Question
Should I change my blog's subtitle to, "Now With Buoyant, Exciting Hair" or to "In Your Heart, You Know it Makes Some Sort of Freakish Existentialist Post-Post-Modern Sense"
Update: "Buoyant, Exciting Hair" wins.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
For Crissakes, Someone Fire Terry McAuliffe
Cover-Up Conspiracy Manipulation
I have to admit that the evidence of what has happened at CBS may have been released in such a way to make Mary Mapes appear more culpable and/or Dan Rather less culpable. The inconsistencies in the WaPo reprot suggest just that. However, even if the reporting is correct, Dan Rather definitely played a shady part in letting this story through, and the producers are incompetent. They should resign. There is no way that Mary Mapes can be the scapegoat for them all.
I have to admit that the evidence of what has happened at CBS may have been released in such a way to make Mary Mapes appear more culpable and/or Dan Rather less culpable. The inconsistencies in the WaPo reprot suggest just that. However, even if the reporting is correct, Dan Rather definitely played a shady part in letting this story through, and the producers are incompetent. They should resign. There is no way that Mary Mapes can be the scapegoat for them all.
Before I Get Obnoxious, An Important Announcement
Whos' ya daddy!?!
Go Eagles! Two down, fourteen to go.
Whos' ya daddy!?!
Go Eagles! Two down, fourteen to go.
This Was Too Weird Not To Link To
"Scenes from my driveway, continued x 37", brought to you by Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom.
I have comments that get an even weirder response in an already weird comments thread.
"Scenes from my driveway, continued x 37", brought to you by Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom.
I have comments that get an even weirder response in an already weird comments thread.
Monday, September 20, 2004
"New" Details in Rathergate
Jeff Goldstein has analysis of an inconsistency in the WaPo expose that Allah originally noticed. What they have basically found is that, according to Salon.com, Dan Rather had already interviewed Ben Barnes by September 1st, so he couldn't have first contacted Barnes during the Republican Convention, assuming Salon is correct.
Allah and Jeff attribute this to the possibility that Ben Barnes was the conduit for Bill Burkett's forgery, and the original source CBS contacted. I think that is more likely if he had been interviewed before Mapes got the documents, and makes sense of Rather and Mapes meeting the source the first time. If Ben Barnes was the frontman for Burkett, it makes Jim Moore less necessary, and more of a partisan hack known by Burkett they put on in their first defense, instead of a part of the conspiracy.
There is another thing about the new details. If the interview that aired was actually taped before September 1st, it raises questions about Rather's whereabouts at the time the WaPo claims he was interviewing Barnes. This quote may explain, and tell why Rather's location was covered-up:
I wondered when I read this, because it seems to me that the anchor and interviewer would want to be at the editorial discussion, given his involvement, and I just now thought of how odd that they would be discussing this when a significant witness for the report has not finished the interview to air on the show. I think what is being covered-up is that Dan Rather was at that meeting, and he was the major force in getting the producers and executives to accept Mary Mapes story as credible. If I am correct that Dan Rather was at that meeting and was a major influence there, then Dan Rather is definitely a full member of the conspiracy.
Update: (4:26) Josh Marshall has already written that the Ben Barnes interview was recorded before September 1. If true, the WaPo was definitely given faulty information. If Ben Barnes hasn't denied that he was videotaped on 7th, it definitely makes it probable that he is part of the conspiracy.
Also, I have read the CBS memo and will comment on it later. My intial impression is that it is a repackaging of what is already known with lots of bullsh*t mixed in.
Jeff Goldstein has analysis of an inconsistency in the WaPo expose that Allah originally noticed. What they have basically found is that, according to Salon.com, Dan Rather had already interviewed Ben Barnes by September 1st, so he couldn't have first contacted Barnes during the Republican Convention, assuming Salon is correct.
Allah and Jeff attribute this to the possibility that Ben Barnes was the conduit for Bill Burkett's forgery, and the original source CBS contacted. I think that is more likely if he had been interviewed before Mapes got the documents, and makes sense of Rather and Mapes meeting the source the first time. If Ben Barnes was the frontman for Burkett, it makes Jim Moore less necessary, and more of a partisan hack known by Burkett they put on in their first defense, instead of a part of the conspiracy.
There is another thing about the new details. If the interview that aired was actually taped before September 1st, it raises questions about Rather's whereabouts at the time the WaPo claims he was interviewing Barnes. This quote may explain, and tell why Rather's location was covered-up:
On Tuesday, Sept. 7, as Rather sat down in a CBS studio with former Texas lieutenant governor Barnes, the top brass was turning its attention to the explosive story. Heyward, the news division chief, met with Senior Vice President Betsy West; executive producer Howard, who had taken over in June after shifting from the program's Sunday edition; Mapes; senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy; and Esther Kartiganer, whose job is to ensure that interviews are not edited in a misleading way.
"All of us asked questions," Heyward said.
"We asked core questions -- about reliability, authenticity, motivation, could the source have had access to the documents," West said. The executives were satisfied by Mapes's answers, and she began writing the script.[my emphasis]
I wondered when I read this, because it seems to me that the anchor and interviewer would want to be at the editorial discussion, given his involvement, and I just now thought of how odd that they would be discussing this when a significant witness for the report has not finished the interview to air on the show. I think what is being covered-up is that Dan Rather was at that meeting, and he was the major force in getting the producers and executives to accept Mary Mapes story as credible. If I am correct that Dan Rather was at that meeting and was a major influence there, then Dan Rather is definitely a full member of the conspiracy.
