Hey Walsh--Nothing about Sarah today? She must have done something stupid yesterday-Hugged her child? Made breakfast?Sang in the shower? Surely something we can howl about--Oh,you're a Rachael Maddow fan? Now,how did I already know that?

The IBM Selectric II typewriter could do all those things that the blogger claimed could only be done with a word processor and since the news rooms didn't have IBM Selectrics no one checked it out.

The blogger was an out right liar and was taken as a factual source without question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter

"Selectrics and their descendants eventually captured 75 percent of the United States market for electric typewriters used in business.[1]"

"The ability to change fonts, combined with the neat regular appearance of the typed page, was revolutionary, and marked the beginning of desktop publishing. Later models with dual pitch (10/12) and built-in correcting tape carried the trend even further. Any typist could produce a polished manuscript. By 1966, a full typesetting version with justification and proportional spacing was released."

The same MSM that covered up the truth with a lie sells a 2007 laser printed document as a 1961 typewritten original with the same level of journalist integrity as was used to get rid of Dan Rather and portray George Bush as something he clearly was not.

People prefer lies to truth.

""The authenticity of these documents was quickly called into question by a small group of bloggers, initially based on their being proportionally printed and displaying other modern typographic conventions with limited availability on military typewriters of the time. This led to claims that the memos were forgeries.""

That is a lie.

Font Ball Technology.

"The ability to change fonts, combined with the neat regular appearance of the typed page, was revolutionary, and marked the beginning of desktop publishing. Later models with dual pitch (10/12) and built-in correcting tape carried the trend even further. Any typist could produce a polished manuscript. By 1966, a full typesetting version with justification and proportional spacing was released."

"Selectrics and their descendants eventually captured 75 percent of the United States market for electric typewriters used in business.[1]"

As long as the lie got rid of Rather you have no problem with the lie, do you?

I agree that Rachel Maddow and Dan Rather's discussion about icon Walter Cronkite was well done. I think the fact that they adressed the changes in the news industry, that it's become personality driven debunks all those who've posted here saying Cronkite will turn over in his grave with Maddow's success. Cronkite knew that it's now an era of opinion, Fox News started this trajectory towards opinion based news programming so for anyone to criticize MSNBC's Maddow mostly due to not sharing her opinions is ludicrous. She and railroaded Rather did a respectful insightful show which I enjoyed. I'll always choose the intelligence, charm and authenticity of Rachel Maddow...and that's the way it is.

Forget about Rather and the font B.S.

Go to the archives of the Boston Globe, where a considerable amount of original reporting on George Bush's uniformed whereabouts, or lack therof, can be read.

The problem, as I see it, is that a vital and viable news program is more than just the sum of its Anchor(s). It is producers, research staff and probably, most importantly, ownership. Past incarnations of the F.C.C. have tilted the playing field against media ownership that is interested in providing a viable, independent news operation. It isn't in their parent company's best interest to be telling too much truth. As for anchors and staff; yes, I believe these people exist and could be reassembled into a real television news operation. In fact there are real television news operations in the United States right now. The problem is that they aren't well represented on the mainstream media channels. Of those presently appearing on network, I have little hope. On cable, we have the makings of solid news organizations. It wouldn't be trivial for them to take the final step up into the realm of Murrow and Cronkite. It also wouldn't be impossible. Where the real research and reporting occurs is on the fringe of cable and satellite as well as on the Internet. To create the real, viable news organization on Network would demand an incorporation of elements from Cable, Satellite and the Net.

Imagine, if you will, "The Network News," with your hosts, Rachel Maddow and John Stewart. Their additional research staff and segment producers would come from the likes of Colbert, DemocracyNOW!, LinkTV Mosaic, Al Jazeera English, Salon, TruthDig, Machetera, AlterNet, TPM, The Daily Beast, London Times, The Independent, The BBC . . . And the best and the brightest of a host of other reputable sources too numerous to name or even be comprehended here. And their venue would have to be the newest, largest, Network dominant incarnation of Free Speech TV (FSTV) ever conceived of in alternative media's wildest dreams.

Yes we could once again, with validity, hear the iconic words, "And that's the way it is," on Network. Cronkite's truth-telling could be emulated there. What I doubt is that Network retains the relevance, in the Internet era, to be the best venue for that voice. I think it's more important at this juncture, to institutionalize Net-Neutrality, preferably in a Constitutional Amendment, so that we will always have a platform available for the, "Free and Open Marketplace of Ideas." Network television is a decaying marketing tool of oligarchic and oligopolistic corporotocratic interests.

Let's enshrine Network-Neutrality on the Internet and till our garden there and on Satellite Television. I'm certain that under those conditions another 'broadcast' news organization of the stature of the Titans of CBS could and would flourish. The medium may not be the message, but it certainly is the gate that can serve to choke the message off.

"And that's the way it is."

"Nobody has proved that they (the documents) were fraudulent, much less a forgery... The truth of this story stands up to this day." -- Dan Rather

As I said before. I find Rather's quote here astoundingly egocentric and a true window into the deep-rooted bias at the core of his very soul. You see, it really wasn't up to anyone else to prove the documents were fraudulent OR a forgery. It was HIS job, as the "journalist", who brought these documents forward as "evidence" to prove they were NOT. But he didn't. And still hasn't. In fact, he was then and is now so incredibly biased, he still doesn't get that.

PS: When he called upon the CBS experts he claimed had assured him the documents were real, they said the network had mislead them. Yeah, he was "battered by an unfair right-wing scandal" as Joan says. Uh-huh. Dan Rather brought himself down. "The voice of truth" as Joan likes to call him, remains a fraud till this day.