"Those Discredited Memos" -- Bill Safire NYT
D. Spencer Hines
and look at the hard, cold FACTS on this issue ---- well, at least one
of the Little Old Gray Lady's COLUMNISTS is doing so -- an HONEST one
for a change.
DSH
--------------------
"Those Discredited Memos"
"The "documents" put forward by CBS News about George W. Bush's service
have all the earmarks of forgeries."
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
"Washington - Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product
of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax:
the "documents" presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment
in Lt. George W. Bush's National Guard service have all the earmarks of
forgeries.
The copies of copies of copies that formed the basis for the latest
charges were supposedly typed by Guard officer Jerry Killian three
decades ago and placed in his "personal" file. But it is the default
typeface of Microsoft Word, highly unlikely to have been used by that
Texas colonel, who died in 1984. His widow says he could hardly type
and his son warned CBS that the memos were not real.
When the mainstream press checked the sources mentioned or ignored by
"60 Minutes II," the story came apart.
The Los Angeles Times checked with Killian's former commander, the
retired Guard general whom a CBS executive had said would be the "trump
card" in corroborating its charges. But it turns out CBS had only read
Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges the purported memos on the phone, and did not
trouble to show them to him. Hodges now says he was "misled" - he
thought the memos were handwritten - and believes the machine-produced
"documents" to be forgeries. (CBS accuses the officer of changing his
story.)
The L.A. Times also checked out a handwriting analyst, Marcel Matley (of
Vincent Foster suicide-note fame), who CBS had claimed vouched for the
authenticity of four memos. It turns out he vouches for only one
signature, and no scribbled initials, and has no opinion about the
typography of any of the supposed memos. ******
The Dallas Morning News looked into the charge in one of the possible
forgeries dated Aug. 18, 1973, that a commander of a Texas Air Guard
squadron was trying to "sugar coat" Bush's service record. It found
that the commander had retired from the Guard 18 months before that.
The Associated Press focused on the suspicion first voiced by a blogger
on the Web site Freerepublic.com about modern "superscripts" that
include a raised th after a number. CBS, on the defense, claimed that
"some models" of typewriters of the 70's could do that trick, and some
Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House included
it.
"That superscript, however," countered The A.P., "is in a different
typeface than the one used for the CBS memos." It consulted the
document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Ariz., and
reported "she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt,
her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."
The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about
the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof
that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation
with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics'
"motivation."
The BURDEN OF PROOF is clearly on DAN RATHER and CBS to PROVE the memos
are AUTHENTIC -- NOT on critics to prove they are FORGERIES. Hell, if
the pogue Rather were reading AHB, ABTC, SHM or SHWM he would already
KNOW that. ---- DSH
After leading with that response, Post media reporter Howard Kurtz noted
that the handwriting expert Matley said that CBS had asked him not to
give interviews, and that an unidentified CBS staff member who had
examined the documents saw potential problems with them: "There's a lot
of sentiment that we should do an internal investigation."
Newsweek (which likes the word "discredited") has apparently begun an
external investigation: it names "a disgruntled former Guard officer" as
a principal source for CBS, noting "he suffered two nervous breakdowns"
and "unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses." ******
It may be that CBS is the victim of a whopping journalistic hoax,
besmearing a president to bring him down. What should a responsible
news organization do?
To shut up sources and impugn the motives of serious critics - from
opinionated bloggers to straight journalists - demeans the Murrow
tradition. Nor is any angry demand that others prove them wrong
acceptable, especially when no original documents are available to prove
anything. ******
Years ago, Kurdish friends slipped me amateur film taken of Saddam's
poison-gas attack that killed thousands in Halabja. I gave it to Dan
Rather, who trusted my word on sources. Despite objections from queasy
colleagues, he put it on the air.
Hey, Dan: On this, recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a
panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and
papers. Courage."
------------------------------------
How Sweet It Is!
Stay Tuned....
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
Sheila J
I think I prefer to get my US news courtesy of Jon Stewart and the Daily
Show............
Paul J Gans
>I think I prefer to get my US news courtesy of Jon Stewart and the Daily
>Show............
You have noted that the more serious the charge, the more
hysterical the reaction from certain folk.
---- Paul J. Gans
Ian MacLure
Gee I don't know about you but I spend a lot of time picking myself
up off the floor subsequent to laughing myself silly at the latest
charge from the DNC.
IBM
_______________________________________________________________________________
Posted Via Uncensored-News.Com - Accounts Starting At $6.95 - http://www.uncensored-news.com
<><><><><><><> The Worlds Uncensored News Source <><><><><><><><>
hippo
"Paul J Gans" wrote in message
> In alt.history.british Sheila J wrote:
>
>
> >I think I prefer to get my US news courtesy of Jon Stewart and the Daily
> >Show............
>
> You have noted that the more serious the charge, the more
> hysterical the reaction from certain folk.
You are a fine one to be talking about hysteria. More and more it looks like
old Dan took his network to the brink on only one set of fake documents
*and* in spite of plenty of conflicting opinions. Something is seriously
wrong with intel at CBS right, or was it Dan saw what he wanted to see? CBS
management should resign, right? Where is the outrage? Where are the
accusations? Where is the 'L' word repeated again and again and again? It's
all Bush's fault, right? -the Troll
Sheila J
Paul J Gans wrote in message ...
It can't be very good for one's blood pressure.....
Um....for all you computer types!
My messages seem to be coming with some long-measuring ID number with a
*forces.ca * ending.
Why is this? Anyone...?
Sheila J
hippo wrote in message <04-dnY3Ua_N...@giganews.com>...
But more importantly .........Where is the
love.....................................................
>?
Or is that the missing L word?
A Brit in Canada
news:HKu1d.424609$gE.222774@pd7tw3no:
If these documents are forgeries, it strikes me as incredible
that whoever was responsible would not realise they would be
subject to intense scrutiny and therefore:
1. they would wish to make the forgery as authentic as possible.
In this case, and unless the forger is truely stupid or
incompetent, this precludes using current word processing
technology to mimic a 32 year-old electro-mechanical(?)
typewriter.
2. they wished to engage in an elaborate game of bluff, double-
bluff, double-double-bluff etc.
In this case you need go no further than Karl Rove.
The Swift boat vets saga demonstrates to me that while it may
not be true to the highest priciples of democracy (in action),
the Republicans are far more expert at managing disinformation
from any source than their Democratic counterparts, whose
attempts to date in this respect have been pathetic. They have
been consistently outmaneuvered by the aforesaid Mr. Rove: hence
the recent arrival of the Clinton campaign's heavy mob (surely
an inauspicious start).
My conclusion to date: in spite of the political stupidity and
incompetence of the Democrats consistent with 1), this is a
Republican bluff raised to a higher power.
Two further observations:
First: where are our writing and forgery experts, when you need
them? Soc.med.history is apparently packed to the gunnels with
such learned folk, and this is a very current and live example
on which they could practice and demonstrate their skills out
side the sometimes esoteric confines of the newsgroup.
Come on chaps, don't wait for another 150-700 years to engage
in the debate:
Take your eyes off KRS
And focus them on CBS.
(Source: 21st[superscript?] century chant).
The gauntlet has been thrown down.
Second: bloggers have kept this issue very much to the fore in
recent days. I suspect this contributes to CBS' discomfort with
opening up more than they have about sources etc., and, in its
own way, to the mainstream media's lack of desire to compete
journalistically.
Looking back, this episode will be either a watershed for those
bloggers on the road to acceptance as a pool of expertise and a
source of reliable journalism, - or we will find that ninety per
cent of said bloggers are Republican voters and are being
subsidised by the party.
Whichever way, the established media has every reason to be
wary.
Oh! and by the way, you read it here first.
Andy.
charles krin
>
>My messages seem to be coming with some long-measuring ID number with a
>*forces.ca * ending.
>Why is this? Anyone...?
you are posting from an official computer?
or through your official account?
IIRC, you are a field grade officer in the Canadian Forces?
ck
--
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)
Paul J Gans
There you go again. There is no reason why that memo could not
have been produced at the date on it. The typeface existed,
justification existed, and small "th" and things like that
existed. And proportional spacing existed.
I saw them with my own eyes back then. My father's secretary
had such a typewriter on her desk.
That does not mean that the documents are genuine. However, it
also does not mean that the documents are false.
No sooner had CBS done its report than the usual suspects came
out of the woodwork claiming that it was all a fabrication. It
might be, but the claims against it that I've heard so far are
false to my knowledge and I'm not an expert.
You automatically assume that the documents are false. I don't
automatically assume that they are genuine.
And by the way, I wasn't talking about you.
---- Paul J. Gans
hippo
"Sheila J" wrote in message
> hippo wrote in message
Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it deciding
which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as individuals I
have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but I
suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm and
fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your opinion. I'm
too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
ian maclure
[snip]
> My messages seem to be coming with some long-measuring ID number with a
> *forces.ca * ending.
> Why is this? Anyone...?
You need a hat liner made of alumin-i-um foil.
Sounds like some unofficial Canuck military domain.
ian maclure
> On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:43:46 GMT, "Sheila J" <wols...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>>
>>My messages seem to be coming with some long-measuring ID number with a
>>*forces.ca * ending.
>>Why is this? Anyone...?
>
> you are posting from an official computer?
>
> or through your official account?
>
> IIRC, you are a field grade officer in the Canadian Forces?
Possibly having some connection with 4RCR or RHQ in London,
Ont?
D. Spencer Hines
on the side of discrediting the alleged Killian memos, just as has Bill
Safire of The New York Times:
DSH
------------------------------
"Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers"
By Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
"The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from
President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said
yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no
attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.
"There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them,"
Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The
main reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed"
from the originals.
Matley's comments came amid growing evidence challenging the
authenticity of the documents aired Wednesday on CBS's "60 Minutes."
The program was part of an investigation asserting that Bush benefited
from political favoritism in getting out of commitments to the Texas Air
National Guard. On last night's "CBS Evening News," anchor Dan Rather
said again that the network "believes the documents are authentic."
******
A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS
News with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service
reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military
terminology to different word-processing techniques. ******
The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by
the military were written with a standard typewriter using different
formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated
documents. CBS's Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more
consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly
Microsoft Word.
"I am personally 100 percent sure that they are fake," said Joseph M.
Newcomer, author of several books on Windows programming, who worked on
electronic typesetting techniques in the early 1970s. Newcomer said he
had produced virtually exact replicas of the CBS documents using
Microsoft Word formatting and the Times New Roman font. ******
Newcomer drew an analogy with an art expert trying to determine whether
a painting of unknown provenance was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. "If
I was looking for a Da Vinci, I would look for characteristic brush
strokes," he said. "If I found something that was painted with a modern
synthetic brush, I would know that I have a forgery."
Meanwhile, Laura Bush became the first person from the White House to
say the documents are likely forgeries. "You know they are probably
altered," she told Radio Iowa in Des Moines yesterday. "And they
probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really."
Citing confidentiality issues, CBS News has declined to reveal the
source of the disputed documents -- which have been in the network's
possession for more than a month -- or to explain how they came to light
after more than three decades. Yesterday, USA Today said that it had
independently obtained copies of the documents "from a person with
knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations" who declined to be
named "for fear of retaliation."
It was unclear whether the same person supplied the documents to both
media outlets. USA Today said it had obtained its copies of the CBS
documents Wednesday night "soon after" the "60 Minutes" broadcast, as
well as another two purported Killian memos that had not been made
public.
