Elusive memos damaging to the president? Try forgeries passed off as news by Dan Rather and CBS. INDC has a crushing verdict from a typographical forensic expert. One of the expert's qualifications, image smear from multiple copies, is rather well explained by Charles Johnson's recreation of the super-secret document — in Microsoft Word.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
SPECIAL ENOUGH: I'm very sure I wasn't the only one to e-mail Special Report with Brit Hume to run with the CBS story. Brit has obliged.
THE ANGLE: Reporter Jim Angle added the issue of likely forgery into a larger report on the latest wave of media beatings of a sincerely dead horse. Moral of Jim's story? Thank Bill Gates' helpful superscription. Byron York was interviewed by Brit immediately after. Sorry, ladies and gents, but Microsoft Word is Microsoft Word.
STANDS FOR 'NOT BEING CANDID': NBC News squeezed half a sentence into a furrow-browed report on the documents, and only then smashing it with a qualifier, "but the White House has not challenged the authenticity of the documents." Leftist press trusting the White House, eh?
STANDS FOR 'ALSO BAILED CBS': I'll give Peter Jennings credit for noting "questions about the documents" in his opening line, and Terry Moran spent as much time as Jim Angle describing the fudges. But, of course, not before presenting the issue as a whack to the president. CBS, according to Moran, is standing by its story. Be a man, Dan, and take an early retirement.
STANDING BY, WHILE WE FACT-CHECK: Drudge is reporting that CBS is conducting "an internal investigation." Investigation for what, a desktop computer with Microsoft Word (GIF via Pacetown)?
What's next, Dan? The Shroud of Turin printed on a Hewlett-Packard?
COULDN'T RESIST:
[Addendum, 9/14/04: After a link from National Review's Corner, I made a handful of sales on Dan Rather Forged This Bumper Sticker. FC Productions, if you're asking.]
THE FINAL, SERIOUS WORD: Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard said it best last evening: CBS must bring forward the "experts" who couldn't tell a naked forgery and have them — and the station — submitted to the questioning they deserve.
