37 Comments

1. ambisinistral:

Well, now that he has got an education in typing vs typesetting, his next book can be Spirituality in Two Finger Typing.

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:31 am 2. Lola:

I guess now I’ll have to make sure all my handwritten samples are under lock and key. Don’t want Matley cum Freud diagnosing me via handwriting . . .

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:33 am 3. Lapsed Randian:

Expert witnesses come back to haunt you at least half of the time. Especially the ones who aren’t pros. That is why many trial lawyers will only hire “whores,” i.e., experts who are obviously one-sided, but who at least have been vetted properly so as to avoid the kind of pajama party we have going on here.

Danny Boy is learning what it is like to be a trial lawyer, with a jury of bloggers watching his every move. He may be learning why most lawyers avoid the courtroom.

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:33 am 4. Scott Ferguson:

Hey, give Matley a break! His ability to measure women’s libidinal energies from their handwriting is probably a great way to chat up potential bed partners at cocktail parties.

“Hey, baby, you got a pen? I wanna measure your libidinal energies!“

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:34 am 5. Lola:

Yep, that was a feudian slip . . . oops, better lay that shovel down!

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:34 am 6. David Thomson:

“In “Spirituality in Handwriting,” Matley assesses a woman’s “libidinal energy” based on her handwriting.”

I can easily imagine Roger L. Simon proposing a story concerning a major TV news program falling for a poorly put together forgery. The editor most certainly would tell him that his idea is too far fetched. The Dan Rather scandal reminds one that truth often is indeed stranger than fiction.

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:50 am 7. mongai:

Who is this Matley guy connected to? I read somewhere he worked on the Vince Foster suicide note. Maybe Clinton also had him rank all of the White House interns on a libidinal put-out scale.

Sep 14, 2004 - 7:18 am 8. richard mcenroe:

Libidinal energy, eh? I was going to make a joke about Rather fighting Bob Dole for the Viagra spokesfranchise, but considering his usual expression on the air, he’d make a better shill for Ex-Lax…

Sep 14, 2004 - 7:33 am 9. John Pearley Huffman:

As obsessed as I’ve been with this whole forged memo thing, there comes a point where you’re just picking the wings off flies.

Matley’s eccentricities may be worth noting, but this is a man with little power, likely little money, and after this debacle, likely even less professional standing. To make jokes about it is, to me, something akin to kicking an injured man while he’s already down.

The fact that the blogosphere has exposed Dan Rather’s pomposity and partisanship is all to the good. But Rather is a rich and powerful man who is unwilling to admit he was duped or worse. Matley is, ultimately, a guy who doesn’t even have a blog with which to defend himself. Let’s not pick on him.

Blogger triumphalism can be just as unattractive as mainstream media hubris. The thing that trapped Dan Rather and company, I think, was their conviction that their institutional heft, professional experience and grasp of objective reality meant they couldn’t be fooled. The truth is that we can all be fooled and our only defense against having the wool pulled over our eyes is our own awareness of our own credulity.

At some point in time the blogosphere will have a scandal of its own of some sort. Someone will find a vulnerability in the “open source journalism” system and exploit the hell out of it. It will be especially easy if the blogosphere allows itself to ossify into arrogance.

This memo controversy shows the power of this new medium. But it can’t mature effectively if all it does is present itself merely as an alternative to the mainstream, or tolerates bullying of the weak.

Sep 14, 2004 - 9:50 am 10. mongai:

Mr.Huffman,

I was not trying to pick on Mr.Matley, but rather trying to make fun of the Rathers and Clintons of the world who abused Mr. Matley. I plead guilty to lacking wit and not making my point well, but I certainly was not trying to kick a weak man down on the ground. Maybe Mr. Matley should get a little more angry. Stand up for himself. He’s a pawn I agree. But he allowed himself to be played. He should try to stand up a little more and take some responsibility. I hope if that were the case I’d be one of the first to extend him my hand. But even if so I could never take seriously his choice of research topics.

Sep 14, 2004 - 10:13 am 11. Catherine:

John Pearley Huffman

At some point in time the blogosphere will have a scandal of its own of some sort

Wow.

You read my mind.

I messed up badly myself in one of my books.

It was the book on marriage, and in it I re-told, without fact-checking, a common story saying that George O’Neill, who had written a bestselling book on open marriage, had later gotten a divorce.