Update: (4:26) Josh Marshall has already written that the Ben Barnes interview was recorded before September 1. If true, the WaPo was definitely given faulty information. If Ben Barnes hasn't denied that he was videotaped on 7th, it definitely makes it probable that he is part of the conspiracy.
Also, I have read the CBS memo and will comment on it later. My intial impression is that it is a repackaging of what is already known with lots of bullsh*t mixed in.
Howard Kurtz Gives Credit Where Credits Due
"The Blogger Moment":
Howard Kurtz also becomes the first journalist to report that Charles Johnson of LGF is a Democrat who will vote for Bush.
"The Blogger Moment":
It was like throwing a match on kerosene-soaked wood. The ensuing blaze ripped through the media establishment as previously obscure bloggers managed to put the network of Murrow and Cronkite firmly on the defensive.
The secret, says Charles Johnson, is "open-source intelligence gathering." Meaning: "We've got a huge pool of highly motivated people who go out there and use the tools to find stuff. We've got an army of citizen journalists out there."
[...]
In the last two years, the blogosphere -- a vast, free-floating, often quirky club open to anyone with a modem and some opinions -- has been growing in influence, with some one-man operations boasting followings larger than those of small newspapers.
Many sites are seething with partisan passion, often directed at the media. But they are also two-way portals for retired military officers, computer techies, former IBM Selectric salesmen and just about anyone else to challenge and fact-check media claims.
Not everyone is a fan. Former CBS executive Jonathan Klein complained on Fox News that "these bloggers have no checks and balances. . . . You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."
The pajama brigade pounced. After all, they had found problems that CBS had missed or minimized -- and had done it by downloading the memos from the network's Web site. "One of the things about a blog is we sometimes act as a clearinghouse for information from readers with an interest in an esoteric area," says Scott Johnson.
Howard Kurtz also becomes the first journalist to report that Charles Johnson of LGF is a Democrat who will vote for Bush.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Addendum to "Predictions"
Even if Dan Rather and Andrew Heyward had nothing to do with Mary Mapes' fraud, they should sill be fired for refusing to admit that the memos are forgeries, using their denial to impugn their critics, and engaging in bad journalism in their own defense of even worse journalism. Dan Rather should be singled out for his persistent hypocrisy of his defense. There is also the issue of how many people at CBS are conspirators after-the-fact.
For 60 Minutes as an organization, this a case of the cover-up being worse than the crime.
Even if Dan Rather and Andrew Heyward had nothing to do with Mary Mapes' fraud, they should sill be fired for refusing to admit that the memos are forgeries, using their denial to impugn their critics, and engaging in bad journalism in their own defense of even worse journalism. Dan Rather should be singled out for his persistent hypocrisy of his defense. There is also the issue of how many people at CBS are conspirators after-the-fact.
For 60 Minutes as an organization, this a case of the cover-up being worse than the crime.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
"A RatherGate Sing/Link-a-Long"
(Genius post from Michele, who has indefinitely returned.)
"A RatherGate Sing/Link-a-Long"
(Genius post from Michele, who has indefinitely returned.)
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Prediction
(Last Update 9/20/2004)
If Bill Burkett is the source of the forged memos, then there is only one reasonable explanation for CBS refusing to reveal him and calling him an "unimpeachable source." If this story had been checked even slightly, huge questions about Burkett's credibility and how he obtained the memos should have kept the story from airing without further support of the memos. They obviously were not. Ben Barnes also has credibility issues, and there is no way any sane person would have let 60 Minutes air his continuing accusations unless they had some unquestionable supporting evidence, that confirmed Barnes contention that strings were being pulled.
On the face of it, this makes no sense. But as Ace of Spades said, everything was worse than it seemed, even when you thought it was all pretty shoddy to begin with.
I think that Dan Rather was not duped by a forged memo. Instead, it is more likely that he was and is engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the American public and smear the president. The people in on the conspiracy are Jim Moore, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, Bill Burkett, and possibly Ben Barnes.
Jim Moore appeared in CBS's first defense for no obvious reason. Bill Burkett has been a source for two of Moore's books. I think it is possible that Jim Moore contacted Mary Mapes or Dan Rather on behalf of Burkett to give the six memos that may or may not have initially been presented as authentic, likely around the beginning of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's advertising campaign. I hypothesize that Rather and Mapes suspected forgery from the start because Burkett was the source (It is really ridiculous for him to claim that after all the now-destroyed documents he has claimed to have seen, he'd have access to the super-secret memos of someone who died twenty years ago). Instead of refusing to report it, they decided to present it as authentic when they discovered they could get Ben Barnes on the program if the documents supported the general theory. Thus began what is likely the most significant journalism scandal of at least the last quarter of a century.
