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(Some Guy)   Mary Mapes still sniveling about being fired over RatherGate, claims faxing altered the document. Yeah, we've all faxed something and had it change fonts and add superscript, haven't we?   (huffingtonpost.com) divider line
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202 clicks; posted to Politics » on 07 Jun 2006 at 7:00 PM (16 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



21 Comments     (+0 »)
 
JohnnyApocalypse
2006-06-07 4:22:34 PM  
anyone have links to the original docs that were submitted? there has to be somewhere
 
FriarTuck
2006-06-07 4:46:31 PM  
google rather memo. halfway down the firstpage, past the parody memos.

Whether Bush dodged the draft or not (he probably did) doesn't take away from the fact that one look at the memo makes it painfully obvious that it was written using Word.

Look for the default MS word font and the equal intra-letter spacing (typewriters did not equalize the space between words)
 
slayer199
2006-06-07 4:57:51 PM  
FriarTuck:

Whether Bush dodged the draft or not (he probably did) doesn't take away from the fact that one look at the memo makes it painfully obvious that it was written using Word.

If anything, RatherGate did Bush a favor. They managed to make Bush look like a persecuted and sympathetic character...no small task.

What's worse was the lack of apology and continual insistence that the story was accurate. It very well may have been accurate, but faking the document killed all credibility the story may have had.
 
Not Available
2006-06-07 5:26:09 PM  
Link to copies of memo, with commentary by some blogger with way too much time on his hands.

It very well may have been accurate, but faking the document killed all credibility the story may have had.

Very true. Story + no corroborating documents or witness statements = unsubstantiated rumor.
 
JohnnyApocalypse
2006-06-07 5:36:30 PM  
Well, this is FTFA:

That first anonymous analyst (who turned out to be a Republican activist lawyer) raised questions about the memo using only a single shot of a faxed document digitally transmitted to his computer screen. Those kinds of transmissions radically change the way a document looks. His analysis was worthless.

The laundry list of problems that critics claimed they saw in the memos has turned out to be bunk. There never has been any definitive proof that they were forged or falsified in any way, despite a multi-million dollar investigation into the story by Viacom.


Yet, from the CBS report (the Pdf is titled "ON THE SEPTEMBER 8, 2004 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY SEGMENT "FOR THE RECORD" CONCERNING PRESIDENT BUSH'S TEXAS AIR NATIONAL GUARD SERVICE" by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, or representation thereof ):
The Panel finds that the meshing analysis submitted by Mapes does not withstand scrutiny for two reasons. First, in many instances, the content of the Killian documents does not mesh well substantively with the official Bush records. Second, the Killian documents vary in significant ways from the standard format and jargon of documents issued by the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group in the early 1970s.


Soooo... I don't understand the disconnect. If the second source is accurate, then this had nothing to do how someone's browser viewed the evidence over the internet. It may have been the catalyst for calling the memos into question, but why Mapes can write a book on this, I don't know.

This article is from CBS itself, explaining the independent findings:
Their findings were contained in a 224-page report made public on Monday. While the panel said it was not prepared to brand the Killian documents as an outright forgery, it raised serious questions about their authenticity and the way CBS News handled them.
 
albo
2006-06-07 6:42:17 PM  
"fake but accurate." the phrase from 2004 we'll all remember.
 
Remfin
2006-06-07 8:27:40 PM  
Uhm, people are still going on about the fonts and superscript?

You guys don't remember the congratulations memo (about Bush's 1st Liet promotion) the White House "found" roughly 3 weeks after RatherGate exploded...that looked exactly like the CBS documents?

Page 6 is the memo in question. While the quality is crappy it's quite easy to see it's a proportionally-spaced font. That release doesn't have any superscript but a few previous Bush memos did have it (we know the typewriter they used had that capability anyway, even if they didn't use it)
 
BiffDangler
2006-06-07 8:43:40 PM  
Corvus

What are you smoking? Sure, there is a vague, minor chance that the documents are real. Ok, so maybe there were a couple i.e. very few typewriters that might possibly have been able to make a document like that, and the ANG had one. Don't forget, it is the media's job to show that their stories are true, not our job to prove that they are false.
 