I put the story in my book because it was “common knowledge,” and because my own bias was that open marriage is a crock. (I stand by that view, btw.)

From my perspective the story that Open Marriage Guy George O’Neill ended up divorced just made sense. It didn’t strike me as something that needed checking.

So the book comes out and the next thing we know we’ve got a letter to Viking from George O’Neill’s widow, who is angry & hurt & tells my editor & my publishing house that she and George O’Neill were married until the day he died.

I felt AWFUL.

Not only had I lied about their marriage, I had lied about a DEAD MAN, for god’s sake, and wounded his WIDOW.

I apologized profusely, but the damage was done. Talk about unforgiveable (I was just talking about unforgiveable on the Presbyterian thread, fyi).

That’s a big part of what happened here.

CBS and USAToday were blindsided by two factors:

1. the memos fit both their beliefs and the real evidence they already have that President Bush blew off his Guard service

2. the fact that the White House did not in any way dispute the content or the authenticity of the memos served as implicit confirmation that they were real. I definitely saw the White House non-denial as evidence that Bush & c. figured the memos could be real. I still do.

Sep 14, 2004 - 10:25 am 12. RattlerGator:

Re: the silence of George W. Bush.

I don’t see it that way, Catherine. Why come out disputing what you know is likely to be untrue. Listen to what the widow and the son say. The guy seemed to have liked Bush. The Bush crowd MUST HAVE KNOWN THIS.

The better move was always to let these clowns show their hand and THEN AND ONLY THEN, make your response.

Their response, or the blogs response, has been devastating. Almost as devastating as the Swift Boats have been on Kerry.

Sep 14, 2004 - 10:34 am 13. Catherine:

limits of MSM power to shape reality

There’s an interesting thread on Kevin Drum’s blog at the WASHINGTON MONTHLY that shows how little influence the MSM can have even with liberal readers.

As of yesterday, huge numbers of Drum’s commenters believed not only that the documents are real, but that “right-wingers” know they are real and are “beginning to panic.”

This in the face of numerous MSM articles knocking them down. Commenters are saying things like:

Are we finally officially done with the bogus forgery claims?

I can’t believe that they got as much traction as they did, being so easily refuted by the advertising for the 1971 IBM Selectric, which listed all the features that the freeper typeface “experts” said didn’t exist, and comparison to the other undisputed documents from the Bush file that displayed the same typeface characteristics.

In the future, play the odds, which means that you should assume that the right wing is lying about everything.

AND

Dear Lives Under My Ass and all you other winger whiners, the memos quite obviously are real and I think you’re beginning to realize it.

I can see the panic in your rants as you cling to your talking points without a shred of real proof other than the moronic “Gee! Microsoft Word Documents look a LOT like stuff that was done on typewriters! Isn’t that incredible?”

AND

I love the smell of right wing panic in the morning. Smells like….victory.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004678.php

I’d say that by any objective standard the MSM have decided these documents are forged, although it’s true that we have not quite reached consensus.

But it’s obviously and indisputably the case that the the MSM is not “done” with the “bogus forgery claims”; it is equally and indisputably the case that “winger whiners” are not “beginning to realize” the documents are real and have begun to panic–and nor has any report anywhere in the MSM suggested such a thing.

People don’t listen to the MSM even when they should.

Sep 14, 2004 - 10:46 am 14. Catherine:

RattleGator

You could be right, but the general rule of interpreting non-denial denials is that the absence of an outright “no” means “yes.”

The Bush team’s first response was to say something about how memos dictated to personal files can be at variance with what a person has said publicly (something like that).

To most people that line reads as confirmation, and it read as confirmation to the MSM, many of whom have said so outright. Look at USA Today. If the White House had disputed the memos, USA would probably have ended up dropping the story. But when the White House did not dispute the memos, and instead emailed them out to everyone in the media, USA Today lowered their standards for vetting authenticity.

In other words, it’s not just that the White House didn’t question the memos; the White House used language that implied they accepted the memos as real.

When I say “language that implied” I mean they used the language politicians and officials customarily use to confirm something they’d rather not have to confirm.

Reporters and readers know the code, and the White House used that code.

It’s possible Rove & c. were deliberately setting a trap, but for some reason I don’t see it that way.