Instrumental to this conspiracy would be keeping as many people as possible out of the loop about what was being done in the "investigation." I doubt that the conspiracy extends up to the corporate management of CBS News, on the basis that these people are career corporate flacks with no profit motive to engage in a huge televised fraud, and are unlikely to have the ideological motive either. Instead, there is a huge risk for no gain if the corporate managers were to be directly involved in the conspiracy. Also, Mary Mapes is the producer of the segment. There aren't many people above her who would have to see verification for the story.
Instead, I think Rather and Mapes did no more than the minimum of investigation and lied to the executives to fake validity for the story. Confirming this possibility is that Mapes personally interviewed the Killian family, only four document experts were contacted for the report, and two were not used because they had concerns with the limited set of documents they were given, and whoever asked for support from Commander Hodges lied to him by saying the memos were handwritten. Also, it seems that a number of people who should have been contacted from the start were not contacted. Finally, I think Marcel Matley's opinion was misrepresented as confirmation of the entire set of documents, and I think it is possible that James J. Pierce was flat out lied to.
CBS did receive all six memos. However, they only showed four on air. The reason for this is likely that the two they didn't show were crucial to misleading the only document expert to authenticate the documents. Here is an excerpt from James Pierce's statement:
I think what happened is that Mapes and Rather panicked when two of the experts refused to authenticate the documents, and Matley would not authenticate either, so when Pierce raised questions about the typeface, they showed him the two unreleased documents and told him they were unquestionably authentic memos by Killian, "confirming" that he used the typeface.
After justifying the documents to the execs, it was a simple matter to bring on Ben Barnes. But what brought down the whole conspiracy were a few crucial mistakes and some false assumptions. I'll write more about what went wrong later, although it is a given they didn't count on half the internet examining the documents.
Update: (7/18/2004) If this LA Times story is correct, then it significantly bolsters the case that this was a conspiracy. I think that Bill Burkett started to push his case to various people with political connections beginning after the Democratic Convention in response to the Swift Vets. Cleland was one of those people. That was unsuccessful by his own account on August 21. (I think Allah is wrong about Burkett peddling the documents to the Democrats, because it seems he was unlikely to have given up on peddling the same story he had for the last 6 years.) I believe that by then Burkett had already contacted Jim Moore, who then personally met with Mapes to propose that Burkett assist with anti-Bush stories, maybe claiming that Burkett had some new information, which led her to reactivate her 5-year Bush National Guard investigation in "'mid- to late August.'" I think the documents did not exist at this point. Between the reactivation and September 3, Mapes brought Rather on board, continued to negotiate with Burkett through Moore, and said "'nothing definitive'" to the executive producer, the only journalistic person above her in the investigation.
I think that what took them so long could have been that there was no way the executive producer would let them just put Burkett, Strong, and Barnes on 60 Minutes to make claims against Bush without physical evidence or corroborating witnesses (I now think Mapes must have found Barnes and Strong before being contacted by Burkett, and had been chomping at the bit to put them on 60 Minutes), and what broke the logjam was what led to Rather and Mapes abandoning journalism. It would have been around August 25 that Burkett either told Rather and Mapes that he could forge the evidence, or lied that he had found Killian's memos. With the memo they could claim to have physical historical evidence that supported Barnes' and Strong's claims of string pulling for Bush. I can't get in Rather or Mapes head, so I won't speculate on exactly why they chose to run with the memos that they must have suspected to be forged. Burkett either started forging the memos around August 25 and didn't finish until shortly before September 3, or he spent most of the intervening time trying to get Rather and Mapes to take them. Of course, it is possible they were sitting on the forged documents until right after the Republican Convention.
The big question remaining is why 60 Minutes ran with a story based on documents they had for only 5 days. I think this is again explained by deception by Mapes or Rather. What does CBS love to have? A scoop (Disregard the fact that it is better to get the story right than to get it first). Thus, USA Today (which seemed like an odd choice to give documents to in the first place). What Mapes or Rather likely told the execs was that the source planned to give copies of the memos to a newspaper on September 7, and so if they didn't run with the story on Wednesday they would be scooped by that other newspaper. The executives were not thinking about beating Bush when they pushed this story, they were thinking about ratings.
The reason that Rather and Mapes were so eager to air it quickly was that they knew it was a bad forgery, which explains the expert shopping, and that was confirmed when the experts they contacted told them it looked like a forgery, on September 5. (Note that Will says that she talked to a producer. It would likely have been Mapes.) If they had held off another week someone else at 60 Minutes would have the document examined and be told that they were forgeries, or they would look at the backstory and find it didn't checkout, or do actual interviews with Killian's family, Hodges, and Staudt.
And on Tuesday, September 7th, Burkett again walked into the Abilene Kinko's and anonymously faxed the forgeries to USA Today. CBS management would have heard through the grapevine on Wednesday that USA Today had memos by Killian, confirming that the story had to run that day. Which brings us much more clearly to today.
Finally, I'd like to just clarify that my argument that it was a conspiracy is a circumstantial case filling in the blanks between what we know is true, justified by the fact that it is actually a logical explanation, and heavily based on the assumption that Burkett is indeed the source. Also, it is possible that Dan Rather did not become involved in the conspiracy until as late as the defense on September 10, but his unqualified support of the story would certainly have helped get Mapes' report on air as quickly as it did.
Note: Burkett may have made a big mistake on the 7th of September by faxing USA Today all six memos.
