BeldarBlog

Rathergate day 3 update

Culled shamelessly from InstaPundit in the most part, here's what my quick skim suggests to be the latest developments on the forged documents that CBS News continues to peddle:

• The Boston Globe continues to vie with CBS and the AP for the "2004 Biggest and Most Shameless Mainstream Media Liar Award," wrenching badly out of context its quotes from forensic document and typeface expert Dr. Philip D. Bouffard to suggest that he now supports the authenticity of the CBS News documents.  Blogger Bill at INDC Journal has been in direct contact with the very disgusted Dr. Bouffard, reporting here, here, and ; he's updating prior posts and adding frequent new posts, so be sure to check his main page as well.
• Wizbang! reports that CBS News tonight gratefully and shamelessly repeated the Globe's lies about Dr. Bouffard.  The CBS News website has been updated to include a reference to the Globe story, plus this misleading (and sloppy) statement:  "Anchor Russ Mitchell of the Saturday edition of the CBS Evening News says CBS News contacted Broussard [sic] Saturday, and Broussard said he could not dismiss the documents as fake, but he needs to do more analysis before coming to a final conclusion."
• A certified forensic document examiner contacted by the Washington Times, Eugene P. Hussey, disagrees with CBS News' expert Marcel Matley on the authenticity of Col. Killian's signature(s) on the CBS News documents, and also "agreed with experts who say the CBS documents are 'computer generated,' meaning they could not have been produced in the early 1970s."
• Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports (if you scroll down far enough) that in their interview with him, Matley himself "said he had only judged a May 4, 1972, memo — in which Killian ordered Bush to take his physical — to be authentic.  He said he did not form a judgment on the three other disputed memos because they only included Killian's initials and he did not have validated samples of the officer's initials to use for comparison. A CBS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the network had two other document experts, who CBS did not identify, examine the documents, which were copies of the originals."  As I wrote yesterday, I believe that Matley lacks the training and expertise to render opinions on anything other than signatures and handwriting.
• WaPo reports that "Matley said last night that a '60 Minutes' executive had asked him not to give interviews."  When, as a lawyer, I hire an expert witness to provide opinion testimony to support my client's position in an adversarial matter, I give him similar instructions. I do so because I'm concerned that if the other side speaks to my expert without my participation, the other side will do to my expert what the Boston Globe has done with Dr. Bouffard — confuse the situation and grab quotes out of context to try to discredit my expert or his opinions.  When I give that instruction, though, I know full well that the other side will have a full opportunity to examine in advance a written report with my expert's conclusions, plus a written curriculum vitae detailing his credentials and experience; examine everything he's looked at or considered in coming to his opinions; and then cross-examine him fully under oath.  Thus does the adversary system promote the seeking and finding of truth.  But CBS News supposedly doesn't have a client and supposedly isn't an advocate for one side or the other.  Their instruction to Matley therefore simply and shamefully opposes the process of finding the truth.  [This paragraph added by Beldar in an update on Sat Sep 11 @ 8:00pm.]
• ABC News reports that one of the sources CBS News principally relied upon — retired Maj. General Hodges, who was Killian's supervisor at the Texas Air National Guard — "feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered," and that "CBS told him the documents were 'handwritten' and after CBS read him excerpts he said, 'well if he wrote them that's what he felt.'"  According to ABC News, "Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been 'computer generated' and are a 'fraud.'"
• Pete Slover of the Dallas Morning News — who, in 1999, co-wrote an authoritative and exhaustive debunking of Ben Barnes' claims to have secured Dubya's spot in TANG — confirms that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt, the officer referenced in one of the CBS documents dated August 18, 1973, as pressuring Col. Killian to "sugarcoat" his evaluation of Dubya, was in fact "honorably discharged on March 1, 1972."  Slover's story also quotes former TANG officers who mockingly reject CBS News' latest theory, that Staudt somehow continued to be in a position to exert pressure over Killian even after his retirement.

I've made no effort to list or link the many other discussions in the blogosphere and, commendably, in the mainstream media over the last 24 hours regarding this controversy.  But if I've missed an important development, I hope my readers will so alert me in the comments to this post.

On 9/11/01 plus three, I worry about John Kerry's short memory

Shortly before last year's anniversary of the 9/11 attack, I wrote a post entitled "Debriedment," which is a fairly obscure medical term for an extremely painful process that severe burn victims undergo on their long paths toward healing.  This time last year, I was angry that on the second anniversary of 9/11, so many Americans seemed to be shushing their fellow citizens who were actively reminding them of the horrors of 9/11.

This morning I awoke suddenly, from a sound and much-needed sleep, at about the same time when, three years ago, the first plane hit the World Trade Center.  And I spent about an hour reviewing old news reports, blog entries, photographs and video clips, and so forth on the internet.  I tried to take stock, to see how I feel today about 9/11, and to compare that to how I've felt on the two previous anniversaries.