My guess is that they see the National Guard story as a useful distraction from other stories that work to Bush’s disadvantage, as well as a story that keeps any positive Kerry message from breaking through. (I think Jack Slater has a decent article on the “distractions” in this campaign.)

My sense, for quite awhile now, is that any day spent on Bush’s National Guard service is a “win” for George Bush, and it’s possible that’s the way the White House team sees it.

Sep 14, 2004 - 11:00 am 15. DennisThePeasant:

Tomorrow’s NY Times Headline:

“CBS and Rather defend authenticity of documents, cite Miss Cleo”

Sep 14, 2004 - 11:43 am 16. DennisThePeasant:

Catherine-

Neither Kevin Drum nor his readers passed on careers in brain surgery because it sounded boring.

Besides, there has to be someone around to think Juan Williams is smart.

Sep 14, 2004 - 11:47 am 17. wxjames:

Will someone please clue me in ?

If the documents are forged, then someone is guilty of 5 felonies, right ?

Then, why hasn’t the FBI picked up the docs and sent them to the lab ?

Sep 14, 2004 - 12:02 pm 18. Knucklehead:

I don’t know if Geraghty over at the Kerry Spot is the original source for this new word, but I like it!

…the Sauronic Big Eye of CBS is on the verge of being toppled by the Pajamahadeen.

Sep 14, 2004 - 1:17 pm 19. Kevin P:

Roger:

Rathergate- Watergate. Tricky Dick must be howling with glee as he sees one of his chief tormenters copies his slow march to infamy. I am sure that this idea has been stated and written about with more style and wit then I have but the comparisons betwwen the two men is so ironic.

Before anyone goes ballistic I am not saying that Rathergate is as henious or important as Watergate. But the hubris and the denial of reality are very similar. So are the non-denial denials and the bunker mentality that took over the Trickster and is now surrounding Danny Boy are to obvious to be ignored.

The attack on the pajama people is similar to the attack on Woodward and Bernstein as people too unimportant to listen to. The refusal to release info about the experts and how the memo story was developed is similar to the Stonewalling that Nixon practiced during his sad decline.

The fact that a journalist refuses to dispute the avalanche of evidence that is taking apart the ivory tower brick by brick that Rather has built around this bogus story is laughable. I don’t know what shape Rathers’ ” I am not a crook” moment will be but I feel it coming on.

Now the only question is will Rather surrender to the obvious and deliver his mea culpa and let this story fade into oblivion or will he hunker down so tight that he invites a criminal investigation and follows Nixons sad decision and lie about what he did and risk jailtime instead of admitting that he failed. The death by a thousand cuts that Rather is going thru can be stopped today with only a slight tarnishing of his journalistic memory. But I have a feeling he is going to ignore history and follow his bete-noir Nixon into the Hall of shame.

Sep 14, 2004 - 1:34 pm 20. Knucklehead:

wxjames,

See Possible criminal violations by the memo forger by Eugene Volokh. It seems there isn’t much law that pertains to this sort of thing and prosecution for the act of forgery doesn’t seem likely. I may have misread, but it seems like there isn’t any federal law that the FBI could latch onto.

Sep 14, 2004 - 1:43 pm 21. RogerA:

OT–drudge is posting the new DNC ad–and it features Dan Rather and Ben Barnes. Perhaps this is one reason why Rather has had to keep getting kicked. The DNC seems to have created the perfect storm: a S*** Storm. If anyone writes the history of their campaign, it isnt going to be believed–No one could be THAT stupid!

But its even better looking forward to 2008: The only democrats I see on the horizon are Hillary and Obama: the dems are like the St Louis Browns: can play, no manager, and no bench strength.

Sep 14, 2004 - 2:20 pm 22. RogerA:

Oops: can = can’t , PIMF etc

As far as the white house keeping quiet–great strategy: this is sucking up any coverage from the Kerry campaign and making the dems look complicit. Comments not necessary nor advised!

Sep 14, 2004 - 2:24 pm 23. Terrye:

Catherine:

I heard that both the administration and Laura Bush stated the memos were frauds, but I don’t know exactly when.

It seems that Killian’s widow told CBS some time earlier that she believed the memos were phoney, maybe she contacted the WH with that information and they decided to allow nature to take its course feeling that an immediate denial on their part would taint the subsequent outing of the memos.