Update II: (9/19/2004) This Washington Post article co-written by Howard Kurtz has the most detailed account of Rathergate yet, and confirms the LA Times report. Nothing in it completely contradicts what I have proposed here, except that it makes it clear that Burkett would have been peddling the memos from the start.
First off, the article makes it likely that if there was a conspiracy, Rather must have been in it from the start, as he met Burkett with Mapes in the first contact. Of course, he may have been duped by Mapes like the rest of the executives, but I think if he was as close to the investigation as it appears, he is too shrewd to not see through deception from Mapes. The article also confirms that Mapes was one of only a few people working on the story, which makes it much more likely that she could conceal what was going on. Also, Barnes is said to have contacted Rather during the Republican Convention, which makes it likely that he had nothing to do with the conspiracy. It also may explain why it took mid-August to September 3rd for the forgeries to be obtained. They may have been sitting on them until Ben Barnes stepped up to tell his story. The article also confirms that Barnes knew Rather and that Mapes had been trying to get him on 60 Minutes for a while.
There are a number of things I noticed about Mapes actions in this article. All emphasis in the following is mine.
Mary Mapes appears to have done things at every step here to quash doubts and prevent the memos from being examined closely. It appears that she was perfectly situated to deceive her superiors, and there are too many coincidences here for her to not be doing that. Regardless of whether there was a conspiracy, Mary Mapes pushed the memos at key points and did not attempt to sufficiently verify them. She is definitely culpable for intentionally ignoring warning signs that the documents were fake, for not making an effort to rigorously authenticate them, and likely misleading people she interviewed and other's working on 60 Minutes. The executives of 60 Minutes should fire Mary Mapes for incompetence at the very least.
There is no mention of USA Today, although I doubt that it would be well known by people at CBS whether or not 60 Minutes knew ahead of time that USA Today had the memos, and there is no way that the executives would admit to rushing a flawed report just to be first. That said, USA Today claims it received the documents on Wednesday, after the broadcast, and I think they are likely to be telling the truth. The clerk at the Abilene Kinko's could be mistaken about Burkett faxing something on Tuesday, and actually saw him on Wednesday. Or it could be fabrication by the clerk. Nothing in the WaPo article rules out that they were worried about being scooped by another media organization. Regardless, USA Today is likely a foot-note to the rest of what happened.
The Post also confirms that Emily Will and Linda James communicated only with Mary Mapes. This supports my proposition that Mapes concealed the doubts of the experts. The timing of the acquisition of the documents with Dan Rather having just gotten Barnes to agree to appear on 60 Minutes also supports my contention that they ended up using the document because it let them put Barnes on air.
Finally, that 60 Minutes was supposed to be a rerun on the 8th just adds more evidence that the report was a rush job, and it is definite that when Mapes pitched the report to the execs she claimed the story was more solid than it was so that it would be run sooner. That she also ignored her own experts is consistent with either chronic sloppiness and lack of journalistic objectivity, or intentional rushing of a story with false information to prevent thorough inquiry and exposure of fraud. In other words, to deceive those at 60 Minutes and the public.
Update III: (9/19/2004) More damning evidence from the New York Times:
I'm confident in saying at this point that Mary Mapes lied to and concealed information from her editors many times in order to run a baseless 15-minute political ad. She should be fired, and the rest of the producers and journalists at CBS should be thoroughly investigated to find out how involved they were in Mapes' political operation.
Update IV: (9/20/2004) There is an addendum to this post here, and an update with "new" information here.
(Last Update 9/20/2004)
If Bill Burkett is the source of the forged memos, then there is only one reasonable explanation for CBS refusing to reveal him and calling him an "unimpeachable source." If this story had been checked even slightly, huge questions about Burkett's credibility and how he obtained the memos should have kept the story from airing without further support of the memos. They obviously were not. Ben Barnes also has credibility issues, and there is no way any sane person would have let 60 Minutes air his continuing accusations unless they had some unquestionable supporting evidence, that confirmed Barnes contention that strings were being pulled.
On the face of it, this makes no sense. But as Ace of Spades said, everything was worse than it seemed, even when you thought it was all pretty shoddy to begin with.
I think that Dan Rather was not duped by a forged memo. Instead, it is more likely that he was and is engaged in a conspiracy to deceive the American public and smear the president. The people in on the conspiracy are Jim Moore, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, Bill Burkett, and possibly Ben Barnes.
Jim Moore appeared in CBS's first defense for no obvious reason. Bill Burkett has been a source for two of Moore's books. I think it is possible that Jim Moore contacted Mary Mapes or Dan Rather on behalf of Burkett to give the six memos that may or may not have initially been presented as authentic, likely around the beginning of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's advertising campaign. I hypothesize that Rather and Mapes suspected forgery from the start because Burkett was the source (It is really ridiculous for him to claim that after all the now-destroyed documents he has claimed to have seen, he'd have access to the super-secret memos of someone who died twenty years ago). Instead of refusing to report it, they decided to present it as authentic when they discovered they could get Ben Barnes on the program if the documents supported the general theory. Thus began what is likely the most significant journalism scandal of at least the last quarter of a century.
