Electoral Count: High, Middle and Low Estimates

Toying with that wonderful LA Times interactive map, plus the various state polls as reported at Real Clear Politics, here's best-, squeaker- and worst-case election predictions:

• Landslide: Kerry takes one vote in Maine, and Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, California and Hawaii. Bush takes the rest (including all 9 electors in Colorado). Result: Bush 331, Kerry 207.



• Pessimistic: In addition to the above, Kerry captures 3 of Maine's votes, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Oregon, plus 4 of Colorado's electors (should that state adopt its split vote initiative). Result: Bush 270, Kerry 268



• Disaster: Kerry adds New Hampshire, West Virginia, and all 9 Colorado electors. Result: Kerry 282, Bush 256.

Thoughts:

1. Iowa (7 votes): Despite the fact that Gore won Iowa by only 0.3 percent, the state has been trending Democrat for some time--Republicans wrote off Iowa long ago. Yet recent polls give Bush a 6 point lead. And few in Iowa windsurf. Advantage-Bush.



2. Oregon (7 votes): Though tied at present, only two sorts of people live here: windsurfers and tree huggers. Advantage-Kerry.



3. Pennsylvania (21 votes): Windsurfers--few; hunters--millions. Hunting season started this month; pissing off voters with guns isn't smart. On Slate this week, rural Pennsylvania resident Bill Gifford summed it up:

   Theoretically, Bush can win without Pennsylvania--he did last time--but Kerry can't, and it's looking like he might not.

   Advantage-Bush



4. Wisconsin (10 votes): Bush shouldn't be competitive in a state surrounded by safe Kerry jurisdictions (Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Canada). But, the last two polls said Bush was leading by 4 and 10 percent! The reason: same as Pennsylvania--hunters. Kerry's blaming Bush for the expiration of the assault weapons ban helps the President. Still, "location, location, location." Advantage--Kerry.



5. New Hampshire (4 votes): Bush narrowly won the Granite State in 2000. New Hampshire has a long tradition of distrust for big-city media (fueled by the Manchester Union Leader), so Ra^therGate's gotta sting. Last week, the President was up, with Rasmussen favoring Kerry. General rule: Rasmussen's wrong. Advantage-Bush.



6. Florida (27 votes): The 800 lb gorilla, again. Bush has a narrow lead now, but the polls keep oscillating and the hurricanes disrupted surveys (and swing voter decisions) for two weeks. And the trends are inconsistent: On the one hand, Gov. Jeb Bush easily was re-elected; on the other hand, the contest to replace retiring Senator Graham may be leaning Dem; on the third hand, without Lieberman on the ticket, can Kerry equal Gore's total? Advantage-Bush, but narrow.



7. Colorado (9 votes): This year's Florida. Formerly, a safe Republican state. No more--the state's trending Democrat from the weight of transplanted Californians. Worse, Colorado will vote on whether to dump "winner-take-all" electors--and would apply the new rule this year. If they do, the parties might split the votes 4-5. Bush is ahead now, but the potential voting change makes predictions, uh, difficult. If Colorado adopts proportionate voting and is the margin for either candidate, the 2004 election will replay 2000--and go to the Supreme Court. Advantage-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Kerry Concedes Four States

If you don't believe my electoral math, would you trust John Kerry's? The Associated Press reports that Kerry's pulled broadcast ads in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and "the perennial battleground of Missouri." Battlegrounds no more. Ca-ching x 4.

AP says Kerry's concentrating on Florida and Ohio. This should be a big "uh-oh"--for Kerry. The latest surveys give Bush an 11 point lead in Ohio with Florida still in play (Bush by 6 in one poll, Kerry by 1 in another). However, the Florida poll favoring Kerry seems flawed in that it oversampled women, 45% men/55% women.

Although I agree with Instapundit that it's irrational exuberance, the Iowa Electronic Market and TradeSports futures pools each show Bush over Kerry 68-32. Anything else would be a sucker bet.

IEM Chart, September 21st

New Bush Campaign Ad

If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favor. Before Kerry flip-flops again. And remember: Kerry = McGovern.

A Thousand Words

Ra^therGate in a single frame, by the remarkable Henry Payne, editorial cartoonist of the Detroit News. (via The Corner)

Mary Mapes--CBS Hangs Her Out to Dry

Mary Mapes is Dan Rather's long time producer; she was the producer for the Ra^therGate stories and subsequent defenses. And CBS has offered up her head on a platter, in today's USA Today:

CBS News executives want to know why Mapes, one of Rather's most trusted producers, repeatedly assured them that both Bill Burkett and the documents he gave her could be trusted -- only to have both widely called into question by Internet bloggers and rival news organizations soon after 60 Minutes aired the story. On Monday, CBS said the story should have never run, and Rather apologized to viewers.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Mapes arranged for Burkett to talk to a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

And--after years of touting Dan Rather as the tough investigative journalist--CBS suddenly is minimizing Rather's role to protect him:

In television news and on newsmagazines such as 60 Minutes, producers do the lion's share of the reporting legwork, with correspondents and anchors such as Rather the stars who take credit -- or in this case, the blame. Rather, who identifies himself on The CBS Evening News as "reporting" from New York, is known in the industry as being very active in the nuts and bolts of actual reporting, but producers such as Mapes are the unseen hands behind the stories.

Got that?--when he screws up, Rather's just an actor in a suit!

The USA Today story also includes another howler: "Standard journalistic ethical practices forbid reporters from doing anything that could be perceived as helping a political campaign." I'll bet you didn't know liberal bias violated "standard journalistic ethical practices"--or even that there were any ethics among the major media. Carrying the thought further, shouldn't someone complain to the Federal Election Commission that CBS's entire news budget must be considered a contribution to the Kerry campaign, one that is flatly unlawful under McCain-Feingold?

Meanwhile, CBS named an outside panel to investigate Ra^therGate:

Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press.

Both are capable and credible people. But, consider this: will CBS fire Rather if the panel faults him? After all, in the face of fictitious stories and mistakes in management, senior editors resigned at the New York Times and USA Today.

Well, as John Kerry says, "bring it on!" Meanwhile, I'll be listening to the opera Salome--and reading from the New Testament, Mark 6:25, where Salome asks Herod, "I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist."

Dan Rather vs. Ted White

Presidential electoral success has been variously attributed, but the last two generations of historians and reporters accepted the Theodore White model. His pathbreaking "Making of the President, 1960" chronicled the triumph of John F. Kennedy. The author's focus was on the media, and the battle between Nixon and the Kennedy image. White was a Kennedy man throughout, but his concise style was both entertaining and convincing. White won a Pulitzer prize and followed with accounts of the next three Presidential races. And it's hard to dispute that the beneficiary of the mass media theme de jour (Goldwater's a nut in 1964, the new Nixon in 1968, Washington outsider needed in 1976, what's a bar code? in 1992, Dole is mean in 1996) usually wins.

Not so fast, Dan, Tom and Peter. So, what's the next meme?