A detailed examination of the CBS documents beside authenticated Killian
memos and other documents generated by Bush's 147th Fighter Interceptor
Group suggests at least three areas of difference that are difficult to
reconcile:
• Word-processing techniques. Of more than 100 records made available
by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the
proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents.
Nor did they use a superscripted "th" in expressions such as "147th
Group" and or "111th Fighter Intercept Squadron."
In a CBS News broadcast Friday night rebutting allegations that the
documents had been forged, Rather displayed an authenticated Bush
document from 1968 that included a small "th" next to the numbers "111"
as proof that Guard typewriters were capable of producing superscripts.
In fact, say Newcomer and other experts, the document aired by CBS News
does not contain a superscript, because the top of the "th" character is
at the same level as the rest of the type. Superscripts rise above the
level of the type.
Hilarious! Pratfall by Rather? ---- DSH
• Factual problems. A CBS document purportedly from Killian ordering
Bush to report for his annual physical, dated May 4, 1972, gives Bush's
address as "5000 Longmont #8, Houston." This address was used for many
years by Bush's father, George H. W. Bush. National Guard documents
suggest that the younger Bush stopped using that address in 1970 when he
moved into an apartment, and did not use it again until late 1973 or
1974, when he moved to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard Business
School.
One CBS memo cites pressure allegedly being put on Killian by "Staudt,"
a reference to Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, one of Bush's early
commanders. But the memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, nearly a year and a
half after Staudt retired from the Guard. Questioned about the
discrepancy over the weekend, CBS officials said that Staudt was a
"mythic figure" in the Guard who exercised influence from behind the
scenes even after his retirement.
• Stylistic differences. To outsiders, how an officer wrote his name
and rank or referred to his military unit may seem arcane and
unimportant. Within the military, however, such details are regulated
by rules and tradition, and can be of great significance. The CBS memos
contain several stylistic examples at odds with standard Guard
procedures, as reflected in authenticated documents.
In memos previously released by the Pentagon or the White House, Killian
signed his rank "Lt Col" or "Lt Colonel, TexANG," in a single line after
his name without periods. In the CBS memos, the "Lt Colonel" is on the
next line, sometimes with a period but without the customary reference
to TexANG, for Texas Air National Guard.
An ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, whom CBS originally
cited as a key source in authenticating its documents, pointed to
discrepancies in military abbreviations as evidence that the CBS memos
are forgeries. The Guard, he said, never used the abbreviation "grp"
for "group" or "OETR" for an officer evaluation review, as in the CBS
documents. The correct terminology, he said, is "gp" and "OER."
In its broadcast last night, CBS News produced a new expert, Bill
Glennon, an information technology consultant. He said that IBM
electric typewriters in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and
proportional spacing similar to those used in the disputed documents.
Any argument to the contrary is "an out-and-out lie," Glennon said in a
telephone interview. But Glennon said he is not a document expert,
could not vouch for the memos' authenticity and only examined them
online because CBS did not give him copies when he asked to visit the
network's offices.
Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts for the Adobe company in
Seattle, which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font,
disputed Glennon's statement to CBS. He said "fairly extensive testing"
had convinced him that the fonts and formatting used in the CBS
documents could not have been produced by the most sophisticated IBM
typewriters in use in 1972, including the Selectric and the Executive.
He said the two systems used fonts of different widths. ******
On last night's "CBS Evening News," Rather said "60 Minutes" had done a
"content analysis" of the memos and found, for example, that the date
that Bush was suspended from flying -- Aug. 1, 1972 -- matched
information in the documents. He also noted that USA Today had
separately obtained another memo from 1972 in which Killian asked to be
updated on Bush's flight certification status.
CBS executives have pointed to Matley as their lead expert on whether
the memos are genuine, and included him in a "CBS Evening News" defense
of the story Friday. Matley said he spent five to eight hours examining
the memos. "I knew I could not prove them authentic just from my
expertise," he said. "I can't say either way from my expertise, the
narrow, narrow little field of my expertise."
In looking at the photocopies, he said, "I really felt we could not
definitively say which font this is." But, he said, "I didn't see
anything that would definitively tell me these are not authentic."
Asked about Matley's comments, CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said: "In
the end, the gist is that it's inconclusive. People are coming down on
both sides, which is to be expected when you're dealing with copies of
documents."
Questions about the CBS documents have grown to the point that they
overshadow the allegations of favorable treatment toward Bush.
Prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh are insisting the
documents are forged. New York Times columnist William Safire said
yesterday that CBS should agree to an independent investigation. Brent
Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, called on the network to
apologize, saying: "The CBS story is a hoax and a fraud, and a cheap and
sloppy one at that. It boggles the mind that Dan Rather and CBS
continue to defend it.""
"Staff reporters James V. Grimaldi and Mike Allen and researcher Alice
Crites contributed to this report."
------------------------------
Bill Safire, one of the few honest people left at The New York Times, is
correct ---- CBS should agree to and cooperate with an independent
investigation.
The reputation of CBS News is clearly on the line -- as well as the
reputations of Dan Rather and the producer of the 60 Minutes segment --
Mary Mapes.
Mary Mapes, said producer, should step forward and stop hiding behind
the walls at Black Rock, the CBS Headquarters building in Gotham City.
Domenico Rosa
> "Those Discredited Memos"
>
> "The "documents" put forward by CBS News about George W. Bush's service
> have all the earmarks of forgeries."
>
> By WILLIAM SAFIRE
>
> "Washington - Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product
> of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax:
> the "documents" presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment
> in Lt. George W. Bush's National Guard service have all the earmarks of
> forgeries.
It is too bad that Dan Rather did not feature a promonent interviw
with Linda Allison. DR
=====================================================
From Salon 9/2/04:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison/
George W. Bush's missing year
The widow of a Bush family confidant says her husband gave the future
president an Alabama Senate campaign job as a favor to his worried
father.
Did they see him do any National Guard service?
"Good lord, no."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mary Jacoby
NEW YORK --
Before there was Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or even James Baker, the Bush
family's political guru was a gregarious newspaper owner and campaign
consultant from Midland, Texas, named Jimmy Allison.
In the spring of 1972, George H.W. Bush phoned his friend and asked a
favor:
Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in
Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W.
Bush?
"The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in
Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just
really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing,"
Allison's widow, Linda, told me.
"And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal."
Linda Allison's story, never before published, contradicts the Bush
campaign's assertion that George W. Bush transferred from the Texas
Air National Guard to the Alabama National Guard in 1972 because he
received an irresistible offer to gain high-level experience on the
campaign of Bush family friend Winton "Red" Blount.
In fact, according to what Allison says her late husband told her, the
younger Bush had become a political liability for his father, who was
then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and the
family wanted him out of Texas.
"I think they wanted someone they trusted to keep an eye on him,"
Linda Allison said.
...
William Black
"hippo" <hi...@southsudan.net> wrote in message
news:SMSdnZb8Gb2...@giganews.com...
> Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it deciding
> which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as individuals
I
> have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but I
> suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm and
> fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
> heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your opinion.
I'm
> too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
It is not possible to be too suspicious of politicians...
--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government
hippo
"Paul J Gans" wrote in message
You are bailing out the boat with a teaspoon again. The dox were supposed to
have been typed for the private files of an officer who didn't type, didn't
own a typewriter, didn't keep private files, and admired Bush. The machine
capable of superscript cost something like 12 grand in those days and is
unlikely to have been bought by a squadron of the TANG, and that doesn't
even deal with the spacing which could only have been done by a computer or
typeset by a printing house or newspaper. The documents *are* forgeries. The
only question is who did it and why. If some slime in the RNC did it they
are a lot cleverer than I have ever given them credit for. One problem is
taste. It is hard for someone not from that time, and not in the military
and specifically the ANG, to fudge military documents which smell right.
Many of the bloggers do have the right credentials and have blown the
whistle for those reasons which have nothing to do with technical matters.
What is not in doubt is the bias of CBS News which is now indefensibly
exposed. USA Today got the same documents and did not publish them since
they did not meet their criteria for proof. -the Troll
Sheila J
>Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it deciding
>which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as individuals I
>have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but I
>suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm and
>fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
>heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your opinion.
I'm
>too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
>
Well, I think Laura is the endearing one behind that first couple more so
than georgie...but....you can't always know. She seems like a southern lady
who takes all 'those' virtues' quite seriously. The marriage doesn't seem
to be a farce the way others in that office have presented there
marriages....(Clintons come to mind.....) The ketchup lady, IMVHO is
hurting Kerry more than helping. She's grossly weathly, sporting her deaad
hubby's name and money and Kerry is just there for window dressing.Ketchup
lady should have done better at all the hobnobbing that goes on......she
just doesn't seem to come across as well as Mrs. Bush. But you can't go
wrong having Mrs. Bush Snr as a role model@
Sheila J
ian maclure wrote in message ...
>On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:51:00 -0500, charles krin wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:43:46 GMT, "Sheila J" <wols...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>My messages seem to be coming with some long-measuring ID number with a
>>>*forces.ca * ending.
>>>Why is this? Anyone...?
>>
>> you are posting from an official computer?
>>
>> or through your official account?
>>
>> IIRC, you are a field grade officer in the Canadian Forces?
>
> Possibly having some connection with 4RCR or RHQ in London,
> Ont?
>
Why London and the reserve unit there?
Actually it is going through some strange firewall thingy which is why it is
only on when I use that computer.
Makes more sense now!
hippo
"William Black" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> > Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it
deciding
> > which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as
individuals
> I
> > have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but I
> > suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm
and
> > fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
> > heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your opinion.
> I'm
> > too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
>
> It is not possible to be too suspicious of politicians...
I'm with you. -the Troll
William Black
"Sheila J" <wols...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:bhI1d.11480$%S.8195@pd7tw2no...
>The ketchup lady, IMVHO is
> hurting Kerry more than helping. She's grossly weathly, sporting her deaad
> hubby's name and money and Kerry is just there for window
dressing.Ketchup
> lady should have done better at all the hobnobbing that goes on......she
> just doesn't seem to come across as well as Mrs. Bush. But you can't go
> wrong having Mrs. Bush Snr as a role model@
What makes you think the bosses of the Democratic Party want to win this
one?
The campaign this time has been incredibly dirty, and whoever wins some of
the mud will stick, Bush's second term will be a stinker whatever he does.
If Kerry wins he gets to stand next time, if he looses Hillary Clinton is
the automatic candidate with no incumbent president to fight...
Politics is the art of the possible...
Michael Hopper
According to some Mrs Bush Snr is far from a role model. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/salon/0,14779,1304379,00.html
for what dirt Kitty Kelley has made up/found out about the goings on in the
Bush clan.
mike
Howard Berkowitz
<hXI1d.44127$vkm....@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>,
"Michael Hopper" <mikeh...@rogers.com> wrote:
Kitty Kelley is hardly a role model for accurate journalism. While I
can't claim I really know her, I once spent a couple of hours in a first
class cabin with Barbara Sr and some associates. She came across as one
of the most charismatic (in a good way) people I've ever met. I've spent
thirty=plus years in the DC area and known my share of politicians, many
of whom are mostly style. She came across as genuinely caring about
everyone she encountered.
J Harris
Howard Berkowitz wrote:
>
>
> Kitty Kelley is hardly a role model for accurate journalism. While I
> can't claim I really know her, I once spent a couple of hours in a first
> class cabin with Barbara Sr and some associates. She came across as one
> of the most charismatic (in a good way) people I've ever met. I've spent
> thirty=plus years in the DC area and known my share of politicians, many
> of whom are mostly style. She came across as genuinely caring about
> everyone she encountered.
