38 Comments

1. TedM:

NEVER FORGET

Sep 11, 2004 - 6:54 am 2. Frank G:

the same people deny the existence of a single truth. All things are relative. I expect Dan Rather to swing to that rationale soon: “The documents are real to some”. “Never forget” is right on! Why won’t the MSM show the people falling, the towers burning and collapsing, the terrified NY’ers running with death clouds of dust descending? Because it would strengthen our national resolve? Might keep the dreaded terror-fighting Bushitler in office? Who’s putting partisanship above national security?

Sep 11, 2004 - 7:11 am 3. klrfz1:

The American people have shown tremendous forgiveness to those who admit their wrongs and sincerely apologize. It is not yet too late for Dan Rather to regain some of his lost credibility. The only thing standing in his way is his enormous ego. If he humbles himself and tells the truth he will be forgiven by many.

But not by me. Dan Rather has tried to control the United States Presidential election using fraudulent documents. I will never forgive him for that abuse of his power and position. His name should forever live in infamy.

Sep 11, 2004 - 7:41 am 4. jack white:

Cheer up, Roger.

The hyperbole wasn’t. This is the most important election in modern history. This isn’t true because of the war, this isn’t true because of the issues, and this certainly isn’t true because of the candidates.

This is the most important modern election because it represents the final skirmish in the citizens revolt that started with the 1994 implosion of one-party dominance and which ended last night with a network anchor staring directly into the camera and lying through his teeth–and most viewers knowing it.

These are great times.

Sep 11, 2004 - 7:51 am 5. Charlie (Colorado):

Right on, Roger.

(Is anyone else having 60’s flashbacks? I’ve found myself saying “groovy”. I don’t think I said “groovy” when it was cool to say “groovy.”)

Anyway, I agree with you: purposeful lying in this context is about as low as you can get without involving black leather, children, and a goat.

The other thing that annoys me mightly is the enablers: parrots like Juan Williams, who capture a little fragment of an argument and repeat it with increasing vehemence in place of more detail.

Sep 11, 2004 - 7:54 am 6. Howard:

This is not “lying of political convenience” but is much more sinister. “Lying as a tool to gain power” is more like it. The Left of the commie 30s through to today always said that (art/news/media) is the servant of the revolution; that anything goes in pursuit of it; art that didn’t contain “social significance” (praise for the dictatorship of the proletariat)had no right to exist.

These guys view “their” media (including the rash of left movies this summer and all the sneak anti-Bush dialogue in TV) as a tool in the revolution. In this Holy War anything goes.

More and more it looks like these docs are fake; the semi-kerning, the exact match to Word, the precise centering of the heading, and the near impossibility of having a hugely expensive IBM Selectric Composer typewriter at a remote flunky National Guard Unit capable of using the necessary fonts and interchanging the balls every time the typist wanted to do a “th” with the super-script are as close to proof as we’re going to get.

Sep 11, 2004 - 7:58 am 7. Michael B:

Nice set of continuing posts on this. Self-parody, like self-incrimination, is often the best form of parody and satire available. Dan Rather is leading the charge, others are following lemming-like. This is essentially theater of the absurd or Alice in the looking-glass stuff; yet their puffery and malformed egoism continues, barely abated.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:00 am 8. Warthog:

In his next broadcast Dan Rather will still be a shill for McAullife and Kerry, CBS executives will still claim that the Killian documents are authentic and that their news operations go through multiple layers of fact checking, John Edwards will still be asking questions about why the President lied about his National Guard service, and John Kerry will still be campaigning to his last focus group.

What’s new is that every day millions more of us know that the Left Establishment is full of shit and would eagerly trade (fill in the blank) American lives for the White House and Congress if given the opportunity. A harsh statement? Yes, but I’m no longer making any effort to find and ascribe good intentions to a political movement that may represent as much a threat to American democracy as the early Republic’s well financed royalists. Their neutron bomb politics have already all but destroyed honesty and civility and I’m not seeing any signs of the assault letting up.