I concluded that for myself, at least, what's faded — or perhaps "healed" — has been the element of shock and surprise.  My horror, and my anger and outrage and determination, have not.  I am satisfied with this, on a personal basis.  Three years ago, I vowed that I would not forget, ever; and three years hence, I have not forgotten.  Thus, on a personal basis as a simple citizen, have I marked this anniversary of our greatest national tragedy in my lifetime.

But my reaction to this year's anniversary is also very much influenced by the fact that this is a presidential election year.  And so I write today on the subjects of memory and judgment over a period of three years, and what inferences we can draw on those subjects with respect to one of our presidential candidates.

*******

A few weeks ago, I read Doug Brinkley's description in Tour of Duty (pp. 117-24) about the few days John Kerry spent, back in 1968 before his Swift Boats service began, in the SERE training course — survival, evasion, resistance, and escape — designed to help him appreciate, and to prepare him for, the prospect of being hunted behind enemy lines and then made a prisoner of war.  This training is brutal, and designedly so.  My best friend from college underwent the SERE training as an Air Force pilot, and he told me that the only thing which enabled him to get through it without breaking, without cracking up and going catatonic, was the knowledge that it was, indeed, training and that he wasn't really a prisoner of war.  It was a very convincing bit of play-acting; but he knew he wasn't going to be maimed or executed, and one way or another, pass or fail, he knew it would end with him being free again.  For him, however, the training had its intended life-long effect.

As Brinkley describes it, Kerry's SERE training had a powerful effect on him.  It made as great an impression upon Kerry as military imagination and ingenuity could devise, short of actually handing him over to the North Vietnamese.  Here's part of what Brinkley relates about the training (at page 123; boldface mine):

A hood was placed over Kerry's head and he was ordered into a room for a private interview where the "big four" responses were name, rank, serial number, and, "I'm sorry, but my country will not allow me to tell you that."  The verbal drilling started in earnest and Kerry refused to speak.  After it was clear he wasn't going to cooperate, and once he had made the mistake of smirking again, he was punched in the face.  "I have never in all my life been hit as hard as that and for a moment I just glared straight ahead and tried to pull the senses back into their proper places," he wrote.  This went on for an hour with Kerry forced to do knee squats and push-ups.  "I started to do the push-ups but would not count them out loud," Kerry noted.  "We had been warned of this trick.  They make you count them and when you say ten or twelve or whatever push-up you are on they record your voice.  Later you hear a tape that asks the question: 'How many people's soldiers have you killed' and your voice answers on the tape 'ten' or 'twelve' or whatever number they chose to dub in.  Finally, again, I collapsed exhausted."

And yet:  Just under three years after his SERE training, in April 1971 John Kerry gave his infamous testimony to the  Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Sen. Fulbright.  And there — uncoerced, and indeed eagerly performing before TV cameras and the eyes of the world — Kerry gave testimony of a sort that he had to know would be seized upon and used in the mental torture of American POWs still in North Vietnamese hands:  Testimony of "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."  Testimony vastly more damning and useful to the enemy than some numeral stripped out of context and dubbed into a phonied-up tape recording, because indeed Kerry's sworn and unforced testimony wouldn't have to be stripped out of context to be used by the enemy. 

And so it was used by the enemy.  As ex-POW Paul Galanti recounts in the second SwiftVets ad, John Kerry "gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying."  As ex-POW wounded-in-action Vietnam vet Joe Ponder said in that ad, "The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam [were] just devastating.  And it hurt me more than any physical wounds I had."

*******

On September 11, 2001, America was punched in the face — a sucker punch harder than we'd ever been hit before in all our collective lives — harder even than Pearl Harbor, which at least had been directed at a military target, and which caused fewer American deaths.  As a country, we glared straight ahead and tried to pull the senses back in their proper places.

Three years after 9/11/01, it is clear to every American, and to the world, that our President hasn't forgotten that punch in the face, or what it meant.  It transformed him and his presidency, and has guided his every judgment and decision thereafter as our Commander in Chief.

But from his personal history between 1968 and 1971, I have serious doubts that Sen. Kerry has comparable powers of memory and judgment.

NPR's and Media Matters' hysteria exposed

There is a joy in life in exposing someone's loony conspiracy theories, elegantly and with style.  My friend Patterico has had a joyous night at the expense of NPR and Media Matters, whose latest theory — that the Freepers who first spotted the dubious CBS News documents must actually have authored and planted them — was exploded like the lightest and shortest-lived of soap bubbles.

The CBS News documents, the "Best Evidence Rule," and other relevant legal evidentiary principles

Apologies in advance, gentle readers.  This is going to be hard slogging, despite my best efforts to make it otherwise.