I met Barbara Bush several times, sometimes in very trying
circumstances. She always spoke to the staff, asked how we were doing,
and thanked us for being on a campaign site instead of at home with
family. Great lady, first class in every way and not deserving of the
sliminess of Kitty Kelly.
JH
Grey Satterfield
E9K1d.1806$gg1...@newssvr22.news.prodigy.com, "J Harris"
<jhharris...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kitty Kelly is indeed a slime-ball. Even the NYT's reviewer calls her Bush
book, "a tacky, voyeuristic and petty-seeming narrative."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/books/14kaku.html?ei=5006&en=a2a9821606cd0
092&ex=1095825600&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=all&position=
Grey Satterfield
hippo
"Sheila J" wrote in message
> >Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it
I agree the marriage isn't a farce which cheers me up. I also like the way
the big man takes care of the little dog no matter how silly it can make him
look. The pickle heiress has been there with the loans when Kerry's coffers
were dry so she has been of some help. I suspect they are window dressing
for one another. We agree completely about Barbara. -the Troll
hippo
"Michael Hopper" wrote in message
> "Sheila J" wrote in message
> >>Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it
Giggle, the Guardian? You have to be kidding. I never believed Pravda either
no matter what the word means and certainly wouldn't quote its book reviews
about any American President.
Old Kitty is a well know gossip journalist who has also worked over the
Royal family. Her work is so notorious the news magazine Newsweek refused to
touch her book. Even the New York Times recanted their original favorable
coverage of the book even after Doubleday, her publisher, had already edited
out material for which they could find no support beyond rumor. The Times is
not considered a friend of the Bushes. I don't know about you but if either
the Guardian or Kitty said the sun was coming up tomorrow I'd still check
the forecast. -the Troll
Fred J. McCall
:Well, I think Laura is the endearing one behind that first couple more so
:than georgie...but....you can't always know. She seems like a southern lady
:who takes all 'those' virtues' quite seriously.
Well, I don't know about the 'Southern Lady' thing, but I like her.
She's actually quite funny when she wants to be.
:But you can't go
:wrong having Mrs. Bush Snr as a role model@
Well, Barb didn't originally approve of Laura marrying George Jr, you
know....
a.spencer3
I couldn't care a stuff about who wrote what when on this one.
But I thought the point had already been made that proportional spacing etc.
was freely available from the mid-60's via not very expensive golf ball
typewriters that became common in most offices at that time.
Surely either/both sides in this spat can at least get their technology
agreed?
By the way, have you seen the budget policy shift in Iraq this morning? :-))
Sorry - :-((
Surreyman
a.spencer3
>
> I get a warm and
> fuzzy watching George and Laura
Well, we agree for a change. I get hot under the collar, too!
Seriously, in the UK, most of whatever persuasion agree that Bush comes over
as a not very good puppet who breaks down completely when faced with ad
hoc - especially 'antagonistic' - questioning (not that he dares to face
that much these days).
And there are not that many in the UK who agree with his policies,
especially foreign, either.
Of those that are still with Blair on Iraq (again, almost certainly a quite
distinct minority) might also feel that he is not putting a very good public
face on it all these days either - but he is distinctly more competant than
Bush. At least he faces live antagonistic questioning on TV at least weekly.
Bush would suffer greatly if he had to do that.
Kerry, I feel (can't begin to judge the UK because, frankly, he has made
such little impact here that he is almost never discussed!) comes over as
lightweight.
Our Howard comes over as a reasonable debater - but it's always easier to
attack than to defend, although Kerry doesn't make it appear so. But the
Tories have few strong policy differences to offer as yet.
Both our incumbants seem to be benefitting, whether they deserve it or not,
from ineffective opposition. I suspect that both will be returned.
That's my 'TV' analysis of our relative political scenes currently -
simplistic, based largely on media, but that's what seems to count mostly in
swaying votes these days. Other UKites might disagree?
Meanwhile, our Government's major preoccupation currently is in forcing the
anti-Fox Hunting Bill through! ..................
Surreyman
a.spencer3
maybe :-)) - jewels. You have your State Governor to hang onto - has he
disappointed you yet?
Surreyman
a.spencer3
"Howard Berkowitz" <h...@gettcomm.com> wrote in message
news:hcb-AB330D.1...@news-central.giganews.com...
Agreed, as far as we can tell from the UK.
Note that no-one even mentions Mrs. Blair!
Surreyman
a.spencer3
>
> I never believed Pravda either
> no matter what the word means
'Truth'!
Surreyman
David J. Starr
>
> There you go again. There is no reason why that memo could not
> have been produced at the date on it. The typeface existed,
> justification existed, and small "th" and things like that
> existed. And proportional spacing existed.
>
> I saw them with my own eyes back then. My father's secretary
> had such a typewriter on her desk.
>
Back in 1972 we had just one IBM selectric typewriter in my USAF
squadron. The commander's correspondence was typed on it, all the rest
of the squadron paperwork was done on Remington manual office
typewriters. The Selectric was a monospacing machine and it didn't do
superscripts. Perhaps TexANG could afford fancy state of the art
proportional spacing typewriters, but the regular Air Force didn't waste
money on frills of that nature.
Few Air Force officers would type their own stuff, usually a sergeant
did it. All Air Force officers are keenly aware that even the most
loyal sergeants will talk with their peers down at the NCO club. NO ONE
would expect an NCO not to gossip about something as juicy as higher ups
pressuring a colonel to whitewash a pilot's OER. Typing up a memo that
incriminating is highly unusual.
That's two reasons for me to be suspicious of the CBS memo's.
David J. Starr
Dallas Patterson
a.spencer3 wrote:
Wrong on all counts.
IBM marketed the first proportional spacing typewriters, buy the
proportional typeface typewriters in 1972 were ususally the IBM
Executive series and not the later IBM Selectric, i.e. "golf
ball", typewriters.
There was nothing the least bit inexpensive about these typewriters. In
1981, the IBM Selectric was still selling new for $1,250US bargain
discount, and the price went up to several thousand dollars each for
better models and options. In dollars adjusted for the year 2004, the
IBM selectric Composer cost about $15,000US to $20,000US dollars. Using
the IBM Selectric Composer required the user to type in each line of
text twice, making spacial adjustments, repeated changes of type balls
in midline, and a variety of other uniquely specialized adjustments by
well trained operators. Any claims that an untrained user like Killian
used one of these complex typesetting machines to casually type
controversial personal memos strains credibility far beyond any
reasonable breaking point.
The Air National Guard units tended to be at the bottom of the list when
it came to priorities for equipment and suplies, so they tended to be
supplied with the older castoffs from the Air Force. In regard to
typewriters, this meant the Air National Guard in 1972 was commonly
using monospacing Remington typewriters using a 10 pitch Pica typeface.
Less often they may or may not have been equipped with a monospacing 12
pitch Courier Elite typeface. IBM Executive typewriters had come into
use in some places, but they tended to be the exception rather than the
rule, and they were almost always monospacing typewrtiers with 10 pitch
Pica escapements. Although the IBM Selectric typewriters also came into
use, they 'rareley' replaced the old Remingtons and IBM Executive series
in the Air National Guard until many years after 1972. The only desktop
machine in 1972 which could even remotely attempt to produce a document
like those proffered by CBS is the IBM Selectric Composer, and it is
incapable of producing the finely adjusted and consistent word spacing
and line spacing we see in the CBS documents. I was an IBM trained and
certified customer service engineer who serviced this IBM equipment, and
I know this equipment was incapable of producing word spacing and line
spacing with the accuracy and consistency seen in these documents, even
though they have been blurred and distorted. One of the most difficult
to adjust problems with all of the IBM Selectric typewriters and IBM
Selectric Composers was intermittant misstrikes by the type balls. These
were caused by the unavoidable variation in ball strike timing inherent
in the design of the mechanism. The CBS documents are too perfect in
their word spacing and line spacing overall to have been produced by the
mechanism of an mechanical desktop typesetter like the IBM Selectric
Composer, much less any typewriter.
Also see:
http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html
http://www.neiluchitel.com/index.php?p=299
Furthermore, there is no way in Hell that a field grade officer or a
clerk typist was going to be cuaght dead typing a memo or a
controversial personal memorandum on a super expensive IBM Selectric
Composer with the painstaking and time consuming effort it would have
required to maintain such perfect accuracy in the perfectly centered
headings across so many different documents. These documents were
produced by a computerized word processing application, software fonts,
and laser or inkjet printers which did not exist in 1972 and would not
exist for at least another decade. I sold and serviced the first system
capable of producing such output, the Xerox Star System and its laser
printing system, in 1981. The laser printer alone cost $20,000, and you
don';t want to know the cost of the computer and software which output
the soft fonts to the laser printer.
> Surely either/both sides in this spat can at least get their technology
> agreed?
>
Not when the supporters of the forgeries refuse to acknowledge the
documents as forgeries.
a.spencer3
"Dallas Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
news:4148339F...@fidalgo.net...
I'm not talking about complex print composers, but office typewriters.
The 'golf ball' typewriters were readily available in the mid-1960s at
nothing like the prices you mention. Fact.
I may be wrongly attributing the proportional spacing to the 'golf balls' -
it was 40 years ago! I'd have to check But, certainly, proportional spacing
was also available in the same period at 'ordinary' pricing. Fact.
Surreyman
Fred J. McCall
:Seriously, in the UK, most of whatever persuasion agree that Bush comes over
:as a not very good puppet who breaks down completely when faced with ad
:hoc - especially 'antagonistic' - questioning (not that he dares to face
:that much these days).
Then I suppose it's a good thing that we don't let your lot vote over
here, given the lack of perception evidenced by the above.
:And there are not that many in the UK who agree with his policies,
:especially foreign, either.
Ditto, I suppose.
:Of those that are still with Blair on Iraq (again, almost certainly a quite
:distinct minority) might also feel that he is not putting a very good public
:face on it all these days either - but he is distinctly more competant than
:Bush. At least he faces live antagonistic questioning on TV at least weekly.
:Bush would suffer greatly if he had to do that.
I doubt it.
:Kerry, I feel (can't begin to judge the UK because, frankly, he has made
:such little impact here that he is almost never discussed!) comes over as
:lightweight.
This seems a bit more correct. Just keep in mind that this is the
best man the folks in the US who are closer to what you put forward as
'more typical' of UK views could find to put forward.
:Our Howard comes over as a reasonable debater - but it's always easier to
:attack than to defend, although Kerry doesn't make it appear so. But the
:Tories have few strong policy differences to offer as yet.
Well, I guess this may highlight the difference between what you're
looking for and what we look for over here. We're not trying to elect
a captain for the national debating team.
:Both our incumbants seem to be benefitting, whether they deserve it or not,
:from ineffective opposition. I suspect that both will be returned.
I rather hope you're right. I was a bit concerned over here, but the
Democrats seem to have made a specialty of self-inflicting.
:Meanwhile, our Government's major preoccupation currently is in forcing the
:anti-Fox Hunting Bill through! ..................
Does this mean you're not going to be able to shoot at Murdock's press
organizations any more?
--
"It's always different. It's always complex. But at some point,
somebody has to draw the line. And that somebody is always me....
I am the law."
-- Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
a.spencer3
"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:i6hgk0d7sei4blnk9...@4ax.com...
Wish it was merely that! :-))
But:
/1/ My post was a non-partisan impression (fully open to correction by other
UKites if they wish, but not yet it seems), clarification for USites.