Instrumental to this conspiracy would be keeping as many people as possible out of the loop about what was being done in the "investigation." I doubt that the conspiracy extends up to the corporate management of CBS News, on the basis that these people are career corporate flacks with no profit motive to engage in a huge televised fraud, and are unlikely to have the ideological motive either. Instead, there is a huge risk for no gain if the corporate managers were to be directly involved in the conspiracy. Also, Mary Mapes is the producer of the segment. There aren't many people above her who would have to see verification for the story.
Instead, I think Rather and Mapes did no more than the minimum of investigation and lied to the executives to fake validity for the story. Confirming this possibility is that Mapes personally interviewed the Killian family, only four document experts were contacted for the report, and two were not used because they had concerns with the limited set of documents they were given, and whoever asked for support from Commander Hodges lied to him by saying the memos were handwritten. Also, it seems that a number of people who should have been contacted from the start were not contacted. Finally, I think Marcel Matley's opinion was misrepresented as confirmation of the entire set of documents, and I think it is possible that James J. Pierce was flat out lied to.
CBS did receive all six memos. However, they only showed four on air. The reason for this is likely that the two they didn't show were crucial to misleading the only document expert to authenticate the documents. Here is an excerpt from James Pierce's statement:
In regard to the balance of the typed-written photocopied questioned documents, the same typed-faced designs are strongly similar to corresponding samples that indicate the same typed-face existed prior to the date in question on the photocopied documents.[my emphasis]
I think what happened is that Mapes and Rather panicked when two of the experts refused to authenticate the documents, and Matley would not authenticate either, so when Pierce raised questions about the typeface, they showed him the two unreleased documents and told him they were unquestionably authentic memos by Killian, "confirming" that he used the typeface.
After justifying the documents to the execs, it was a simple matter to bring on Ben Barnes. But what brought down the whole conspiracy were a few crucial mistakes and some false assumptions. I'll write more about what went wrong later, although it is a given they didn't count on half the internet examining the documents.
Update: (7/18/2004) If this LA Times story is correct, then it significantly bolsters the case that this was a conspiracy. I think that Bill Burkett started to push his case to various people with political connections beginning after the Democratic Convention in response to the Swift Vets. Cleland was one of those people. That was unsuccessful by his own account on August 21. (I think Allah is wrong about Burkett peddling the documents to the Democrats, because it seems he was unlikely to have given up on peddling the same story he had for the last 6 years.) I believe that by then Burkett had already contacted Jim Moore, who then personally met with Mapes to propose that Burkett assist with anti-Bush stories, maybe claiming that Burkett had some new information, which led her to reactivate her 5-year Bush National Guard investigation in "'mid- to late August.'" I think the documents did not exist at this point. Between the reactivation and September 3, Mapes brought Rather on board, continued to negotiate with Burkett through Moore, and said "'nothing definitive'" to the executive producer, the only journalistic person above her in the investigation.
I think that what took them so long could have been that there was no way the executive producer would let them just put Burkett, Strong, and Barnes on 60 Minutes to make claims against Bush without physical evidence or corroborating witnesses (I now think Mapes must have found Barnes and Strong before being contacted by Burkett, and had been chomping at the bit to put them on 60 Minutes), and what broke the logjam was what led to Rather and Mapes abandoning journalism. It would have been around August 25 that Burkett either told Rather and Mapes that he could forge the evidence, or lied that he had found Killian's memos. With the memo they could claim to have physical historical evidence that supported Barnes' and Strong's claims of string pulling for Bush. I can't get in Rather or Mapes head, so I won't speculate on exactly why they chose to run with the memos that they must have suspected to be forged. Burkett either started forging the memos around August 25 and didn't finish until shortly before September 3, or he spent most of the intervening time trying to get Rather and Mapes to take them. Of course, it is possible they were sitting on the forged documents until right after the Republican Convention.
The big question remaining is why 60 Minutes ran with a story based on documents they had for only 5 days. I think this is again explained by deception by Mapes or Rather. What does CBS love to have? A scoop (Disregard the fact that it is better to get the story right than to get it first). Thus, USA Today (which seemed like an odd choice to give documents to in the first place). What Mapes or Rather likely told the execs was that the source planned to give copies of the memos to a newspaper on September 7, and so if they didn't run with the story on Wednesday they would be scooped by that other newspaper. The executives were not thinking about beating Bush when they pushed this story, they were thinking about ratings.
The reason that Rather and Mapes were so eager to air it quickly was that they knew it was a bad forgery, which explains the expert shopping, and that was confirmed when the experts they contacted told them it looked like a forgery, on September 5. (Note that Will says that she talked to a producer. It would likely have been Mapes.) If they had held off another week someone else at 60 Minutes would have the document examined and be told that they were forgeries, or they would look at the backstory and find it didn't checkout, or do actual interviews with Killian's family, Hodges, and Staudt.
And on Tuesday, September 7th, Burkett again walked into the Abilene Kinko's and anonymously faxed the forgeries to USA Today. CBS management would have heard through the grapevine on Wednesday that USA Today had memos by Killian, confirming that the story had to run that day. Which brings us much more clearly to today.