I am getting a sense that American conciousness (if there is such a thing) is responding, that people are tuning out the Left’s hysterical spokesmen who are sounding more and more like that parade of Palestinian talking heads that responded to every question with exactly the same well-scripted tirade.

Let’s keep marching on. Even if we only stay honest and civil to each other we will have successfully defended a bastion from which we can continue to fight the good fight.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:06 am 9. richard mcenroe:

LA-Area folks: Saturday, Sept 11th at 7:00 P.M, corner of Topanga Canyon and Victory Blvds, Woodland Hills. Candlelight 9-11 memorial vigil.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:08 am 10. DennisThePeasant:

Upon reading Roger’s post, I initially thought it a bit unseemly to be discussing this on the anniversary of 9/11. But then, when one thinks…

In the week lead up to this day we have seen CBS broadcast the demonstrable lies of a Kerry contributor and operative (Barnes) in an attempt to discredit the President. We have also seen CBS present and publish forged documents that had passed through the hands of both the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry Campaign prior to being received by Dan Rather in an attempt to dicredit the President. And now we have now discovered that CBS has deliberately mislead and misquoted their supposed corroborating witness (Hodges) in an attempt to discredit the President.

We have also seen the Chairman of the Democratic Party (McAuliffe), a sitting U.S. Senator (Harkin) and the Democratic candidate for Vice President (Edwards) parrot these distortions and lies in an attempt to discredit the President. Each has done this, repeatedly, in full knowledge that at the very least the evidence for the charges they were making was tainted beyond usability.

At no time has anyone involved with any of this even bothered to pretend that any of this had anything to with war, peace, goverance, the citizenry or the United States of America.

What could be more fitting on 9/11 than to have before us the ultimate expression of 9/10ism. And as Roger suggests, it is something we need now remember along side 9/11.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:18 am 11. Jamie Irons:

Warthog

Let’s keep marching on. Even if we only stay honest and civil to each other we will have successfully defended a bastion from which we can continue to fight the good fight.

I really like this statement, and completely agree with the sentiment behind it.

Not to get too grandiose or carried away, but the blogosphere may have to self-organize as a kind of nucleus of truth-telling and -seeking, to rebuild these “radical” ideas (telling the truth–what a concept!) over the ashes of our present political discourse.

Jamie Irons

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:25 am 12. Ralph Nader:

Roger, I wish that I had your great gift for written expression, so I could communicated to you folks how shameful it is that our president used the deaths of those 3000 innocent Americans who died three years ago today, in order to justify a war against an country that had nothing to do with the attacks against us, sending in the process another 1000 (and counting) brave Americans to their deaths, and how shameful it is that this president, three years after those attacks, has squandered our people and resources in Iraq, instead of focusing them on the job of killing or capturing the architect of those attacks, who is still at large to plan more atrocities. If you could write that up for me, Roger, perhaps including a few embellishments about Bush’s pre-911 disinterest in terrorism, his Mission Accomplished Speech, and his use of 911 iconography in campaign ads, maybe a few of your readers would at least begin to understand why so many loyal Americans on the left feel that Bush is a horrible president.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:26 am 13. Rick Ballard:

Why is Bush considering allowing the second debate to be moderated by Schieffer? No employee of CBS should be granted any access to to any administration official pending resolution of the provenance of the forgeries. All CBS press credentials should be pulled and the slots filled with reporters from the National Enquirer and the Star. The overall quality of the press corps would be greatly improved.

McClellan really needs to refer any questions regarding these memos right back to CBS with a “We need to know the identity of the forger before we can comment.”

John Forger Kerry

“Don’t throw away your vote on a man who threw away his honor”

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:26 am 14. DennisThePeasant:

Ralphie-Poo

We already have the ultimate expression of 9/10ism.

