bush's official records released by the Pentagon reveals that Killian and his fellow officers did not use proportional spacing typewriters (1, 2, 3, 4) for their correspondence.
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For its part, CBS has refused to disclose where it had obtained the controversial documents. During last night's program, Rather stated "we are told [they] were taken from Colonel Killian's personal file." Contacted by The Washington Post, Kelli Edwards, a spokesperson for 60 Minutes declined to elaborate any further.<font size=3><font color=black>
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