Finally, I'd like to just clarify that my argument that it was a conspiracy is a circumstantial case filling in the blanks between what we know is true, justified by the fact that it is actually a logical explanation, and heavily based on the assumption that Burkett is indeed the source. Also, it is possible that Dan Rather did not become involved in the conspiracy until as late as the defense on September 10, but his unqualified support of the story would certainly have helped get Mapes' report on air as quickly as it did.
Note: Burkett may have made a big mistake on the 7th of September by faxing USA Today all six memos.
Update II: (9/19/2004) This Washington Post article co-written by Howard Kurtz has the most detailed account of Rathergate yet, and confirms the LA Times report. Nothing in it completely contradicts what I have proposed here, except that it makes it clear that Burkett would have been peddling the memos from the start.
First off, the article makes it likely that if there was a conspiracy, Rather must have been in it from the start, as he met Burkett with Mapes in the first contact. Of course, he may have been duped by Mapes like the rest of the executives, but I think if he was as close to the investigation as it appears, he is too shrewd to not see through deception from Mapes. The article also confirms that Mapes was one of only a few people working on the story, which makes it much more likely that she could conceal what was going on. Also, Barnes is said to have contacted Rather during the Republican Convention, which makes it likely that he had nothing to do with the conspiracy. It also may explain why it took mid-August to September 3rd for the forgeries to be obtained. They may have been sitting on them until Ben Barnes stepped up to tell his story. The article also confirms that Barnes knew Rather and that Mapes had been trying to get him on 60 Minutes for a while.
There are a number of things I noticed about Mapes actions in this article. All emphasis in the following is mine.
Half an hour later, Roberts called "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes with word that Bartlett was not challenging the authenticity of the documents. Mapes told her bosses, who were so relieved that they cut from Rather's story an interview with a handwriting expert who had examined the memos.
[...]
On Friday, Sept. 3, the day after the convention ended, Mapes hit pay dirt. She told Howard her source had given her the documents. Within hours, Mapes began calling around to find independent analysts who could examine the handful of memos said to have been written by Killian. She found one in Dallas, who helped put her in touch with three others.
[...]
None of the analysts, including the fourth, James J. Pierce of California, provided the network with a written report before the broadcast. Howard said Mapes told him the analysts' concerns had been addressed.
Rather said he grew more confident when Mapes began speaking with retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, Killian's superior in the Guard. Hodges said Killian felt that Bush had been treated too leniently in those days. That was important, in Rather's view, because Hodges remained a staunch supporter of the president. But Hodges later said that he felt "misled" by CBS, that the memos were read to him over the phone and that he believes from discrepancies in the military abbreviations that they are forgeries.
On Tuesday, Sept. 7, as Rather sat down in a CBS studio with former Texas lieutenant governor Barnes, the top brass was turning its attention to the explosive story. Heyward, the news division chief, met with Senior Vice President Betsy West; executive producer Howard, who had taken over in June after shifting from the program's Sunday edition; Mapes; senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy; and Esther Kartiganer, whose job is to ensure that interviews are not edited in a misleading way.
"All of us asked questions," Heyward said.
"We asked core questions -- about reliability, authenticity, motivation, could the source have had access to the documents," West said. The executives were satisfied by Mapes's answers, and she began writing the script.
[...]
Rather was already at the studio, recording the audio track. At 11 a.m., Howard, West, Murphy and Kartiganer gathered to watch another piece in the screening room, where they were joined by two CBS lawyers as they began discussing the Guard story. Howard had a backup segment planned -- "60 Minutes" was still in rerun season -- in case he decided to hold the Rather story. Mapes left the meeting to take John Roberts's call from the White House.
[...]
"This gave us such a sense of security at that moment that we had the story," Howard said. "We gave the documents to the White House to say, 'Wave us off this if we're wrong.' " But Bartlett said CBS never asked him to verify the memos and that he had neither the time nor the resources to do so.
[...]
It quickly became clear that the people CBS hired to authenticate the documents had -- and claimed -- only limited expertise in the sometimes arcane science of computer typesetting technology and fonts. Such expertise is needed to determine whether the records could have been created in 1972 and 1973. Independent experts contacted by The Post were surprised that CBS hired analysts who were not certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners, considered the gold standard in the field.
Mary Mapes appears to have done things at every step here to quash doubts and prevent the memos from being examined closely. It appears that she was perfectly situated to deceive her superiors, and there are too many coincidences here for her to not be doing that. Regardless of whether there was a conspiracy, Mary Mapes pushed the memos at key points and did not attempt to sufficiently verify them. She is definitely culpable for intentionally ignoring warning signs that the documents were fake, for not making an effort to rigorously authenticate them, and likely misleading people she interviewed and other's working on 60 Minutes. The executives of 60 Minutes should fire Mary Mapes for incompetence at the very least.
There is no mention of USA Today, although I doubt that it would be well known by people at CBS whether or not 60 Minutes knew ahead of time that USA Today had the memos, and there is no way that the executives would admit to rushing a flawed report just to be first. That said, USA Today claims it received the documents on Wednesday, after the broadcast, and I think they are likely to be telling the truth. The clerk at the Abilene Kinko's could be mistaken about Burkett faxing something on Tuesday, and actually saw him on Wednesday. Or it could be fabrication by the clerk. Nothing in the WaPo article rules out that they were worried about being scooped by another media organization. Regardless, USA Today is likely a foot-note to the rest of what happened.