/2/ Not intended to attract even more US partisan comment.
/3/ But mainly for enabling US posters to understand the UK view (of
whichever UK political affiliation).
/4/ That one's up to you.
Surreyman
Mike K
It was reprinted from Salon.com.
John Cartmell
<a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Does this mean you're not going to be able to shoot at Murdock's press
> > organizations any more?
> Wish it was merely that! :-))
I'd be happy to support the change from hunting with dogs to shooting - as
long as the quarry is changed from foxes to huntsmen *and* Murdoch &Co.
> But:
> /1/ My post was a non-partisan impression (fully open to correction by
> other UKites if they wish, but not yet it seems), clarification for
> USites.
Despite disagreeing with many of surreyman's political view his analysis
here is spot on. It should be accepted as a fairly standard view from an
intelligent UK observer.
> /2/ Not intended to attract even more US partisan comment.
> /3/ But mainly for enabling US posters to understand the UK view (of
> whichever UK political affiliation).
US posters should also accept that there is an element of despair as in "Is
that really the best they can do?". The only UK candidate for PM within my
lifetime that was as poor as either the current Presidential candidates
seem from over here, was 3rd party Liberal Party candidate John J Thorpe.
He didn't have a one in a million chance; I wish that was the case with
Bush & Kerry.
--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527
Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com
Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines
Dallas Patterson
a.spencer3 wrote:
I am talking about the desktop IBM Selctric Composer, which was based
upon the basic design of the everyday IBM Selectric typewrtier, because
no typewriter of any kind or from any manufacturer was capable of
placing a proportional typeface into such precise and consistent
horizontal and vertical spacing across so many documents. Your office
typewriters, then and now, are irrelevant becuase they could not and can
not create such precisely aligned documents.
> The 'golf ball' typewriters were readily available in the mid-1960s at
> nothing like the prices you mention. Fact.
Fact. The new IBM Selectric typewriters sold for a lower dollar cost in
1968-1972 than they did in 1981-1982, when I sold different models at
retail for about $1,250 to $1,500. Nonetheless, the releative cost when
adjusted for inflation were similar, despite the lower and non-inflated
dollar amounts in the Sixties.
> I may be wrongly attributing the proportional spacing to the 'golf balls' -
> it was 40 years ago!
The IBM Executive series of typewriters with the traditional typebars
offered proportional typefaces and true proportional letter spacing. The
IBM Selectric in 1972 offered a proportional typeface, but the
escapement only allowed monospacing and not proportional spacing. I
know, because I sold them, serviced them, and still own some of the
devices [out in the garage]. Is there anyone who would like to buy a
Qume or Diablo daisywheel printer?
With respect to the CBS documents, however, this fact is irrelevant,
because the IBM Selectric typewriters were incapable of producing such
consistent word spacing, line lengths, and line spacing across many
documents. Even when using the same typewriter or the same IBM Selectric
Composer, it makes no difference what kind of mechanical impact printer
you use, you cannot get the mechanisms of such mechanical impact
printers to so precisely and consistently place the type characters in
such a consistent positional grid. This is especially true of the IBM
Selectric typewriters with the type ball, because the mechanism was
inherently so sloppy in adjustments, the type ball would misstrike a
character or strike the wrong character. There was certainly no way of
precisely controlling the character positioning enough to produce
virtually identical line lengths and line spacing across the entire
document, much less several other documents as well. Such precision of
character imprinting is possible only with a non-impact and high
resolution printing device like a laser printer or inkjet printer.
> I'd have to check But, certainly, proportional spacing
> was also available in the same period at 'ordinary' pricing. Fact.
I never said proportional spacing was not available in 1972 or the
Sixties, because it most certainly was available. It just was not
commonly found in the offices of the Air National Guard in 1972. The
most common typewriter to be found in the typical Air National Guard
office of 1972 was a Remington monospacing typewriter manufactured in
the Fifties or early Sixties. That is a fact. Another fact is the Air
National Guard and Air Force use of teletype printers, teletype
Paper-Tape-Punches (PTP), and Paper-Tape-Readers (PTR) manufactured in
the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, until they started to replace some of
them with Western Union VDT (Video Display Terminals) in 1974 to 1980.
Fact. All of this is completely irrlevant to the CBS forgeries, because
no typewriter or other impact printer in existence in 1972 of any kind
was capable of producing those documents with their same consistency of
charater and line spacing.
>
> Surreyman
>
>
>
a.spencer3
what when on this one."
If it doesn't fit either side's case for the documents - I couldn't care a
stuff!
Surreyman
Doug McDonald
>
> There you go again. There is no reason why that memo could not
> have been produced at the date on it. The typeface existed,
> justification existed, and small "th" and things like that
> existed. And proportional spacing existed.
That is correct. And indeed the memos HAVE been re-produced
on the correct device, a certain IBM thing, by a collector
of such beasts.
And indeed, in his skilled hands, the results look to
the eye just like the CBS purported ones.
It was not easy to reproduce the superscript "th",
though he did and it lookes just fine.
But ... but ... then there is the killer. This person
superimposed his typrwriter output over the memo. They did not
exactly match ... close, but not absolutely perfect. Then
he created the same memo in Microsoft Word, printed it out,
scanned it, and superimposed. The fit was perfect.
I tried typing a line in Word and superimposing. From a
screen dump it was closer than the typrwriter ... but not perfect.
From my first scanned print of it it was closer yet, but not
perfect. When I changed my printer driver from Postscript to
TrueType fonts with native HP LaserJet commands (not using the
LJ Postscript) and scanned that, the fit to the stuff from CBS
was as perfect as the typewriter guy got from Word.
Those documents were made with Microsoft Word using TrueType
fonts.
Also ... the centration of the headings was perfect, and
identical with respect to the text on two documents purportedly
made months apart. This would be unlikely given how centration
has to be done on that IBM typewriter ... unless it was the
IBM Selectric Composer Magnetic Tape device ... which existed, but
was even more vastly expensive and unlikely to be in a National
Guard unit whose secretary does not remember having one.
Doug McDonald
Doug McDonald
Doug McDonald
>
> I couldn't care a stuff about who wrote what when on this one.
> But I thought the point had already been made that proportional spacing etc.
> was freely available from the mid-60's via not very expensive golf ball
> typewriters that became common in most offices at that time.
> Surely either/both sides in this spat can at least get their technology
> agreed?
There were modest price typewriters that could do proportional
spacing, and modest price ones that could do different size type
(i.e. the superscript "th") ... but not both together without
paying for a custom font with a single special superscript "th"
for the plain proportional one. I merely quote the typwiter hoppyist
web pages here.
Doug McDonald
Paul J Gans
You misread me. I agree that it was not typed on base. That does
not preclude its being typed somewhere else. Which is what I said.
I'm sorry if I was not clear.
As of this morning the squadron commander's secretary (88 and still
going strong) said that she did NOT type the thing, but that it
accurately reflected the commander's views of Bush.
---- Paul J. Gans
D. Spencer Hines
al-Zarqawi, who is one of the baddest of the bad, is a JORDANIAN [which
he is] and that King Abdullah and his Jordanian Government are
RESPONSIBLE for helping us bag him.
Our diplomats must get that message out strong and clear to the
Jordanians -- "help us bag him, otherwise you are part of the problem --
not part of the solution."
"You must help us dispose of your human trash -- Jordanian terrorists."
By ALL MEANS AVAILABLE ---- COVERT, OVERT, FINANCIAL, MEDIA, DIPLOMATIC,
MILITARY, NAVAL, et alia.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
"hippo" <hi...@southsudan.net> wrote in message
news:E66dnViqLeA...@giganews.com...
| Jordan is an ally, or at least the government is. It was partly
| responsible for our invasion and present Iraq policy.
Domenico Rosa
Until the originals are examined, the debates about how these memos
were produced can go on forever. However, the contents of these memos
are consistent with all the prior revelations about W. In particular,
they are perfectly consistent with the recent revelations
independently made by Linda Allison. DR
=====================================================
From Salon 9/2/04:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison/
George W. Bush's missing year
The widow of a Bush family confidant says her husband gave the future
president an Alabama Senate campaign job as a favor to his worried
father.
Did they see him do any National Guard service?
"Good lord, no." ...
Doug McDonald
>
> I'm not talking about complex print composers, but office typewriters.
> The 'golf ball' typewriters were readily available in the mid-1960s at
> nothing like the prices you mention. Fact.
> I may be wrongly attributing the proportional spacing to the 'golf balls' -
> it was 40 years ago! I'd have to check But, certainly, proportional spacing
> was also available in the same period at 'ordinary' pricing. Fact.
The Golf balls did not do proportional spaciong except in the
exceedingly expensive Composer. The proportional spacing at
ordinary prices did not do the "th" superscript, nor did it have the
line spacing of the forgeries.
However, a very out-of-the-box Microsoft Word on an HP LaserJet
duplicates the forgeries down to the pixel.
Doug McDonald
A Brit in Canada
news:ci7ka8$h4l$1...@news.freedom2surf.net:
> What makes you think the bosses of the Democratic Party
> want to win this one?
Who are the *real* bosses of the Democratic party? I indirectly
asked this question when I posted the following a few days ago
(to s.h.m. - which probably explains a zero response!)
The off-topic thread referred to Zell Miller's speech at the RNC
and I took up the baton thus:
[quote]
For a different take on Miller and his motives see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55953-
2004Sep2.html
[-----]
Btw, I notice that he is still described as a Democratic
Senator. Does the American political system allow Kerry, or the
party grandees, to expel him from the party, if they so wished?
Kerry, and his team, must have had some prior inkling of what
was happen if a Democratic Senator took the podium at the RNC
for a keynote speech, but they made a conscious decision to do
nothing about it. Can anyone suggest why, if it was for a reason
other than that Miller's appearance would ultimately benefit
the Democratic cause?
I apologise for propagating this discussion in s.h.m. but it
does not appear to have a home in any of the newsgroups in the
thread.
[unquote]
Andy.
> The campaign this time has been incredibly dirty, and
> whoever wins some of the mud will stick, Bush's second
> term will be a stinker whatever he does.
>
> If Kerry wins he gets to stand next time, if he looses
> Hillary Clinton is the automatic candidate with no
> incumbent president to fight...
>
> Politics is the art of the possible...
>
hippo
"a.spencer3" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> > > It is not possible to be too suspicious of politicians...
> >
> > I'm with you. -the Troll
> >
> >
> Oh dear - agreeing again! By and large. There are the very occasional -
> maybe :-)) - jewels. You have your State Governor to hang onto - has he
> disappointed you yet?
It is a mixed bag. He is scrupulously honest, owes no one for his job, and
always tells the truth. He is trying to root out corruption and
mismanagement and resolve budgetary shortfalls with ruthless attention to
detail. On the flip side this is a weak executive state so he can't do much
and he doesn't get along well with the political hacks in the state capitol.
By trade he is a businessman, not a politician. -the Troll
hippo
"a.spencer3" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> > I never believed Pravda either
> > no matter what the word means
>
> 'Truth'!
Yup, the ultimate sarcasm. -the Troll
Dallas Patterson
Domenico Rosa wrote:
Too bad she didn't tag along with Bush to his duty assignment like a
doting mother taking her son to Kindergarten.
hippo
"Mike K" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
>
Oh that's much better. I had a nephew write for them for about six months.
He decided he was liberal enough but far too objective to continue with
them. He decided to teach history instead. -the Troll
Dallas Patterson
Paul J Gans wrote:
It must have been typed on Mars or Jupiter then.
