In a post entitled "CBS News Stealthy Update to Document Story," Lynxx Pherrett writes in a blog called Assume the Position that CBS is changing its website version of the Bush documents story — not yet conceeding that the documents are forgeries, but significantly backtracking and referencing at least some of the doubts that have been raised about their authenticity. In typical sloppy mainstream media fashion (a practice scornfully called "dKos'g" in some parts of the blogosphere), CBS is simply replacing its original web page with the rewritten story at the same URL, without leaving any tracks to show that it's been backing and filling.

More here.

He also wants to know the source of these documents (we all do, of course).

That link, by the way, contains a digest of last night's Nightline. Apparently Ted Koppel was pretty tough on ol' Dan, the Hard-News Man.

Posted by: Ace at 08:05 AM | Comments (2)
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On Wednesday, the "Young Media" -- a collection of bloggers, partisan posters on political fora like Free Republic, and a web-based media force called Matt Drudge -- took a highly suspect document-dump peddled to it by political operatives and recklessly used those documents, without doing even the most basic journalistic verification, to smear a political candidate.

But within 48 hours, the Old Media -- thoughtful, well-trained, diligent and vigilant and scrupulously careful regarding basic journalistic practices and ethics -- did the sort of careful reportage and analysis they're famous for and knocked down the reckless rumors peddled by the internet smear-merchant.

If that had actually been what happened, it wouldn't be worth commenting upon. That would be a dog bites man story-- what you'd expect to happen in the normal course of the day, scarcely worth commenting upon.

But of course that's not what happened. On Wednesday, it was the Old Media that ran with documents which appeared sham on their face and had a very dubious provenance, and it was the wild and wooly internet -- the conspiracy-theorists, the reckless partisans, the amateurs, the shamelessly attention-seeking nobodies from nowhere-- that did the careful reportage and analysis that proved those documents to be forgeries.

Yesterday, the man bit the dog.

Boy howdy, did he ever.

It's too soon to understand fully why the Old Media failed so badly, and why the Young Media succeeded so brilliantly. But it's not too soon to begin peddling some of that rash speculation for which the Young Media is derided.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:12 AM | Comments (29)
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This authenticated, verified document, about which Dan Rather "went several extra miles" to confirm, proves once and for all that John Forbes Kerry was in Cambodia for Christmas.

Thanks to Cranky Neocon.

Meanwhile, the DNC -- which had nothing at all to do with these forgeries, remember (except maybe for creating them and distributing them) -- is now sending out emails bashing Bush based upon the very "information" contained in the forgeries.

Posted by: Ace at 04:50 AM | Comments (2)
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The Fat Guy quotes Arguing with Signposts asking, "How ironic would it be that the entire presidential election could turn on MS Word's maddening Auto-Correct feature?"

And I guess that is a little chuckle-worthy.

Except it's really not.

The mainstream liberal media will print very dubious-looking documents from highly-sketchy people shopped to them by very-dodgy Democratic operatives pretty much whenever they get them.

There is no fact-checking for anti-Republican hit pieces.

This particular forgery got exposed because it was sooooo amateurishly and ineptly done. Only because this forgery was so laughably bad did it get discovered.

But imagine if it had been a better job. And imagine if it had been something really damning about Bush. Still 100% false, and still coming from shady characters and the slimy undergrowth of the DNC, but competently-crafted forgeries.

The mainstream media would be running with the story. They would be running it 24/7. It's would be the focus of every press conference; it would be mentioned every night on the news, even via strained connections to reports having little to do with the "scandal" (as echoes of Abu Ghraib were seen by the press in practically every other political story).

We got lucky on this one guys. True, we had guys like Bill from INDC and LGF and the Powerline guys and those first Freepers who asked questions doing a man's job. But we were lucky that these "documents" were so transparently fraudulent.

The media has claimed the SwiftVets are lying, despite the fact that there's no evidence of that.

And yet this crap? These laughable foreries? They run with it.

Even today.

One of the top stories on Yahoo? This:

Questions Raised About Bush Guard Service

Fri Sep 10, 1:01 AM ET

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - New documents unearthed in the midst of the presidential campaign fill in some blanks but raise other questions about the sometimes mysterious and spotty story of President Bush (news - web sites)'s military service during Vietnam when he won a coveted spot in the Texas Air National Guard and avoided the war.