That contest is over.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:31 am 15. David [.net]:

INDC has updated, and the expert the Globe lied about is pissed.

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:51 am 16. Catalonia:

Ralph,

Are you aware that some of the more consistent posters on this site can absolutely eviscerate every one of your memebot regurgitations?

I suspect they will not, however, because they’re dealing with today’s issues.

Now go back to Kevin Drum’s site where you belong.

In the future to not throw out lists of platitudes believing them a substitute for argument or relevancy.

Good day.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:51 am 17. hcq:

When late 1960s fashion was resuscitated a year or two ago, I said to myself half-jokingly, “JHC on a cracker, isn’t it punishment enough that I have 35-year-old pictures of myself wearing this stuff? Do we really have to relive the Vietnam era?”

Since then I’ve realized that it’s not just the clothes. In a lot of ways, we are reliving it. We even have some of the original cast of characters. But this time thanks to the Internet, the Silent Majority doesn’t have to be. Maybe more important, we know it, and MSM knows it, and they know WE know. But they don’t know how to deal with that problem. The Left is not just a September 10th people; the never left the 70s.

Maybe it’s because football season’s started, but I can’t help thinking that this crowd thinks it can win using the same old playbook. They don’t seem to understand we’ve analyzed their game tapes. Not only that: our roster’s depth is infinite, what we do isn’t governed by what the owners want, and the fans are active participants.

But because the Left’s been in its own self-congratualtory bubble for so long, it can’t see any of this until long after it’s already made hilarious gaffes. And then all it does is resort to the same tactics it used 30 years ago. Sorry guys: yesterday’s gone.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:54 am 18. PeterUK:

Ralph Nadir,

Your statements as so …yesterday!

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:01 am 19. Old Dad:

Fascinating times we live in. We’ve known for years that CBS and its ilk have been full of it, but lacked the tools to debunk the liars. Now we don’t.

Let’s roll. God Bless the heroes of 9/11, our brave troops and the President. Don’t rest until Mr. Rather has “retired” and the Globe, Times, et al are not even good for lining a bird cage.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:04 am 20. Fran:

Roger:

The Belmont Club had it right on the mental effect of superior truth:

Friday, August 20, 2004

Nihilism revisited

Reader BH writes to say that the technical term for the repudiation of law referred to in World War 4 is not nihilism but antinomianism and quotes at length from Norman Podhoretz’s 2002 book, The Prophets.

“Yet even by itself the idea that the moral realm is governed by law becomes something more than an empty abstraction when placed against the background of a culture that has for all practical purposes denied or repudiated that idea. The technical term for the denial or repudiation of law is ‘antinomianism,’ and it is antinomianism by which, more than any other single force, our culture has been shaped for some time, and is still being shaped today. But there are other names for antinomianism. The one under which the classical prophets so relentlessly fought it was idolatry. The one historians give it is paganism or polytheism. Today we know it as relativism.” p. 344-45

Without wanting to get too much into this subject antinomianism is often used to describe a narrower phenomenon which has roots in the Christian theological debate, though not to the exclusion of Podhoretz’s use of the word. The American Heritage dictionary defines it as:

1. The doctrine or belief that the Gospel frees Christians from required obedience to any law, whether scriptural, civil, or moral, and that salvation is attained solely through faith and the gift of divine grace. 2. The belief that moral laws are relative in meaning and application as opposed to fixed or universal.

The underlying idea of antinomianism is that, having been saved by Grace, everything is permissible to the elect. Here’s an entry from an extended discussion of the subject in Advent.

The term first came into use at the Protestant Reformation, when it was employed by Martin Luther to designate the teachings of Johannes Agricola and his secretaries, who, pushing a mistaken and perverted interpretation of the Reformer’s doctrine of justification by faith alone to a far-reaching but logical conclusion, asserted that, as good works do not promote salvation, so neither do evil works hinder it; and, as all Christians are necessarily sanctified by their very vocation and profession, so as justified Christians, they are incapable of losing their spiritual holiness, justification, and final salvation by any act of disobedience to, or even by any direct violation of the law of God.

