Mark Liberman at Language Log has a post on the subject, and in particular on "the second extraordinary feature of Mapes' screed, namely her view that the only people who raised questions about the memos' authenticity were members of 'the conservative blogosphere, particularly the extremists among them'":
[Y]ou didn't have to be an expert on document analysis to follow the (straightforward, convincing and indeed incontrovertible) argument that certain of the crucial documents were crude forgeries. And the people who were convinced, and said so, were not all "far right blogosphere bully boys". Geoff Pullum [a fellow Language Logger who had blogged about the subject -EV] can be a bit rough on careless purveyors of bad grammatical and stylistic advice, but he's no thug; and I believe that he considers himself politically left of center ....
Seat saved!
Specifically: can someone explain the relevance of a "victim impact statement" at sentencing? (in other words, should the murder of a good family man be treated any differently than the murder of a single man? a wife-beater?)
Crime victims do need legal representation if they file tort suits, but I don't think that what this legal foundation is about.
"Describing her as being in denial would be a huge understatement."
Edward, I think you are too kind. Certifiable is more like it.
Or, isn't it Harvard Law School that teaches that if you have a good case, pound the case; if you have a weak case, pound the table? Perhaps she is just following that advice?
On this matter, what does Dan Rather have to gain by his law suit? On one hand, he is saying he is not a journalist or even a reporter, but merely reads what is put in front of him i.e. a talking head. Then, he says that he is still convinced the papers were authentic. This puts him into the same category as Mary Mapes and being certifiable. Either way, he looks like a fool.
Also, help me out here. Didn't that fellow in Texas who gave CBS the papers admit that he forged the papers? Maybe, my memory is faulty, but I thought he had.
Corrollary questions: why did CBS and the rest of the major media unquestioningly accept candidate Kerry's refusal to sign the DoD Standard Form 180, which would disclose his actual military record? Especially after Bush had signed his. And why is it that to this day, Kerry refuses to allow disclosure of his military record? Are we to take his word for it that he's a genuine HE-RO?
No. Some of us are skeptics. John Kerry still refuses to disclose his military record for one reason, and for one reason only: he's hiding something bad.
Particularly amazing was where she ridiculed critics and their obssession with the minutia of proportional fonts, curly-cue ligatures and such. I'm no attorney, but from what I've gleaned watching "Law &Order," there's a word for that kind of stuff: "evidence"
- Alaska Jack
Up to $70 million.
Even his lawyer thinks the documents are "likely authentic." I guess at some point, you tell the client what he wants to hear...
Dan,
I would think the 70 million is in serious doubt if his lawyer is as divorced from reality as Dan Rather is. Not what I would call a recipe for success. But, then again, maybe he tells Dan what he wants to hear to get hired under the assumption CBS won't want their dirty laundry aired and will settle. Easy money and all that.
If you are into minutia, check the the date for the medical exam Bush was supposed to be in trouble for missing, and look it up on an old calender
Maybe we need a Godwin's Law about Freepers!
Is this a blog for lawyers?
Because CBS will pay him money to go away and his lawyer will get 40% or whatever.
I agree it won't get to depositions, but I don't agree Rather won't get something out of it.
Harry,
You are probably right. I hope not, but you are probably right. I just hope it gets far enough that no matter what Rather gets out of it, he wil lose whatever is left of his reputation, assuming there is anything.
The odds of Bush ever being deposed are slim to none. Only a judge deeply invested in the "fake but accurate" meme would ever even consider permitting it, even after Bush leaves office, because Bush has no personal knowledge about the authenticity of the Killian Memos (no more than did poor Dan Bartlett, his press aide who didn't challenge them when CBS showed them to the White House a few hours before the broadcast). You have to get to second and third-level hearsay, and about fourth-level relevance, before you'd get to anything on which Bush's testimony would be reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
Rather strongly implied on "Larry King Live" last night that he's paying his lawyers on an hourly-rate basis, not via a contingent-fee arrangement. The firm he's hired, Sonnenschein Nath &Rosenthal, is a first-rate outfit based in Chicago whose predominant litigation practice is for corporate clients who pay by the hour. Rather can certainly afford to pay them their regular rates, and in the grip of his delusions, he probably thinks that it would be a bad economic choice to give up a large slice of his case through a contingent fee arrangement. The sad, sad thing is that CBS is so demonstrably gutless — they're in this mess now precisely because they tried to paper over his complicity in the conspiracy instead of firing him for cause in September 2004 as they should have — that this may prove true.