I. Framing the issues

On NRO's The Corner, Byron York writes:

The major news in CBS anchorman Dan Rather's defense of the alleged Bush National Guard documents is the revelation that CBS News does not have the original documents purportedly written by Bush's commanding officer Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. Rather reported tonight that the network's document consultant "believes they are real, but is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people now questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced, and the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned, and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with, which were also photocopies." That last clause is critical. Document experts say it would be relatively easy to determine the authenticity of a typewritten original; a typewriter makes a small indentation into the paper with each strike, and those indentations can be studied in great detail. But a photocopy is another thing. There's no way to analyze the physical aspects of the typewritten words, nor is there a way to analyze the actual signature. In fact, an image of a legitimate signature could have been placed onto a computer-generated document and then printed out and photocopied. The news is that CBS based its report on photocopies, making it difficult to determine whether or not the documents are in fact authentic.

I mostly agree.  However, with due respect to Mr. York (who's been doing yeoman's service as a TV commentator, columnist, and investigative journalist!), I for one never understood CBS News to claim that it had in its possession the "original documents."  I'm too foggy at the moment to hunt down a proper link, but my recollection is that CBS News has always claimed that it had photocopies of documents that it had obtained from its unnamed source.  I don't even recall an express representation by CBS News that its unnamed source had "original documents" bearing pen-and-ink signatures, but rather that its source had obtained photocopies from someone else — yet another, second-level unnamed source — who presumably (and it's an important presumption) has custody of the original "personal files" of Col. Killian.

I agree entirely — and I think everyone, including CBS News would agree — that without access to the original documents bearing the pen-and-ink signatures, no one can do a definitive analysis of the documents' authenticity.  One of the points CBS News' expert Mr. Matley makes in some of his written materials on the internet is that photocopies may suffice to disprove a document's authenticity in some circumstances, but they're far less effective in proving the document's authenticity.  It's CBS News' burden to prove these documents' authenticity if it wants the public to pay them any heed.

My lawyer readers will remember the evidentiary principle that corresponds here as the (poorly understood and widely misunderstood) "Best Evidence Rule."  One of the tips I remember receiving during my bar exam review course was that on any multiple choice question on the bar exam, a candidate is well advised to immediately eliminate any answer that relies upon either the "Best Evidence Rule" or the "Rule Against Perpetuities" because those are almost always red herring answers designed to play upon the candidate's fuzzy recollections and they're almost never the correct answer to any bar exam question.  Indeed, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen a "Best Evidence Rule" objection sustained in court (and on one finger the times that the Rule Against Perpetuities has come up in my twenty-four years of practice).

Here's a decent, rough and ready, working definition of the "Best Evidence Rule":

best evidence rule definition – in evidence parlance, it is the rule by which an original writing must be offered as evidence unless it is unavailable, in which case other evidence, like copies, notes, or other testimony can be used.

Stop here, gentle readers, if you'd like.  This rough and ready version, applied here, tells CBS News — "If you want anyone to believe you, cough up all you got, buddy!"

II. Methods of authentication

But if you want to dig more deeply, the Federal Rules of Evidence are, unsurprisingly, more complex and more precise than the rough and ready version I've quoted above.  They prescribe a complex but actually quite elegant and logical dance — an evidentiary decision tree.  Beginning at the root of the tree, from Rule 901(a):

The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims.

From the general to the specific, Rule 901(b) offers some pertinent nonexclusive "examples of [means for] authentication or identification conforming with the requirements of this rule":

(1) Testimony of witness with knowledge. Testimony that a matter is what it is claimed to be.

(2) Nonexpert opinion on handwriting. Nonexpert opinion as to the genuineness of handwriting, based upon familiarity not acquired for purposes of the litigation.

(3) Comparison by trier or expert witness. Comparison by the trier of fact or by expert witnesses with specimens which have been authenticated.

(4) Distinctive characteristics and the like. Appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics, taken in conjunction with circumstances....

(7) Public records or reports. Evidence that a writing authorized by law to be recorded or filed and in fact recorded or filed in a public office, or a purported public record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, is from the public office where items of this nature are kept.

(8) Ancient documents or data compilation. Evidence that a document or data compilation, in any form, (A) is in such condition as to create no suspicion concerning its authenticity, (B) was in a place where it, if authentic, would likely be, and (C) has been in existence 20 years or more at the time it is offered.

(9) Process or system. Evidence describing a process or system used to produce a result and showing that the process or system produces an accurate result.

These are all simply ways in which the proponent of a document may seek to have it authenticated and admitted into evidence — ways to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the judge that the document "is what its proponent claims."  In all the arguing that's been going on so far about the CBS News documents, we've all been intuitively using these same principles. 

For example, we've all been wondering about, and looking for, someone with personal knowledge.  Col. Killian's dead, though, and CBS News hasn't produced anyone else who can say, "Yes, I was there, I saw Col. Killian write that document, and it is what it purports to be." 