It could also be that they did not want to stop or interfere with the memos being put out there because they thought they were useful to them.

The folks you linked to would not believe Dan Rather himself he confessed on the evening news. Once you accept the fact that president killed thousands of his fellow Americans for a pipeline, believing he failed to take a physical is easy.

It has been many years it could be that with so many of the people who were involved dead and the passage of so much time Bush himself can not remember what everybody said and thought and did.

At least he did not claim to be in Cambodia at Christmas time in 1968 listening to Nixon on the radio. Nor did he call Americans war criminals or meet with the enemy or hang out with people threatening to kill US Senators. To tell you the truth I am amazed that Kerry did not get into real trouble back then. I doubt the military would be so forgiving today.

But I don’t think the failure to respond is always admission of guilt. I don’t remember the president ever acknowledging F911 much less denying the charges in Moore’s propaganda film. To him this may just have been more of the same. He got an honorable discharge. end of the story. That is what he always says.

Sep 14, 2004 - 2:34 pm 24. RogerA:

The President is noted for staying on message–and I think all the focus groups and internals are reinforcing it–No one except for the DNC and its fellow travelling Moonbats care about the TANG. Its all about egos: Rather’s, McAuliffe’s, Kerry’s… Dont you wonder what John Edwards must be thinking now?

Sep 14, 2004 - 2:45 pm 25. Occam's Beard:

Rathergate- Watergate. Tricky Dick must be howling with glee as he sees one of his chief tormenters copies his slow march to infamy. I am sure that this idea has been stated and written about with more style and wit then I have but the comparisons betwwen the two men is so ironic.

Before anyone goes ballistic I am not saying that Rathergate is as henious or important as Watergate.

Kevin,

One could actually argue that Rathergate actually overshadows Watergate (I’m in two minds about this, myself).

Watergate had no effect on the outcome of the 1972 election, which of course was a landslide for Nixon (and would have been such in any case). From an electoral viewpoint it was small beer. Rather (sorry), its importance arises from its leading to Nixon’s downfall.

OTOH, Rathergate was clearly intended (by whomever) to change the likely outcome of this election, which may well be close enough that it could have done so. From that perspective, Rathergate is potentially considerably more important. And, in addition, it may lead to Rather’s downfall, thereby changing the public’s perspective on corporate media, no small change in itself.

The irony of Rather adopting Nixon’s strategy is, indeed, delicious.

Sep 14, 2004 - 2:56 pm 26. Knucklehead:

The Corner has Killian’s Secretary Speaks giving a bad link to Dallas Morning News.

From The Corner:

The Dallas Morning News found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian’s secretary, and she says she never typed those memos. But the 86-year-old lady, who is emphatically not a Bush supporter, says that the information in those memos accurately reflect opinions that the deceased Lt. Col. Killian held. The DMN reports: “She also said the memos may have been constructed from memory by someone who had seen Lt. Col. Killian’s private file but were not transcriptions because the language and terminology did not match what he would have used.”

Sep 14, 2004 - 3:02 pm 27. Katherine:

ìBut the 86-year-old lady, who is emphatically not a Bush supporter, says that the information in those memos accurately reflect opinions that the deceased Lt. Col. Killian held.î

Sure the old lady is correctly remembering the opinions of Lt. Col Killian. Like I said on another thread: somehow everybody is having a total recall on Mr. Bushís ordinary service that happened 30 years ago.

How about this: I see your secretary and raise you Lt. Col. Killian wife and son, who claim that Killian thought highly of Bush.

This is a perfect example how easy it is for MSM to present as truth any opinion/view/ falsehood that they want to promulgate. We should be eternally grateful for the arrogance of the ABB crowd. If they had a modicum of respect for the reasoning powers of the general public and their political opponents they might have gone to the trouble of hunting down some 1970s typewriter and producing semi-decent forgeries.

After the 2002 Democratic electoral fiasco Mark Steyn said it best ìI must remember to never complain about liberal media biasî. I am holding on to this thought.

Sep 14, 2004 - 3:40 pm 28. Charlie (Colorado):

Katherine, I’ll see your “Killian’s wife and daughter” and raise you Bush’s OER signed by Killian that called him an exceptional young officer etc.

Honestly, I think someone somewhere should just start saying “Look, the memos were forged. Why keep dragging them back out? You dn’t want to be associated with the forgery, do you?”