My extended take on the lawsuit (including what I think are fatal defects in the complaint) is here, and on Mapes' op-ed is here. I think it's fair to conclude that neither Rather, Mapes, nor Rather's lead lawyer (at least insofar as one can make judgments based on his assertion that the documents are genuine) is a member of the "reality-based community."
This case is about systemic problems in American society that allow innumerate and uneducated people like Rather and Mapes to obtain influential editorial positions.
High schools and universities should insist on their graduates having a basic understanding of mathematics, logic and probability; and those without such understanding should not be given the kind of disproportionate access to the spectrum that Rather and Mapes were able to obtain.
I don't mean to demean the news divisions; just yesterday I watched riveting footage of the airliner on which OJ was a coach passenger waiting in line for take-off.
Just like Dan Quayle, W. kept the mainland free of Viet Cong, while never missing a tee time, for which we will be forever grateful. Meanwhile, Kerry who actually served in Viet Nam and won a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star, and was wounded three times, is painted as some kind of slacker deviant. A real war hero like W.'s dad should have bopped Junior in the head.
In our culture we're led to believe that the famous among us don't succumb to the ravages of time like the famous. They're always "sharp as a tack" or some such rot. The famous, at least those with a large cohort of handlers around them, seem to be able to continue indefinitely.
However the truth is that their mental capacity goes downhill just like we mortals. Strom Thurman had no idea what he was voting on for several years before finally retiring. My local congressman was completely incoherent when he finally died in the early 90's. However his office continued to send out mailings on the great job he was doing until his very last week.
I've often wondered if a 52 year old Dan Rather would have looked harder at the story he was reporting than did the 72 year old. Now I wonder if a 55 year old would pursue this Quixotic lawsuit at the cost of what reputation remains. But he now has few toadies to tell him how smart he is while guiding his hand, so he gets his last stab at vindication.
My guess is CBS will give him some shread of vindication that he wants. No money, but a joint statement thanking him for his service, admitting no wrong, but saying he was a great contributor. He'll cling to as vindication for his career choices and use it to prove his 'speak truth to power' attitude is still relevant. Proving he's still at the top of his game.
Very sad, actually.
It would make a great reality TV series, watched eagerly by Freepers and FiredogLakers alike. It might not be as big a hit with the Volokh demographic.
While I am sure that the CBS documents were fake, I am not 100% convinced that this is a reason not to believe them. After all, if Bush was required to get his physical done by a certain date, but the base was scheduled to be closed on the last two days of the period, he might have been expected to go in before the deadline -- that is, no later than May 12.
I hope it does go to court; but I strongly suspect that CBS will do everything in their power to stop it - including writing quite a big cheque.
Standard Bush Derangement holds that he skipped the physical because he would test positive for cocaine. Anyone knowledgeable about drug testing would find this laughable. Cocaine metabolites are water soluble and disappear within three days. If he was doing an occasional line as an adjunct to his drinking at the time, sufficient abstention to test clean was trivially easy. If it pleases you to believe that he had a noseburner habit, something for which there is no evidence, a few days at a private clinic would have kept him out of trouble. The Air Force knew this, which is why, when they started actually doing drug testing after Bush had received his honorable discharge, they did it at the flight line.
Somebody might have wanted to give a certain number of calendar days from the current date to get it done, and added that number to the current date to arrive at the deadline.
-dk
Although I tend to look with a jaundiced eye at any Wikipedia entries that cover the topics between particle physics and cosmology, I have to say ''Thank you!'' for your excellent pointer, which covers the Rathergate gamut and reads like a thriller. Well worth reading for anyone interested in this topic.
I wound up having to go into a detour on the history of the personal computer.