1. The media monopoly's broken, thanks to Dan Rather. And another of Dan's victims is the late Ted White--or at least his thesis. For the first time in 40 years, major media's confused: they're being bypassed; their themes are ridiculed or ignored. If you listen carefully, you can hear all the post-Watergate "broadcast journalism" graduates moan "It wasn't supposed to be this way!"



2. Blogs are here to stay. Blogs deserve plenty of credit in general (and, of course, kudos to Powerline and LGF for providing verifiable facts to rebut Rather's blather).



3. Holmes, your market awaits. Almost a century ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chief Justice of the United States, advanced the now-accepted rationale for free speech:

   [T]he ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas--that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).

   Various imperfections in that market (transaction costs and barriers to entry) left Holmes' ideal un-realized as a practical matter, and news filtered through big media. In Time Magazine, Andrew Sullivan explains Holmes' triumph:

   The Web has done one revolutionary thing to journalism: it has made the price of entry into the media market minimal. In days gone by, you needed a small fortune to start up a simple magazine or newspaper. Now you need a laptop and a modem.

4. Though any given blogger may be nuts, the blogosphere isn't. Former CBS-er Jonathan Klein contrasted blogs and traditional media attempting to defend Rather:

   You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at '60 Minutes'] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.

   But, of course, the pajama boys got Ra^therGate right when CBS lied/goofed/coordinated-with-Democrats. TechCentral's Frederick Turner explains why Klein is clueless, calling Internet blogs:

   an extraordinary example of what chaos and complexity theorists call spontaneous self-organization. Out of a highly communicative but apparently chaotic medium an ordered, sensitively responsive, but robust order emerges, acting as an organism of its own. Suddenly a perfectly-matched team of specialists had self-assembled out of the ether.

   Andrew Sullivan shows the similarity between blog and broadcaster:

   One of the best [blogs] is a site started by a law professor in Tennessee, Instapundit.com. This "amateur" has earned the trust of his readers simply by his track record--just as the New York Times did a century ago. . . . [T]he beauty of the blogosphere is that if you make a mistake, someone will soon let you know. And if you don't correct immediately, someone will let you know again. And again. . . . It's the market at its purest.

   With every man a publisher, Holmes wins again. And this time, "a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters" (or MS Word) outdid traditional publishers.



5. The media not dead, just changing. Many folks won't trust bloggers, even including Internet-savvy columnist Cathy Young: "what finally settled my doubts [about the forged memos] was reporting by mainstream media such as ABC News and The Washington Post." So, as Andrew Sullivan captures:

   Blogs will not replace major media. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable--ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available.

The lesson of the past two weeks isn't blogs are the answer; they're part of an answer. I wish it were more. But, in truth, I'd never thought they--we--would get this far this fast. So roll over, Ted White--and tell Dan, Tom and Peter the news.

I Can't Wait for the Movie!

Latest Expose on Dan Ra^ther. (via Registered Media)

Rather Admits Treating Republicans Different from Democrats

Dan Rather, in the August 30th edition of Broadcasting and Cable:

In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns. What's far more import is this: Do they have an exit strategy for Iraq? If so, what is it? How will they address the national deficit? And what are the chances their plans will work?

Dan Rather yesterday, describing his probe into Bush's Texas National Guard service in the late '60-early '70s:

good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Got that? If John Kerry's background is questionable, it's ancient history; in contrast, President Bush's background is ripe for "investigative reporting without fear."

Treating similarly situated persons differently is the very definition of bias. Melody Music v. F.C.C., 345 F.2d 730, 732 (D.C. Cir. 1965). Thank you, again, Dan Rather, for proving beyond cavil that media objectivity is a myth. (via Best of the Web)

Say It Ain't So, Joe

Kerry's nailed his own coffin--there's been coordination between CBS, bogus source Bill Burkett and the Kerry campaign. The link is top Kerry campaign aide Joe Lockhart:

At the behest of CBS, an adviser to John Kerry said he talked to a central figure in the controversy over President Bush's National Guard service shortly before disputed documents were released.

Lockhart, former press secretary to President Clinton, horsetraded with CBS, according to USA Today:

Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign.

The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election.

The Dems, remember, hounded Ben Ginsberg out of providing legal advice to President Bush because Ben also was counseling the Swiftvets "527" organization. But the "crime" of "coordination" doesn't apply to Democrats:

Kerry ally Max Cleland, a former Georgia senator, also said he had a brief conversation last month with Burkett, who told him he had information about Bush to counter charges against Kerry's Vietnam War service. Cleland said he gave Burkett's name and phone number to the campaign's research department.

NRO's Jim Geraghty details the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance ball-handling between CBS, the DNC and Kerry:

The CBS story based on the memos the evening of Sept. 8. Are we to believe that the Democratic National Committee put together "Operation Fortunate Son," in which these memos are front and center, entirely in the hours after the CBS report, and yet had their campaign ready so that these memos are referred to in the first words of the AP story Sept. 9?

Serious corruption, says Hugh Hewitt:

Wow. A senior Kerry aide phoning the forgery-passer at the request of CBS? CBS is advising the Kerry campaign? And the Kerry campaign is following the advice? Fire them all.

This suggests both that the media is merely an extension of the Democrat party, and CBS's news budget is nothing more than a disguised Kerry contribution. (Instapundit asks "Shouldn't CBS just register as a 527 and have done with it?") Plainly this should be investigated, but who could be impartial? Remember Rather's now revealed Kerry's election was more important than Dan's career. And Paul Begala remains both a CNN correspondent and a Kerry campaign advisor.

The media not only coordinates with Democrats--they jointly plan campaign strategy and appropriate coverage. They're not watchdogs--they're champions for Kerry. Ra^therGate will generate more than just libel suits--it may scuttle campaign finance laws as well. Excellent--call McCain-Feingold "reform" Dan Rather's fourth victim.

Kerry Tales, Part XLV

Candidate Kerry just performed the biggest flip-flop of them all, on the biggest issue of them all--Iraq:

Staking out new ground on Iraq, Sen. John Kerry said Monday he would not have overthrown Saddam Hussein had he been in the White House. . .

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

Kerry must presume voters can't remember his opposite approach less than 2 months ago: "Sen. John Kerry said Monday he would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq knowing what he does now."

I shouldn't be surprised anymore. But I thought the height of absurdity was when Navy-in-Vietnam Kerry became the medal-tossing protester, and then transformed into a Swiftboat 'hero' "reporting for duty." Now, just on Iraq alone, Kerry has:

• Voted against the first gulf war, then claimed he supported it.



• Voted for the invasion of Iraq, then against funding the troops there.



• Said he agreed with Bush's decision to invade, and now guesses (for that's all it is) America would be safer without the invasion.

Kerry's done more head spins than Linda Blair. He's George McGovern reborn, without principles, spectacularly unnerved by today's media meltdown. None of "the three faces of John" is qualified to be President.

Mea (Sort of) Culpa

CBS confessed, in a fashion. CBS admits they never should have relied on the memos--but claim to have been duped. They also claim Dan Rather apologized; Rather's statement says:

We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Translation:

1. CBS and Rather are blaming the source to exculpate themselves.


2. CBS continues to shield the ultimate source. They admit that Bill Burkett gave them the memos, but aren't disclosing Burkett's supposed source.


