Goofy election night similes aside, Dan Rather is a brave, awesome man for taking on the Bush administration in this manner. I hope his case turns heads in the larger national media, and once and for all settles the matter of President Bush shirking his National Guard duty.

because the story was really developed in 2000 by an Iowa farmer, with a little help from people on one of Salon's Table Talk threads. In many respects, this was the first participatory, web-based story and, of course, the media was too interested in Gore's use of earth tones. It's telling that "Guardgate" would have been a far more useful exploration of character than the fluff about Bush being "someone to have a beer with" (a bizarre assertion for an ex-drinker). I've wondered about Rather's choice of timing. It's beginning to seem that he sees the environment finally being right to fully expose the story. Sadly, it was more important in 2000 and 2004. If is useful, it might finally make "chickenhawk-hood" something that finally gets the attention it deserved in 2003.

I hope the suit goes forward, and I hope against hope the factfinding gets a little bit of media coverage. Better late than never.

might turn out to be pretty good.

There is no doubt Bush deserted his National Guard Unit.

If it was anyone else but this well connected frat boy, they'd be in the brig.

what is being posited as the origin of the supposedly anchronistic super-script of the date that the nay-sayers latched onto as the lack of authenticity of the "smoking gun" letters? I just feel that the interested a-holes who sited the "before their time" superscripts in the 1st place will continually do so unless a beyond-the-shadow-of-a-doubt theory abt from whence they came is exposed. Did the Texas ANG have a particularly ahead-of-its-time typewriter? Please just get this lower-case j dotted before we go big with this story...so as not to waste this opportunity.

That being said, let's not miss a single chance to email our support for Dan in this endeavor, or to flame any media outlet who may slight, or worse, discount this story.

Thanks,

E

I am going to indulge the luxury of imagining that certain people at CBS and the White House are not sleeping very well since Rather filed his suit. I know if I were them, I wouldn't be.

I'll bet there are some very interesting phone calls being made too.

The key to the whole business: *where* did those documents come from? Establish that...and you have Bush and his liars nailed down beautifully.

But it'd be really nice to see a few heads role at CBS, those fucking quislings.

This will be a trial to watch.

It would not surprise me though, if CBS and the White House come up with some kind of face-saving settlement that makes Rather look good, gives him a shitload of dough, and never reveals the reality of Bush's utter lack of principle, integrity or responsibility in his military service.

I always thought the right-wing bloggers knew going in the story was true, and their job was to demolish it. It'll be interesting to see if actualy evidence of coordination between Rove's office and the bloggers ever emerges.

Great piece, Sidney.

There's obviously something rotten in Denmark, and one hopes the lawsuit will at least re-open Bush's ridiculous Guard service. After the swiftboating and what was done to McCain, this is one area where the truth about Georgie boy needs to come out.

Having followed Bush lies, his past after Yale there is no doubt that the man and his cronies are nothing but a pack of lairs, hypocrites pursuing their kleptocracy to the hilt and leading this country on the path of self destruction from within at a fast track. All this evidence mentioned in the article is a clear cut proof about George W. and should be published before this great nation is subjected to more harm and danger. Granted that the US media is owned, operated by conservative republicans that own favors to the Bush Administration, the Carlyle Group and the Bush family, but the Guardian, where Mr. Blumenthal often publishes has no such qualms. Why not let it all hang out through that source. Why is Ms. Mapes not a part of Rather Suit.

And yet, no-one has been able to explain the superscript in the memo or the proportional typeface. As far as my limited knowledge goes, this sort of thing was only achievable on typesetting machines, not clanky 1960s Army-issue typewriters. It's my theory that memo was planted for the sole purpose of discrediting Mr. Rather. The speed with which the bloggers pounced was uncanny; even in this modern era of instant opining...

love blumenthal, but couldn't get past the headline...

NOW he stands, the old fart dan rather, the man who could piss nixon off and who would later let sumner f'ing redstone mao mao him into wanting to keep his job at that late stage in his career -- and FOR WHAT???!! letting the bush dynasty run further roughshod over the remnants of ideal america... ?

fine... ! let cbs cave like they did to that other old fart don imus...

edward r. murrow is rolling in his grave...

walter cronkite is rolling... on his boat, i guess...

hah... !!

fucking american media sucks dont'cha know...

That one slipped through.

as a metaphor for the entire Bush II Iraq War.

A man, with a specific agenda, gets ahold of some documents that seem to prove his case. He goes public. The documents are revealed to be fake (or at least less "slam-dunk-y" than originally thought).

Why does Dan Rather then get fired, his reputation shredded, his career marginalized, while Bush gets reelected, and Congress rolls over and plays dead? Can we compare the harm from the "memogate" story to the harm from the current "presumptive strike" on Iraq?

Good luck, Dan!

I have little doubt that the core of this story is true, and was pretty amazed at the reaction of the White House to the original story, not even attempting to deny it, as well as the non-reaction of most of the news media to this telling point. There is much evidence backing up Bush's absence from the Texas Air National Guard, some of it published in Salon.

But the documents--those images made available on the Internet--are bogus. There just isn't an argument to be made about it. Indeed, there have been variable pitch typewriters for over 60 years, though they have never been the norm for routine memos from non-executives. But these don't produce text like the Kilian memos, which are very clearly identifiable as fax-distorted Word documents. Anyone who does not find this self-evident can look at Joseph Newcomer's analysis (http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm) for example, which is not politically motivated and goes into great depth.

For all I know, there are real Kilian memos that were reproduced in this odd fashion for unknown reasons. As I said, the case against Bush was already so clear that it's a shame it became muddied in this fashion. But for Blumenthal to suggest that there is serious reasonable doubt as to the inauthenticity of the documents presented is either disingenuous or may mean that he has never looked at them.