[QUOTE]
Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people
and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed
"unfit for office" and "selected, not elected."...But, she said,
telltale signs of forgery abounded in the four memos, which contained
the supposed writings of her ex-boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died
in 1984...She said the typeface on the documents did not match either of
the two typewriters that she used during her time at the Guard. She
identified those machines as a mechanical Olympia, which was replaced by
an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s....
[UNQUOTE]
> As of this morning the squadron commander's secretary (88 and still
> going strong) said that she did NOT type the thing, but that it
> accurately reflected the commander's views of Bush.
>
> ---- Paul J. Gans
>
[QUOTE]
Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people
and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed
"unfit for office" and "selected, not elected."
[UNQUOTE]
There's a real "unbiased" source <sarcasm for the mentally impaired> a
Democrat and Kerry supporter can rely upon.
hippo
"a.spencer3" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> Well, we agree for a change. I get hot under the collar, too!
>
> Seriously, in the UK, most of whatever persuasion agree that Bush comes
over
> as a not very good puppet who breaks down completely when faced with ad
> hoc - especially 'antagonistic' - questioning (not that he dares to face
> that much these days).
> And there are not that many in the UK who agree with his policies,
> especially foreign, either.
Bush isn't a good extempore speaker, that's certain. When he does speak he
is conversational and folksy like most Texas politicians (Lyndon Johnson).
Along with you I suspect he is something of a puppet. Others in his
administration are far brighter and more glib.
> Of those that are still with Blair on Iraq (again, almost certainly a
quite
> distinct minority) might also feel that he is not putting a very good
public
> face on it all these days either - but he is distinctly more competant
than
> Bush. At least he faces live antagonistic questioning on TV at least
weekly.
> Bush would suffer greatly if he had to do that.
> Kerry, I feel (can't begin to judge the UK because, frankly, he has made
> such little impact here that he is almost never discussed!) comes over as
> lightweight.
That's a pretty good assessment. Remember he is the compromise candidate of
an incredibly diverse party. One of his problems campaigning is he can't
please every one of his constituency all the time (Communists and Southern
Baptist Preachers, anti-Globalist Greens and stinking rich fat cat trial
lawyers, the unemployed and trade unionists, and fourty seven minorities all
wanting special treatment).
> Our Howard comes over as a reasonable debater - but it's always easier to
> attack than to defend, although Kerry doesn't make it appear so. But the
> Tories have few strong policy differences to offer as yet.
> Both our incumbants seem to be benefitting, whether they deserve it or
not,
> from ineffective opposition. I suspect that both will be returned.
> That's my 'TV' analysis of our relative political scenes currently -
> simplistic, based largely on media, but that's what seems to count mostly
in
> swaying votes these days. Other UKites might disagree?
> Meanwhile, our Government's major preoccupation currently is in forcing
the
> anti-Fox Hunting Bill through! ..................
I think you are probably right. Kerry is about as dynamic as a bathroom mat
and looks like a polo pony in the face. His wife is a rich bitch and acts
like one, spoiled, willful, and unpredictable.
Fox hunters can drag hunt. We've been doing it for years.
Here the news had been mostly about four, now five, recent storms hitting
the SE of the US doing billions in damage. So far they have hit just about
everywhere but here. -the Troll
hippo
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
> "a.spencer3" wrote:
>
> Then I suppose it's a good thing that we don't let your lot vote over
> here, given the lack of perception evidenced by the above.
It is clearly perception he means here, Fred. He ain't being at all
partisan, only informative. The reason I came to this group was to get
British perspective. He has been kind enough to provide it. You gotta
remember these guys have their own politicos to keep an eye on. We are just
a sideline for them. Natch they don't have the inside track on much of the
stuff we do (like our juicy forged dox scandal). -the Troll
Vaughan Sanders
>
snip
> Fox hunters can drag hunt. We've been doing it for years.
>
> Here the news had been mostly about four, now five, recent storms
hitting
> the SE of the US doing billions in damage. So far they have hit just
about
> everywhere but here. -the Troll
>
>
They could hippo but it wouldn't do the foxes a lot of good. The 9 out
of 10 Scottish hunts that are still going after it's banning there, have
killed twice as many foxes as the hounds ever caught.
Remember this is a ban on hunting with dogs by men in red coats, the fox
is still vermin to be shot on site, also the young healthy foxes that
the hounds can't catch break cover first and are first to be shot.
A big demo going on today by the countryside people, but seemingly
easily controlled by the riot police with their shield wall and
truncheons, the heavy horse of the Metropolitan Police that William
thinks you only have to say *boo* to and they will run away weren't
needed.
Still Blair's Nu-Lab has to keep his Old-Lab wing happy and let them
have their revenge for the miners strike and poll tax that Maggie
inflicted on them.
Odd really, Maggie never came across as a country person to me.
Jamie
Martin Reboul
>
> "William Black" wrote in message
>
> > "hippo" wrote in message
>
> > > Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it
> deciding
> > > which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as
> individuals
> > I
> > > have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but I
> > > suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm
> and
> > > fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
> > > heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your opinion.
> > I'm
> > > too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
> >
>
> I'm with you. -the Troll
And so am I!
Martin Reboul
I fear that with such credntials, s/he is unlikely to make it to the White
House...
D. Spencer Hines
The handlers are only letting her talk to small, carefully vetted groups
of loyalist Democrat women, according to several accounts.
Reporters are not allowed to ask her questions in the Q&A by said same
accounts and are told their turn will come later -- after the Democrat
women have had their shot.
Dog-handlers then whisk her out of the room before the reporters get to
ask a single question.
There seem to be two goals in this New Teresa Strategy:
1. Damage Limitation -- Kerry and his folks don't want any more "Shove
it!" gaffes....
2. Lighten Teresa's schedule and give her more free time and beauty
rest -- as she was complaining of being over-scheduled. She is five
years older than Kerry -- 65. She is also allegedly acrophobic and
suffers from vertigo in helicopters, et al.
DSH
"hippo" <hi...@southsudan.net> wrote in message
news:uKSdnQbwO7e...@giganews.com...
hippo
"Martin Reboul" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> > It is a mixed bag. He is scrupulously honest, owes no one for his job,
and
> > always tells the truth. He is trying to root out corruption and
> > mismanagement and resolve budgetary shortfalls with ruthless attention
to
> > detail. On the flip side this is a weak executive state so he can't do
much
> > and he doesn't get along well with the political hacks in the state
capitol.
> > By trade he is a businessman, not a politician. -the Troll
>
> I fear that with such credntials, s/he is unlikely to make it to the White
> House...
He has no political ambitions in that direction. He was part of the Reagan
revolution, conservatives who wanted to serve for its own sake. He slept in
his office in the House of Representatives and left his family at home,
visiting them on the weekend. Each year he attended only two functions in
Washington. When elected he promised to serve only six years or three terms.
At the end of his third term he stepped down as promised. Like Reagan he
only ran for Governor when drafted by the party to attack corruption and
waste in state government. He is an ideal, which like many ideals, probably
won't be effectual in practice. It is a shame. -the Troll
D. Spencer Hines
competence, as well as the basic honesty, actually to know what he's
talking about concerning these alleged Colonel Killian Memos.
Even CBS is now doing a back and fill -- and when Bob Schieffer of CBS
disagrees with his Good Buddy, Dan Rather, and calls for a full-fledged
CBS Investigation of the memos ---- you KNOW the feces have really hit
the fan at Black Rock. [CBS HQ in Gotham City]
There doesn't seem to be much doubt the memos are forgeries -- the key
questions now are what has been their provenance, who presented them to
CBS and who is the hilarious, incompetent forger.
Lots more fun and games to come.
Congressmen are calling for a Congressional Investigation too -- and we
shall probably get one.
The New York Times and Washington post have taken their lickings because
of sloppy, corrupt, biased, journalistic practices.
Now it seems to be CBS's turn -- and LONG OVERDUE.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
"Dallas Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
news:414893CB...@fidalgo.net...
<Snip Of Much Credible Stuff>
Paul J Gans
Agreed. And *that* is what all the fuss is about. Republicans
do NOT want you to think about that aspect of it.
----- Paul J. Gans
Ed Stasiak
>
> If Kerry wins he gets to stand next time, if he looses
> Hillary Clinton is the automatic candidate with no incumbent
> president to fight...
Assuming Bush wins a second term (and thou it will be
close, I believe he will) and Hillary decides to take
a run for the presidency in 2008, I'm guessing the Reps
will put up Colin Powell as Bush's replacement.
In that event, Hillary (or Kerry or any other Dem for
that matter) is IMO doomed and will go down in flames
worse then Mondale. If Bush wins this Nov, we can count
on 12 more years of a Rep in the White House.
Kurt Ullman
esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote:
>Assuming Bush wins a second term (and thou it will be
>close, I believe he will) and Hillary decides to take
>a run for the presidency in 2008, I'm guessing the Reps
>will put up Colin Powell as Bush's replacement.
I am not at all sure that CP would run. His wife is known to be
adamant about not wanting him to run for fear that (note: on-topic
foul in abt-c) what happened to Robby Jackson in Teeth of the Tiger
will happen to Colin.
Kurt (For those of you in the other, lesser news groups, Robby is a
black man friend of Clancy protagonist and Pres. Jack Ryan who
ascends to the VP position and then is shot by a White Power type
whilst running for Pres) Ullman
--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the
ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
John Cartmell
Vaughan Sanders <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> They could hippo but it wouldn't do the foxes a lot of good. The 9 out
> of 10 Scottish hunts that are still going after it's banning there, have
> killed twice as many foxes as the hounds ever caught.
The England and Wales Bill is quite different from the Scottish Bill that
had a loophole that warped minds could find their way through.
--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527
Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com
Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines
D. Spencer Hines
"Well, actually we guess we've had an answer to that over the past week.
Now ABC News reports that CBS News, in preparing its phony story on
President Bush, ignored the advice of experts it consulted who expressed
doubts about the "memos":
"Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC
News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to
check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and
I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have
been produced by a typewriter," she said. . . .
"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will
told ABC News." ******
A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano,
Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could
not authenticate them. . . . "I did not authenticate anything and I
don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's
why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to
think I did authenticate these documents."
Could she possibly run away any faster? ---- DSH
A third examiner hired by CBS for its story, Marcel Matley, appeared on
CBS Evening News last Friday and was described as saying the document
was real.
Matley later said he vouched only for the signature, not the Microsoft
Word-generated text. The Washington Post also has interviews with Will
and James.
The New York Sun reports that USA Today, which also fell for the scam,
is conducting an internal investigation, which "may set off a feeding
frenzy on CBS News if it turns out the documents were faked." Wow, if
this isn't a feeding frenzy, we can't wait to see what one looks like."
James Taranto
The Wall Street Journal
-------------------------------------
Fun & Games At CBS.
How Sweet It Is!
D. Spencer Hines
the plot thickens.
DSH
----------------------------
"CBS Guard Documents Traced to Tex. Kinko's
Records Reportedly Faxed From Abilene"
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004
"Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions
about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore
markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy
shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was
shown the records by the network.
The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the
documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired
them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to
name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential,
or to explain how the documents came to light after more than three
decades.
There is only one Kinko's in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird,
Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has
been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the
documents.
Robert Strong, who was one of three people interviewed by "60 minutes,"
said he was shown copies of the documents by CBS anchor Dan Rather and
producer Mary Mapes on Sept. 5, three days before the broadcast. He
said at least one of the documents bore a faxed header indicating it had
been sent from a Kinko's in Abilene.