3. This isn't isolated bias by CBS--even the network satellite news gathering trucks are decorated with anti-Bush slogans, and Charles Johnson has the pictures to prove it.


4. CBS proposes nothing to prevent similar falsehoods in the future, says Hugh Hewitt:

   Rather's statement is a pathetic attempt to save face, a limited, modified hang-out," a contingent apology that contains nothing of remorse or any promise of reform much less of resignation.

   Any reporter--Rather included--would demand more, were the liar a Republican official.


5. I expect lawsuits in CBS's future, either by the Killian family or by Walter Staudt--whom CBS defamed without even bothering to interview.

So Ra^therGate is over. I still predict multiple victims: CBS, Rather himself and John Kerry. I couldn't be more happy.

George Bush vs. Major Winchester

What does it say that an excerpt from HBO's "Nine Innings from Ground Zero" makes me bawl like a baby? I don't know. But the clip reaffirms my faith in Bush as a person.

No so John Kerry. Sure the Senator speaks the Queen's English, as he did when asked if he enjoyed auto racing: "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?" But he doesn't know where the Green Bay Packers play football. In fact, Kerry's accent, tone and peevishness sound just like Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, Hawkeye's obnoxious tent-mate on TV's M*A*S*H. This can't help come the debates. No one would choose four years of Major Winchester's whining. Most Americans wouldn't vote for Charles Emerson Winchester III--and they won't vote for John F. Kerry either. That's why I predicted, back in mid-February:

That's why President Bush will be re-elected. Because he speaks our language. And Americans love that kinda guy.

Remembering Chester Carlson

The creator of the Xerox copier, among the last of the solo inventors, died 36 years ago today. Carlson's story--and the story of the Xerox Corporation, originally called Haloid--is well told in a new book by David Owen: Copies in Seconds. Mr. Carlson made a fortune, then gave most of it away--anonymously--before he died. RIP Chester Carlson, who died September 19, 1968, aged 62 years.

Bush's Lead Grows

According to Knight-Ridder/MSNBC:

President Bush has pulled ahead of John Kerry in six closely contested swing states that he carried in 2000, shifting the electoral landscape to the right and making it more difficult for challenger Kerry to win the White House, according to a new Knight Ridder-MSNBC poll.

Bush leads in six of the seven battleground states he won four years ago and that were considered among the most competitive this year. He leads Kerry in Arizona 50 percent to 39 percent, in Missouri by 48-41, in Nevada by 50-45, in New Hampshire by 49-40, in Ohio by 49-42, and in West Virginia by 45-44.

(via KerryHaters) My "conservative" state-by-state tally just three days ago conceded New Hampshire and West Virginia to Kerry. A Bush victory in both states would give the President 283 electoral votes.

Begala Still Has Two Jobs

At least someone else is outraged that Paul Begala's working for Kerry while remaining a commentator for CNN. Too bad it's only the (nearly content-less) Washingtonian:

When Paul Begala’s cell phone rings, it could be John Kerry asking whether it’s time to attack President Bush. Or it could be Begala’s CNN producer asking him to come on the air to comment on whether Kerry’s going to attack Bush.

There once was a line between those who worked for politicians and those who worked for the media. You were a flack or a hack. That line has all but disappeared.

If Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman also had a seat on CNN---not that they'd ever hire a Republican--we'd never hear the end of it.

In addition to another four years for President Bush, this election will be remembered as the year the media's liberal bias became impossible to hide.

Rather, Beyond Repair

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn echoes my amazement at Rather's curious belief that, were the memos forged, Rather himself would tell-all:

Hel-looooo? Earth to the Lost Planet of Ratheria: You can't 'break that story. A guy called 'Buckhead' did that, on the Free Republic Web site a couple of hours after you and your money-no-object resources-a-go-go '60 Minutes' crew attempted to pass off four obvious Microsoft Word documents as authentic 1972 typewritten memos about Bush's skipping latrine duty in the Spanish-American War, or whatever it was. . . .

By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.

So the only story you're in a position to break right now is: 'Late-Breaking News. Veteran Newsman Announces He's Recovered His Marbles.'

Jonah Goldberg says, "When people are in deep, deep . . . denial about their predicament, you can get a really good sense of how they see the world. Denial, after all, is simply the place where your personal interpretation of reality splits off from the objective facts." By that criteria, Rather and CBS belong in the loony bin.

Tim Rutten in the LA Times calls Ra^therGate "faith-based reporting." Still, the WaPo doesn't quite get it:

How could a program with the sterling reputation of "60 Minutes," which created the television newsmagazine during the Johnson administration, have stumbled so badly? And how could Rather, at 72 the dean of the network anchors, have risked his reputation on such a story in the heat of a presidential campaign?

Because the media's in the tank for the Dems, as usual, that's how! Only thing different this time is that bloggers caught Dan's hand in the cookie jar. (To its credit, the WaPo publishes an excellent side-by-side comparing real and forged Texas guard memos--one of the latter of which purports to be written on a Saturday!) Hugh Hewitt says "The blogosphere is hell on the inauthentic," which--in addition to Rather--includes Kerry:

What he may not know is that it is already over. You can't run for president as someone you are not, at least not anymore, and especially not in the wake of a forgery scandal. . . . You can't pretend to be a centrist, or smart, when you are the spokesman for a party in the left ditch.

Or when the first line of an op-ed, in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, is "The widely repeated myth of "John Kerry, the Vietnam Navy Hero" is one of the most dishonorable and dangerous deceptions ever perpetrated upon the American public."

As I predicted, the blow-back from Dan Rather's on-air seppuku killed Kerry as well. I'm so enjoying this that I'm living Jonah Goldberg's quip: "Is it possible to die of Schadenfruede?"

RatherGate, Day 9--Dan's Triple Play

Ra^therGate gets bigger. Here's a summary of two new items since Wednesday, and the list of losers.

1. LGF reports, based on the fax header on top of the memos, CBS got the memos from Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard. Who's Burkett? According to the Washington Post, a "well-regarded Texan." Almost no one else agrees. Burkett was among the first to point at Bush's Texas National Guard Service, back in the late-1990s. But Burkett's animosity is personal: Fox News reports "Burkett blamed Bush and his aides for blocking medical treatment for him after he contracted a tropical disease in 1998." (Remind you of Ross Perot complaining that Bush 41 planned to disrupt his daughter's wedding?) According to the Houston Chronicle, "Burkett has a long history of making charges against Bush and the Texas National Guard. But Burkett's allegations have changed over the years, and have been dismissed as baseless by former Guard colleagues, state legislators and others." And Burkett's recent pronouncements further reduce his credibility as a source, says the Chronicle:

   One month ago, in an essay posted on a progressive Web site, Burkett theorized that Killian would have been a likely person to know more about Bush's service. But, he conceded, "I have found no documentation from LTC Killian's hand or staff that indicate that this unit was involved in any complicit way to ... cover for the failures of 1Lt. Bush ... " Burkett went on to say, "On the contrary, LTC Killian's remarks are rare."

