Asymmetrical Information

My favorite part of Rather's follow-up "report" was the bit about how the memos are still legit because they fit with "what we already know." Which might be why they were fed to you, gramps.

Am I the only one that's reminded of Piers Morgan, the Daily Mirror editor in Britain that had to be escorted out of his office, still shouting that the faked photos he published nevertheless represented the broader truth? Just after the Abu Ghraib photos came out, the Daily Mirror published photos supposedly of British troups abusing Iraqis. When questions were raised, the Mirror published the supposed first-hand accounts of two soliders (with faces blacked out in the pictures), who supposedly told the Mirror that it was all true and that they had been there. One soldier later recognized himself in the photo and came forward to say that he had never talked to the Daily Mirror. As more and more evidence mounted that the photos were fake (taken in a parking lot in the U.K.), the editor insisted to the end that all that really mattered was that they represented the truth of what was happening.

He's probably still proud that he fought for what he believed.

CBS had more evidence than the documents. Since the statements by witnesses agreed with the substance of the memos, those statements give weight to duplicates of the memos that as copies can never be authenticated. If this Secretary statements about the accuracy of the content of the memos is politically inspired, why didnt she just authenticate them when first given the chance?

Begbee's remark can be taken as an example of the psychosis that political partisans indulge in. CBS perpetrates a fraud on it's audience, through forged documents, and his response is that the story is true, as evidenced by the 30 year-old memory of other people's beliefs by an 87 year old witness, so the fraud doesn't matter.

What fascinates me, is a troubling sort of way, is the prospect that media gatekeepers, prior to the rise of the internet, had a much easier time perpetrating such frauds. How many times has it happened? Would ABC, Fox, and the Washington Post have gone after this without the internet pushing it?

Just to make the point about Juanita Broderick, while noone witnessed the rape, she had friends she told about it at the time. It isn't like twenty years later she suddenly started telling people about it. She got dragged into the Paula Jones case and wanted no part of the spotlight, but her story seemed entirely credible. Unlike say Anita Hill or Bill Burkett who can produce nobody they told about incidents they witnessed near the time they witnessed them.

As to the secretary or anyone else claiming that the memos are consistent with Killians views, remember that CBS has been working on this story for FOUR years and been doing the equivalent of push polling by asking if Killian ever expressed his disgust with Bush. Leaving aside anyones political leanings, how much are you going to trust someones views of thirty years ago when more recently it has been hinted what Killians views were? Quite probably CBS told them what Killians views were and asked them to confirm? CBS has completely muddied the memory pool, if such a thing exists, with its 'interviews'.

CAL

Remind me never to hire Burkett's lawyer as my attorney. What a quote! (Assuming, of course, that the Times didn't butcher it...)

The mistake wasn't that CBS forged the documents. They just forgot the little disclaimer on the screen saying "these documents are a dramatization of real events"

*snicker*

To say, "it begins to challenge his credibility" with regard to Burkett is putting it nicely. At this point, all we really have is his story. The hard evidence presented to back that story up (the alledged "sanitizing" of GWB's record)are forgeries, and bad ones at that.

This entire story is very entertaining, but at the same time gives me yet another reason to be very cynical regarding politics. There exists a large number of people who will take the belief that GWB was awol to their grave, regardless of the fact that there exists "actual" unforged evidence to the contrary. Sure, we will never know the whole truth, but as Jane said, the pres. deserves the benefit of the doubt.

This should not be about ideology. Yet it seems that some people just can't let this go. Just pop over to Olliver Willis' site. He still feels obliged to put forged in sarcastic quotes when discussing the documents. Is there really any doubt anymore?

I'm with Will on this - who else got screwed by 60 Minutes over the years? Maybe smoking is OK for you.

If the Interweb has taught us anything over the years, it should have taught us that the people we respect are infinitely more stupid and venal than one would have thought possible.

To Begbee (and all the others touting the line that it doesn't matter whether the memos were faked, because the story is true):

Would 60 Minutes have run this story if they hadn't had those memos? NO!

THese allegations have been around for a long time, but until the memos, they were strictly he-said/she-said. CBS obviously saw the memos as the smoking gun. They were the KEY to finally "proving" the allegations about Bush in the Natl Guard. Without them, there was no story.

All the rest of their "evidence" is the same old rehashed he-said/she-said. If the allegations weren't proven to most people's satisfaction before the memos, then they're still not proven, now that it's clear the memos are (to be charitable) unreliable.

A prediction: even if (and it is a big if) CBS acknowledges that the memos are forged, there will be psychotics who will refuse to accept CBS's acknowledgement, and will maintain that they are credible. The Thorazine factories could operate 24/7/52 without meeting demand.

This one is going to be a long lasting entry at the "urban legends" websites like snopes.com .

Begbee:

Come on, now. You CAN'T really believe that BS you wrote above.

