Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Image from Bush's healthcare ad, released September 13, 2004.

Let's take a close look a CBS's defense, Part II, according to the transcript from the folks at RatherBiased.com.

RATHER: Besides checking on John Kerry's service record,

This includes requests/demands for Sen. Kerry to sign Form 180, right? No? Oh.

CBS has been checking President Bush's service in the National Guard, including whether or not he did or did not fulfill his commitment. We're gathering information, asking questions and probing. CBS is also addressing questions about documents used to corroborate some of the information in our reporting. Some of these questions come from people who are not active political partisans.

What a noble concession! I guess this means that some of the criticism has come from inactive political partisans? Coach potatoes? How about mentioning that the questions have come from the top forensic document examiners in the field, contacted by your rivals at ABC, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News...

It is tonight's inside story. At a Democratic national press conference today,
the shots being fired by some retired military men were aimed directly at President Bush's National Guard service.

UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUAL, LATER IDENTIFIED AS FORMER AIR FORCE GENERAL MERRILL McPEAK: But official records showed he skipped a physical and was grounded. Do you know how hard it is to get your annual physical? I took 37 of them in a row.

RATHER: There has also been criticism of the new documents obtained by CBS. But CBS used several techniques to make sure these papers should be taken seriously. Talking to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have [been] created in the 70s.

Name them. The man you cited Friday is now telling the Washington Post that there is no way he could authenticate the memos.

BILL GLENNON, information technology consultant: Everything in those documents that people are saying can't be done, as you said, 32 years ago, is totally false. Not true. Like I said, proportional spacing was available, superscripts was available as a custom feature. Proportional spacing between lines was available. You could order it any way you like.

Yes, such features could be custom ordered. But how expensive were they, and how likely were those features to be found on a typewriter in an Air National Guard office in 1972? And please explain why Mr. Glennon told the Washington Post last night, after CBS's report, that he is "not a document expert, could not vouch for the memos' authenticity and only examined them online because CBS did not give him copies when asked to visit the network's offices."

RATHER: Richard Katz, a software designer, found other indications in the documents. He noticed the lower case "l" is used in documents instead of the actual numeral one. That would be difficult to reproduce on the computer today.

KATZ: If you were doing this a week ago or a month ago on a normal laser-jet printer, it wouldn't work. The font wouldn't be available to you.

I must be missing something, because it appears you are contending that it is impossible for a typist to press the lower case "l" instead of the numeral "1." In fact, I just did that while typing this sentence.

RATHER: Katz noted the documents have the superscript 'th' and a regular-sized 'th.' That would be common on a typewriter, not a computer.

KATZ: There is one document from May of 1972 which contains a normal "th" at the top. To produce that in Microsoft Word, you would have to go out of your way to type the letters and then turn the "th" setting off or back over them and type them again.

Actually, you would have to leave a space between the 111 and the "th," which is exactly what the document author did in at least one instance. You appear to be insisting that undoing the automatic superscripting of the 'th' is impossible. To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

RATHER: CBS News relied on an analysis of the contents of the documents themselves to determine the contents' authenticity.

Please see Byron York on this matter. He points out that comparing the verified documents with the CBS memos portrays "Killian as Jekyll-and-Hyde figure. Publicly, he praised Bush, while privately, in memos CBS says he wrote only for his own files, he expressed serious misgivings about the treatment given the prominent young officer."

It is in line with what is known about the service and dates. For instance, the official record shows that Mr. Bush was suspended from flying on August 1, 1972. That date matches the one on a memo given to CBS News, ordering that Mr. Bush be suspended.

If the service and dates are in the publicly disclosed official record, wouldn't that be the easiest thing for a forger to get right?

Shortly after 60 Minutes broadcast the new documents last week, USA Today obtained another new document. In the memo dated February 2, 1972, Colonel Killian asked to be "updated as soon as possible on flight certifications, specifically Bush."

Bait and switch! Bait and switch! Rather hasn't mentioned anything about the objections from Killian's widow, Killian's son, their contention that Killian did not type, their denial that he kept personal files, or anything about the origin of the documents, why CBS was only able to obtain photocopies, the fact that the address on one of the memos that is supposedly Bush's address hadn't been used for two years (wouldn't Killian know?), Staudt's retirement two years before one document he is cited in, the differences in style from other authenticated Killian memos. He hasn't addressed most of the complaints from the small army of forensic examiners suggesting the memo is fake. Now, instead of addressing any of these issues, Rather is introducing two new documents?

That appears to be in line with newly released White House documents that indicate changes in Mr. Bush's flight certification in early 1972. An analysis shows that instead of exclusively flying the F-102 he'd been certified in, the president began additional training in a lower-level plane and flight simulators.

Why is CBS attempting to show that USA Today has another, different document, which may be authentic? Why the sudden shift away from defending the four memos in question? And USA Today's documents are in exactly the same style as the CBS memos. Which raises the question: Has anyone found any memos written by Killian in this style that didn't have anything to do with George W. Bush? Or did he use this rare, $17,900 state-of-the-art, custom-made word-processing machine sitting in the National Guard office for just these six memos in his entire career?

CBS News asked the White House today to answer a number of questions: Did a friend of the Bush family use his influence with the Texas house speaker to get George W. Bush into the National Guard? Did Lieutenant Bush refuse an order to take a required physical? Was he suspended for failing to perform up to standards? And did he, in fact, complete his commitment to the guard?

Why should anyone answer questions based on the discovery of fake documents? If the documents are proven to be the real deal, then certainly the White House ought to answer the questions. But by CBS's standard, I can make up, er, "discover" a memo from Rather's doctor declaring that the CBS News anchor has dementia, then insist that Rather answer questions about it, and then argue that the controversy over the Kerry Spot's discovery of Rather's dementia memo are a distraction from the real issue of Rather's mental state.

In reply, a White House spokesman told CBS's John Roberts: "As you know, we have repeatedly addressed these issues, including during the interview you conducted on behalf of Mr. Rather last Wednesday."

Mr. Rather, you're quite lucky that the White House spokesman didn't respond to your questions by singing, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

The White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign always point out President Bush received an honorable discharge. What is in the 60 Minutes report CBS News believes to be true and believes authentic.

Backtrack? Is that a backtrack I smell? On Friday Rather was saying on CNN he "knew" the documents were authentic. Now we're being told that CBS News "believes" the documents are authentic.

Straight ahead on the CBS Evening News, they're supposed to inspect your bags, not steal from them. He got caught red handed.

Funny, the bag inspector isn't the only person caught red-handed around here.