His wife or his son, or perhaps his colleagues, might properly be called upon to say, "I knew Col. Killian's handwriting, and that looks to me like his signature."  Or an expert like Mr. Matley might say, "Based on my expertise and a comparison of specimens of Col. Killian's signature on undisputed documents, my opinion is that this document bears his signature too."

Likewise, we've had people familiar with military documents from this period say, "Yup, this format and content, in these circumstances, do/do not look like what I'd expect to see."  We've had people who know about typewriters and computers say, "This does/doesn't look like something produced on a 1972-era typewriter."  That's not conclusive — none of these factors is absolutely conclusive, nor mutually exclusive — but each of them can count for something.

If there's authenticating evidence that would fit within any of the last three examples, we'd need to know more of the document's history and chain of custody.  If CBS News has such information, it's not yet disclosed it to the rest of us.

III. When can copies be used instead of originals anyway?

Moving to the next stage of the dance, or (mixing metaphors freely) higher up on the decision tree, Rule 1001's definitions also come into play:

For purposes of this article the following definitions are applicable:

(1) Writings and recordings. "Writings" and "recordings" consist of letters, words, or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, magnetic impulse, mechanical or electronic recording, or other form of data compilation....

(3) Original. An "original" of a writing or recording is the writing or recording itself or any counterpart intended to have the same effect by a person executing or issuing it. An "original" of a photograph includes the negative or any print therefrom. If data are stored in a computer or similar device, any printout or other output readable by sight, shown to reflect the data accurately, is an "original".

(4) Duplicate. A "duplicate" is a counterpart produced by the same impression as the original, or from the same matrix, or by means of photography, including enlargements and miniatures, or by mechanical or electronic re-recording, or by chemical reproduction, or by other equivalent techniques which accurately reproduces the original.

Now we begin to get to the nitty-gritty — the rules that must be satisfied if they apply.  First, there's Rule 1002:

To prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required, except as otherwise provided in these rules or by Act of Congress.

And Rule 1003:

A duplicate is admissible to the same extent as an original unless (1) a genuine question is raised as to the authenticity of the original or (2) in the circumstances it would be unfair to admit the duplicate in lieu of the original

Strictly speaking, Rule 1002 is the codification of the "Best Evidence Rule," but the exception in Rule 1003 is so commonly used in most situations — when there's no genuine dispute about a document's authenticity, nor about whether the original's contents are fairly represented by a photocopy — that the exception almost "swallows the rule" in regular courtroom practice.  This is why in real world courtrooms, lawyers who object based on the "Best Evidence Rule" inevitably draw a frown from the trial judge, followed by the question, "So what's your specific problem with this copy, counsellor?"  Indeed, as I wrote at the beginning of one of my posts yesterday, objections to the authenticity of documents are so rare in the real world of litigation that by standing order, you have to give your opponent and the court advance warning that you intend to make such an objection, or you'll be deemed to have waived it. 

Obviously, however, we're not in that run-of-the-mill situation now.  Serious quibbles — nay, serious quarrels — have been raised as to the authenticity of the CBS News documents.  So on to the rules to see what we do next:

Rule 1004 tells us when, in general, copies are okay even without an original having first been produced for inspection and comparison against that copy:

The original is not required, and other evidence of the contents of a writing, recording, or photograph is admissible if —

(1) Originals lost or destroyed. All originals are lost or have been destroyed, unless the proponent lost or destroyed them in bad faith; or

(2) Original not obtainable. No original can be obtained by any available judicial process or procedure; or

(3) Original in possession of opponent. At a time when an original was under the control of the party against whom offered, that party was put on notice, by the pleadings or otherwise, that the contents would be a subject of proof at the hearing, and that party does not produce the original at the hearing; or

(4) Collateral matters. The writing, recording, or photograph is not closely related to a controlling issue.

Well, this is no collateral matter — this goes to the very heart of whether these documents say anything meaningful about Dubya's military service.  Nor does the third exception apply — that means we (the public) could insist on using the photocopies against CBS News if CBS News had been stonewalling on the originals.  But it's CBS News who's the proponent of this evidence, and it can't use its own stonewalling on the originals, if it has or can get them, as an excuse for using copies.  Finally, it's very likely that one of the first two exceptions might apply — again, we can't know whether either does, or which, unless and until we know what CBS News' source would tell us about where the originals are now or if originals even exist anymore.

IV. Why does the law bother with all this — and why should you or CBS News?

I bother to track through all this for a couple of reasons.  First, some of my readers might be genuinely curious about what would happen if CBS News tried to offer the documents in its possession into evidence in a hypothetical court proceeding.  Second, though, and more importantly, when you step back and look at this sequence, you see how important it becomes at every step of the way that when there's a dispute over authenticity, the proponent of the evidence — the party who's trying to use the document, who claims it really is what it purports to be — have cooperated fully in revealing the entire provenance of the document.  That includes its source, its chain of custody over time, the question of whether the copies are or aren't identical to the original, and so forth.