The fundamental problem of the forged CBS documents is NOT their content. The fundamental problem is that CBS REPRESENTED DOCUMENTS THAT THEY KNEW OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN WERE CRUDE FORGERIES AS LEGITIMATE.

Since when is presenting documents, the legitimacy of which was known to CBS a priori to be questionable, as verified and accurate copies of legitimate originals acceptable practice for anyone?

At best, CBS was abysmally negligent; at worst, they were knowingly complicit. Doesn't matter. In either case, they have NOT done their job in a professionally.

Moreover, it's entirely possible that this was a knowing attempt on their part to influence the outcome of a US Presidential Election. THAT bothers me - a lot. The role of the press is to report the news, not "make it up as they go."

If you can't see this, perhaps you really have "drunk the coolaid."

Damn, I really do need to compose offline.

The sentence in my previous post that ends with the word "professionally" should read, "They have NOT done their job professionally."

"If this Secretary statements about the accuracy of the content of the memos is politically inspired, why didnt she just authenticate them when first given the chance?" Because, unlike Dan Rather, she actually cares somewhat about the truth.

Not to mention she would have to say she typed them and then answer, "On what?" To have any credibility she has to admit the obvious (they are forgeries) and the easily proved (she hates Bush), having done that she is free to say what she wants about the events of thirty years ago that aren't so obvious or easily proved.

Not to mention what I said above. She may well remember some talk about Killian being mad at Bush not because it is true but because his enemies have been spreading the meme since he ran for governor.

CAL

The retired secretary did not submit to ANY questions from CBS or anyone else - leaving her "statement " to be interpreted according to one's political leanings and "fidelity" to truth and logic.

Messy. Very messy.

I can just see CBS having Dan dragged from the building in a straitjacket, then announcing the onset of his "senile dementia" which led to his being unable to distinguish reality from his twisted fantasies. Poor man...

Now, what should we put in the suicide note?

I give this story 5 more days..tops.

The fact that the memos were the stimulus for CBS airing the story shows that without the memos there WERE NOT adequate grounds for such a story. Therefore the authenticity of the memos is central to the story. Otherwise CBS would have run the story without them, just reporting the old old stale allegations that have been floating around since, when, 1996? And they know that wouldn't have been a story.

It is terribly disturbing to see the press bow before the foucauldian belief in the lack of objective truth. If documents are fake, "So what?" As long as they represent "the broader truth", it's all okay. Really.

Astonishing. Doesn't anyone else sense that this is not just a forged document problem, but an assault on truth itself?

We actually have major news organizations suggesting that, faked or not, "it fits with what we already know". That is, we are seeing adults engage in magical thinking: "It is true and it happened because I think it."

So what separates CBS and the NYTimes from Weekly World News? Nothing at all.

Pogo, I agree with you entirely. Perhaps the average person hasn't heard of Foucault (o, to lead such a blessed life), but they sure are getting an intimate acquaintance with his legacy.

I wrote about this at my blog, no credentials. See also Keith Burgess-Jackson's column at TCS: I read the news today, woe boy.

Charles,

You make no mention of the AFFIDAVIT that Juanita Brodderick made that said there was NO SEXUAL ASSAULT by then Governor Clinton. Was she lying then, or lying now?

--Cobra

OT: Why can no one at all on this site spell "Broaddrick"? I've seen a few variants, none correct.

Sorry — as a Dulak (constantly rendered "du Lac," probably because the first name makes people think it's French, which it isn't) by birth, a Thomson (misspelled "Thompson" something like three-quarters of the time) by marriage, and an editor by profession, I find this a smidge irritating ;-)

Every expert that analyzed these documents told CBS they could never be %100 authenticated, because they were copies. CBS has witnesses that have stated the content of the documents is accurate. Killians secretary confirms the content, but has stated she never typed the documents. But since the documents were supposedly from Killians private files, its entirely possible someone else typed them. I think if any of the document examiners actually told CBS, 'Im fairly certain that these documents were produced on a word processor in the last 10 years', then CBS has ethical problems. But Ive read no such thing from the three experts that originally examined the documents for CBS. From everything Ive read, these documents authenticity can never be %100 determined because they are copies.

The documents were the hook for this story. But unlike many of the Swiftys statements, the content in no way contradict its own previous statements or disagree with the existing record. Kerrys medals were vetted, all we know for sure about Bush in the NG is he was grounded for skipping a physical and that he missed much of his commitment to the NG. The content of these likely forgeries allign with Bushs NG record. I can understand the anger that CBS as a news agency presented bad documents, but the substance of CBS allegations remain unchallenged, and its strange Bush has not spoke to the memos content now that Killians secretary has substantiated the memos content.

Some people still believe that "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is a real document. Begbee now has the "Memos of CBS."

Begbee is a moron, people. Don't feed the trolls.

Begbee: From everything I've read, these documents authenticity can never be %100 determined because they are copies.

This may be correct. But their inauthenticity can be 100% determined.

