Dan Blather Eats Crow

STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

"Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully."

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Gleefully yours,

FFF

The List of the Misled

Where are all the self-righteous little liberals who always portray themselves as Crusaders for Truth, who just 2 weeks ago were screetching that these documents were real??? How come they aren't here admitting their error and apologizing for their shrill defense of the indefensible?

They sat there defending the authenticity of documents which most people knew back then were false -all because their partisan blindness made them WANT these documents to be authentic. So they ignored the evidence and insisted that these forgeries were genuine.

Look at how easily brainwashed and misled they are. If you were them, how can you not be humiliated at having been so easily played as idiots? As long as their partisan interests are served, they will believe ANYTHING.

I don't expect them to say anything, so I've taken the liberty of finding and excerpting some of my favorite quotes from them here:

_______________________

LONDONBEAR:

"The deeper the Reich try to convince people these are fake, the more evidence comes out that they are genuine."

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RICK MUNROE, IN RESOPNSE TO LONDONBEAR:

>The deeper the Reich try to convince people these are fake,

>the more evidence comes out that they are genuine.

"So true."

_________________________________

RICK MUNROE:

"They're not fakes, and Bush is a liar."

HEY RICK - THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A FOLLOWER - LISTENING ONLY TO THOSE THINGS THAT RE-INFORCE WHAT YOU ALREADY THINK AND BELIEVING ANYTHING THEY SAY. WILL YOU LEARN YOUR LESSON? DOUBTFUL.

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BOSTON GUY (THIS QUOTE IS MY MY PERSONAL FAVORITE):

"As it stands right now, I haven't see "a shred of evidence" that the documents you refer to are really forged. In fact, it seems now that there is a growing accumulation of evidence that they are not forged.. . .

This is slippery logic at its worst. When the subject is something as critical and important as the destiny of our nation, we should all try to be a little more careful with what is indeed a fact and what is an opinion. An honest dialog and an honest debate during the national election would serve us all well -- if only it would happen."

HEY BG - READ YOUR OWN SERMON. SEE HOW COMPLETELY YOU NEED TO LEARN THAT LESSON!

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WOODLAWN:

>Do you think it's notable and worthy of discussion that one of

>the network news organizations in this country used apparently

>fabricated documents to attack the President of the United

>States, and now refuses to acknowledge their fakeness?

"It sure would be if the evidence showed what you claim. But like the other Republican shitmongers on this board you keep ignoring all the evidence on the other side of the issue because of your tremendous desire to kiss Bush's ass."

HEY WOODLAWN - Last week, you said that the issue of Dan Rather using fabricated documents "sure would be" notable and worthy of discussion "if the evidence showed what I claim." Now that even Rather admits that it does, what do you have to say for yourself, you brainwashed monkey?

_________________________________

N.N.:

"Ignoto already demolished this claim.

But FFF hasn't admitted his error."

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LONDBEAR:

"It is very unlikely that CBS got these as paper originals, MUCH more likely is that they are microfilm copies of papers that were originally on Bush's file and were "lost" when part of the film was "destroyed" before part of it mysteriously re-appeared."

__________________

IGNO-TO-RAMUS:

"WHAT FFF DOESN'T KNOW AND CAN'T TAKE 2 MINUTES TO FIND OUT WITH A GOOGLE SEARCH:

1) IBM introduced proportional spacing for typewriters in 1941.

2) The IBM Selectric, with proportional spacing and changeable fonts, was introduced in 1961."

____________________

Trilingual (last, and always least, in every way):

"Fin just WISHES Dan Rather were "done." Dan, of course, must be quaking in his boots about Fin's pronunciamentos. Oops, wrong. That's just Dan laughing all the way to the bank.

Somehow, I suspect Fin will be finished long before Dan Rather is. . ."

_________________________

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE FACED WITH CONCLUSIVE PROOF THAT YOU'RE A MINDLESS ZOMBIE?

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RE: Attention, Dance Enthusiasts

The fans are flashing away again, trying to distract your attention from the meat of the story: the allegations about Bush's military service are TRUE, even if the documents Dan Rather used were fakes. And what matters most during this election period is the character and veracity of the CANDIDATES.

This doesn't excuse CBS's carelessness, although I would point out that there is still no conclusive proof that the documents are phony. The various blogmeisters have demonstrated that the technology to produce the documents DID exist at the time they were allegedly written. That doesn't prove that these particular documents are real, but they could be. CBS's big mistake was to rely so heavily on these documents to make a case that could have easily been established through all the other evidence about Bush's service in the "champagne units" of the National Guard. Case in point, this morning's NY Times article, which uses extensive interviews and basic reporting techniques to ferret out the circumstances of Dubya's aimless existence at a time that John Kerry was being shot at in Vietnam.

RE: The List of the Misled

Doug69 wrote

>N.N.:

>

>"Ignoto already demolished this claim.

>

>But FFF hasn't admitted his error."

I was referring to FFF's emphatic (and false) statement about

whether proportional-spacing typewriters were available in

the 1970s. I didn't say whether the memos were fake or not.

Read more carefully next time.

RE: The List of the Misled

As other point out, Rather does not now say the documents are fake, just that the provenance was concealed from their researchers.

The fact remains that Bush did not attend a medical. He would have received a letter telling him the date and location. Where is the copy of that letter?

Even more interesting is that if these documents are false, why was a Republican site able to point out the supposed deficiencies within 60 minutes of the original broadcast. Counld in fact the Bush cover machine have retyped the originals and planted them on the base source in an attmpt to discredit the former TANG senior officer they were passed on by?

The whole affair is entirely remniscent of the BBC's disclosure that the dossier used by Blair and often requoted by Bush as the pretext for war was fundamentally flawed. The BBC made errors by broadcasting a live two way inteview between the reporter and the studio anchor at 7am in which the source was incorrectly described (partly to maintain their identity) but also the guy reported the specific impressions of the source that were not entirely supportable by the actual events. After the hounding and suicide of that source a judicial enquirey whitewashed Blair but the evidence was quite cleat. Inappropriate behaviour had gone on, the claims were exagerated, the claims Blair made that the dossier was based on reliable and proven sources was a lie, pressure had been put on the security services to squeeze as much damming "evidence" as possible into the dossier which ignoring the caveats that were properly included in the actual security briefings.

A couple of errors meant that the entire story could be denied. This is exactly what Bush is now trying to do. What is the truth of his service in the TANG? How did he get in if not by the influence of powerful friends of his father to keep him away from Vietnam?

More to the point, how has a cowardly, lying, foul mouthed, vindictive unreformed drug abuser with attention deficit been allowed to squat in the White House for 4 years?

RE: The List of the Misled

_________________________

>

>WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE FACED WITH CONCLUSIVE PROOF THAT YOU'RE A

>MINDLESS ZOMBIE?

>___________________________

>

Well, perhaps you could start considering your extensive experience in this area as a shill for the repiglican party, as well as the considerable amount of time you spend regurgitating Coulter, hannity and Limbaugh.

Fox News: We Report, You Comply

Shrubya: I'm George Bush and I approved this newscast.