But antinomians recognize law — except this law allows the adherent to put aside all lower laws. Nihilists, on the other hand, deny the possibility of law itself. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as:

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.

In the current context, radical Islamists are better characterized as antinomians than nihilists. Having been anointed by Allah, they may perform any act, tell any lie, do anything and still regard themselves as being in the right. The Western Left on the other hand is philosophically much closer to nihilism. Nothing is inherently true and that makes it possible for a Leftist to believe two contradictory things simultaneously. Orwell gave this process a name: doublethink. In this mental universe one can burn the Flag and insist on its protection; work to destroy the Constitution and claim Constitutional liberty to do it; march in a Gay Pride parade in the morning and in a fundamentalist Islamic rally in the afternoon. Both are mentally wonderful places to be for those who wish to always be right; the first by definition and the second by virtue of the fact that wrong cannot exist. Personally, I wouldn’t want to live there.

posted by wretchard

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:08 am 21. sammy small:

It seems quite apparent that any relevent witness to the charades by CBS (i.e. ret. Maj.Gen. Hodges) and the Boston Globe (i.e. Dr. Bouffard) will have their testimony twisted to fit the agenda of the MSM. It should be SOP to deny any attempt at telephone interviews with these two negligent MSM sources.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:08 am 22. jack white:

hcq:

But because the Left’s been in its own self-congratualtory bubble for so long, it can’t see any of this until long after it’s already made hilarious gaffes. And then all it does is resort to the same tactics it used 30 years ago. Sorry guys: yesterday’s gone.

______________________________________

This is so true. That is what I meant above when I said this is a time to be optimistic. Last night Dan Rather returned to his glory days, or the “old play book,” as you wisely called it. Not only did he fall flat, his viewers–most, anyway–knew he had lied.

Thank God those days when Rather could lie unchallenged, and generally prevail, are long gone. These are great days, even this one that marks our saddest.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:09 am 23. Sandy P:

Lying for the greater truth:

Like a certain JKF in 1971 to the Senate?

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:11 am 24. Sandy P:

Rather’s pulling a Kerry.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:12 am 25. Mike O:

Last night”s CBS evening news was just the set up show. Act like you really believed what you said, and trot out the handwriting and document expert who will take the heat when you finally have to admit mistakes, but without culpability.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:22 am 26. Sandy P:

Via Powerline, another one down:

The Times delivers another smack to CBS from their “expert”, Robert W. Strong. Having established that the Selectric typewriter may be able to produce these documents, we get this:

Robert W. Strong, 62, was a staff sergeant in the adjutant general’s office of the Texas Air National Guard at Camp Mabry at Austin in 1968, when Mr. Bush enlisted. Mr. Strong said in an interview Friday he was quite sure that he and others used Selectrics in the adjutant general’s office. He added that he was not sure the typewriters and devices were also in the 147th Combat Support Squadron at the Ellington base in Houston, home of the 111th squadron.

“I’m skeptical that Killian was working on that,” Mr. Strong said.

Mr. Strong was a crucial source for CBS News, insisting that the sentiment expressed in the memos were consistent with “the man that I remember Jerry Killian being.”

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:38 am 27. Sandy P:

Roger, you were hit upside the head on 9/11.

Now this.

We on “The Dark Side” have been trying to get the point across for a couple of decades now.

Is it like you’ve taken — what was it — the blue(?) pill in “The Matrix” where you see reality?

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:42 am 28. blogaddict:

Right after 9/11, I remember the goodwill and unity that appeared, however briefly, between the parties. I remember the embraces of Bush in Congress and the support he got from both sides, and it warmed the cockles of my heart in a very difficult time.