In the law of evidence, if you're holding out on this stuff, the judge is going to say that your documents are not good enough to be admitted into evidence.  They're entitled to zero weight and zero credibility.

And at last I come to my final point, patient readers.  These rules of evidence have evolved literally over centuries.  They've been developed by some of the smartest minds of many of an age who've devoted their thinking and writing to create the most reliable possible process to get at the truth.

Dan Rather is stonewalling.  But he nevertheless wants you do believe his documents are truthful, that the story they tell is credible, and that you should vote against a sitting President on the basis of them.  He's flouting the rules, and he expects to get away with it because ... well, because he's Dan-Frickin'-Rather and you're supposed to think what he and CBS News tell you to think.  Here's the incredibly arrogant note upon which Mr. Rather ended his broadcast tonight (boldface mine):

The "60 Minutes" report was based not solely on the recovered documents, but on a preponderance of the evidence, including documents that were provided by what we consider to be solid sources, and interviews with former officials of the Texas National Guard.  If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it.  So far, there is none.

Got that?  There's no "definitive evidence to the contrary of [his] story" — and he's not going to let anyone else have access to the information that could produce that "evidence to the contrary."  CBS News has declared itself not only prosecutor, but judge and jury.

Is the public going to put up with that?  Is the rest of the press?  Will you?

Tonight's CBS Evening News broadcast's only arguable "expert," Marcel Matley, can only opine as to handwriting and signatures

The only expert identified or quoted on Dan Rather's just-concluded "CBS Evening News" broadcast, Marcel Matley, almost certainly lacks the qualifications to address the vast majority of issues raised by those who've questioned the authenticity of the documents produced by CBS News.

I've just spent twenty minutes or so googling Mr. Matley, following each link produced by a search on his name.  The closest I found to a resume was this very brief page, which reads:

Marcel Matley studied handwriting analysis with Rose Toomey and was certified by the Paul de Ste. Colombe Center.  In 1985 he became a full time professional document examiner and has other interests in medical and psychological research, paleography, education, Western formal penmanship and Oriental calligraphy.  He is the author of several published monographs and articles, taught private classes and seminars, and presented at conferences. The American Handwriting Analysts Foundation’s library, as well as a collection of more than 4,000 forensics and handwriting articles, is located in his home in San Francisco where it is available for reference by appointment.

A couple of other pages suggest that Mr. Matley is available as an expert witness for hire on handwriting analysis — nothing wrong with that necessarily.  He apparently has spoken and/or written at various seminars for lawyers and other experts, including at least one hosted by the National Association of Document Examiners, but he is not listed by name on that organizations (perhaps non-exhaustive) page of members; nor have I seen any reference to him claiming entitlement to that association's "designation of Certified Document Examiner, or CDE."  Mr. Matley has been quoted in some press accounts of medium-to-high profile disputes — always in the context of handwriting analysis.  He's listed as a "forensic document examiner" on the semi-functional website of something called the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, and also as its librarian; it may be that he has some sort of certification from that organization, which avers that its purpose is to "provide information and services to its members with the goal of enriching their effectiveness as handwriting analysts and to educate the public about the handwriting sciences."

I can find no references on the internet which would suggest that Mr. Matley has any qualifications whatsoever to give expert opinions on computer or typewriter fonts or typefaces, or on the authenticity of documents in general, as distinct from handwriting or perhaps signatures.

Were I, as a trial lawyer, considering hiring him as an expert witness, or were I preparing to cross-examine him as an expert hired by my opposing counsel, I'd need — and insist upon, and be able to get through court compulsion if need be — far more information about his background and qualifications, even with respect to handwriting or signature analysis.  But for present purposes, I'll stipulate that Mr. Matley is adequately qualified to talk about signatures.  And indeed, it would be appropriate for CBS to engage someone with that expertise, and some of the questions raised about the CBS documents have related to the variations of the signatures (which, at least to my inexpert eye, don't look all that similar to one another).  So I'm not saying that he's altogether the wrong kind of expert, or that everything he's told CBS or said in tonight's broadcast is entirely irrelevant.

But Marcel Matley simply can't be the guy to authenticate, or defend the authenticity of, the computer- or typewriter-generated portions of the CBS documents.  Nor did anything he said in tonight's "CBS Evening News" broadcast suggest that he even claims to have that expertise, much less that he's exercised it in this instance.  Unless he has a vast body of unrevealed credentials, in fact, I'm very confident that I could persuade any state or federal court to completely exclude Mr. Matley's testimony on any subject other than handwriting or signatures.