   Isn't it suspicious that, eight years after Burkett began investigating, but 50 days before the election, documents containing "rare" remarks suddenly appear? NRO's Jim Geraghty quotes a Mike Rezendes, a reporter for the liberal Boston Globe, who corroberated Burkett's previous claims. Geraghty also quotes Rezendes, appearing on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Thursday, warning: "If Bill Burkett were source of these records, I would check them very carefully."
   
   In sum, the alleged memos were supplied by a tainted and possibly deranged source with a long-standing grudge against the Bush family. But that was good enough for Gunga Dan.



2. Retired Col. Walter Staudt was mentioned in one of the memos allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian as assisting Bush. But Staudt retired in March 1972, a year before the purported memo's date, further evidence of forgery. ABC interviewed Staudt, who flatly denied the allegation:

   "I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to," Staudt told ABC News in his first interview since the documents were made public. . .Staudt said he decided to come forward because he saw erroneous reports on television.
   
   He added that after retiring he was not involved in Air National Guard affairs. "I didn't check in with anybody -- I had no reason to," he said. "I was busy with my civilian endeavors, and they were busy with their military options. I had no reason to talk to them, and I didn't."

   Staudt, a Bush supporter, went further to deny Bush used family connections to avoid Vietnam:

   "He didn't use political influence to get into the Air National Guard," Staudt said, adding, "I don't know how they would know that, because I was the one who did it and I was the one who was there and I didn't talk to any of them."
   
   During his time in charge of the unit, Staudt decided whether to accept those who applied for pilot training. He recalled Bush as a standout candidate.
   
   "He was highly qualified," he said. "He passed all the scrutiny and tests he was given."
   
   Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. "No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard," he said. "It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody."

   Interesting that Staudt was interviewed by ABC, but ignored by CBS. Mickey Kaus speculates Staudt may sue CBS for libel!



3. Losers: this scandal has staying-power at the expense of CBS, Rather, and Kerry.

   A. CBS: The network's clearly nervous--its ratings are plunging, and CBS affiliated stations aren't backing Rather--some dropped "60 Minutes" from the schedule. Instapundit quotes WSJ's Holman Jenkins:

   The network didn't just fall for fake documents; it reportedly used fake documents to pressure/entice its other 'source,' notorious Texas pol Ben Barnes, into publicly claiming he helped pull strings to get Mr. Bush into the Guard and giving CBS a 'scoop.' From a journalistic standpoint, that's very, very bad -- the kind of 'mistake' it's hard to recover from.

   Today's Chicago Tribune's Editorial is brutal:

   [W]what looks like shoddy reporting on George W. Bush's career in the Texas Air National Guard, anchorman Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS News have made it harder for all those other journalists to earn and keep trust. . .
   
   The president of CBS News now says the network will "redouble its efforts" to investigate the documents. The time to do that was before the story aired. And some journalists wonder why many Americans think we're biased, arrogant and inaccurate. The burden of proof here was on Rather and Co. If they did ignore warnings from experts, they hurt a lot of honest reporters.
   
   News organizations that relied in part on CBS' story--the Tribune included--put some faith in CBS News' credibility. Only to learn that the network may have had its trademark eye wide shut.

   Lawyer/radio talk-show host Hugh Hewett blames CBS for "not defending the brand." Lawyer Ernest Miller says all major media, not just CBS, are at fault:

   Where are the outraged calls for more transparency on the part of CBS News from the editorial boards of the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal? Why haven't anchors of the other networks called for CBS to establish an internal, or better yet, an external investigation into the issue? Any profession that won't police its own when members egregiously violate the fundamental tenets of that profession will very quickly lose all credibility.

   B. Rather: Fellow journalists are deserting his sinking ship. Dennis E. Powell, former CBS newswriter and radio network news editor, says Rather violated CBS's internal "standards" guide. Not even fellow CBS-er Andy Rooney believes Dan, according to Friday's NY Daily News:

   CBS curmudgeon Andy Rooney indicated yesterday he believes the controversial documents on President Bush's National Guard service are fake and said it could cost Dan Rather down the road.
   
   "I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong," Rooney said, referring to CBS brass.

   Former colleague Bernard Goldberg--whose CBS career ended when he accused Rather of liberal bias--writes in the Wall Street Journal:

   Dan and CBS News do what they'd never tolerate in a crooked politician: They circle the wagons. . . . And this is precisely Dan's problem. This is why, I suspect, he isn't coming clean, despite the damage to his reputation. Because Dan Rather may be protecting not just his source, but himself; because, if the source turns out to be a partisan, then Dan wasn't just taken for a ride, but may have been a willing passenger.
   
   And then Dan, and CBS News, can kiss their reputations goodbye.

   The WSJ also carries a column from conservative National Review reporter Byron York:

   [I]t appears that Mr. Rather did indeed check and re-check the authenticity of the papers. The problem is that, when each check and re-check cast doubt, he decided to go ahead anyway. And when he was caught out, mostly by a legion of bloggers who seemed to know more about the subject than he did, Mr. Rather responded like a politician caught in a scandal, attributing partisan motives to his critics while ignoring most of the charges against him.

   Even the New York Times--till now, a CBS defender--is backing away, in Friday's story detailing Rather's history of Bush hatred and conflicts with conservatives.
   
   Rather has been his own worst enemy all along. On Wednesday, Rather said, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story." Uh, Dan, bulletin from the front: the blogs and every other network and newspaper "broke" that story last week.

   C. Kerry: Shifting the spotlight to Rather leaves the Senator in the dark. Simply put, while Bush gets media coverage as a sitting President, Kerry's been crowded out of airtime Mickey Kaus makes the connection between Ra^therGate and Kerry's decline.
   
   Moreover, Ra^therGate's continued focus on Bush's past is a losing strategy, says NRO's Jim Geraghty:

   All of this National Guard stuff, coupled with the Kitty Kelley book, feels like an attempt to recreate the effect [of] Bush's "November Surprise" DUI revelation. But in that case, Bush was a relatively new figure on the national sta[g]e.

   Though many Dems haven't noticed, it's not 2000 anymore. Bush isn't running on his distant past; re-election depends on the voters assessment of his first term. Kerry, a relatively unknown figure, had to show he could be trusted as Commander in Chief. Kerry relied on his 30-years past military service. Bush's appeal rests on the last three years of the war on terrorism, even if he benefited from influence 30 years ago, as National Review's William F. Buckley explains: "Here is a subject best ignored, but when raised, requiring basic sophistication. Grown-up people know that influence is everywhere used."
   
   Which is why attacks on Kerry's past--such as this new Swiftboat Vets ad highlighting inconsistent Kerry explanations about "tossing" his service medals--have been devastating. At the same time, Kerry's been noticeably less effective in attacking Bush, says Charles Krauthammer:

   If the election were held today, John Kerry would lose by between 88 and 120 electoral votes. The reason is simple: The central vulnerability of this president -- the central issue of this campaign -- is the Iraq war. And Kerry has nothing left to say.
   
   Why? Because, until now, he has said everything conceivable regarding Iraq. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can say now that is even remotely credible.