It’s not that I thought it would last, exactly–I don’t think I’m that naive. But I expected it to go back to business as usual, perhaps a little bit better than before, because it was (and is) so crystal clear that we are facing a common enemy of unprecedented hatred, ferocity, and amorality.

So it seems I was very naive, after all, because what our political life–and our mainstream media–have degenerated into (or perhaps always were????) is abominable beyond my power to describe. I would never, NEVER, have predicted or believed CBS’ and the Globe’s descent into blatant and incompetent propagandist madness. I only hope that more and more people come to see them for what they are, as I have.

I guess I’ve taken that blue pill too.

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:53 am 29. Mr Vee:

Phillip Bouffard who was used in the Boston Globe to imply that he backed up the documents’ authenticity is right pissed:

http://www.indcjournal.com/

“What the Boston Globe did now sort of pisses me off, because now I have people calling me and e-mailing me, and calling me names, saying that I changed my mind. I did not change my mind at all!”

“We’ve looked into more and more IBM options and … there are all kinds of things that say this isn’t a typewriter.”

Am I the only one who finds all of this rather serious stuff? I mean forgery in an attempt to influence the outcome of a presidential election is a diabolically base thing to do. And for the rest of the MSM to try and whitewash it because their ideological peers are on the horns for it goes well past unethical.

If this document came from the DNC, my guess is that they could very well be subject to a RICO lawsuit. This would cede WAY too much power to the Republicans until a new opposition party (or a reconstituted Democratic party) could be organized. I ain’t all that thrilled with many of the Republicans’ ideas to have them govern unopposed.

The “preponderance of the evidence” on this is that these are forgeries until they can produce a single document of Killian’s from an established source with this exact typography (font, spacing, etc).

Sep 11, 2004 - 9:54 am 30. penwil:

The fact that CBS deliberately lied to Hodges, telling him that the documents had been handwritten, in order to get him to corroborate their authenticity tells me that either CBS knew all along that their “source” had given them forgeries, or that they were instrumental or complicent in creating the forgeries in the first place. There would have been no reason for them to lie to Hodges otherwise.

Reasonable people can’t help but conclude that Dan Rather and CBS have conspired with the DNC and the Kerry campaign to commit fraud upon the public airways by forging documents that smear the character of the President of United States. This is reprehensible, despicable, disgusting and possibly criminal. Reasonable people must also conclude that if John Kerry is elected he and his henchmen in the media have the will and the ability to lie to us at any time about anything.

Meanwhile, let us remember that on Sept 11, 2001 3000 of our fellow Americans were murdered by Islamic terrorists because they represented the ideals of freedom, including the freedom of the press of which Dan Rather, CBS, the Democratic party, John Kerry and John Edwards so willfully trampled in the mud these last few days. Since 9/11, that day of infamy, over 1000 men and women in our armed forces have also died protecting the freedoms that Rather and his despicable “band of brothers” felt no compunction in betraying.

I watched the 9/11 video linked to by Instapundit and although it takes a long time to load, I highly recommend it. It was very hard to watch, though. I was sobbing out loud in parts of it, but I have come away resolved. We cannot forget. We cannot surrender.

Sep 11, 2004 - 10:04 am 31. Matt Ward:

“in order to justify a war against an country that had nothing to do with the attacks against us, sending in the process another 1000 (and counting) brave Americans to their deaths,”

Ralph, just read this,like I read your thoughts.

After an attack by terrorists who showed that they were willing to kill as many civilians as possible and didn’t mind dying in the process, many people (including the Bush administration) said, “My God, what would happen if these people had a nuclear bomb (or smallpox or nerve gas)?”

Bush et. al. looked out over the post-911 landscape and asked, “What country is headed by a ferociously anti-American dictator who the French, the UN, and Bill Clinton all agree has many of these weapons and has used them in the past against his enemies, both internal and external?”