The Post also confirms that Emily Will and Linda James communicated only with Mary Mapes. This supports my proposition that Mapes concealed the doubts of the experts. The timing of the acquisition of the documents with Dan Rather having just gotten Barnes to agree to appear on 60 Minutes also supports my contention that they ended up using the document because it let them put Barnes on air.
Finally, that 60 Minutes was supposed to be a rerun on the 8th just adds more evidence that the report was a rush job, and it is definite that when Mapes pitched the report to the execs she claimed the story was more solid than it was so that it would be run sooner. That she also ignored her own experts is consistent with either chronic sloppiness and lack of journalistic objectivity, or intentional rushing of a story with false information to prevent thorough inquiry and exposure of fraud. In other words, to deceive those at 60 Minutes and the public.
Update III: (9/19/2004) More damning evidence from the New York Times:
One mystery among CBS staff members is why network officials remained so confident for so long about the documents as so many questions arose.
During an interview yesterday Mr. Howard said that Ms. Mapes, who broke the news for CBS about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal earlier this year, continually pledged confidence in her sources, who were said to have access to Mr. Killian's personal file.
Mr. Howard acknowledged yesterday that he had not, in fact, known who Ms. Mapes's primary source for the documents was before the report was broadcast. But, he said, "Mary Mapes told us her source made her completely confident about where they came from, and that they were authentic, and that made me confident." Ms. Mapes has not returned calls seeking comment.
[...]
One person at the network, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Burkett had been at the very least a go-between for the documents, but that very few people at the network know from whom he might have obtained them, if anyone.[my emphasis]
I'm confident in saying at this point that Mary Mapes lied to and concealed information from her editors many times in order to run a baseless 15-minute political ad. She should be fired, and the rest of the producers and journalists at CBS should be thoroughly investigated to find out how involved they were in Mapes' political operation.
Update IV: (9/20/2004) There is an addendum to this post here, and an update with "new" information here.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
"Burned!"
Andrew Sullivan writes on the New Republic website:
Update: Ace of Spades has some words of wisdom.
Andrew Sullivan writes on the New Republic website:
It seems to me that when a news anchor presents false information and then tries to cover up and deny his errors, he has ceased to be a journalist. I'd like to say that Dan Rather needs to resign from his profession. But, judging from the last few days, he already has.
Update: Ace of Spades has some words of wisdom.
[...]There was Dan Rather's expert witness, a man who, to the extent he "authenticated" anything at all, could only authenticate a signature rather than the entirety of a document.
It turns out that it's actually a little worse than that. Which will be the epitaph of this story: Everything was worse than it seemed, even when you thought it was all pretty shoddy to begin with.
Monday, September 13, 2004
WaPo Takes Down CBS's "Memos," and Weblog MVPs of Rathergate
Howard Kurtz co-writes the expose he should have days ago. It is an excellent collection of the best charges against the authenticity of the CBS memos. He even interviews Newcomer. Other new details include a total retraction by Matley of authentication of the documents, Laura Bush criticizes the documents, USA Today received their copies of the memos right after 60 Minutes aired Wednesday, and that of 100 other documents from the TANG, none use proportional-spacing, and that includes Killian's authenticated documents.
This bit reveals how little CBS trusts experts, even so-called ones who make statements supporting CBS, to examine the documents:
I would like to note that if you were to name MVPs in the blogosphere in driving this story forward, one weblogging group I'd honor would be the fine folks at Power Line, who were the first to bring the questioning of the documents authenticity to the blogosphere, and collected huge amounts of reader feedback to further attack the documents. I'd also like to congratulate Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who went beyond determining if it was forged to determining how it was forged in one post, as well as bringing his significant typographic knowledge to bear in analyzing the documents. And last but not least, Bill of INDC Journal, whose responsibility for the media coverage of the inauthenticity of the documents may never be known, but it is definite that contacting Philip Bouffard helped lay the groundwork for this expose being reported nationally. Bill also followed new developments in the case both on and offline.
Once again, congratulations to the people behind all three of these weblogs for exposing serious media malfeasance.
Howard Kurtz co-writes the expose he should have days ago. It is an excellent collection of the best charges against the authenticity of the CBS memos. He even interviews Newcomer. Other new details include a total retraction by Matley of authentication of the documents, Laura Bush criticizes the documents, USA Today received their copies of the memos right after 60 Minutes aired Wednesday, and that of 100 other documents from the TANG, none use proportional-spacing, and that includes Killian's authenticated documents.
This bit reveals how little CBS trusts experts, even so-called ones who make statements supporting CBS, to examine the documents:
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 asked to visit the network's offices.
I would like to note that if you were to name MVPs in the blogosphere in driving this story forward, one weblogging group I'd honor would be the fine folks at Power Line, who were the first to bring the questioning of the documents authenticity to the blogosphere, and collected huge amounts of reader feedback to further attack the documents. I'd also like to congratulate Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who went beyond determining if it was forged to determining how it was forged in one post, as well as bringing his significant typographic knowledge to bear in analyzing the documents. And last but not least, Bill of INDC Journal, whose responsibility for the media coverage of the inauthenticity of the documents may never be known, but it is definite that contacting Philip Bouffard helped lay the groundwork for this expose being reported nationally. Bill also followed new developments in the case both on and offline.
