From the Dallas Morning News (Registration required – check BugMeNot for a valid ID):
Marian Carr Knox, the former secretary of President Bush’s National Guard commander says that CBS’s documents are fake and that she did not type them.
These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after looking over the disputed documents. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”
Knox did say that she recalled “all the yak-yak” about Bush’s service at the time and acknowledged that the documents did reflect that to some degree. However, she also told the paper that the documents were not printed on the typewriters which she used during the approximately 20 years she worked in the office Lt. Col Jerry Killian occupied.
…[S]he said, the use of the words “billets” and a reference to the “administrative officer” of Mr. Bush’s squadron reflect Army terminology rather than the Air National Guard. Some news reports attribute the CBS reports to a former Army National Guard officer who has a longstanding dispute with the Guard and has previously maintained that the president’s record was sanitized.If you read the whole article you’ll note that the secretary is no fan of the President.
That should end the debate about the authenticity of the memos. The debate about the motives is still being fought, and the secretary has insight there as well. I’ll have more thoughts on that later.
More on Marian Carr Knox at Powerline, RatherBiased, and AllahPundit.
It’s damning, but so is much of what has come out about these documents and CBS still stands by them. Until the true source of these forgeries breaks down and starts screaming “It was me! I did it! I typed these up last week!” I think CBS rides it out. The MSM always has the fallback position that the memos, even if not authentic, expressed Killian’s true feelings.
I agree Kevin. Plus Rather has a lot of apologists in the media. Earlier, Bill O’Reilly said he didn’t know the authenticity of the documents one way or the other and he believes Dan Rather is an honest and admirable newsman (I’m paraphrasing but that’s what he said). One of Kerry’s strategists looked very somber on O’Reilly. Some woman named Marsh. O’Reilly told her that the Kerry campaign is falling apart and should get off the National Guard attacks. However, Marsh says the attacks will continue. Operation Fortunate Son is underway.
BTW, Dick Morris says that the polls he’s seen show that the Kerry campaign is in a shambles. He also says that people will look back and wonder why at one point the race was so close since Kerry is not a very strong candidate. I hope he’s right.
Laura Ingram, a frequent guest on The Factor, was going off on O’Reilly tonight on her radio show. O’Reilly doesn’t think the forgery story is worth following, is concerned that “partisanship” is keeping it alive and says he “knows” Dan Rather. Who’s watching out for Rather?
But this does shed some light on why CBS thought they were real. As they have said, the info is true, but the memos themselves are fake.
“Marian Carr Knox told the Dallas Morning News after viewing copies of the disputed memos, ‘These are not real,’ and that ‘the information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones.'”
USATODAY.com – Secretary: Memos are forgeries
It seems apparent to me that untill Lt. Col. Killian rises from his grave, dons his dress uniform, marches into Rather’s office and affirmatively declares, “Mr. Rather, I did not type up those memos!”, Rather and CBS will continue to stand by this story. Pathetic.
I think that this is a “plan B” ruse. The authenticity of the memos has been ruined, so here comes a convenient witness to say that, while the memos themselves are forgeries, they’re true in spirit.
That will be the new talking for the left when it comes to these memos. It doesn’t matter that they were fake, they were true anyway. Killian’s secretary says so.
I don’t agree R.G. – the fact that Killian’s secretary says that the memos express Killian’s true feelings doesn’t help exlain why CBS ran with the story since they didn’t interview her.
They did interview Killian’s widow and son, who both disputed that Lt. Col. Killian would have written anything like that, but they chose not to air that footage.
So, they had undisputed true documents wherein Killian praised Bush and they had personal testimony that Killian respected Bush, but they went with the story anyway.
I do think that that Mrs. Knox’s testimony will allow the Left the chance to say “Well, forget that the documents are forgeries, Killian would have written something just like them anyway”.
Who needs facts when you have feelings?
I don’t agree R.G. – the fact that Killian’s secretary says that the memos express Killian’s true feelings doesn’t help exlain why CBS ran with the story since they didn’t interview her.
They did interview Killian’s widow and son, who both disputed that Lt. Col. Killian would have written anything like that, but they chose not to air that footage.
So, they had undisputed true documents wherein Killian praised Bush and they had personal testimony that Killian respected Bush, but they went with the story anyway.
I do think that that Mrs. Knox’s testimony will allow the Left the chance to say “Well, forget that the documents are forgeries, Killian would have written something just like them anyway”.
Who needs facts when you have feelings?
I think that this is a “plan B” ruse. The authenticity of the memos has been ruined, so here comes a convenient witness to say that, while the memos themselves are forgeries, they’re true in spirit.
That will be the new talking for the left when it comes to these memos. It doesn’t matter that they were fake, they were true anyway. Killian’s secretary says so.
I agree this is a ruse. Somwhow the forgery is connected to this secretarys story directly. She may know the forger and he reproduced them from her dictation.
Laura Ingraham will be on O’Reilly tonight. It seems if someone criticizes him, he invites them on his show to try to get even. I hope Laura doesn’t backdown from her statements. The last time she was on his show he started telling her how she should run her own show. Of course, Laura’s radio show’s ratings are higher than O’Reilly’s, but he’s giving her advice like avoiding so much right-wing stuff.
Here’s a story you won’t see on CBS News — or most of the MSM:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132405,00.html
Umm, I hate to break the news, but you guys are all morons. The CYA memo was pretty obviously type up by Killian himself since it dealt with an off-record, touchy subject. And the CYA memo itself was very likely typed on a well-worn IBM Executive typewriter. Any sort of close examination of the individual characters, like how the leading “S” in Staudt is lower than the rest of the name, show all of the characteristics of being typewritten. I’m sure you guys will now do the right thing and appologize for all your silly dumbass rumormongering. Spread the word (so to speak.).
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