Rather Shameful
By Monte Kuligowski (09/20/04)
CBS News anchor, Dan Rather, finds himself sitting in a pot of boiling water, but rather than admitting the water’s hot, he’s straining to maintain his composure, inviting others to join him in the jacuzzi. But unsurprisingly, not many care to join him.
There are multitudes of issues concerning the infamous 60 Minutes interview of Ben Barnes and the use of fraudulent memos. But before we dive into some of the Rathergate concerns, a preeminent question arises: Dan, why take the risk? Why risk your credibility as an objective journalist when you know full well that Barnes’ history and present connections to John Kerry are bound to come out without any stone being left unturned. And why risk holding memos out as authentic that are at best for CBS, unreliable, and at worst, outright counterfeits?
Is the Kerry candidacy in such desperation that Mr. Rather would place his entire career on the line for the cause? If he was going to risk his reputation, it seems he could have at least picked a better issue. Even if CBS News could have successfully convinced the public that President Bush was given preference and was a bad boy over 30 years ago, so what? Even if it’s true that Sid Adger asked Ben Barnes to ask Gen. Rose to accept a young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard, will the world now stop in its orbit? And will the election tip in Kerry’s favor if Bush is found to have missed a physical over three decades ago or as Rather charges, “disobeyed” a military order? Does Mr. Rather want the president to be re-commissioned and spanked by the Air Guard? Or is he just trying to help Kerry win the election? If any order was disobeyed, the Guard was quite capable of rendering discipline in the early 1970s. Didn’t we learn from the media in defense of John Kerry, that the official military record ends all discussion? Well, President Bush completed his service and was honorably discharged on October 1, 1973. Indeed, the entire focus of Mr. Rather’s journalism would make even a red herring blush.
So even if the irrelevant accusations are true, CBS’s journalism was certainly shameful. If untrue, as the case seems to be, then the reporting was rather shameful.
For the sheer fun of it, let’s review Mr. Rather’s exercise of due diligence in the preparation of his news story. First, he somehow acquired newly discovered 30-year-old-Bush-incriminating memos around election time. The memos were allegedly typed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, a man who’s been dead for 20 years and can’t answer for himself (how convenient). Let’s assume Rather’s source is not the most reputable supplier of documents in the world (otherwise Rather would have gladly disclosed it by now). Mr. Rather, being the astute newsman that he is, knew that baseless attacks over Bush’s Guard service had been flying like arrows from Legolas’ bow for years now. In fact, he knew that the quiver was emptied during the presidential election of 2000 and attack groups are now using simulated ammunition.
Therefore, Mr. Rather knew to be extra cautious. He keenly noticed that he wasn’t handed original documents. So did he insist upon seeing the originals? No. Why be demanding? Copies will do just fine, he reasoned, so long as they’re authenticated. Because these memos are purportedly from Killian’s “personal files,” did Mr. Rather immediately make contact with his wife to see if she might vouch for them? No. Even though family members could have told Rather that Killian neither kept a personal file nor used written notes, Dan believed that contacting the family wasn’t necessary. But he did forthrightly contact Killian’s personal secretary, Marian Knox, to attest to whether she typed the memos, right? Wrong. She would have told him that she didn’t type the memos and could have even revealed what kind of typewriter she used back then. But why bother? He had a story to break.
Mr. Rather, being an experienced and award-winning journalist, knew that any document allegedly typed from an early-seventies machine could be verified or repudiated by technical experts. So he sought out the best expert in the field of typography to examine the intricacies of the memos. Well, actually he didn’t. He used a handwriting expert. He gave his expert one of the four copies and asked him to authenticate the signature; even though his expert warned that signature forgeries are difficult to detect when only having copies to examine. Whether the signature is a Killian original copied onto a Word-produced memo, is a mere partisan idea because his expert concluded that it looks like Killian’s signature. Rather saw no reason to examine the memos’ typography.
Once Mr. Rather got his intrinsic evidence nailed down, he turned to get some corroboration from solid sources, via interviews with “officials of the Texas National Guard.” Someone from CBS called Gen. Bobby Hodges, a former officer over Killian, and read a memo to Hodges. Hodges essentially said, okay, I guess that sounds like Killian. Mr. Rather found his “trump card.”
With the memos now decisively authenticated, who would dare challenge Dan Rather? Answer: Striking with the speed and power of lightning, the internet bloggers were all over the memo problems. And at this point, it appears almost everybody with an active brain wave can see that something is dreadfully wrong for CBS.
CBS’s trump card, Gen. Bobby Hodges, has since told the Washington Post and New York Times that CBS “mislead” him by having him believe someone was reading handwritten notes of Killian. Now that he has seen the memos, he believes they are “fakes.” And apparently, Rather didn’t check his “solid sources” over at the Guard too carefully, otherwise he would have discovered the bombshell confirmed later by the Dallas Morning News: a key name in one of the Rathergate memos, Col. Walter Staudt, had retired from the Guard 18 months prior to the date on the memo. Both the counterfeiters and Mr. Rather forgot to do their homework on that easily-verifiable fact.
And I wonder if Mr. Rather interviewed Earl Lively? He was the director of the Texas National Guard operations in Austin during the relevant time period. The Washington Times reported that Mr. Lively expressed his opinion in reference to the memos: “They’re forged as hell . . . there’s no way that Jerry Killian would have written what they’ve come up with.”
As the saga continues CBS will be able to find pro-Kerry people to say Killian would have written the memos (including even Killian’s secretary who admits she didn’t type the bogus memos). Therefore, the debate must focus not on opinions, but on the subject this column has barely touched on: the mountain of objective typographical/formatting evidence which increasingly, can’t be denied. As soon as it’s confirmed that the typewriters the Guard actually used in the early 1970s can’t duplicate the Rathergate memos, the party is over for CBS and the partisans who bought into the sham.
Care to join Dan in the jacuzzi?
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