Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Wes Clark stumps for Kerry in Albuquerque, N.M., September 16, 2004.

Just for the record, the following was formulated after some "word count" play — a feature available on Microsoft Word, but not available to the likes of Mrs. Knox on a typewriter in 1972 and 1973.

An CBS defense is that the now-infamous Bush National Guard memo may be "disputed," but that it was only one small part of a very solid story.

Wrong, wrong. 1) It is refuted. Done. The memo's claims to veracity got shredded here. And here. And here. And here. And
here. And a lot more.

2) About one third of Rather's original report — 667 words out of 2,269, according to the transcript — was spent on the documents.

The remainder?

The rest of the report is almost as shaky as the memos.

989 words are spent interviewing Ben Barnes, the primary accuser of George W. Bush in this case. He says, "I want to say that I'm not here to bring any harm to George Bush's reputation or his career."

Rather mentions that Barnes "is a Democrat who is now actively raising money for John Kerry" — but neglects that Barnes has raised a half million dollars for Kerry placing him in probably the top ten Kerry fundraisers in the nation.

Barnes says Sid Alger, a Bush family friend who is, conveniently, dead asked Barnes to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

Barnes said he contacted General James Rose, the head of Texas Air National Guard.

James Rose is also, conveniently, dead, and thus unable to speak to whether Barnes' story is true.

So — one of Kerry's top fundraisers tells a story trashing Bush, where the only two direct corroborating witnesses are dead and that everyone else denies, and Rather calls this compelling and strong?

The report includes 323 words spent interviewing Robert Strong (including a portion of the documents, so some words are in both the "document" and "Strong" categories).

Robert Strong is asked by Rather, "is there any doubt in your mind that these are genuine?"

Strong calls them "compatible with the way business was done at the times." That's a dodge. "Genuine" and "compatible" are not synonyms.

Strong also says "[Killian] was trying to deal with at least one superior officer, General Staudt, who was closely connected to the Houston political establishment." He says nothing about Staudt retiring almost two years earlier. Just how reliable is that memory, Mr. Strong?

Also Strong later admitted he never observed Killian typing. In fact, he said that he "didn't know if Jerry Killian ever touched a typewriter in his life." Killian was stationed in Houston, Strong was stationed in Austin.

He also said, "I would not say that I authenticated the documents. I basically said that if these documents are what they purport to be, then I don't see anything inconsistent with the way we did business or the man I knew Jerry Killian to be. You know, I'm looking at third or fourth generation copies of memos that look perfectly OK to me. But it's been 30-odd years, man." Strong has also said he "has no personal knowledge" of George W. Bush's National Guard service.

Your honor, I'm finished with this "witness."

The report includes 42 words about his guard service from President Bush, and 112 words in Rather's interview with Dan Bartlett, Bush's communication director for a rebuttal.

Also worth noting: Rather says, "We consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic."

"A expert." Singular in each category. But as we learned in the Baltimore Sun:

CBS also identified the four experts it had consulted to authenticate the Killian papers. In recent days, Linda James and Emily Will, two analysts who said they were asked by CBS to review the documents before the broadcast, have stepped forward to say they raised questions about the memos before the broadcast, but the network brushed their doubts aside. In a statement, CBS said that the two had misstated their involvement, adding that the two women "played a peripheral role in the authentication process" and had deferred to the judgment of San Francisco-based document examiner Marcel Matley, who has defended the authenticity of some aspects of the memos. A fourth examiner, James J. Pierce, also continues to support the documents, the network said.

But in interviews with The Sun, both women said they had not deferred to Matley.

"That is untrue," James said yesterday by telephone. "I did not authenticate them. This keeps on getting more and more involved."

And, of course, recall that Matley said he cannot verify a document a photocopy, which is all that CBS had.

And, who's this "James J. Pierce" guy? He's given us a memo asserting the document is real. Interestingly, his name doesn't come up in a Lexis-Nexis search or Google search for any other court cases where his expertise has been cited. He's not listed as a member of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners or American Board of Forensic Document Examiners or American College of Forensic Examiners International or the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (which lists another examiner in Pierce's home town of Long Beach).

Where did CBS dig up this guy "James J. Pierce"? And just what are his qualifications to examine these documents? And why is his opinion 180 degrees different from everyone else who has gone on the record in his field?

Note that Rather's original report said nothing about the experts they ignored, and dramatically misrepresented what handwriting Marcel Matley told CBS.

To quote Richard Belzer's Detective Munch on the old cop show Homicide:

Okay, I get it. You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here... If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect. What is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams! I am not Montel Williams!

I'm tired of Dan Rather treating me like I'm Montel Williams. Aren't you?