(Even what Mr. Matley had to say about signatures was superficial and far from unequivocal, but I'll refrain from arguing that issue at present.)

The CBS broadcast also included statements from Robert Strong, identified as "an administrative officer for the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam Years."  Dan Rather insists that Strong "knew Jerry Killian, the man credited with writing the documents ... and paper work ...  like these documents ... was his specialty."  Well, yes, Dan, in that sense, probably at least 100 million Americans have a specialty in "paper work."  I'm not going to bother rebutting the silly suggestion that Mr. Strong has been shown to have any particular technical or scientific expertise to opine on the legitimacy of these documents.  At best, I'd characterize Mr. Strong as a "soft witness" who could give contextual testimony on the likelihood, in general, that Col. Killian might have created or maintained memoranda of this sort — like other TANG personnel who may have served with Col. Killian, or his son or widow. 

Author and TV news correspondent Jim Moore, identified as having "written two books critical of President Bush and his service in the Guard" — presumably Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential being one of them — lacks even the marginal bona fides to speak to the legitimacy of the challenged documents that Mr. Strong might have as a "soft witness" who knew Col. Killian.  Mr. Moore does, however, look great in a cowboy hat.

If Mr. Strong or Mr. Moore were among those whom CBS was counting upon among its "independent experts," they're fools, or they think we are.

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 8:20pm):  The fine lawyer-bloggers at Power Line also have a take on CBS' disclosed experts so far that's far more succinct than my own, but generally consistent.

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 11:35pm):  Another version of Matley's CV, which my googling missed because I didn't have his middle initial.  (Hat-tip Wizbang!.)

Update (Tue Sep 14 @ 4:20am):  I'm advised by email from "Jacqueline A. Joseph, CDE
Certification Committee Chairperson," that "Marcel Matley is a certified member of National Association of Document Examiners."

Update (Fri Sep 17 @ 2:40am): On the other hand, Fox News confirms that Matley "is not certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners, has had no formal training in identifying either papers, inks, typewriters or photocopies, and has never been trained in a document lab or by any law enforcement entity."

Fonts and typefaces for dummies; plus more links

In a comment to the preceding post, Corrie brought to my attention this post that explains many of the technical concepts in small words, with chuckle-worthy anecdotes interspersed to ward off MEGO (mine eyes glazeth over).  Either this fella knows whereof he speaks, or he spins an incredibly good line of bull.  Decide for yourself, friends and neighbors.

Elsewhere:  Blogger Bill at INDC Journal has more from Dr. Bouffard.  AllahPundit also has more links and timely info.  Prof. Gene Volokh addresses the likelihood that any crimes have been committed, albeit only from the aspect of statutes designed to punish election fraud, rather than those relating to military or governmental documents. 

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 6:25pm):  Rather's CNN interview earlier today can be watched in streaming video courtesy of The Daily Recycler.  Kerry Spot has a quick (and not quite complete) transcript of Rather's broadcast tonight on the "CBS Evening News."  [Update: Garaghty's now replaced the original version with a complete one from a better source.]

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 8:36pm):  The irreplaceable Hugh Hewitt — whom we must someday teach how to edit out the extra line endings from his blog — has more on the technical issues from an email exchange with Robert "Corky" Cartwright, Professor of Computer Science at the extremely prestigious Rice University here in Houston.  CBS will doubtless characterize him as just another blogger in a bathrobe, I suppose.

Rather to turn his Swift Boat toward the enemy and beach it tonight?

Am I mixing my metaphors and my controversies here?  Or did I just hear someone shout, in Dan Rather's distinctive voice, "Circle them wagons, fellers, and put out another press release"?

Later today, CBS News will address on the air and in detail the issues surrounding the documents broadcast in the 60 MINUTES report on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. At this time, however, CBS News states with absolute certainty that the ability to produce the "th" superscript mentioned in reports about the documents did exist on typewriters as early as 1968, and in fact is in President Bush's official military records released by the White House. This and other issues surrounding the authenticity of the documents and more on this developing story will be reported on tonight on THE CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER.

(Capital letters in original; hat-tip to Jim Geraghty's Kerry Spot.)

So is this — shown here as a .bmp screenshot snipped from the third page of a .pdf file at 100 percent magnification — gonna be Dan's defense?

One of my commenters earlier pointed out this bit from one page of previously produced Bush records that Josh Marshall has pointed to as evidence of a typewritten document showing a superscript.  It's after the "111" near the right side of the entry for 4Sep68; this is the best reproduction I can manage on my blog, so feel free to follow the link to the .pdf file yourself and crank up the magnification until you're swimming in pixelated blobs.

