The End

The

Washington Post has run an article which practically humiliates CBS and Dan
Rather. It begins with a repudiation of the Killian memos by the 60 Minutes
chief document expert, Marcel Matley. The Post then pronounces on the documents
themselves: they are fake.

A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News
with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service reveals dozens
of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military terminology to different
word-processing techniques.

The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the
military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting
techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS's
Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day
word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word.

It continues unmercifully by citing the evidence of electronic typesetting
expert Joseph M. Newcomer who declares "I am personally 100 percent sure that
they are fake". The Washington Post goes on to detail numerous factual and
formatting errors in the CBS documents, mentioning among other things, word
processing characteristics, wrong addresses, styles, inconsistencies in dates
before introducing the additional repudiation of key 60 Minutes source
Bobby Hodges. Deserted by its original document expert, CBS is then reported to
rely on a new consultant called Bill Glennon who says 'IBM electric typewriters
in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and proportional spacing similar to
those used in the disputed documents' before admitting that he was '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.'  To set against poor Mr. Glennon, the Post enters the
contradictory testimony of the Adobe Company into the lists.

Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts for the Adobe company in Seattle,
which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font, disputed Glennon's
statement to CBS. He said "fairly extensive testing" had convinced him that
the fonts and formatting used in the CBS documents could not have been
produced by the most sophisticated IBM typewriters in use in 1972, including
the Selectric and the Executive. He said the two systems used fonts of
different widths.

It is an unmerciful public flogging; the kind one would not wish upon a
donkey. Whether or not Stanley Kurtz's theory (see the previous post) is correct, it is hard to see how CBS can maintain their story a single day longer.