   And Bush will benefit from election law changes, largely championed by the left, that advance the voting, says Hewitt:

   The big problem for Kerry is that the election really begins tomorrow, when ballots are mailed out to "long term absentee" voters in Oregon. Voting begins in Iowa on September 23, and in Arizona on September 30. Early voting is widespread, and it isn't just absentee voting. In Florida, for example, voting centers open 15 days before the 11/2 vote.

4. Conclusion: CBS's sticking with the forgery despite the holes in Burkett and Staudt's challenge. Why? Arrogance and inattention, says NRO's Rich Lowry:

   Have you heard of the Internet? Have you noticed it has the power to debunk the work of sloppy and stilted mainstream journalists? Isn't it a bummer?

   A bummer for Kerry too, says Hugh Hewitt:

   Dems are downcast, stuck with an out-of-touch, fantastically bad campaigner and an invisible lightweight on the bottom of the ticket. The clock has ticked down past where Kerry can make another "introduction to the voter," and he's in hiding anyway.

   In just nine days, Rather's unplanned suicide also killed CBS and John Kerry. Kudos to you, Dan--an unassisted triple play.

Polls, Predictions--and Desperation at AP

November 2^nd (note superscript) could be a rout. Gallup gives Bush a 13-point lead (55%-42%) over Sen. John Kerry among likely voters. Even the CBS/New York Times poll gives Bush a 9 point lead. A poll by Pew--biased toward Kerry throughout the campaign, according to liberal Mike Higton--says it's much closer, 47-46 Bush among likely voters. But not even lefties at Pew could skew the overall numbers: RealClearPolitics lists most polls, and calculates an average Bush lead of 5.5 points. Finally, the latest Iowa Electronic Market numbers favor Bush by a 3:2 margin:

The numbers reflect the President's clarity, Kerry's weakness, and Dan Rather's arrogance. All looking good, especially given this photo, which could be Dukakis in a tank.

Still, the non-partisan, unbiased Associated Press demurs. Today, they buried Bush's favorable poll numbers in the 20th graph of an anti-Bush story. And yesterday, AP conceded support for the President was up, but not among swing voters:

[Bush] has been gaining ground among overall voters as a leader and the man to fight terrorism, but swing voters have been less impressed, a tracking poll suggests.

AP explains this seeming paradox:

For swing voters, Bush's job approval has declined from the 50s in mid-August to the mid-40s. That may be caused at least partially by Bush solidifying his support and removing some backers from the swing voters group.

In other words, when Bush converts "swing voters," AP focuses on the now smaller swing category to conclude support for the President is declining.

The liberal media--a crazy cocktail of bias and bogus math in search of leftist silver linings in a conservative storm surge. (via Best of the Web)

WMDs in Iraq

Still think "Bush Lied?" He didn't. But don't believe me--listen to a long list of Democrats (and Frenchman) who were convinced Saddam's WMDs were a threat. So did everyone lie--including Senator Kerry?

Election Snapshot

The LA Times has an interactive map linked to the latest poling data--it's the best website for election prediction. With less than seven weeks remaining, here's my current, worst-case, tally (270 needed to win):

• Bush--274 votes: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska.



• Kerry--264 votes: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii.

This is a conservative estimate, since Bush is ahead or tied in Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and Oregon (and I question West Virginia). States the President must hold: Florida (leaning Bush), Tennessee (majority Bush), New Mexico (leaning Kerry) and Arkansas (mostly Bush).

Understatement of the Week

Bill Clinton’s heart surgeon reporting his patient's condition:

He is awake but still sedated. So he is arousable.

Mark Steyn comments, "I’ve never doubted it."

Global Terrorism, According to Steyn

Mark Steyn supplies another cogent analysis in the Spectator (U.K.), addressing the odd alliance between radical Islam and the radical left:

Three years after September 11, the Islamist death cult is the love whose name no one dare speak. And, if you can’t even bring yourself to identify your enemy, are you likely to defeat him? Can you even know him? He seems to know us pretty well. He understands the pressures he can bring to bear on Spain, and the Philippines, and France, too. He’s come to appreciate the self-imposed constraints under which his enemy fights — the legalisms, the political correctness, the deference to ineffectual multilateralism. He’s revolted by the infidels’ decadence but he has to admit it’s enormously helpful: the useful idiots of the pro-gay, pro-feminist Left are far more idiotic and far more useful to him than they ever were to Stalin. He’s figured out that while pluralistic open democracy might be a debased system of government next to Sharia, it has its moments: he had no idea that quite so many Westerners so loathed their own governments and, if not their own, then certainly America’s. And he never thought that, even in America, while one party is at war, the other party is at war with the very idea that there is a war. And even the party committed to war presides over a lethargic unreformed bureaucracy, large chunks of which are determined to obstruct it.

Media: Rather Biased

The Ra^therGate scandal surrounding CBS's forged memos killed the liberal media last week; today's the wake. It's an Irish wake, where everyone--except the corpse --is partying up a storm. Credit blogs (especially Powerline and LGF)--who "took the lead role"--in rubbishing the memos. Credit ABC news and the Washington Post for actually investigating and raising doubts, and recently for revealing CBS disregarded warnings of two experts hired by the network itself! Credit House Republicans who, as I predicted, are demanding a Congressional investigation. Jonah Goldberg best captures the mood: "Is it possible to die of Schadenfruede?"

So, who's the corpse? It's a multiple wake, with four dead: Two men and two media giants.

1. "Gunga" Dan Rather: He doubled his bet by repeatedly defending the memos, then gives his idiot impression when interviewed in today's New York Observer, according to NRO's Jim Geraghty:

   [H]e gives this interview and claims the experts are divided 50-50. That just isn't the case. There just aren't any serious experts who think this thing is real anymore. Marcel Matley says he didn't verify them. ABC exposed the two others whose warnings CBS ignored.
   
   And Rather obliviously insists there is a "stalemate" between . . every major forensic document examiner quoted on the record by every media source, and . . . dismisses other networks' investigations as mere "competitive response."
   
   He suggests that ABC, the Washington Post, NBC, etc. are pawns of "powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents."
   
   Then, the more specific the critiques of the documents get, the more he assets blind faith. Other reports verified facts, like Bush's address during the time period, are dismissed as "allegations."
   
   At this point, it does not seem too harsh to question how much of a grip Dan Rather has on reality.

2. The New York Times: The "old grey lady's" plainly is trying to support Dan. But today's headline concedes bias: "Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate." Kathryn Jean Lopez, Editor of National Review Online, reacted "This NYT headline cannot be real. This is self-destruction before our eyes." But the Times clearly believes a "fake" is "accurate" if it hurts Republicans--or, as Instapundit says, "It's okay to plant evidence, if you really think the suspect is guilty." Opinion Journal's James Taranto calls this confession of bias "the greatest headline ever." NRO's Stanley Kurtz says American media deliberately shifted its objective from "objectivity" to "liberalism." Taranto unearths a Herblock cartoon providing startling proof of the transformation in just 50 years, when the press scorned forged letters:
   



3. CBS: The network officially "doubled down" minutes ago, via Andrew Heyward, President of CBS News:

   We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing.