Strong's comments came as CBS News President Andrew Heyward in an
interview acknowledged that there were "unresolved issues" that the
network wanted "to get to the bottom of." Since the broadcast, critics
have pointed to a host of unexplained problems about the memos, which
bore dates from 1972 and 1973, including signs that they had been
written on a computer rather than a Vietnam-era typewriter.
"I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story
went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said in
an interview last night, while acknowledging "a ferocious debate about
these documents."
Asked what role Burkett may have played in CBS's reporting of the
report, Heyward said: "I'm not going to get into any discussion of who
the sources are."
Burkett, who has accused Bush aides of ordering the destruction of some
portions of the president's National Guard record because they might
have been politically embarrassing, did not return telephone calls to
his home. His lawyer, David Van Os, issued a statement on Burkett's
behalf saying he "no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to
the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush and does not choose to
dignify recent spurious attacks upon his character with any comment."
In news interviews earlier this year, Burkett said he overheard a
telephone conversation in the spring of 1997 in which top Bush aides
asked the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files as
he was running for a second term as governor of Texas. Several days
later, he said, he saw dozens of pages from Bush's military file dumped
in a trash can at Camp Mabry, the Guard's headquarters.
The Bush aides Burkett named as participants in the telephone
conversation were Chief of Staff Joe M. Allbaugh and spokespersons Karen
Hughes and Dan Bartlett. All three Bush aides and former Texas National
Guard Maj. Gen. Daniel James have strongly denied the allegations.
Suspicions that Burkett could have been a source for the CBS documents
first surfaced earlier this week when Newsweek magazine reported that
Mapes flew to Texas to interview him over the summer. Yesterday, the
New York Times reported that a CBS staffer, speaking on condition of
anonymity, confirmed that Burkett was a source for the "60 Minutes"
report but "did not know the exact role he played."
Yesterday reporters from several news organizations were camped near
Blair, Tex., outside Burkett's home, which is on a working ranch, with a
gate barring access to a one-story farmhouse and a pickup truck outside.
At 6 p.m. Central Time, Burkett walked to the gate on his cane with a
black dog by his side to collect his mail. He refused to answer
questions over whether he provided the documents to CBS.
"Get out my way," he told the reporters. "You need to go home."
Earlier this year, Burkett gave interviews to numerous news outlets,
including The Washington Post, alleging corruption and malfeasance at
the top of the Texas National Guard, many of which have never been
substantiated. He has also been a named source for several reports by
USA Today, which reported Monday that it had independently obtained
copies of the disputed memos soon after the broadcast.
Like CBS News, USA Today has declined to name the source of its memos on
the grounds of confidentiality.
Burkett, who served with the Texas National Guard in an administrative
capacity before his 1998 retirement, has been involved in a bitter
dispute with the Guard over medical benefits after suffering from a
tropical disease following a military assignment to Panama. He has told
reporters that he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for
depression after he left the Guard.
Burkett has provided different accounts of exactly what Bush records he
allegedly saw in the trash can at Camp Mabry. At times, he has
described them as "payroll-type documents" and performance assessments.
But in an Aug. 14 posting to a Web log, www.steveverdon.com, he said he
saw "a two-page counseling statement" signed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian,
the officer named by "60 Minutes" as the author of its Bush memos.
Author James Moore, who relied on Burkett as a primary source for a book
attacking Bush as having wriggled out of his Guard service, said in an
interview yesterday that he did not think Burkett provided the memos to
CBS. "His life is complicated enough already, and I don't why he would
make further complications for himself," Moore said.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, 39 Republican House members, led by Majority
Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), wrote a letter to Heyward demanding that CBS
retract its report. Accusing the network of becoming "part of a
campaign to deceive the public and to defame the president," the
lawmakers said: "CBS reporters would not accept such behavior from
public officials like ourselves, and we cannot accept it from them."
Bingo! ---- DSH
Separately, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), citing reports in The Post
and the Dallas Morning News, asked that a House communications
subcommittee investigate what he called "the continued use of CBS News
of apparently forged documents" intended to damage Bush's reputation and
"influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election." But the
panel's chairman, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), rejected the request, saying
that the oversight of network news should be left to the viewing public
and news media.
In a related development, White House press secretary Scott McClellan
hinted that more documents regarding Bush's National Guard service may
soon be released. Asked whether officials in the White House have seen
unreleased documents, McClellan called that "a very real possibility."
Other officials with knowledge of the situation said more documents had
indeed been uncovered and would be released in the coming days."
"Staff writers Howard Kurtz and Dana Milbank in Washington and Sylvia
Moreno in Baird, Tex., contributed to this report."
----------------------------------------
Dan Rather's arse is definitely in a sling ---- and so is 60 Minutes and
so is CBS News.
Edward R. Murrow must be spinnning in his grave ---- he would be livid
about this ---- indeed it would never have happened on his watch.
Back in Murrow's day you could trust CBS News much more so than you can
today.
Martin Reboul
"a.spencer3" <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:4YS1d.27$fg...@newsfe1-win.ntli.net...
>
> "Howard Berkowitz" <h...@gettcomm.com> wrote in message
> news:hcb-AB330D.1...@news-central.giganews.com...
> > In article
> > <hXI1d.44127$vkm....@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>,
> > "Michael Hopper" <mikeh...@rogers.com> wrote:
> >
> > > "Sheila J" <wols...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> > > news:bhI1d.11480$%S.8195@pd7tw2no...
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >>Chuckle, no but it's a good point. When it comes right down to it
> > > >>deciding
> > > >>which of the candidates is most concerned about his people as
> > > >>individuals
> > > >>I
> > > >>have to go with Bush. Kerry may have a wider sense of social good but
> I
> > > >>suspect it's mostly intellectual and stems from ambition. I get a warm
> > > >>and
> > > >>fuzzy watching George and Laura that I don't with John and his pickle
> > > >>heiress but I don't pretend to be an expert and would like your
> > > >>opinion.
> > > > I'm
> > > >>too suspicious of politicians in general. -the Troll
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > so
> > > > than georgie...but....you can't always know. She seems like a
> southern
> > > > lady
> > > > seem
> > > > to be a farce the way others in that office have presented there
> > > > marriages....(Clintons come to mind.....) The ketchup lady, IMVHO is
> > > > hurting Kerry more than helping. She's grossly weathly, sporting her
> > > > deaad
> > > > hubby's name and money and Kerry is just there for window
> > > > dressing.Ketchup
> > > > lady should have done better at all the hobnobbing that goes
> > > > on......she
> > > > just doesn't seem to come across as well as Mrs. Bush. But you can't
> > > > go
> > > > wrong having Mrs. Bush Snr as a role model@
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > According to some Mrs Bush Snr is far from a role model. See
> > >
> > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/salon/0,14779,1304379,00.html
> > >
> > > the
> > > Bush clan.
> > >
> > > mike
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Kitty Kelley is hardly a role model for accurate journalism. While I
> > can't claim I really know her, I once spent a couple of hours in a first
> > class cabin with Barbara Sr and some associates. She came across as one
> > of the most charismatic (in a good way) people I've ever met. I've spent
> > thirty=plus years in the DC area and known my share of politicians, many
> > of whom are mostly style. She came across as genuinely caring about
> > everyone she encountered.
>
> Agreed, as far as we can tell from the UK.
> Note that no-one even mentions Mrs. Blair!
Little wonder... she's the only woman I've ever seen who has a mouth like
Sue-Ellen from Dallas, a cross between Lamb Chop and Dame Edna Everidge.
Attempts to keep her away from the media as much as possible seem to have
failed, as (shock - horror!) I think I saw she was to be interviewed on Richard
& Judy any day now.... as if poor Tony didn't have enough problems!
Cheers
Martin
Martin Reboul
> >
> > I never believed Pravda either
> > no matter what the word means
>
Surely they wouldn't lie about that?
Martin Reboul
"Paul J Gans" <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ciad2c$75e$2...@reader1.panix.com...
To go one step ahead here, if these documents are forgeries, it was quickly and
easily spotted by members of the public. I can't believe that anyone seriously
doing such a forgery would overlook such a simple thing as using the right sort
of typewriter, ink and paper.... in other words, I'd suspect it was a double
bluff to take the heat off someone and cast doubts in directions where they are
rather desperately needed....?
Cheers
Martin
hippo
"Vaughan Sanders" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
> snip
>
> > Fox hunters can drag hunt. We've been doing it for years.
> They could hippo but it wouldn't do the foxes a lot of good. The 9 out
> of 10 Scottish hunts that are still going after it's banning there, have
> killed twice as many foxes as the hounds ever caught.
> Remember this is a ban on hunting with dogs by men in red coats, the fox
> is still vermin to be shot on site, also the young healthy foxes that
> the hounds can't catch break cover first and are first to be shot.
> A big demo going on today by the countryside people, but seemingly
> easily controlled by the riot police with their shield wall and
> truncheons, the heavy horse of the Metropolitan Police that William
> thinks you only have to say *boo* to and they will run away weren't
> needed.
> Still Blair's Nu-Lab has to keep his Old-Lab wing happy and let them
> have their revenge for the miners strike and poll tax that Maggie
> inflicted on them.
> Odd really, Maggie never came across as a country person to me.
The farmers can use poison on the foxes. I know it's the principle of the
thing but there is nothing wrong with drag hunting. You can set a course up
to the skill of the hunters like ranking ski slopes so that you don't have
newbies dumped off with broken limbs at jumps and you don't wind up with a
gimp fox where the hunt is over before it has properly begun. Your problems
are probably due to not having brought enough people into hunting. Now the
PETA people outnumber hunters. Here even the Liberals have learned not to
piss off the hunting interests. -the Troll
Brian Sharrock
One UK point of view you may not have heard of is the
complete bafflement over the Rove-Howard relationship.
As it's being reported over here Karl Rove has barred access
by Michael Howard to the presence of George W Bush.
Rove (who I assume is Leo to W's Bartlett?) seems to have
stated that the questioning by the Leader of the Opposition
of the Prime Minister 'is hurting our buddy/poodle Blair":
he has accordingly informed Howard 'not to bother coming
to Washington 'cos you'll never get into the White House".
It's somewhat interesting that the UK _and_ USA have not
appointed Ambassadors to each other's capital.
Now, I don't know how accurate the reports are; nor do I
know what advise 'W' is getting: but, ....
if one were to attempt to find a correlation between the
'Anti-American,Yanks go home!" and the 'Pro-American,
Support the Special Relationship"axis against the 'Dyed
in the Wool Socialists" and "Right Wing of the Tory Party"
axis then IMHO, the Yank-hating group has a very high
correlation with the Labour party.end of the spectrum and
the Pro-American group has an equal correlation with the
Right end of the spectrum.
It's baffling, to me, that the Republican party should be
so insensitive to the political facts in Britain. Tony Blair
gave a ringing, some might say doe-eyed, endorsement to
Clinton ; yet refuses to give any similar endorsement of
the Bush candidature.
Britons see many, many, slights in the relationship between
the two nations;- these include in no particular order;-
#Journalists reporting being held in chains and incarcerated,
denied access to counsel and deported.
#Families being separated and held in chains .... etc.
# Royal Marine Commando being shot by US Special Forces
# Policeman being 'disrespectful to Colonels of Infantry Regt. ...
#A10 pilots strafing Household Cavalry ...
#USS Fauld ...
From the UK, it seems that the USA is _with deliberation_
forgetting who its friends are ...you've definitely slighted
your natural allies.