Do tell, Terence.

Reviving issues that have shadowed his political career, the documents show Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Texas Air National Guard pilot more than three decades ago because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical examination.

They do?

But the authenticity of the memos was questioned Thursday by the son of the late officer who reportedly wrote them. One of the writer's fellow officers and a document expert also said Thursday the documents appear to be forgeries.

Still, the documents marked the second time in days the White House had to backtrack from assertions that all of Bush's records had been released....

Wh-wh-wha...?

What?

What the fuck?

What the fucking fuck?

You just said that experts said they appeared to be forgeries, and now you question why these documents hadn't been released?

Ummm... because they were forgeries?

Does. That. Even. Register?

They also raised the specter that Bush sought favors from higher-ups and that the commander of the Texas Air National Guard wanted to "sugar coat" Bush's record after he was suspended from flying.

Ummm... except, of course, that the documents in question are forgeries.

That minor quibble aside-- yes, the documents do raise this "specter."

...

Kerry, campaigning in Iowa, refused to talk Thursday about the new Bush documents. "That's for the White House to answer," he said in an Associated Press interview. Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "I think you absolutely are seeing a coordinated attack by John Kerry and his surrogates on the president."

Yet, it was the White House — not Kerry's campaign — that distributed four memos from 1972 and 1973 from Lt. Col. Jerry Killian...

Uhhh, the White House "distributed" the faxed documents it got from CBS.

But we now know the Kerry campaign was the actual supplier of the documents to CBS.

But this guy attempts to deflects all blame from Kerry. Why, the White House had the documents! That's proof that they didn't originally come from Kerry, right?

Look at this cocksucker go.

... now deceased, who was the commander of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston where Bush served. The White House obtained the memos from CBS News, which said it was convinced of their authenticity, and the White House did not question their accuracy. There was no explanation why the Pentagon (news - web sites) was unable to find the documents on its own.

Ummmm... again, maybe the Pentagon was "unable to find the documents" because, well, see, they're forgeries.

I don't think they have a special records room for forgeries, Terence.

....

Now-- if that's the sort of tale Terence writes after the documents have been proven forgeries, imagine what they'd do in the absence of such smoking-gun evidence of fraud.

Our foe is implacable, ruthless, relentless, and without shame or remorse. We got lucky yesterday, gentlemen-- but the vicious sheep that are the liberal media aren't surrendering just yet.

Posted by: Ace at 03:28 AM | Comments (16)
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Roger L. Simon sure seems to think this "rises to the level." He notes this is several dozen degrees worse than the Jayson Blair scandal. At least Jayson Blair's fictitious "facts" tended to be fairly quotidian and meaningless.

From Allah, who also has links to PAGE ONE of the Washington Post (if you can believe that!), plus ABCNews (in fairness, they were on the story fairly quickly; just not as quickly as, say, unpaid amateurs) and the AP.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 PM | Comments (4)
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If so, why the hell is his campaign trafficking in transparently-sham forgeries?

Either they knew this was "faulty intelligence" that could not be relied upon and they shopped it to their liberal media Spirit Squad anyway, in which case they're liars.

In fact, they're the very lying liars who lie lying lies that we've heard so much about this campaign year.

If they had no idea the "documents" were the obvious-hoax crude forgeries that a guy on FreeRepublic sniffed out within five minutes, then they are wholly unqualified to run this nation's intelligence and military apparatus, which is bombarded with much-better disinformation and forgeries several hundred times per day.

Which is it guys? Is it Option 1, is it Option 2, or is it both Option 1 and Option 2 simultaneously?

For once, I really think Kerry honestly could have it both ways on an important question.

Thanks to See-Dubya for making this point in a comment.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 PM | Comments (2)
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The email in question is said to include a .wmv of Fountains of Wayne's Stacey's Mom Has Got it Goin' On as an attachment.

By the way, would any of you like to hear that song and see a video of it acted out by the X-Men?

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gee willickers, Ace, that sure sounds like it would be a sweet thing 'n all. But I have to say I think that's frankly impossible. There's surely no way that I could simply click on a link and download a clip of Fountain of Wayne's Stacey's Mom Has Got it Goin' On acted out by Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, and Iceman."

And yet, here's the thing: You'd be wrong. You'd be badly wrong on that particular score, my friend.