   Note CBS defends the memos are "accurate," not "authentic." Powerline provides a translation:

   CBS has played its cards; it holds none. CBS now undertakes efforts to discover evidence bolstering a story that has blown up in its face. Its efforts should be redirected to facing reality and acknowledging culpability. It is now at the least complicit in a fraud of monumental proportions.

   But CBS adopted the NY Times defense in a just-aired interview with the Texas Guard secretary, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, who supports the NY Times position:

   She too believes the memos are fake --but-- accurately reflect Klllian's view of Lt. Bush. "I know that I didn't type them however, the information in those is correct."

   Yet, according to the Houston Chronicle, Ms. Knox is a longtime Democratic primary voter and acknowledged "she is not a Bush political supporter." And, she's changed her story:

   Last week, Knox said she had no firsthand knowledge of Bush's time with the Texas Air National Guard, although she did recall a culture of special treatment for the sons of prominent people, such as Bush and others.

   So CBS shifted its defense from document experts it hired to a non-eyewitness with an admitted bias. As Ernest Miller says, this is a transparent attempt to deflect the focus from fraud. According to NRO's Kerry Spot, CBS affiliate stations aren't sold--some of them are switching from CBS news to Fox news!



4. John Kerry: Between the Swiftboat vets and ineptness, Kerry's campaign is bleeding and battered. And John Edwards has been out of the news so long, I'm checking milk cartons. Even the Kerry-supporting and NY Times owned Boston Globe concedes the "Bush campaign has seized control of . . . the 'frame' of this year's presidential contest." So could Ra^therGate convert the undecided? Here's one, an Andrew Sullivan reader:

   I was struggling with how to approach this election. . . [T]his unspeakably disgusting behavior by CBS has now made my decision easy. I always thought the clear liberal bias at CBS (and others) was just a natural consequence of the way the liberal journalists dominating MSM see the world rather than a concerted effort to push a liberal agenda (the fish don't feel the water theory, as others have put it), I now see how wrong I was. If CBS is willing to not only shred even the pretense of journalistic ethics, but to actually conspire to commit fraud (as I think the evidence of ignoring experts and standing behind such obvious forgeries shows) in a desperate attempt to throw a presidential election and install their candidate, then I must do everything I can to oppose them. This means becoming an active supporter of President Bush. I would never have imagined that would happen, but all I can say is thanks, CBS, for exposing yourself and clearing things up.

I hope he's not alone. Because I'm enjoying this four-part wake. So, thanks, CBS, for the chuckles, the Schadenfruede and (I hope) the election.

More:

ABC News highlights CBS's failure to disclose the possible motive or bias of its new source: "Rather Does Not Mention Knox is a Democrat." (via Instapundit)

Kerry's Flip-Flops Explained

John Kerry's frequent flip-flops are well documented. Kerry has reversed himself on dozens of important issues, including invading Iraq, the morality of Vietnam Vets, reducing troop levels in Europe and Korea, the Patriot Act, the death penalty, and welfare reform. Kerry's even been on both sides of trivial questions, such as his ancestry and using home movies from Vietnam in his campaign.

Kerry's constantly evolving perspectives are "one gigantic mess." This suggests the Senator has more ambition than principle. Moreover, Kerry's shifting sands make it difficult to identify his position on any given question, and defy attempts to predict what might happen should he win.

Until now. I've discovered the key--his views have a seven day periodicity, meaning Kerry's multiple positions return and repeat after a week. So, as a public service, here is a guide to Kerry's "nuance spin cycle," and his take on any given question:

• Sunday: I support it.



• Monday: I oppose it.



• Tuesday: First I voted for it, then I voted against it.



• Wednesday: First I voted against it, then I voted for it.



• Thursday: NOT(President Bush's position).



• Friday: My position was "seared--seared--in me" during a Christmas eve 1968 incursion into Cambodia.



• Saturday: "Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia."

Kerry Quote of the Week

Speaking in Canonsburg, West Virginia, on September 6, 2004, according to the New York Times:

"Everybody told me, 'God, if you're coming to Canonsburg, you've got to find time to go to Toy's, and he'll take care of you,'" Mr. Kerry said, dropping the name of a restaurant his motorcade had passed on the way in. "I understand it's my kind of place, because you don't have to - you know, when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling: Ah, what do you want?

"He just gives you what he's got, right?" Mr. Kerry added, continuing steadily off a gangplank of his own making: "And you don't have to worry, it's whatever he's cooked up that day. And I think that's the way it ought to work, for confused people like me who can't make up our minds."

Only a few days ago, the guy with five houses, an $8000 bike, and a windsurfer tried to appeal to blue collar males by saying: "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?" At least Kerry's honest: he's confused.

Black Rock or Black Rubble?

I've been grinning, non-stop, since CBS made liberal cheerleading more important than journalistic objectivity. And scouring dictionaries for appropriate words: Chortle. Guffaw. Howl. English seems insufficient for the forged National Guard letters, which NRO's Jonah Goldberg rightly labels "the greatest story since Noah got all those animals on a boat."

Dan Rather said CBS investigated for weeks. Various blogs--particularly Powerline and LGF--called the letters "fakes" within 24 hours. Hugh Hewett collects the evidence. Dr. Joseph M. Newcomer, "one of the pioneers of electronic typesetting," supplies the proof.

Long-term results of CBS's bias:

1. The Bush National Guard Story is Dead: Further investigation would be hesitant and tainted.



2. Congressional and Commission Investigation: The Hill (at least the House) will hold hearings, and the FCC will be flooded with complaints (which they will duck).



3. Traditional Media's Dead: Powerline predicts "the networks abdicated their authority with the American people." Lileks says it was suicide:

   Blogs haven't toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you've see films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke -- then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We've been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes. And when the dust settles we will be right back where we were 100 years ago, with dozens of fiercely competitive media outlets throwing elbows to earn your pennies.

   Either way, it's the death knell of traditional media's monopoly on news.



4. Kerry's Toast: He already was a loser. But if the forgeries came from the campaign, as the American Spectator reports, it's gonna be a landslide.

Note to Dems: don't blame middle American complacency, the "vast right-wing conspiracy," the Supreme Court or Halliburton. It's an inside job, says Mark Steyn:

Remind me never to complain about 'liberal media bias' again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.

CBS bet its headquarters building (called the Black Rock) on a drive-by slander, says Investor's Business Daily:

Could it be that CBS and Rather wanted to take Bush down a peg — especially given the questions about John Kerry's Vietnam service raised by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?

And could it be that CBS and Rather let their well-documented political leanings overrule their journalistic sense? Have they become just another hack voice in the political game?

Sure it could. The media went "all in" to elect Kerry. Now they're busted, turning the Big Black Rock into little charred rubble. De mortuis nihil nisi bene.

More:

LGF reports Time Magazine still backs CBS, based on an expert's determination, apparently employing an industry term of art, that the evidence of fraud is "full of crap."

Still More:

The Shape of Days blog conclusively demonstrates that IBM typewriters commercially available in 1972/73 could not have produced the CBS memos. And don't miss William Safire recommending Rather show some "courage."

