Ramblings' Journal

Dan "Kenneth" Rather to blogosphere: "F--- Off."

Drudge touted Dan Rather's "explanation" of the forged CBS documents all afternoon.

At 6:30, in the early feed of the CBS Evening News, Kenneth did the requisite Hurricane Ivan story, then jumped into the 60 Minutes documents piece with gusto, shoving both feet deep down his throat.

Rather siezed on the question of the superscripted "th" and the notion that the more fanciful IBM Selectric Typewriters used in the early 70s actually did have the capability to use them.

Rather neglected, however, to discuss the concept of kerning, which cannot be reproduced by a typewriter; he neglected to discuss the denial by both the wife and the son of the memo's purported author (who has been dead for many years at this point). Rather also convienently ignored criticism by other mainstream media sources.

It was easier to dismiss the blogosphere as partisan hacks.

Nothing about kerning. Nothing about the paper size. Nothing about the stationary. Nothing about the widow or the son. Nothing about proportional spacing. Nothing about the difference in tone and writing style from other memos by this author. Nothing about the anachronistic language.

They changed the story from coming from his personal files, to admitting that CBS only had a photocopy to work from. The said some typewriters had superscript. Yes, but how common were they? Would they have one of those typewriters in an Air National Guard office?

They said the font Times Roman had been around for many years before the memo. Yes, but could you do it on a typewriter?

Rather said a lot about the criticism of the story is coming from "partisan political operatives." Like all the forensic experts cited by ABC News and the Washington Post?

Kenneth also sounded pretty hoarse. I wonder....could he have been yelling at his bosses, who wanted him to come clean on the story?

NRO's The Kerry Spot has a full transcript of the Rather report.

Posted by mhking at September 10, 2004 07:29 PM