Dan Rather came out swinging tonight but so far he was just shadow boxing. To defend his story, he made 4 arguments.
#1) You could find th’s in other documents. Fair enough. (or not, see ‘more’ below.) What about the other 300 anomalies Dan?
#2) We learned the name of their forensics guy… (I’ll save you the trouble and set up the search) Marcel Manley
My mini google tells me the guy is not that impressive. He has a few self-published books that I found. Mostly he is a “handwriting expert,” he has no apparent skills at looking at the rest of the document. Certainly not the resume’ that Bill at INDC Journal’s guy had. (He also seems more at home with the legalities of being an expert witness than being a forensics guy.)
I also found he apparently is behind the story that Kurt Cobain’s suicide note was bogus and he was really murdered. I’m speaking before I google enough but the guy seems like wingnut. (more later) Update: The guy who wrote the web page was a wingnut. No reflection on Matley.
Anyway the Forensics guy said (in a nut shell) that since the signatures match (which they don’t to my layman’s eye) the whole document is legit. Because obviously nobody would scan a signature and paste it into Word… No, never.
Prediction: CBS is going to get nailed on this guy… wait for it.
#3) Some guy -name not important- that said the documents were legitimate because everyone knew Bush sucked. (no joke)
#4) Some other guy -who has written multiple books bashing Bush- said the documents were legitimate because everyone knew Bush sucked. (No, I’m not making this up.)
Then Dan Rather said that we know the documents are real because well– Bush sucked. (Update 4)
Basically, CBS is making the case that since the content of the documents is true, the documents are legit. And we know the content is true because we have these documents to prove it. (an odd form of recursion)
The other humorous bit of defense is when Rather made the case that the blogosphere is way off base because the copies we got have been copied, faxed and recopied and some of them have been (gasp) downloaded. Completely ignoring that we all got the doc right from their web site. We are looking at a scan of what they have. 1 scan does not lose that much quality. All in all, that line was just laughable.
More as I google.
One more comment – To distill the above, their whole argument was that the signatures matched. The rest was fluff.
UPDATE: hmmm This is interesting… Seems Matley vouched for the authenticity of the Vince Foster suicide note.
UPDATE 2: ZERO (none, nada, zip) evidence this guy was in any way qualified to vouch for the authenticity of these documents. NONE. He is a handwriting guy who makes the case the signatures match. (they can be scanned) His only claim to fame is that he is a librarian. Google can find nothing this guy has ever done with anything other than handwriting. Bill at INDC spanked CBS.
Bottom line… CBS’s document expert ain’t.
UPDATE 3: I forgot to note that the defense of the documents came after Rather bashed Bush for a while… I know you’re surprised.
UPDATE 4: I kinda made a joke about everyone saying “Bush sucked” but from an evidentiary point of view that is what they offered. They said the documents must be legit because everyone knew this is what happened. Since the contents were true, the docs were, by definition, not forgeries. It really was rather odd. (oh heck, that pun wasn’t intended but I’ll take it) Only the mentally lame will accept this argument. (Apologies in advance to the usual suspects)
UPDATE 5: I forgot to mention, Rather looked and sounded very stressed… Like he knew we were listening to his every word….. Because we were. Muhaahaha
UPDATE 6: RTFC Read the freaking comments. I type slow. Many good points and links in comments – many I meant to get to. (thanks guys)
UPDATE 7: If you missed the broadcast you can catch it here.
UPDATE 8: Here is Matley’s CV Not very impressive. Lots of padding if you read it.
More: defeatjohnjohn.com Fisks the hell out of the superscript thing. Nailed.
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:G8Mk9ua7S-QJ:journal.aiga.org/content.cfm%3FContentAlias%3D_getfullarticle%26aid%3D%2523.%255EG%252F%250A+%22times+new+roman%22+linotype+licensed+typewriter&hl=en
I’ll think you’ll like this regarding the Times New Roman and the Selectric typewriter.
Has Kerry’s service record been scrutinized? When he left active duty, did he complete his reserve obligation? The email posted on my blog suggests he did not. Why isn’t his service record being scoured? Is it true that his first discharge was less than honorable and he had it changed, under pressure, in 2001?
Thanks for posting the CV of CBS’s expert, Mr. Manley. I was interested to see that he included studies at the Paul de Sainte Colombe Center… Having never heard of it, I did a search of the Internet. Turns out that the Center is named after the author of “Grapho Therapeutics”, a book which posits that one can change one’s personality by changing one’s handwriting, which theory is based on the belief that one’s personality is revealed by one’s handwriting.
Whether this adds to or subtracts from Mr. Manley’s credibility is left as an exercise for the reader.
Correction: CBS’s expert’s name is Matley, not Manley.
Did CBS and Rather Get Typeface Font all Over Their Disingenuous Faces?
K Marsala
Why what took place over thirty years ago has become the battleground for John Kerry and his campaign camp seems rather null and void to me. But Kerry has insisted he must bloviate at any given moment that he served (four months) in Vietnam. One would think if you ask a former president, Bill Clinton who won two terms, for advice and the advice given was to stop stumping on “I served in Vietnam” you would quit. Not John F. Kerry though, he just continues to ooze from his purple hearts. Hence, since this is the platform Kerry has decided to run his platoon or “Swift boat” by, we now have what appears to be forged documents surfacing against our current president, bubbling up from the depths of liberal murky waters called- lies, lies, and more lies. Supposedly these credible documents bring forth questions over President Bush’s service to his country, some thirty years ago. These documents are to be held quite suspiciously particularly when the typeface used didn’t exist back then. CBS, Rather and Kerry campaigner’s, it would seem collectively all of you are adrift, possibly even lost, on a Swift boat