--
Brian
a.spencer3
"Doug McDonald" <mcdo...@scs.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:cia1bl$t69$1...@news.ks.uiuc.edu...
> a.spencer3 wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm not talking about complex print composers, but office typewriters.
> > The 'golf ball' typewriters were readily available in the mid-1960s at
> > nothing like the prices you mention. Fact.
> > I may be wrongly attributing the proportional spacing to the 'golf
balls' -
> > it was 40 years ago! I'd have to check But, certainly, proportional
spacing
> > was also available in the same period at 'ordinary' pricing. Fact.
>
>
> The Golf balls did not do proportional spaciong except in the
> exceedingly expensive Composer. The proportional spacing at
> ordinary prices did not do the "th" superscript, nor did it have the
> line spacing of the forgeries.
>
> However, a very out-of-the-box Microsoft Word on an HP LaserJet
> duplicates the forgeries down to the pixel.
>
Yep, it appears so - now - from the experts' analyses.
Was this very obvious answer not previously examined by either side?
Surreyman
a.spencer3
"D. Spencer Hines" <pogue...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%z%1d.51$C14....@eagle.america.net...
> This is one important reason we need to keep stressing that Abu Musab
> al-Zarqawi, who is one of the baddest of the bad, is a JORDANIAN [which
> he is] and that King Abdullah and his Jordanian Government are
> RESPONSIBLE for helping us bag him.
>
> Our diplomats must get that message out strong and clear to the
> Jordanians -- "help us bag him, otherwise you are part of the problem --
> not part of the solution."
>
> "You must help us dispose of your human trash -- Jordanian terrorists."
>
> By ALL MEANS AVAILABLE ---- COVERT, OVERT, FINANCIAL, MEDIA, DIPLOMATIC,
> MILITARY, NAVAL, et alia.
>
Oh, you stupid, stupid moron.
You make yourself more ridiculous with every word you utter. And by now you
*must* be approaching the max, surely?
Hint - Zarqawi isn't in Jordan.
Do you have any inkling at all?
Try reading, for instance:
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html
I'd be interested in your learned comments.
Surreyman
a.spencer3
> do NOT want you to think about that aspect of it.
>
Sorry, but whilst Republicans and Democrats continue to have instant
stereotyped views according to their politics, few outside of the US are
going to be very impressed with either.
Are USians not capable of arriving at an opinion outside of their political
labels?
Is it not possible to generally approve or disapprove of a particular
person, whilst also admitting that he/she might not be totally
perfect/imperfect?
Is there a single Republican who thinks Bush wriggled and dodged?
Is there a single Democrat who regards him as having fully-served within
that context?
I doubt it. Which is why many of us just don't listen any more.
Surreyman
a.spencer3
>
> "a.spencer3" wrote in message
>
> > "hippo" wrote in message
>
> > > I never believed Pravda either
> > > no matter what the word means
> >
> > 'Truth'!
>
>
>
And known amongst some of us for years as S'trewth!
Surreyman
a.spencer3
>
> > Here the news had been mostly about four, now five, recent storms
hitting
> the SE of the US doing billions in damage. So far they have hit just about
> everywhere but here. -the Troll
>
>
and fine, although the house has gone". Sic!
Then, worryingly, the phone lines went and we're still waiting to hear more.
Surreyman
John Cartmell
The best way of reducing fox numbers is to stop hunting. There are three or
four processes going on in the UK that ensures that hunting = more foxes.
Just one of those processes operated in Australia where there were no foxes
until the hunts wanted them - now they are a massive pest responsible for
wiping out whole species of local animals. Directly and solely down to
people wanting to hunt. The concept of The Hunt being composed of country
people who understand animals is a massive lie.
John Cartmell
And talking about newspapers and finding good in one's natural enemies. I
quite like today's headline in the Sun! ;-)
a.spencer3
"John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4cef42b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> In article <ZRc2d.34$Mq3...@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>,
> a.spencer3 <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > And known amongst some of us for years as S'trewth!
>
> And talking about newspapers and finding good in one's natural enemies. I
> quite like today's headline in the Sun! ;-)
>
You obviously read it - what is it!
Surreyman
John Cartmell
<a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Now that *is* an insult! And I had to search for the unlikely combination
of "The Sun" and "Newspaper" in order to check if the exclamation mark was
there. ;-)
FOR
FOX
SAKE!
An old one - but not one I expected to see on the front cover of the Sun.
a.spencer3
> In article <2Qd2d.78$SQ3...@newsfe2-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:4cef42b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > > In article <ZRc2d.34$Mq3...@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> > > <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > > > And known amongst some of us for years as S'trewth!
> > >
> > > And talking about newspapers and finding good in one's natural
> > > enemies. I quite like today's headline in the Sun! ;-)
> > >
>
> > You obviously read it - what is it!
>
> Now that *is* an insult! And I had to search for the unlikely combination
> of "The Sun" and "Newspaper" in order to check if the exclamation mark was
> there. ;-)
>
> FOR
> FOX
> SAKE!
>
> An old one - but not one I expected to see on the front cover of the Sun.
>
Oh yes!
Surreyman
John Cartmell
<a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:4cef484...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > In article <2Qd2d.78$SQ3...@newsfe2-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> > <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> > > "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > > news:4cef42b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > > > In article <ZRc2d.34$Mq3...@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> > > > <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > > > > And known amongst some of us for years as S'trewth!
> > > >
> > > > And talking about newspapers and finding good in one's natural
> > > > enemies. I quite like today's headline in the Sun! ;-)
> > > >
> >
> > > You obviously read it - what is it!
> >
> > Now that *is* an insult! And I had to search for the unlikely
> > combination of "The Sun" and "Newspaper" in order to check if the
> > exclamation mark was there. ;-)
> >
> > FOR FOX SAKE!
> >
> > An old one - but not one I expected to see on the front cover of the
> > Sun.
> >
> Oh yes!
and take a look at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1305705,00.html
a.spencer3
> In article <2de2d.51$vd4...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:4cef484...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > > In article <2Qd2d.78$SQ3...@newsfe2-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> > > <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > > > news:4cef42b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > > > > In article <ZRc2d.34$Mq3...@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>, a.spencer3
> > > > > <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > > > > > And known amongst some of us for years as S'trewth!
> > > > >
> > > > > And talking about newspapers and finding good in one's natural
> > > > > enemies. I quite like today's headline in the Sun! ;-)
> > > > >
> > >
> > > > You obviously read it - what is it!
> > >
> > > Now that *is* an insult! And I had to search for the unlikely
> > > combination of "The Sun" and "Newspaper" in order to check if the
> > > exclamation mark was there. ;-)
> > >
> > > FOR FOX SAKE!
> > >
> > > An old one - but not one I expected to see on the front cover of the
> > > Sun.
> > >
>
> > Oh yes!
>
> and take a look at:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1305705,00.html
>
Gawd, the Xpress is boring today!
Surreyman
Dallas Patterson
Martin Reboul wrote:
Sorry, but that tired old dirty trick of blaming the victim won't work
either. Published reports allege these forged documents or other forged
documents similar to the CBS documents were also being offered for sale
back in the 2000 election. If Dan Rather had not chosen to disregard the
experts CBS hired, who said the documents could not be authenticated
because they appeared to be forgeries, these forgeries would have been
ignored just as they were in the 2000 election. Now CBS is reported to
be investigating the backgrounds of the authentication experts they
hired to see if they can find any disparaging information to tarnish and
smear their reputations and judgement. Other sources report receiving
leaks from Kerry Campaign insiders alleging they are strongly suspicious
of MOVEON.ORG being responsible for giving the forged docuemtns to CBS
or creating the forgeries. However, there are other reports alleging
that the seller of the documents in the 2000 election is an associate of
Barnes in Texas and suspects Barnes and his associate may have something
to do with the production of the forgeries.
Ed Stasiak
> > esta...@att.net (Ed Stasiak) wrote
> >
> > Hillary decides to take a run for the presidency in 2008,
> > I'm guessing the Reps will put up Colin Powell as Bush's
> > replacement.
>
> I am not at all sure that CP would run. His wife is known to be
> adamant about not wanting him to run for fear that (note: on-topic
> foul in abt-c) what happened to Robby Jackson in Teeth of the Tiger
> will happen to Colin.
Of course the 'Robby Jackson' scenario is always a possibility
as there are still racist nut-cases in the U.S., but assassination
is also always a danger for any Pres.
Still, Colin Powell is no doubt (at least IMO) the most respected
black man in the history of the U.S. and one of the most respected
Americans overall. Were he to run for Pres in 2008, I predict a
land slide victory for him and overwhelmingly so if he's up against
Hillary.
Not only does he have the respect of virtually all Americans (hell,
even my 83 y.o. Mom has the hots for him!) but he's guaranteed the
military vote, all but the most radically Leftist black vote,(and
that's a _major_ advantage) conservative white Americans like him,
world opinion would be very favorable and the media would have a
hell of a time making him look bad.
The only American's that wouldn't vote for Powell are the hard
core Dem/Leftists and the fringe KKK type kooks. (and the Rep's
will paint any opposition to Powel as purely racism)
Personally I don't think American's are ready for a female Pres
anyway and Hillary would lose against all but the most incompetent
Rep, while the vast majority would be at least comfortable with
Colin Powell as the first black president.
Besides, ain't no way the Rep's will run Dick Cheney even if
there wasn't the baggage from the Iraq invasion to deal with,
the guy just doesn't click with the average American.
Then again, the Rep's have the bad habit of shooting themselves
in foot....
William Black
"Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote in message
news:f33e00ab.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > "William Black" <ab...@hotmail.com> wrote
> >
> > If Kerry wins he gets to stand next time, if he looses
> > Hillary Clinton is the automatic candidate with no incumbent
> > president to fight...
>
> Assuming Bush wins a second term (and thou it will be
> close, I believe he will) and Hillary decides to take
> a run for the presidency in 2008, I'm guessing the Reps
> will put up Colin Powell as Bush's replacement.
The reason Powell didn't run the last time is that his wife wouldn't let
him.
However I'd be delighted to see him take on Hillary Clinton in a
presidential election, the more insane elements on both sides would hate
both of them...
And both candidates would stand head and shoulders above both candidates
this time...
--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government
William Black
> In article <cia954$75k$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Vaughan Sanders <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > They could hippo but it wouldn't do the foxes a lot of good. The 9 out
> > of 10 Scottish hunts that are still going after it's banning there, have
> > killed twice as many foxes as the hounds ever caught.
>
> The England and Wales Bill is quite different from the Scottish Bill that
> had a loophole that warped minds could find their way through.
So what will they do when the people involved just keep hunting?
You can't lock up 150,000 people and if they keep taking days off to drive
around on the M25 at 20 miles an hour you can't run the country either.
As the bikers found out a decade ago and the Poll Tax protestors found out
even earlier a campaign of civil disobedience works, mainly because the
government can't actually do anything about it if the people involved are
otherwise law abiding..
Doug McDonald
>
> Is there a single Republican who thinks Bush wriggled and dodged?
> Is there a single Democrat who regards him as having fully-served within
> that context?
Both Bush and Kerry, as rich kids who were not exactly the height
of intellect (i.e. not genuine grad school material), sought
and obtained the standard positions that normally kept
guys out of danger.
Bush was smarter and had lots of fun flying airplanes in
(relative ... the planes were somewhat dodgy) safety. Near the
end of his time and the war, he shifted to a non-flying position,
at the same time his type plane was being decommissioned.
