salon.com — Rather and Mapes discovered that Rigler's investigation had uncovered corroboration for their story. Rather's complaint states that "after following all the leads given to him by Ms. Mapes, he (Rigler) was of the opinion that the Killian Documents were most likely authentic, and that the underlying story was certainly accurate."
Sep 27, 2007 View in Crawl 4
craniumSep 28, 2007
Times New Roman with superscripts? No way a typewriter did that.
mrmudgeonSep 28, 2007
There were no actively used typ0e writers at that time that produced the font used. I am old enough that type writers are something I oftended use. I would suggest that the poster actually specify the model of type writer that would produce that font. I know of none and do not believe that claim.Why would Bush want to comment on a fake story?
charlotte_webSep 29, 2007
"Salon says 'no credible source' has refuted the documents' authenticity"How does this constitute proof? Maybe in your anti-Bush kangaroo court. But in the Real World, there is generally an assumption of innocence and you have to prove guilt. You're suggesting the Bush is guilty a priori and needs to prove his innocence. First off, we're talking about events that happened THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. How well do you remember events that happened thrtity-five years ago that didn't directly affect you?Secondly, the one person who can authoritatively dispute the authenticity of the documents, Jerry Killian, happens to be dead. Maybe that's why the forgerer thought that this was a great opportunity.Third, I've heard the "fake documents, factual story" already, and I think it's total bulls**t. Why? If the forgerer was simply a transcriber of the original documents (as is claimed), then why did he try to forge the signature and pass of the documents as authentic? The forgerer is already proven to be a liar based on what I just said. So, in all fairness, it's up to the forgerer to prove the veracity of his claims.
vbdonSep 29, 2007
The documents were confirmed false when it was shown, as any idiot could see, the typeset used was Microsoft's. It didn't exist when the document was "dated". Rather is now trying to obfuscate by bringing up a bunch of phony arguments on other issues when he knows he's lying about the fake documents. It's easy to see he knew the documents were fake and might have even helped to plan the scam in the first place. His dismissal from CBS was entirely justified. He insisted, and still insists, on filtering everything through his left-wing views. One really offensive argument he constantly uses is that his reports are factual and therefore beyond critism. The truth is his bias is revealed by the fact that he limited his reports to those facts that support his extremist views. If he was a true journalist, rare on CBS, he would have had a much more balanced program. Instead, he cost CBS so many viewers, their network is now near bankruptcy. Dan Rather's problem is he just can't accept the fact that the public isn't as stupid and he wants them to be.
tangaroaSep 29, 2007
Bush was confirmed to have deserted the National Guard way back during the 2000 campaign, and it was an issue then because Bush was running on his military experience in the National Guard. It was several years after the Bush desertion story had already been confirmed that CBS got the memos adding detail to the story. CBS verified the memos as accurate by comparing them to existing documents and witness testimony and noting that all of the facts and details lined up.So, the Bush desertion story was old news at the time of the CBS report. The memos were never about proving Bush deserting -- that had already been proven -- but about adding meat to the skeleton of the story. This topic is also not news, as CBS had verified the memos' accuracy before reporting on them and added supporting evidence during the week of what has become known as the "Dan Rather scandal". There is a lot of old news going on here, and evidently a lot of people who are unaware of any of it.There are holes in Bush's record -- as another poster said, the Texas Guard destroyed many of his service records in preparation for one of his campaigns -- but there are enough surviving documents and witness testimony to check the memos against. The documents that have come out since 2000, when the first of Bush's Pentagon records were opened up, match up perfectly with the CBS memos. What the memos are are either damned good forgeries by someone who put a lot of work into studying Bush's record, or copies of real documents, or a hybrid of the two, copies of real documents with fake information added. Many of the attacks on Dan Rather accuse him of forging the documents himself, but he and his team would not have had the time between their real work (they had too many / big other stories in the pipe at the time) and there is no way in hell they would not have done as good a job.Fun side note: The holes in Bush's record leave a lot of room for interpretation. One of the most entertaining theories I've run across (to veer way away from the known facts now) is that Bush spent his time away from the Guard running drugs between Miami and Huehuetenango for the CIA. There is no documentation on that,, of course.. The story when I read it was based on an offhand comment Bush is alleged to have said about flying down there during a year Guatemala happened to be in a civil war, and another quote where he said he spent that particular summer that year delivering exotic plants. There is lots of room between that and the conclusion and little evidence for the that, but it's fun to think about and it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be true.
marffaOct 28, 2007
The secretary claimed she didn't type the alleged document that was the main source for their case. He should have gotten his ducks in a row, instead of presenting a flawed case.
shadowtheweakJan 8, 2008
whatever....my badMost of the other PILOTS at the base volunteered to fly missions over Vietnam and Bush never went with them. Thats why none of the other PILOTS like him.