Once again, congratulations to the people behind all three of these weblogs for exposing serious media malfeasance.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
60 Minutes Memos Debunking: Case Closed
From Joseph M. Newcomb, Ph.D.:
The cliche: read the rest.
From Joseph M. Newcomb, Ph.D.:
I am one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting. I was doing work with computer typesetting technology in 1972 (it actually started in late 1969), and I personally created one of the earliest typesetting programs for what later became laser printers, but in 1970 when this work was first done, lasers were not part of the electronic printer technology (my way of expressing this is “I was working with laser printers before they had lasers”, which is only a mild stretch of the truth). We published a paper about our work (graphics, printer hardware, printer software, and typesetting) in one of the important professional journals of the time (D.R. Reddy, W. Broadley, L.D. Erman, R. Johnsson, J. Newcomer, G. Robertson, and J. Wright, "XCRIBL: A Hardcopy Scan Line Graphics System for Document Generation," Information Processing Letters (1972, pp.246-251)). I have been involved in many aspects of computer typography, including computer music typesetting (1987-1990). I have personally created computer fonts, and helped create programs that created computer fonts. At one time in my life, I was a certified Adobe PostScript developer, and could make laser printers practically stand up and tap dance. I have written about Microsoft Windows font technology in a book I co-authored, and taught courses in it. I therefore assert that I am a qualified expert in computer typography.
The probability that any technology in existence in 1972 would be capable of producing a document that is nearly pixel-compatible with Microsoft’s Times New Roman font and the formatting of Microsoft Word, and that such technology was in casual use at the Texas Air National Guard, is so vanishingly small as to be indistinguishable from zero.
[...]
It does not take a sophisticated expert in forensics or document authentication to spot these obvious forgeries. The forgery is obvious to anyone who knows the history and technology of digital typesetting, not to mention to any intelligent 12-year-old who has access to Microsoft Word.
[...]
[...]All I can say is that the technology that produced this document was not possible in 1972 in the sort of equipment that would have been available outside publishing houses, and which required substantial training and expertise to use, and it replicates exactly the technologies of Microsoft Word and Microsoft TrueType Fonts.
It is therefore my expert opinion that these documents are modern forgeries.
The cliche: read the rest.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Simply Brilliant
Rather is screwed. I was going to say that, if the people who gave this were ideologically connected to CBS, CBS would likely not burn their source with a "leak" of their identity, but if Rather bites the dust for this one, you can expect to hear who forged it or passed on the forgery. Heck, you may hear it even if Rather isn't fired because CBS may really need someone to blame to distract from their incompetence.
A final note: This is perhaps the worst media incompetency in modern American history. Given how long they had it (six weeks!), who they were (60 Minutes "investigative" journalism), and how many issues there are with the documents authenticity, or lack thereof (Almost every piece of these documents has holes in it), any other recent journalism scandal pales in comparison.
Okay, maybe Eason Jordan covering up Saddam is worse, as that one may have killed people. Of course, that was a result of sheer amoral greed by the executives of CNN, not incompetency.
I just came up with another pick for Dead Pool 2005.
Rather is screwed. I was going to say that, if the people who gave this were ideologically connected to CBS, CBS would likely not burn their source with a "leak" of their identity, but if Rather bites the dust for this one, you can expect to hear who forged it or passed on the forgery. Heck, you may hear it even if Rather isn't fired because CBS may really need someone to blame to distract from their incompetence.
A final note: This is perhaps the worst media incompetency in modern American history. Given how long they had it (six weeks!), who they were (60 Minutes "investigative" journalism), and how many issues there are with the documents authenticity, or lack thereof (Almost every piece of these documents has holes in it), any other recent journalism scandal pales in comparison.
Okay, maybe Eason Jordan covering up Saddam is worse, as that one may have killed people. Of course, that was a result of sheer amoral greed by the executives of CNN, not incompetency.
I just came up with another pick for Dead Pool 2005.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
On Blogging at Other Locales
My first post in the former-Amish Tech Support Dead Pool has been up for a while. It examines the connection between the star performer of the Dead Pool, Abu Merang AKA Ahmed Qurei, and my roster, of which I have the sole pick on him. Yes, that was phrased badly; no, I am not rephrasing it.
Technically, it is still the ATS Dead Pool, as it began while ATS still existed, and its name has never been officially changed. Therefore, the 2005 Dead Pool will be the first Laurence Simon Dead Pool.
My first post in the former-Amish Tech Support Dead Pool has been up for a while. It examines the connection between the star performer of the Dead Pool, Abu Merang AKA Ahmed Qurei, and my roster, of which I have the sole pick on him. Yes, that was phrased badly; no, I am not rephrasing it.
Technically, it is still the ATS Dead Pool, as it began while ATS still existed, and its name has never been officially changed. Therefore, the 2005 Dead Pool will be the first Laurence Simon Dead Pool.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
The Kerry Campaign Erosion Chronologized
From the weblog, A Large Regular.
Aug. 12 - Quiet day for the Kerry Campaign. Whoever was in charge today should get a promotion.
From the weblog, A Large Regular.