Or something more diplomatically phrased to the same effect.

Sep 14, 2004 - 3:59 pm 29. Katherine:

Charlie,

So we have Killian himself (OER) PLUS his son and wife vs. the secretary.

Yea, this game is moving beyond ridiculous. But it still demonstrates the awesome power that the MSM held over usÖuntil now.

Sep 14, 2004 - 4:06 pm 30. Terrye:

The point is not what the old lady said about Bush, but what she said about the memos. Obviously she would have liked nothing better than for them to be real. But she says they were not.

The fact that not even a old Democrat who is probably convinced she will lose her social security and have to eat cat food if Bush is reelected thinks the memos are the real deal.

You know it is just possible that Killian liked Bush, thought he was a good pilot but felt the young man knew he was not going to be activated and wanted to move on as he got to the end of his service. After all these years, how can we know?

Unlike Kerry he was not egotistical enough to immortalize his activities on film for posterity.

Sep 14, 2004 - 4:49 pm 31. Katherine:

Terrye,

Obviously you are right. I was trying to say should Dan Rather and Co made some marginal effort toward creating passable forgeries, they could have also produced a numerous witnesses bolstering the content of the ìauthenticî memos, while dismissing any critics. Thatís where the ìseeing and raisingî of the witnessís statements came from.

I am only really curious how often they were successful in manipulating the ìnewsî in the past?

Sep 14, 2004 - 5:16 pm 32. Knucklehead:

Charlie (C),

Or something more diplomatically phrased to the same effect.

Would “Eat shit and die you stupid Moonbat!” work?

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:09 pm 33. lindenen:

Another new memo has come to light! From Samizdata.net!

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:14 pm 34. Charlie (Colorado):

Would “Eat shit and die you stupid Moonbat!” work?

Well, it’d certainly work for me, but I don’t think that’s what I was really looking for.

In the meantime I just listened to Reese Schoenfield — who? — on Hannity&Colmes doing the same bit about how Bush shouldn’t refuse to address these allegatins just because “his experts” have managed to “suggest” the documents are forged.

Brent Bozell did manage to say what I’ve been looking for — that there was no point in addressing the allegations of something so obviously forged — but, dammit, why does it require Brent freaking Bozell to say what practically anyone ought to say>

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:30 pm 35. Charlie (Colorado):

Today’s Buddhist Wisdom:

Do not form views in the world through either knowledge, virtuous conduct, or religious observances; likewise, avoid thinking of oneself as being either superior, inferior, or equal to others.

The wise let go of the ’self’ and being free of attachments they depend not on knowledge. Nor do they dispute opinions or settle into any view.

For those who have no wishes for either extremes of becoming or non-becoming, here or in another existence, there is no settling into the views held by others.

Nor do they form the least notion in regard to views seen, heard, or thought out. How could one influence those wise ones who do not grasp at any views.

(from the Nipatha Sutra)

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:31 pm 36. Knucklehead:

Well then, how ’bout we tone it down to “Go pound salt up your ass you stupid Moonbat!”

Just to refresh on today’s developments…

Hugh Hewitt recaps LtCol Killian’s secretary (from the Dallas Morning News):

Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.

“These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”

Captain’s Quarters recaps ABC Evening News report that experts CBS hired to vet the documents told CBS they stunk to high heaven and CBS ignored them.

ABC’s Brian Ross interviewed the two experts who CBS hired to validate the National Guard documents and reports they ignored concerns they raised prior to the CBS News broadcast. “I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply,” Emily Will told Ross. “I did not authenticate anything and I don’t want it to be misunderstood that I did,” Linda James told Ross. Ross reports 2 experts told ABC News today that even the most advanced typewriter available in 1972 could not have produced the documents.

And Just One Minute put up a detailed debunking of the AWOL charge that, if I have it right, shows that not only did Dubya fulfill his ANG requirements, but served some time with a unit for which he was inelligible to receive either points or pay (i.e, he met all requirements and even served free of charge to boot).

At what point point does RatherCrooked have to concede point, set, and match?

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:52 pm 37. Terrye:

Katherine:

Yes. I know what you mean. The temptation for some people [like Juan Williams] is to say that the message is more important than the fact that the message is forged and this kind of remark from the secretary just feed it.

Sep 14, 2004 - 6:56 pm

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