Then Bush et. al. asked themselves some more questions:

1. “Is it possible that Saddam Hussein could hand off these weapons to those same terrorists who have stated as their aim the murder of millions of American civilians? After all, what a great way for Saddam to strike back incognito at the country that foiled his attempt to make Kuwait part of Iraq.”

2. “Is it possible that a decade-old containment approach will fall apart soon since the French, Russians, and Jordanians who are quite openly violating its provisions are calling for the lifting of economic sanctions? And isn’t it possible that after the sanctions are completely gone, Saddam would begin to update his weapons of mass destruction, making it easier for him to hand over WMD to those terrorists who want to kill millions of American civilians?”

And here’s where the thinking went beyond the merely defensive into the realm of long-term solutions.

Bush et. al. thought, “People often say to forestall these terrorists who want to kill millions of American civilians, we Americans have to look at root causes. Maybe the biggest root cause of them all, which explains the economic/social/political/cultural/sexual dysfunctionality of the Arab world, is their lack of democratic, representative government? What if we went into a country smack center in the middle of the Arab world, toppled their dictator who is already a problem for the reasons detailed above and laid the groundwork for a democratic culture?”

Naive perhaps? But it’s a bold plan which traces its genesis back to those same quite rational fears many people had three years ago when they asked themselves: “Oh my God, what will these terrorists do if they get their hands on a city-destroying WMD?”

Sep 11, 2004 - 11:33 am 32. socalgal:

I also watched that video linked on Instapundit. Very powerful. It occured to me that this year, three years later, my response has fully moved from unbelieving, numb shock to grief. How much longer it will be before it doesn’t have a gut-wrenching effect to remember, I can’t imagine at this point.

I would like to remind everyone, as incomprehensible as it is, that THIS is the face of the far left in America (via LGF):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104×2337818

That is the face of those who wanted to elect Howard Dean and, since they can’t, are supporting their party’s golem, John Kerry.

Honestly, I don’t think I really believed that there were people in this day and age who were so completely without reason or simple decency. The visciousness; the hate; it’s beyond my understanding. I apologize in advance for the discomfort it causes.

Sep 11, 2004 - 12:04 pm 33. Dr Bob:

Roger nailed it: the current Democratic party is driven by its convicition that it holds a higher truth. Lies, deception and logical incongruity pose no problem when you have greater knowledge and wisdom.

For a more detailed discussion of the Gnostic characteristics of the Left today see a discussion at The Doctor is In:

Liberalism & Gnosticism

Sep 11, 2004 - 1:52 pm 34. Occam's Beard:

“…a war against an country that had nothing to do with the attacks against us…”

Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, we invade North Africa. What was FDR thinking?

The point is apposite: he viewed fascism in Japan, Italy, and Germany as merely facets of a worldwide malevolent phenomenon, and chose to attack at the strategically indicated weak spot first.

Same reasoning now.

Sep 11, 2004 - 1:54 pm 35. Mark Poling:

I think the Dems gameplan is this:

“By Any Means Necessary”

Sep 11, 2004 - 2:02 pm 36. devildog:

Speaking of liars and lying, Elaine Kamarck is explaining how “…it doesn’t change the fact that the American people want to know what George Bush was doing [when he was in the TANG].”

Jeez, the Dems got nothing to campaign on.

Sep 11, 2004 - 2:45 pm 37. Terrye:

Today I was at a client’s home and he had Fox on. There was Al Sharpton calling Bush a liar while the names of the dead were being read in the background.

Ralph, how does it make you feel to know that thousands of your fellow Americans died so that a fat multi millionaire proagandist could make millions off their death by mutilation? And did the Democrats who care so much about the deaths of the innocent turn their back on him?

Hell no.

Ralph today is a day to show respect for the dead, so buzz off.

Sep 11, 2004 - 3:21 pm 38. Tom O'Bedlam:

Socalgal:

That was a jaw-dropping link. Such self-absorption is stunning. I’m boggled.

Sep 11, 2004 - 8:44 pm

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