Kerry for a while stayed out of harms way but evntually
got into it, managed to avoid all but a few teensy missles,
took those teensy (some self-inflicted) wounds to the bank by
getting out of Vietnam in the unheard-of (for the uninjured, as he
in fact was) time of four months.
All of this was perfectly ordinary (except Kerry's luck in getting
out of Vietnam). There is really no story there on either side.
And there is no story at all for Bush.
Of course, there is a big story for Kerry when he got home
and started aiding the enemy, eventually with success, leading
to the enslavement of millions of people under ruthless
Communist regimes.
We need to remember history: Kerry's entire lifetime record
leads one to expect that he would arrange a victory for the
terrorists, should be win the Presidency.
Doug McDonald
D. Spencer Hines
Americans are voting with their remote controls and tuning out Dan
Rather.
The Wages Of Incompetence, Bias, Sloth And Corruption At CBS.
DSH
------------------------------
"CBS CONCERN OVER VIEWERSHIP PLUNGE; RATHER RATINGS FADE IN MAJOR
MARKETS"
"CBS executives on both coasts have become concerned in recent days that
Dan Rather's EVENING NEWS broadcast has plunged in the ratings since the
anchor presented questionable documents about Bush's National Guard
service.
NIELSEN numbers released this week show Rather fading and trailing his
rivals in every Top 10 city, other than San Francisco, with audience
margins in some cities running more than 6 to 1 against CBS!
Executives fear many voters inclined to vote for Bush are now switching
off Rather.
"The audience appears to becoming polarized," a top CBS source said from
LOS ANGELES on Thursday. "Rightly or wrongly, we're being perceived as
'anti-Bush,' which I do not think is fair to Dan, who is a fine
journalist... of course we do not like to see the ratings coming back
the way they are this week."
In Philadelphia, the nation's #4 market, Rather pulled a 2.6 rating/5
share on Tuesday night against ABC's 13.3 rating/23 share and NBC's
4.0/7.
In Chicago, Rather hit a 2.3/5 to ABC's 9.2/20.
CBS trailed ABC by more than 2 to 1 in Los Angeles.
And in the nation's top market, New York, Rather finished not only
behind NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT -- but also pulled
less audience than reruns of the SIMPSONS, WILL & GRACE and KING OF
QUEENS.
Hilarious! Even Gothamites are turning Rather off. ---- DSH
Rather finished dead last in New York during the 6:30 pm timeslot among
all broadcast channels tracked by NIELSEN on Tuesday.
Developing..."
Matt Drudge
------------------------------------
Dan Rather's arse is definitely in a sling ---- and so is 60 Minutes and
so is CBS News.
Edward R. Murrow must be spinning in his grave ---- he would be livid
Doug McDonald
>
> Still, Colin Powell is no doubt (at least IMO) the most respected
> black man in the history of the U.S. and one of the most respected
> Americans overall. Were he to run for Pres in 2008, I predict a
> land slide victory for him and overwhelmingly so if he's up against
> Hillary.
>
WHAT????
> Not only does he have the respect of virtually all Americans (hell,
> even my 83 y.o. Mom has the hots for him!) but he's guaranteed the
> military vote, all but the most radically Leftist black vote,(and
> that's a _major_ advantage) conservative white Americans like him,
You are deluded. Seriously deluded. Conservative Americans
might have liked him before be became Secretary of State and
since has done nothing to aid the war of terror. Not only that,
but the State Department has essentially imploded, because
it has not been able to adapt to the job of "America First"
rather than it's traditional position of "sophisticated"
auto-naval-watching.
Doug McDonald
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
"Doug McDonald" <mcdo...@scs.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:cicf4l$shs$1...@news.ks.uiuc.edu...
| You are deluded. Seriously deluded. Conservative Americans
| might have liked him before be became Secretary of State and
| since has done nothing to aid the war of [sic] terror. Not only that,
| but the State Department has essentially imploded, because
| it has not been able to adapt to the job of "America First"
| rather than it's [sic] traditional position of "sophisticated"
| auto-naval-watching. [sic]
|
| Doug McDonald
a.spencer3
Now, would you be Republican? :-))
Surreyman
Domenico Rosa
> US posters should also accept that there is an element of despair as in "Is
> that really the best they can do?". The only UK candidate for PM within my
> lifetime that was as poor as either the current Presidential candidates
> seem from over here, was 3rd party Liberal Party candidate John J Thorpe.
> He didn't have a one in a million chance; I wish that was the case with
> Bush & Kerry.
You can alleviate your "element of despair" by contemplating the fact
that in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was in the early stages of
Alzheimer's, he received 59% of the votes and carried 49 states. DR
Martin Reboul
"William Black" <ab...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:cice7q$s30$1...@news.freedom2surf.net...
>
> "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:4cef0ff...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> > In article <cia954$75k$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> > Vaughan Sanders <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > > They could hippo but it wouldn't do the foxes a lot of good. The 9 out
> > > of 10 Scottish hunts that are still going after it's banning there, have
> > > killed twice as many foxes as the hounds ever caught.
> >
> > The England and Wales Bill is quite different from the Scottish Bill that
> > had a loophole that warped minds could find their way through.
>
> So what will they do when the people involved just keep hunting?
>
> You can't lock up 150,000 people and if they keep taking days off to drive
> around on the M25 at 20 miles an hour you can't run the country either.
>
> As the bikers found out a decade ago and the Poll Tax protestors found out
> even earlier a campaign of civil disobedience works, mainly because the
> government can't actually do anything about it if the people involved are
> otherwise law abiding..
The police didn't seem to be very restrained yesterday, which surprised me. For
once I wasn't too infuriated to see them cracking skulls, when hunters become
the hunted and hurt, I really can't say anything other than 'serves them right'
(I notice the police had no cavalry - perhaps nervous about deploying them
against people who know how to deal with horses?)
An embarrassing day for the government again... had those been suicide bombers
instead of spoilt brats who made it into the Commons Chamber, things might have
been very nasty indeed.
Although my views on fox hunting are diametrically opposed to yours William, I'm
sure we agree on one thing - the way the government has dealt with this issue is
a disgrace. The vast majority of the population are against hunting, Labour were
voted in seven years ago with that as part of their manifesto, yet they have
wheedled, backed down, delayed things, spun it out, made excuses and finally
employed devious back door methods to finally get something done. By doing so,
they have looked weak and vulnerable (despite having a huge majority and the
support of most of the people) and managed to appear dishonest, untrustworthy
and inept to boot. There's far more to this than fox-hunting!
Cheers
Martin
Martin Reboul
"Dallas Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
news:4149A493...@fidalgo.net...
Hmmm... who is 'the victim' though?
Would that be the same Barnes of 'Barnes Review' fame, which showed such a
peculiar interest in the infamous KRS? If it is, I'd not say they are very adept
at spotting forgeries, never mind making them!
Cheers
Martin
Martin Reboul
"a.spencer3" <a.spe...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2de2d.51$vd4...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
Didn't she usually appear on page three?
D. Spencer Hines
"A Media Watershed
Dan Rather and the end of the liberal monopoly."
Thursday, September 16, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
"However the flap over CBS and those National Guard "memos" turns out,
the past few weeks mark a milestone in U.S. media and politics. Along
with the Swift Boat Veterans' ads, the widespread challenge to Dan
Rather's reporting -- to his credibility -- means that the liberal media
establishment has ceased to set the U.S. political agenda.
This is potentially a big cultural moment. For decades liberal media
elites were able to define current debates by all kicking in the same
direction, like the Rockettes. Now and then they can still pull this
off, as when they all repeated the same Pentagon-promoted-torture line
during the Abu Ghraib uproar. But the last month has widened cracks in
that media monopoly that have been developing for some time.
Twenty years ago, those who sought a different point of view had few
alternatives beyond The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and small
magazines like National Review and The American Spectator. But in 1987
the Reagan Administration abolished the so-called Fairness Doctrine,
whose main effect had been to stifle controversy on the airwaves by
threatening stations with the obligation to provide equal time. The
result was an explosion in political talk radio, led by Rush Limbaugh,
who filled an unmet demand for right-leaning commentary.
Then, in 1996, Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News Channel, providing a
"fair and balanced" alternative to CNN and the broadcast networks. By
2001 Fox had surpassed its competitors to become the top-rated cable
news channel. And in the past few years, the "blogosphere" has allowed
a million flowers to bloom. Anyone with a computer can start a Web log
and become a pundit, and the smartest and most enterprising have
developed loyal followings.
Thanks to these developments, the blue-state media elites no longer
control America's political debate. Just in the past year, California
voters elected Arnold Schwarzenegger despite election-eve groping
charges trumpeted in the Los Angeles Times. A public outcry prompted
CBS to cancel a mendacious miniseries about Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
And the mainstream media were dragged kicking and screaming into
covering the Swift Boat Veterans' accusations against John Kerry. Even
in South Dakota, bloggers and the Web have challenged the dominance that
Tom Daschle's pals at the Argus Leader have long had on that state's
political dialogue.
The current CBS "60 Minutes" imbroglio splendidly illustrates how the
old political and media order has eroded. Democrats nominated Mr. Kerry
in part because they thought his status as a Vietnam War hero would make
him a formidable challenger -- an assumption the liberal media echoed.
When that proved a miscalculation, Democrats talked about reviving the
story about the President's National Guard service. Mr. Rather, a
longtime Bush family antagonist and scourge of the political right, then
broadcast the alleged memos from Mr. Bush's former commanding officer,
and at least some of the old Rockettes (such as the Boston Globe) kicked
in unison. Democrats released their own video on the subject,
"Fortunate Son," not too long thereafter.
But then came the challenge to the memos' authenticity from the blogging
world, which was quickly picked up by some mainstream media reporters
(most aggressively ABC and the Washington Post). Soon enough the big
story became not what Mr. Bush did during the war, but was Mr. Rather
selling us more bull than a Texas ranch, as the CBS anchor might have
put it on one of his newscasts.
Mr. Rather and his CBS bosses are sticking to their story, despite the
growing evidence on the other side, leaving unanswered the biggest
question of all: Who perpetrated this apparent fraud on CBS and the
American voters? As journalists who sometimes go out on a limb
ourselves, we'd have thought Mr. Rather's first recourse would not be to
get mad but instead to double-and triple-check his sources.
That Mr. Rather isn't disclosing those sources, despite the damage to
his reputation, raises the possibility that they are connected to the
Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign. If that is true, then Mr.
Rather would be revealed not just as a dupe, but also as the willing
vehicle for a political dirty trick. In any case, there's no question
that CBS is feeling the heat -- and that it felt it far more quickly and
intensely than it would have 20 years ago.
None of this is to suggest that the liberal media are dead, much less
that conservatives now dominate the press corps. The traditional media
remain important if diminished; liberals are trying to make inroads into
talk radio (Air America) and cable news (Al Gore's prospective network),
and there is no shortage of left-wing bloggers.
All of which is to the good. The Rather episode shows that a
competitive media marketplace serves the cause of truth, and does so
with impressive speed. It also reminds us of the dangers of arrogance
and complacency -- temptations from which none of us, regardless of
ideology, are immune."
Vaughan Sanders
Nice pictures in the Mail today John, pages of them, young countryside
girls with their faces smashed by Nu-Lab's storm troopers.
Then we had Tony Banks on radio 2 making himself look the prat he is by
insulting a countryside woman. All I could add to Greg Dyke's
description of Banks and his cronies is, *Jackbooted* Deranged Political
Thugs.
Ps, a bit cowardly of your leader Loony Toon not to turn up at the House
to vote wasn't it?
Jamie-