For readers who wish to understand why this is so, one way to think about the matter is to apply the rule ~(A&B) = ~A|~B

If
The document is genuine IF (the signature is genuine AND the type is genuine AND the terminology is genuine AND ...)
Then
The document is fake = The document is NOT genuine IF (the signature is fake OR the type is fake OR the terminology is fake OR ...)

This is why it's often easier to disprove a hypothesis than to prove it. Any broken link in the chain is sufficient to establish falsity, while truth can be established only when every link is solid.

Physicist the document experts arent checking for content errors, terminology was not a factor in their analysis. There has been no conclusion that these documents were typed on a computer, only that it would require a change in the type writers ball for superscript if the memos were created in the 70s. And several of the document examiners say the signature is Killians. Now I think these documents are forgeries, but Ive read no document expert told CBS the memos were fake, and since there was witness agreement as to the content of the memos, you cannot claim CBS was negligent in presenting these documents.

I wonder how many experts they had to consult to find a few who didn't tell them the documents were probably forgeries. And I wonder why they weren't ready to cite their handful of experts on the day they aired the story. It looks to me like they didn't bother with much verification before airing it, just a signature expert, who because the documents were copies couldn't really verify even the signatures. (Real verification requires the original document so the original ink proves that the signature wasn't just cut and pasted, and to microscopically examine the pen strokes to tell if it was written or traced.)

Then, after the storm broke, they started scrambling around for experts who would grudgingly and conditionally say that it wasn't definitely impossible to produce such documents on 1972 technology. But that isn't the real issue. No one has shown that Killian or his secretary had access to a machine that could do this (e.g., the "TH" key that appears in some genuine 111th documents is quite different from the raised "TH" that appears in these documents), let alone that they would go to the extra effort needed to produce an almost type-set quality document for simple memos. Killian quite definitely didn't have the skill to run such a machine, and according to his wife didn't type at all. If you claim that someone else typed these, then find them and ask them to confirm it.

By the way, someone did track down Killian's secretary. She didn't type them.

Begbee - You are wrong (in your 8:49 AM post) in two material ways:

First, the documents have been proven to be fakes. The technology to produce them did NOT exist in the '70s. While CBS' defenders can point to the IBM Composer as an example of a typewriter that could do proportional spacing, it could not use the "quasi-kerning" that is seen in the memos. For example, in the memos the tail of the letter "y" extends below the letter in front of it. (Look at the word "my" for an example.) A mechanical typewritter cannot do this, even one that proportionally spaces, without having two "y" keys. Why? Because some letters, such as "g" extend below the "base line" of the letters. If a "y" were typed following a "g", and if the tail of the "y" were to extend bellow the "g" like it does the letter "m" in the memo, the tail of the "y" would print on top of the tail of the "g". Only a computer can keep track of letter order and space the letters in this "quasi-kerning" manner -- mechancical devices, like the IMB Composer, just don't have the ability to do this. The fact the copies of the memos clearly shows this type of letter spacing PROVES the originals are fakes.

Second, according to ABC News, one of the experts hired by CBS to review the memos wrote an email (followed up by a phone call) telling CBS that the memos were almost certainly fakes. She pointed out 5 problems with the signature AND told them the memo appeared to be done on a computer. Another of CBS' experts also told them the memos did not appear real. Given this, it's more than fair to say CBS knew or should have known the memos were (likely to be) fakes before they went with the story. The fact they went with the story anyway AND did not point out any of the problems with the memos makes them complicate in this fraud.

The point once again is obscured, namely, that the burden of proof is on those making the allegations, and in this case offering documents. The documents stand as forgeries unless and until they are authenticated, which probably can't be done, since we don't even know where these documents came from.

The converse standard - everything is taken as read until discredited - is obviously unworkable.

I agree entirely with Will (and, to my pleasant surprise, SomeCallMeTim) in wondering how many other people got a hatchet job from 60 Minutes, or more broadly, CBS, or still more broadly, any of the major media print or broadcast outlets?

What recourse would a target have had even a few years ago in a similar situation, namely, a grave and probably scurrilous accusation, but one probably not up to the rigorous standard of libel?

Makes you wonder...

The documents are probably fake. The attacks on the secretary disturb me, though. Many conservatives say that the fact that she considers Bush unfit for command proves that she's just saying what she says because of her politics. Isn't it just as likely that you have cause and effect backwards? Isn't it just as likely that if she's telling the truth that explains why she doesn't like Bush? Also I notice that no one here mentions any of the other articles that have been obscured by this issue that are based on documents that no one disputes that tend towards proving that Bush did slack off badly in those last two years.

Of course in my opinion the important war story about Bush is how badly his administration has completely screwed up the war we're involved in now. The only people who've been in Iraq recently and are not acknowledging how many things are screwed up over there are Bush's employees. Even Bush's people have had to indirectly admit it by redirecting $3 billion from reconstruction to security.

Comments are Closed.