At best the Killian letters were copies (in the FRE sense) of original handwritten documents. The originals, if they ever existed, would have to be produced.
Who was that guy at Judicial Watch who filed numerous suits against Clinton people to get discovery of their papers?
(And it may be significant that Liberman accepts some of the myths about George W. Bush.)
The argument that Charles Johnson made would not be dubious if he were on the far right (he's not), not would it be automatically acceptable if Johnson were a leftist academic.
This is not -- I hope -- a difficult point, but it does need repeating from time to time.
Incidentally, what all this reveals is that Dan Rather and Mary Mapes are probably not the best of journalists. To its credit, the New York Times went back and looked at every story Jayson Blair had written, once they had learned of his plagiarism. CBS should do a similar investigation of stories done by the Rather/Mapes team (and perhaps all the stories, each worked on, as well).
The documents are faked forgeries submitted to us by forgers or their dupes, but hey just ignore that and believe us when we tell you these fakes are accurate about the facts.
LMAO, A liberal is born every minute.
Says the "Dog"
Rather may not get $70M, but he'll get a major chunk of change which, perhaps best of all, he will spin as "truth to power" vindication on all those talk show appearances back in the limelight he so clearly craves. When you're a narcissist who can't distinguish between respect and ridicule, there's no downside here.
a "corporate mainstream media machine" (CBS) and a hugely influential paid representative of this corporate (leftists love to use the word 'corporate' as a dirty word) media machine presented a story to the public, at an extremely convenient time, in order to throw an election and help the left-wing candidate beat the right-wing candidate.
the "citizen grassroots media" (usually the heroes of the left), looked at the evidence, and came up with extensively supported refutations of that evidence, at the light speed of the internet.
if not for the ultimately democratic and grassroots nature of the internet (imagine this story came out 20 years earlier), dan rather and CBS would have gotten away with this fraud.
the fact that the corporation was attacking the right (with fake evidence), and were thwarted by the grassroots is exceptionally delicious to me.
the disconnect from reality among the far left on this issue, to this day, remains that rather is a hero. really. thread after thread at democraticunderground.com confirms this.
it's just amazing. yet again (see: duke rape case), no amount of evidence can convince the true ideologue.
Mapes is multiple-posting on the Puffington Host that she has been 'vindicated,' despite the fact that she was fired by CBS for dishonesty and other unethical shenanigans, and would certainly be suing CBS if she were fired without cause.
From Wiki: And re Burkett, the original provider of these fabrications:Ri-i-i-i-i-ght.
Dear Elliot123:
You wrote: "I wonder how long it will take for GE, Disney, and Viacom to jettison their news divisions? Things like OJ's next trial, Natalie Holloway, Anna Nichole Simpson, and Paris Hilton could easily be coveed by the news magazine shows with far fewer resources and a real profit.
I don't mean to demean the news divisions; just yesterday I watched riveting footage of the airliner on which OJ was a coach passenger waiting in line for take-off.
I'm tired of blondes in the news: Dead ones: Marilyn, Princess Di, Anna Nichole and Natalie [probably dead, they just didn't find a body]; Live ones: Jenny McCarthy, Brittney, Lindsey, Paris and O.J.'s girlfriend.
Israel has bombed a site in Syria and the "news" is O.J.'s girlfriend saying he's misunderstood and innocent.
Israel has bombed a site in Syria and the "news" is O.J.'s girlfriend saying he's misunderstood and innocent.
The same girlfriend who when she broke up with OJ said he admitted to her that he killed Nicole and Ron.
For me, I just hope that the people who are demanding all this "news" about OJ don't vote.
Bush lied; Bush lied; Bush lied.... Eventually, people who only vaguely watch the TV news will get the message (or at least, become so confused that the argument will seem like a draw). The "details" that prove Rather's bad faith can only convince those who actually pay attention to details! I think Mapes/Dan are counting on that being a small minority of people. Sadly... they're probably right.
I assumed that her point was that everyone outside of "the conservative blogosphere, particularly the extremists among them" were so blinded by ideology that they ignored the obvious clues that should have told them the memos were fake.