Three Years Later

Three years after three thousand died (including three personal friends), NRO's Victor Davis Hanson takes stock of radical Islam:

The perversion not of religion per se, but of Islam; the singular method of suicide bombing rarely found elsewhere; the frequent resort to the unique grotesquery of beheading; the now-common display of abject incompetence on the battlefield coupled with craven slaughter of the noncombatant and civilian aid worker. At some point, the leaders of the Western world (if there are any left besides George W. Bush and Tony Blair) are going to look at all this madness worldwide and come to the bitter conclusion that there is a disgusting pattern: Not every Muslim is a fascist terrorist, but almost every fascist terrorist is a Muslim.

Hanson also excoriates the terror apologists' excuse "of course the Palestinians (or Chechens or Iraqis) use terror--that's all they have."

If the Estonians can break away from post-Soviet oppression and free themselves from Russian authoritarianism without slaughtering schoolchildren and blowing up airplanes, then the Chechens can as well — but only if they wish to create democracy rather than an Islamic fascist state.

Finally, Hanson shows why even appeasing the radical Muslim demand de jour (more West Bank land, French "insensitivity" to Islamic pride, building a reactor in Iran, a semi-autonomous Chechnya) won't stop terrorism:

[These issues] in theory could be discussed, argued about, and adjudicated through democratic dialogue.

But that is impossible. For you see, the real problem is the democratic dialogue itself — unknown in the Arab Middle East and much of the Islamic world, and a hindrance to both sharia and the pan-Arabist thug with epaulettes and sunglasses.

Read the whole thing.

Fact Checking--Traditional Media Loses the Mandate of Heaven

CBS's Sixty Minutes re-opened the "Bush AWOL at National Guard" story, based on purported newly unearthed documents from the Texas Guard. The memos say Bush was a no-show, but political influence forced the Guard to cover-up. The formerly sensible, but now Kerry fan, Andrew Sullivan pronounced the information "devastating."

Nope--turns out, the papers are forged. Powerline and LGF have the details, including (from Powerline):

UPDATE 12: In the August 18, 1973 memo "discovered" by 60 Minutes, Jerry Killian purportedly writes:

Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.

But wait! Reader Amar Sarwal, citing Peter Nuss, points out that General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972.

Two points:

1. The media will sacrifice their honor to beat Bush.
2. Dispersed bloggers kick the media's ass.

Tune-out the nets, cancel the newspaper--the mandate of heaven's moved on. Old media's dead; long live blogs.

More:

Mark Steyn provides play-by-play for "the day old media died:"

Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking, so the ''60 Minutes'' crew rushed on air with a damning National Guard memo conveniently called ''CYA'' that Bush's commanding officer had written to himself 32 years ago. ''This was too hot not to push,'' one producer told the American Spectator. Hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera -- that's way too cold to push; we'd want to fact-check that one thoroughly, till, say, midway through John Kerry's second term. But a handful of memos by one dead guy slipped to us by a Kerry campaign operative -- that meets ''basic standards'' and we gotta get it out there right away.

The only problem was the memo. Amazingly, this guy at the Air National Guard base, Lt. Col. Killian, had the only typewriter in Texas in 1973 using a prototype version of the default letter writing program of Microsoft Word, complete with the tiny little superscript thingy that automatically changes July 4th to July 4^th. To do that on most 1973 typewriters, you had to unscrew the keys, grab a hammer and give them a couple of thwacks to make the "t" and "h" squish up all tiny, and even think it looked a bit wonky. You'd think having such a unique typewriter Killian would have used a less easily traceable model for his devastating ''CYA'' memo. Also, he might have chosen a font other than Times New Roman, designed for the Times of London in the 1930s and not licensed to Microsoft by Rupert Murdoch (the Times' owner) until the 1980s.

Killian is no longer around to confirm his extraordinary Magic Typewriter, but his son denied the stuff was written by his dad, and his widow said her late husband never typed. So, on the one hand, we have hundreds of living veterans with chapter and verse on Kerry's fantasy Christmas in Cambodia, and, on the other hand, we have a guy who's been dead 20 years but is still capable of operating Windows XP. It took the savvy chappies at the Powerline Web site and Charles Johnson of ''Little Green Footballs'' about 20 minutes to spot the eerily 2004 look of the 1972 memo.

Instapundit calls it "Ra^therGate." Hugh Hewett summarizes the flood of forgery evidence; Charles Johnson drives nails into CBS's coffin with a .gif image comparing the purportedly typewritten 1972 letter with the same content on Microsoft Word; a similar comparison (by an LGF reader) is here. Headlines the LA Times: No Disputing It: Blogs Are Major Players."

"If the font needed time travel, you must fire Dan Rather."

Media: Selectively Biased

The NY Times reports John Kerry "enlisted more Clinton advisers to help shape his strategy and message for the remainder of the campaign. . . Among the better-known former Clinton aides who are expected to play an increasingly prominent role are James Carville, Paul Begala and Stanley Greenberg." The catch? "Mr. Begala . . . said he would remain a CNN commentator."

Pretty sweet gig--counselor to the candidate by day; neutral newsman at night. Clearly a win-win for cable and campaign alike--flawless recollection and wide dissemination of sound-bites dashed off during commercials; withering critiques of campaign initiatives invented elsewhere; always-accurate insider gossip. Kinda like those late night TV ads: "That's right--the new Begala's a floor wax AND a desert topping!" Or even a reality show: "The Two Begalas." Tune in to see if Begala can "upgrade" Begala from the press bus. Or whether campaign finance laws let him buy his own lunch. The spellbinding finale solves an ancient paradox: can a journalist quote himself anonymously? (Joe Klein doesn't count)

Sorry to be a kill-joy, but Begala's new part-time job raises obvious questions:

1. WTF? How can Begala counsel Kerry's campaign and cover it for CNN? Quite a conflict of interest.



2. How come almost no one's complained? Hedgehog Report and Worldmagblog flag the issue, and Ramesh Ponnuru supplies appropriate irony at The Corner. But, where's the outrage?



3. Why do Dems dodge denunciation for conduct that induces indignation for Republicans? Didn't 38 Congressmen just denounce cable channels with "a deliberate bias in favor of, and often serves as an extension of, [a political party's] policies and ideology." Ah, but the Congressmen were whining about Fox News. If the press played fair, they'd call the same 38 Reps for a follow-up/reaction quote about Begala and CNN.
   
   (Please, hold the cards and letters about George Will's debate prep for Reagan in 1980. That was similarly sleazy, and Will was widely excoriated by the press. Where's the tsunami today?)
   
   More recently, Bush's outside lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, resigned following a media firestorm because he also counseled the Swiftboat group. (Note: I've occasionally worked with Ben.) The Dems said sharing outside counsel was evidence of impermissible "coordination" between the campaign and independent advocacy groups. But Ben did nothing wrong, because--among other reasons--legal ethics prohibit lawyers sharing confidences between clients, much less coordinating. To its credit, the Washington Post agreed. Nevertheless, by this point in the Ginsberg news-cycle, Ben was long gone.



