CBS Aptly Named
See B.S. appears to be the appropriate moniker for C.B.S. after ignoring a plethora of evidence that the “Bush Guard Memos” were forgeries.
Now “See B.S.” did attempt to do it’s background research, unfortunate for them nearly every non-anonymous source or expert and source utilized in “See B.S.”’s attempt to authenticate the documents for which it mistakenly believed were written by Bush’s commanding officer Jerry Killian.
Of course, “See B.S.” being nothing, if not stalwalt, has not blinked event though the entire edifice of its “reporting” is crumbling. “See B.S.” continues to defends its story with such ferocity, that it makes Howard Dean appear passive.
Why would “See B.S.” do this? Well, it’s beginning to appear that in light of the deteriorating status of See B.S.’s story, the network’s stance appears more and more a political vendetta and less a work of reporting.
Dan Rather, who lambasted Richard Nixon for lying to the public (and rightly so) ought to get a good lawyer.
Here is an update, starting with CBS’s sins of commission:
COL. WALTER STAUDT: The CBS memos state that the commanding officer of the Texas Air National Guard, Walter Staudt, who supposedly put pressure on to “sugar coat” Lt. Bush’s record retired over a year before the memo is dated. Though CBS claims Staudt could have still had influence, Col. Earl Lively, director of Air National Guard operations for the state headquarters during 1972 and 1973, says “once you’re gone from the Guard, you don’t have any authority.”
MAJ. GEN. BOBBY W. HODGES: CBS’s “on time trump card” in its story, Killian’s superior, says CBS misled him by reading to him the typed memos that they told him were handwritten by Killian and now says they are “computer generated” and are a “fraud”.
ROBERT STRONG: This staff sergeant, a key CBS source on the veracity of its own claims regarding the authenticity of the documents and the specific typewriter (IBM Selectric) used to produce them, says “I’m skeptical that Killian was working on that.”
MARCEL MATLEY: CBS’s lone document expert, whom the network claims verified all documents, says he only examined one, which was not one the key “incriminating” memo.
PHILIP BOUFFARD: CBS, in a story on its website, references a Boston Globe article citing this document expert (though CBS’s fact-checking is so awful it can’t even get his name right and calls him Phillip Broussard) as a source to bolster its claim that equipment at the time could have been used to produce the document. Dr. Bouffard, interviewed by INDC, says “there are still many more things that say this is bogus” and that in misrepresenting him “what the Boston Globe did now sort of pisses me off.”
Now the sins of omission:
IBM COMPOSER EXPERTS: While skeptics say no typewriter available at the time could have produced the documents in question, CBS cites the IBM Selectric Composer as one that theoretically could have been used. However, experts on this machine believe it was not used for a whole variety of reasons. Since no other machine at the time could have made the memo, and a National Guard clerk using the Composer would have been equivalent to a bookkeeper using a Cray supercomputer, it is a preposterous base for Dan Rather to stand on.
ADDITIONAL FORENSIC EXPERTS: Although CBS refuses to undertake any other forensic analysis except for Mr. Matley looking at a single document, many other experts dispute their authenticity. For example, Sandra Ramsey Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, says “I’m virtually certain these were computer-generated” and produced a nearly identical document using Microsoft Word. Lines declares she is so confident, she would testify to that effect under oath.
RUFUS MARTIN: This man served as personnel chief when Killian was a Guard commander and said Friday, “There’s no way they could have been typed in 1972 on the equipment we had at the time.”
COL. MAURICE UDELL: The unit’s instructor pilot who helped train Bush says the documents are a fake and “I completely am disgusted with this (report) I saw on ‘60 Minutes.”
KILLIAN’S WIDOW, MARJORIE CONNELL, and KILLIAN’S SON, GARY KILLIAN: The people who know Killian best say that CBS’s claim that its memos came from Killian’s “personal file” is false since he never maintained such files and that his supposed statements denigrating Lt. Bush run contrary to his true feelings about the future President. They say “the wording in these documents is very suspect,” “it was not the nature of my father to keep private files like this,” and that Bush “was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the Guard, and he [Killian] was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th.”
EARL LIVELY: He was director of Texas Air National Guard operations in Austin and says of the documents “they’re forged as hell.”
Here’s a short list of experts discrediting authenticity of the memos.
Eugene P. Hussey – Certified forensic document examiner in Washington state. Source:Washington Times
Sandra Ramsey Lines – Document expert, fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, member of the American Society of Questioned Documents Examiners and former special agent for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Sources: 1, 2.
Allan Haley – Director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype in Wilmington, Mass. Source: NewsMax
William Flynn – Forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice who runs a document-authentication company in Phoenix. Sources: 1, 2, 3.Phil Bouffard – Forensic document examiner from Cleveland AND a registered Democrat planning to vote for Kerry. Source: Washington Post
Robert “Corky” Cartwright – Professor of Computer Science at Rice University. Source: Hugh Hewitt
Farrell Shiver – Owner of Shiver & Nelson, a document investigation lab in Woodstock, GA AND… Certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners Member and Treasurer of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners Member of the Questioned Documents Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Member of the Southeastern Association of Forensic Document Examiners Former Chief Document Examiner – U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory Editor, Journal of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners Graduate of, and former chief instructor for the U.S. Army’s two-year resident training program in Forensic Document Examination Court qualified expert, including U.S. Federal District Court Experienced in criminal cases and civil cases Author of numerous papers and articles on the subject of Forensic Document Examination Retired Special Agent of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Source: Hugh Hewitt
While George Bush’s service in the national guard might be an aspect to consider when choosing a candidate, it is becoming more and more clear that the Democrats feel a need to distract the voter’s attention from what Kerry did during and after the Vietnam War, as well as what he has done in the last ten years. After all, if comparing only the recent records of George Bush and John Kerry, you can see why Kerry’s supporters are desperate to draw attention away from such important issues to fabricated ones. Clearly, Kerry’s campaign has reached the panic point and are grasping for straws.
