TruthNews Commentary, September 15, 2004

The 1980s comic strip "Bloom County" contained an episode in which the characters sold a fake Elvis Presley diary to Newsweek. Handwriting experts authenticated the diary as authentic, and Newsweek proceeded to publish the diaries. Then someone noticed that the diaries were written on official "Dukes of Hazzard" stationary. Since Elvis died in 1977, and the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show didn't begin running until 1979, scientists declared that the diaries were a "blatant, grotesque forgery."

Now the 1984 Bloom County scenario is being played out in the 2004 presidential campaign. Dan Rather and CBS News obtained Texas Air National Guard documents which say that then-Lieutenant George W. Bush was suspended from flight status for not performing up to standards and for failing to take his annual physical exam. CBS aired their story about the memos in a "60 Minutes" segment narrated by Rather.

Bush initially trained as a fighter pilot in the Texas National Guard, but later transferred to ground duty in the Alabama National Guard. The White House says that the transfer to Alabama was arranged so Bush could work on the Republican Senate campaign of one of his father's friends. Apparently, Rather thinks that the recently-discovered memos put Bush's transfer to Alabama in a somewhat less favorable light, although neither explanation leaves Bush with the heroic war credentials of, say, John Kerry.

There's nothing particularly newsworthy here -- everyone has known since the 2000 campaign that Bush's National Guard service was rather undistinguished. However, it now appears that CBS has made the Bloom County mistake of writing the purported Air National Guard memos on official "Dukes of Hazzard" stationary. Well, not exactly that. Nobody could be that stupid. But CBS appears to be trying hard. Several experts have pointed out that the memos were written on a computer. Since the memos were purportedly written in 1973, and computers did not come into widespread use for word processing until the mid-1980's, the memos are apparently a hoax.

The evidence for the memos being written on a computer is compelling. The memos use "Times New Roman" font, which was not used on typewriters in 1973 but is a default font setting on Microsoft Word used on most computer. In addition, two of the four memos used raised superscripts. For example, "111th F.I.S." (Fighter Interceptor Squadron) is rendered "111^th F.I.S." In a second memo, the number "187th" is rendered "187^th." Again, blame Microsoft. Raised superscripts (with reduced size) were impossible on typewriters 30 years ago, but Microsoft Word automatically puts the "th" after a number in superscript. Finally, the print type and spacing in all the memos are proportional, meaning that narrow letters like "i" and "t" take up less space than wider letters like "G" and "F." Proportional spacing is normal with Microsoft Word, but that capability did not exist on typewriters 30 years ago. Each letter took the same amount of space, either 10 letters to the inch or 12 letters to the inch. Note to CBS: when writing fake 30-year old documents, use a 30-year old typewriter instead of a computer.

In addition to the obvious use of a computer, there are other inconsistencies to the documents. All of the memos are obviously photocopies (possibly, copies of copies). Only two are signed. The supposed author of all four, Jerry Killian (Bush's squadron commander) is dead. Killian's widow says Killian didn't type. Killian's secretary says she didn't type the memos. Three of the four documents are memos Killian wrote to himself ("memo for record" or "memo to file"). Killian's son says that Killian didn't keep this kind of records. One of the memos accuses Killian's one-time superior Walter Staudt of exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" Bush's records. But Staudt had retired a year and a half before the date of the memo.

The expert who CBS says authenticated the memos told the Washington Post that he never even tried to authenticate the documents themselves, merely the signature. Since the memos were photocopies, this proves nothing. Anyone can cut a signature off one document, paste it to a forged document, photocopy it several times, and pass it off as authentic. Unless, of course, they make the unbelievably stupid mistake of typing the forgery on a computer in Times New Roman with raised superscripts. The only thing that could possibly be more stupid would be to use official "Dukes of Hazzard" stationary.

CBS says that the "documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources," but doesn't say who they are. If the documents are real, either the records were stolen from Air National Guard files, or someone made copies of the memos at the time they were written and kept them. The first case is unlikely because the government doesn't keep this kind of files for 30 years. The second possibility is equally unlikely because (1) the documents don't say very much, (2) no one knew at the time that Bush was going to be famous, so (3) why would anyone filch them from the files 30 years ago?

CBS says that "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned. We have complete confidence in our reporting and will continue to pursue the story." At this point, we're not sure who else has confidence in CBS's reporting -- perhaps a few John Kerry sycophants, but that's about it. Anyone can make a mistake, even TruthNews. But for CBS to doggedly insist on the genuineness of the computer-generated documents supposedly from 1973, without even conducting an investigation, is the height of folly.

In 1993, NBC News rigged a GM pickup truck with an incendiary device in order to spice up a story about how the trucks could catch fire in a collision. NBC footage showed the truck exploding into flames, but Tom Brokaw, who narrated the story, didn't mention the fact that an incendiary device had been used. Unfortunately for NBC, alert viewers noticed the incendiary device burning prior to the explosion. NBC had to issue an on-the-air apology, and NBC News president Michael Gartner was forced to resign. After the NBC fiasco, CBS's 60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt proclaimed that such things were unheard of at his show. "If that had happened at '60 Minutes,'" he said, "I'd be looking for a job tomorrow." Well, times have changed at "60 Minutes." Hewitt stepped aside in June, and CBS is now stonewalling on the Air National Guard hoax.

The Boston Globe earlier this year repeated John Kerry's story, "seared in his memory," about how he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia "despite President Nixon's assurances that there was no combat action in this neutral territory." The Globe ran the story without even bothering to fact check who was president in 1968 (Nixon didn't become president until 1969). Now CBS has joined the club of shoddy journalistic ethics by publishing obviously fake memos. Either CBS's fact checking is very slip-shod, or they're the ones perpetrating the hoax in the first place. Obviously, this poses serious questions with regard to CBS's other stories. What else have they faked? The Abu Ghraib photos? No, wait -- that was the aforementioned Boston Globe.

Since Don Hewitt is not longer around to take the fall at CBS, perhaps Dan Rather, who is not just a newsreader but also the editor of his news shows, should be fired. Better yet, CBS could just shut down their news division and concentrate on fiction -- they seem to be good at that.