4. Does anyone still believe there's a "professional" press? CNN and Begala are outrageous and immoral. But journalistic "ethics" see, to protect the media, not the public. Some watchdogs. Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Mass media reduced the costs of collecting and distributing information. Yet, somewhere on the path from Trivium to town crier to tabloid, media selectivity and skew started upping the price of truth. Which might inhibit our ability to scrutinize government officials.

Or some of them anyway. Big media is liberal media, as both New York Times and Newsweek's Managing Editor recently conceded. Indeed, according to the Times, it's no contest:

When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington. Some surveys have found that more than 80 percent of the Beltway press corps votes Democratic.

So the multi-headed Mr. Begala's probably safe. At least "according to a recent poll of journalists. . ."

Still press bias might have a silver lining should Kerry win. True, our President will be an emperor without any clothes. But the clothes should be easy to find--they'll be scattered across the liberal media's bedroom floor.

Pick a Doctrine

I've always said November's a referendum on foreign policy. Indepundit (Citizen Smash) makes comparison easy, by reducing the "Bush Doctrine" to four principles:

1. We will fight for freedom. We reject moral relativism.


2. The friends of our enemies are also our enemies.


3. We reserve the right to hit our enemies before they strike us.


4. We will not negotiate with those who continue to support terrorism.

John Kerry's acceptance speech articulated the opposite:

And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

Bush's vision saved thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kerry favors foregoing force until it's nearly futile. Actions have obvious consequences. So does failure to act, though that's tougher to quantify. The U.S. didn't have to wage war in the developing world a decade ago--unfortunately for the people of Rwanda and Burundi; luckily for those in Haiti and Kosovo. England and France didn't have to go to war in central Europe 65 years ago--but delaying the dispute doomed not only Austrians, Czechs and Poles, but hundreds of thousands of Brits and Frogs.

The ideal is impossible; everything is "compared to what." Preemption may not be perfect, but Bush's strategy is a sensible reaction to the scope and shape of terrorism today. In contrast, Kerry's alternative is premised on the preposterous presumption that peace is promoted by an a priori allegiance to indecision and inaction. Which foreign policy best safeguards your home and family?

Beyond Cambodia

According to the liberal media, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are liars. For example, this week's Time magazine called the anti-Kerry Swiftboat ads "sabotage". Yet the Swifties showed that Kerry's long-standing claim to have infiltrated Cambodia was fantasy, as the campaign later conceded. Only a biased press could confuse truth and sabotage.

And new revelations may follow, now that the conservative group Judicial Watch asked the Pentagon to review Kerry's Silver Star commendation. The future Senator's commendation was signed by former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Yet Lehman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, and held that job in the early 1980s, long after Kerry's stint in the Navy. Moreover, Mr Lehman denies all knowledge of the commendation. "It's a total mystery to me," he said last week. "I never saw it, I never signed it and I never approved it."

Kerry originally was awarded the medal for action on February 28, 1969. Kerry's current citation is dated March 1981 (typo corrected), a full 12 years later. Yet, as the Bandit shows, Kerry's Silver Star citation was amended twice--there are three different versions! Overall, the second and third version eliminated many of the events cited as original justification for Kerry's medal. Moreover, Kerry's website contains a Navy record listing his Silver Star with a "V" for Valor--a designation that does not exist. The campaign says the "V" was a "typo."

All this is irregular, to say the least. More twisting facts to suit his electoral ambitions. Clearly, Kerry has tons of influence and insider help--anything but the "common man" he now claims to be. It reeks of apple polishing politics at its worst.

Kerry's own hagiography historian Douglas Brinkley admits the investigation could be trouble for Kerry:

[If it] turns up evidence of "purposeful" deception, it could spell doom for the top Democrat's White House bid.

Praising reporter Thomas Lipscomb, who broke news of the Navy investigation on Friday, Brinkley told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg, "Journalists are going to have to see whether there's a discrepancy on [the citations posted to Kerry's] Web site - whether there's something wrong that's said there or not."

John Kerry whines that fact-checking his record is an excessive "personal" attack. Nonsense, says Mark Steyn:

Americans should be free to call Bush a moron, a liar, a fraud, a deserter, an agent of the House of Saud, a mass murderer, a mass rapist (according to the speaker at a National Organization for Women rally last week) and the new Hitler (according to just about everyone). But how dare anyone be so impertinent as to insult John Kerry! No one has the right to insult Kerry. . .

Sorry, man, that's not the way it works. And if he thinks it does, he's even further removed from the realities of democratic politics than he was from the interior of Cambodia.

There's an easy way to resolve the issue: Senator Kerry should sign a "Form 180" waiving service record confidentiality, authorizing the Navy to release his (non-classified) service records to the public. But John Kerry's balked--and lied, according to the WaPo:

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.

Civil libertarian author/editor Nat Hentoff hints at a cover-up:

What is in these 100-plus pages? Since the centerpiece of Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign is not his 20-year Senate career, but what he did in Vietnam, including his medals, aren't voters entitled to look at the entire record? If not, why? . . .

The Post story continues: "The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Washington Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with [Kerry biographer Douglas] Brinkley." [Mr Brinkley's book has been published and is available for purchase.]. . .

What I find strange is that Mr. Dobbs writes that "Kerry himself was the only surviving skipper on the river then who declined a request for an interview." Why did more than 250 Vietnam veterans testifying in Mr. O'Neill's "Unfit for Command" make themselves vulnerable to a libel suit by Mr. Kerry, which, if they lost, could do great damage to their careers and incomes? After all, in such a suit, both sides would have to testify under oath. Are they all liars for Mr. Bush?

Would Mr. Kerry then really release all of his original Vietnam records to be scrutinized in the lawsuit's depositions? In a challenge to Mr. Kerry, Mr. O'Neill says, "Sue me!"

A post-Vietnam fog of war does indeed hover over the Kerry candidacy. And why has most of the mainstream media not followed up on this smoking gun about Mr. Kerry's failure to release all of his Vietnam documents?

No surprise then that recent polls give President Bush a double digit lead, including key states. The Swifties are partly responsible for Kerry's eclipse, but not by sabotage. If there's a saboteur, it's Senator Kerry himself--of his own campaign.

More:

Bandit and River Rat analyze all the Kerry medals. (via Captain's Quarters)

Some M's are T's; All T's are M's

Well argued logic and self criticism from Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al- Arabiya news channel, in today's Telegraph (UK):

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.

Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims.

Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim.

What a pathetic record. What an abominable "achievement". Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?

These images, when put together, or taken separately, are shameful and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of denial. . .

We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.

Islam isn't the enemy. Perverted, radical Islam is. And it's not just after George Bush--the target is Western Civilization as a whole. As folk singer (and liberal lion) Pete Seeger asked, "which side are you on, boys?" (via LGF)

I'm Back

After a one-week trip to liberal land--Northern California. I'll write it up. Until then, here's Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here's the final para:

I remember a couple of days after Sept. 11 writing that weepy candlelight vigils were a cop-out: the issue wasn't whether you were sad about the dead people but whether you wanted to do something about it. Three years on, the two conventions drew the same distinction. If you want passivity and wallowing in victim culture, the Dems will do. If you want to win this thing, Bush is the only guy running.

Read the whole thing.