charliekwalker!
2006-06-07 8:54:08 PM  
Rather pushed the story, Mapes worked for Rather... Don't be stupid submitter, she wanted to KEEP HER JOB...
 
albo
2006-06-07 9:11:00 PM  
Sure, there is a vague, minor chance that the documents are real

pull out occam's razor and think about these two scenarios:

1. you gotta believe the texas ANG had an expensive printer-quality programmable state-of-the art typewriter that could come about 85 percent close to the what the memo looks like. or,

2. it's a fake that can duplicated, line ending by line ending, font by font, simply by typing the same words out in MS Word set on the normal defaults.

see the LGF comparision experiment. disprove that with evidence and without resorting to conspiracy theories and come on back
 
lelio
2006-06-07 9:58:05 PM  
John Titor can get to the bottom of this
 
Remfin
2006-06-07 10:50:55 PM  
see the LGF comparision experiment. disprove that with evidence and without resorting to conspiracy theories and come on back

Well LGF said it was Times New Roman and it obviously can't be as anyone can see...

This guy did the report for CBS which is why they never called them fakes themselves, and just said they couldn't confirm the chain of custody. It was NOT done on a computer with normal programs. I suppose you could always come up with a way to fake it, but it was not the easy debunking that is claimed

And uhm, we know for a fact the Texas ANG had IBM Selectrics...we don't know if it was that specific model but they were all around the same price anyway
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2006-06-08 12:19:50 AM  
Corvus: So far no independent analysis of the fonts or printing have called these documents a "forgery". They have ONLY said they can not confirm that it is a legitmate document and conservatives have quickly turned this into them saying it was proven forgeries.

Not the point. The burden of proof is on Mapes, Rather and CBS--not their detractors. The issue is not that the documents can't be proven fakes; the issue is that CBS did not have substantive proof they were real.
 
bwesb
2006-06-08 12:50:24 AM  
It's always the journalists that suffer . . . .

\end sarcasm
\\ les slashiés
 
Walt_Jizzney
2006-06-08 2:26:47 AM  
The Shadout Mapes? There should be no issue here, as all Fremen repay their debts...
 
Cathaleon
2006-06-08 9:16:55 AM  
Hahahahahahahahahhahahaahahaahahahahhahhahahahhahahhahahahahhahahhahahahha.

Corvus, what the hell planet are you on?

Have you bothered to actually read anything, or are you just parroting Mapes?

Plenty of rational people, including some Democrats, have thoroughly skewered the documents. They are dead, done, finit. Does that mean what they contained wasn't true? No. It does mean it shouldn't have run as any thing other than an opinion piece or as a rumor on a gossip show.

Guessing you read DKos and DU every single day. Also guessing you're one of the many who continue to make the Democratic Party looks like absolute ass-monkeys in your unwillingness to accept anything anti-Bush may not be 100% valid.

As another poster said, in the end, the burden of proof is on Mapes, Rather and Burkett.
 
Cathaleon
2006-06-08 9:22:47 AM  
First (and last) time I'll link a Wikipedia article, but this one has actually done a damned good job explaining both sides, and how ridiculous one particular side is.

Read it, Corvus:
 
Cathaleon
2006-06-08 9:23:23 AM  
Let's try that again, without the html:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_authenticity_issues
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2006-06-08 10:15:19 AM  
Cathaleon: Let's try that again, without the html:

Interesting that despite a $50K reward being offered, no one has been able to reproduce the memos with equipment available at the time.
 
jer2911tx
2006-06-08 10:24:55 AM  
As for document analysis, it is a mind-numbing and arcane discipline, an imperfect undertaking reserved for courtroom use, not for headlines or Internet political battles. Document analysis is certainly not meant to be done at 11 o'clock at night by someone with no training or experience sitting in front of a glowing computer nursing a grudge and spoiling for a fight. But that's precisely how the right's attack against Dan Rather and CBS News was launched.

That first anonymous analyst (who turned out to be a Republican activist lawyer) raised questions about the memo using only a single shot of a faxed document digitally transmitted to his computer screen. Those kinds of transmissions radically change the way a document looks. His analysis was worthless.


lollerskates....

/bitter much, mary?
 
onesidedsquare
2006-06-08 10:35:20 AM  
[image from members.tripod.com too old to be available]
 
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