Dan Rather

In commenting on Dan Rather's recent lawsuit, I can't do much better than review what I wrote 3 years ago:

September 10, 2004:

CBS was caught, having fallen for obviously forged documents purporting to show Bush's bad behavior while in the Texas Air National Guard. These documents were filled with the indicia of the modern word processor, not the 30+ year old typewriter. The superscript "th"; the "proportionate spacing"; the testimony from the conviently 20-years dead Jerry Killian's widow and son that Killian would never have written this stuff, all mean nothing to Dan Rather and CBS.
Rather than face the extreme embarrassment of having to admit that they've been "had", Dan Rather and CBS are just "gutting it out." They have enough trial lawyer friends at CBS to know that bad lawsuits can eventually be favorably settled, as long as one spends enough money on "expert witnesses" paid handsomely to support one's absurd position.
So expect Rather and Co. to intone solemnly on this, as if they are hot on the trail of the next "Watergate." Meanwhile, everyone else will be hot on the trail of the real story: That this is the next "Jayson Blair."

I am glad I went out on a limb early to say that the Bush National Guard memos shown recently on CBS's "60 Minutes" were forgeries. I have spoken to document experts before, and I recognized "authority" when I saw similar experts comment on these items.


September 13, 2004:

John Fund in the Wall Street Journal notes this:

"Earl Lively, director of operations for the Texas Air National Guard in the 1970s, told the Washington Times that the memos are 'forged as hell.'"

I would say they were "forged IN hell -- in the Devil's Smithy."

***

The yeoman efforts of Little Green Footballs in exposing this phony story only served to meticulously document the obvious. Anyone looking at the Bush National Guard memos could tell at a glance that they were done on a modern word processor and not a vintage typewriter. Expert analysis only reinforced this. Rather may feel that CBS breached their contract, hanging him out to dry and leaving him with a legacy of shame. While this lawsuit is about money, it is also about Mr. Rather trying to move himself out of the "knave-fool" continuum (where there currently is a split of opinion as to where on that continuum he resides). He would like to be seen as an honest journalist again, so he is asserting that he thinks the story was true. However, if he succeeds in convincing us that he actually believes this yarn, he'll only convince us that he's a fool. These documents were so obviously fraudulent that no one with his credentials could possibly fall for it, and, whether knave or fool, he was sacked "for cause."

I think he's banking on the belief that enough of US are fools and might actually believe him.

Mind you, he might admit again that the documents are "not verifiable" (he probably won't say "fraudulent," despite items like this, comparing one of the "1972" documents with the same text typed on MS Word in 2004. But what does it say about Dan Rather that he lacked the good sense to bail out on this story? Once again: Is he a knave or a fool?

I hope the lawyers on both sides charge the heck out of their clients, CBS and Rather. And in the end it would be great if they both could lose.