Here we see (sorta) the reason why original documents, or at least the best possible reproductions of them, are important.  Is that a superscripted "th"?  If so, is it typewritten?  By a single keystroke?  Or handwritten?  Or something squeezed in and typed over a Liquid Paper blot-out?  Gee, I don't think I'd want to risk my career on a guess among those options.  I think I'd want the best credentialed forensic documents examiner CBS' money could buy before I climbed out on any of those limbs.  I wonder, will we see one tonight on the CBS Evening News?  And I wonder if in addition to pointing to this — ummm, specimen — he or she will give us the details of the typewriter that could have made it and the challenged CBS documents?  And if he or she will explain the dozens of other irregularities and oddities in those documents?  Of if Dan will tell us who CBS' "unimpeachable sources" were/are?

Oh wait — that would mean clearing the entire evening's programming.  Sponsors might not like that.  I will go out on a limb, then, and predict that tonight's episode of "Dan Defends Dan" won't answer many, if any, of our more detailed questions.

Or maybe he'll resign on the air.  Rather remembers LBJ's surprise announcement in 1968, I'm sure.  Nawwww ... I've been up too many hours, I think.  They'd have to claw Rather out of a spider hole in the basement of Black Rock to get him out of there.  I'll set my alarm, I guess.

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 5:45pm):  Beldar's preliminary reactions to Rather's appearance:  Hoarse and shaken.  Working hard to flog the "merits" of the Bush Guard record story, minimizing the importance of the documents even if they're forgeries.  (As in, we might have made all this crap up out of thin air, but even if so, Bush is still evil.)  Blames others for using reproductions of reproductions when CBS is stonewalling the "best evidence" available.  Blames partisan political operatives on the internet for "attack" on CBS.  Yep, used the one document from the screenshot I posted earlier, not very effectively.  One expert, Marcel Matley — apparently a handwriting expert (whose other qualifications are unclear), who didn't address any of the substantive critiques of the documents except the signatures.  Failure to understand difference between Times Roman and Times New Roman.  Rather thinks "a key" on computers creates a superscript.  Summary:  Lame, disingenous, embarrassingly weak, and entirely unsuccessful in putting any issues to bed.  I'll expand on all this at more length in a later post.

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 8:30pm):  CBS News has a new piece up on its website that closely tracks the defense Rather offered up on the air tonight.

CBS begins stealth backpedal on Rathergate

In a post entitled "CBS News Stealthy Update to Document Story," Lynxx Pherrett writes in a blog called Assume the Position that CBS is changing its website version of the Bush documents story — not yet conceeding that the documents are forgeries, but significantly backtracking and referencing at least some of the doubts that have been raised about their authenticity.  In typical sloppy mainstream media fashion (a practice scornfully called "dKos'g" in some parts of the blogosphere), CBS is simply replacing its original web page with the rewritten story at the same URL, without leaving any tracks to show that it's been backing and filling. 

In fact, CBS has changed the headline of the piece from its original "New Scrutiny of Bush's Service" to read, "Bush Guard Memos Questioned," and starts it off now with this nice bit of passive-voiced understatement:

Questions were raised Thursday about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos purporting to have been written by one of President Bush's National Guard commanders in 1972 and 1973.

Yes, and clearly, mistakes were made.  But by whom, CBS, by whom — and at whose instance?

The current version is sourced "CBS/AP."  I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that.

The current version includes these bits immediately after the new intro paragraph, which I'll quote at length in case they go nacht und nebel sometime in the near future:

The memos, which were obtained by CBS News' 60 Minutes, say Mr. Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Guard pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.

The network defended the autheniticity of the memos, saying its experts who examined the memos concluded they were authentic documents produced by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

But Killian's son, one of Killian's fellow officers and an independent document examiner questioned the memos.

Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Mr. Bush's performance review.

"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."

The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.

"They looked to me like forgeries," Rufus Martin told the Associated Press. "I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years." Killian died in 1984.

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" — as evidence indicating forgery.

Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by 60 Minutes, she said.

"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said to the Associated Press after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.

In the Wednesday broadcast, 60 Minutes said the memos were "documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file." The program says it consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

"As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 Minutes report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts," CBS News said in a statement. "As importantly, 60 Minutes also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."

The White House distributed the four memos from 1972 and 1973 after obtaining them from CBS News. The White House did not question their accuracy.

Robert Strong was a friend and colleague of Killian who ran the Texas Air National Guard administrative office in the Vietnam era. Strong, now a college professor, also believes the documents are genuine.

"They are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being," says Strong. "I don't see anything in the documents that is discordant with what were the times, what was the situation and what were the people involved."

"Discordant with the times"?  Well, I guess not — if you live in one of the Star Trek episodes where time travel brings word processing back to 1972 along with Captain Kirk and Spock (of course wearing one of those woolen caps to hide his ears).

And one would guess that "[i]ndependent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines" is not one of the four experts upon whom CBS earlier relied, huh?  So what are their names, CBS?  Are they document examiners in the same sense as Mr. Strong — who, after all, is a college professor and can apparently read documents, the past, and maybe the future?