In fact, you could even click here and also download Puddle of Mudd's She Hates Me, yes, also starring Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique.

Or Queen's We Are the Champions. Or even Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It. That's what's been fueling me the last couple of hours.

And, believe it or not, even Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On (Theme From Titanic), with a Special Long-Distance Dedication to the Sinking Ship of the moment, the USS John Forbes Kerry.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 PM | Comments (4)
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CBSNews Had "Doubts" About Provenance and Signatures, But Went Ahead Anyway Without Verification

A producer has just gone shopping for Dan's gold watch:

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."

The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from."

...

A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story.

"The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.' And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different."

The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries."

There is more at the link, but fair use dictates that I can't excerpt everything. It's ALL good, baby. Read the whole thing.

Dan Rather Retirement Watch Update:

At the tone, the Dan Rather Retirement Watch displays a time of

(bong)

11:42 PM -- eighteen minutes 'till midnight ("spending more time with his family")

Nasty Implication Update: The media knew these documents were fake. All except CBSNews rejected them as likely forgeries.

And yet when CBSNews reported them, no one in the straight media said boo about it.

They waited to see if CBSNews could get away with it-- if CBS could make it stick. Only now that CBS has been outed do they begin reporting on the suspect nature of documents.

And no one in the mainstream media has yet reported what they all know as a fact from their own first-hand witness -- that these forgeries were shopped to them by both the DNC and Kerry camp.

Fuck You and the Horse You Road in On Update: Ilyka reports that Dan Rather thinks he went "several extra miles" to "verify" these laughably crude forgeries.

Yeah, Dan. Your fucking multimillion dollar news organization went "several extra miles" by talking to some guy who knew nothing about the actual document. You did not, however, take the fucking five minutes to call up a document-authentication expert.

I suppose that would have been too difficult for a multimillion dollar world-wide news organization to do. To do something like that, why, you'd have to be amateur blogger with an extra hour on his hands or something!

Well. Now that I understand how enormous and Herculean a task it would have been to make a call to an expert and ask him to look over them for a half hour, you are forgiven.

You incompetent hack. Get your senile ass to Miami already. They've got jai-alai and dog-races. You can spin your obnoxious "homespun Texas wisdom" for your neighbors in your retirement community until they get annoyed enough to strangle you to death with their medical-alert necklaces.

Posted by: Ace at 09:07 PM | Comments (15)
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As Hard-News Dan might say, we nailed that coonskin to the wall so hard its fleas are still squealing.

He is, quote, "shell-shocked."

I don't blame him. The world turned upside down today.

Remember, Dan:

Courage.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 PM | Comments (7)
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10. The letterhead on one document features rainbows, bunnies, and unicorns, as well as the legend "From the Desk of Chris Lehane," which, in retrospect, probably should have raised more eyebrows

9. Letters from military men usually conclude with the farewells "Respectfully" or "Sincerely;" CBS' letters concluded with "Party on, Garth!" and "Pull my finger"

8. Chemists have identified a substance on the documents as the stable isotope of elemental bearclaw (Krispykremeum 244); Michael Moore is currently sought for questioning as a "person of interest"

7. The President in 1972 was Richard M. Nixon and not, as one memo seems to imply, Frank "The Riddler" Gorshin

6. One memo misidentifies George Bush's unit as "the Decepticons," and incorrectly states he was grounded for "improperly transforming his plane into a giant space-robot without authorization"

5. Fiber evidence indicates the documents were transported in Sandy Berger's underpants

4. An addendum to one memo ponders whether Ross and Rachel will ever get back together

3. The documents refer to other military officers whose existence cannot be verified; a search of military records has not so far disclosed a "General Firstguy," an "Admiral Secondguy," or a "Lieutennant Colonel Phoney McFakerton"

2. At least two documents contain an inordinate number of direct quotations from 1999's Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

...and the Number One Other Sign the "Documents" Were Forged...

1. While reading the documents during his report, Dan Rather kept giggling like a schoolgirl on goofballs

Special One-Time Triumph-of-the-Blogosphere Bonus Entry!:

0. In a move widely seen as a tacit acknowlegement the documents are in fact forgeries, CBSNews just hired a new producer to "supervise" Dan Rather: Vinny Falcone

Posted by: Ace at 07:54 PM | Comments (14)
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