CBS News!  Now crusading to expose the mendacity of ... CBS News!

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 11:40am):  CBS' website may be backtracking, but Jim Geraghty's Kerry Spot reports that Dangerous Dan is sticking to his guns in a CNN interview:  "I know this story is the truth... There will be no retraction... When people talk about where we got the story they're only doing it because they don't like the story...."  Dan, this is The Shark.  Shark, this is Dan.  Jump, Dan, jump!

Update (Fri Sep 10 @ 12:40pm):  These paragraphs have now been (stealthily) added to the CBS website (hat-tip to Byron York on NRO's The Corner):

In a statement, CBS News said it stands by its story.

"This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read.

"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and Stonewall wasn't just a famous Confederate general.  But hey, CBS, name some names for us, willya?  Who were the "unimpeachable sources," and what makes them "unimpeachable"?  Who are your "independent handwriting and forensic document experts," and how do they explain what your other independent expert — the one who you've named and quoted — points to as bogus?

John Kerry insults our allies while the smoke still rises from the terrorist bombing of the Australian Embassy in Indonesia

Prepare for a bit of a rant, because I feel one coming on.

Australian blogger Tim Blair has a good collections of links with reactions to, and commentary about, the terrorist bombing of the Australian Embassy in Indonesia that killed at least eleven (including children) and wounded hundreds.

The Aussies have their own internal schism over how to deal with the Global War on Terror, as do many other countries.  So far, a majority of the Australian public is hanging tough — those who "get it" still outnumber those who'd practice appeasement and "sensitive diplomacy."  The Australians have been incredibly stalwart allies of the United States for decades and decades, in times thick and thin.  What incredible friends they are — and what an incredible, brave, robust people they are!  Americans are privileged to stand by them, and lucky to have them stand by us, yet again.

But this event should remind us — as it does, so very painfully, them — that this is not about a terrorist war on America.  This is indeed a terrorist war on civilization — global terrorists, fighting a global war, against civilization everywhere on the globe.  The targets are, quite literally, everyone who is, or wants to be, civilized — including the nacent indigenous forces for democracy in Iraq and countless other countries that may still be struggling on the cusp between civilization and barbarism.

John Kerry went out of his way to insult and disparage our allies again this week.  As I've written before (for instance, here and here and here), I think that drives me up the wall more than anything else he's said or done throughout his campaign, but damned if he doesn't keep doing it!  Damned if he's not beyond even the power of blunt-speaking Gen. Tommy Franks to shame!  Speaking mockingly this week of Iraq:

"When they talk about a coalition — that's the phoniest thing I ever heard," Mr. Kerry said of the current array of foreign soldiers deployed in Iraq. "You've got 500 troops here, 500 troops there, and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties, and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war.

It makes me want to grab him by the collar and say, "Look, Bozo, this isn't all about Iraq and Afghanistan.  Look Down Under, where a country with a fraction of our wealth and resources is holding down the fort — taking a very active role, in terms military, diplomatic, and economic — in building and maintaining and defending civilization for a huge quandrant of the globe!  They're not our tools, they're not bought or coerced or bribed.  They see the same dangers we do; they know they're targets just like we are; and they're acting on a mature and independent self-interest in self-preservation that they've also taken the trouble to coordinate with our own."

Part of what bothers me is that these insults are just so gratuitous.  Kerry could attack Bush for failing to secure greater support — diplomatic, manpower, financial — without slurring those countries who are providing support or belittling their current efforts.  He could stick to his routine about how under a Kerry administration, everyone will like the U.S. better and thus will try harder and cooperate more.  Personally, I don't buy any of that, but that's what his main sales pitch is — and he could make it without slurring anyone but Bush.  But he doesn't.  "Phoniest thing I've ever heard" — that's not accusing Bush merely of ineffective diplomacy, it's accusing Bush of fraud, in which the allies who are helping America must be complicit.

I am just overwhelmed by the incredible irony of John Forbes Kerry lecturing Dubya on being the stereotypical "Ugly American" when Kerry himself is so arrogant and so blind and — well, I won't say "un-American," but I will say, so ugly.  He at least mouths the words to honor our own troops' sacrifices, but then that same mouth utters these slurs against the troops who fight with ours, and who also fight — bravely and on their own — for the same causes for which our troops are fighting. 

It makes me very angry.  Can you tell?

Funniest line I've read tonight: New name for CBS fraudulent documents scandal

From PrestoPundit, who got the concept from PoliPundit, who got the idea from her readers (but says it might also have originated independently at Captain's Quarters):

RA^THERGATE. The CBS forged documents story has a name.

(For the .html challenged who'd like to copy this format, it's done using the superscript instruction — Ra^thergate.)