corrente

The facts vs. the fonts:

As usual, the utterly essential Orcinus not only nails the analysis, he points out the way forward. Starting with the criticism/self-criticism:

Ever since the word came down Sunday night that CBS was backing off the story, I've been contemplating my mistake. Some of it was an excess of rigor: Being an old curmudgeonly editor, it was apparent to me that the vast majority of the "forgery" charges were themselves bogus. As someone who's dealt a great deal in conspiracy theories and debunking them, it was abundantly clear that nearly all of the right-wing bloggers' claims were utter nonsense. They had, moreover, leapt to the conclusion that these were forgeries without anything approaching actual proof. My chief tenet -- and a point that still holds, frankly -- is that it's impossible to declare something a forgery without dealing with original documents, and without establishing proper provenance.

Yep. Where I went wrong on this one as well. Heck, I OWNED AN IBM TYPEWRITER, IN THE '70s, THAT DID KERNING AND SUPERSCRIPTS. [1]. Where we went wrong was trusting the SCLM to do, like, actual journalism.

I understand their thinking: The memos mostly substantiated things we already knew about Bush's record. Contemporaries said the memos certainly sounded like things that Jerry Killian was concerned about, and were consistent with Bush's actual performance (or lack thereof). But it's a basic rule: You don't run with a story -- and especially not a major story -- without nailing everything down. And CBS didn't come close.

Thus—surprise!—leaving Bush smelling like a rose (again).

In the process, they probably destroyed any chance that there will be a serious discussion of Bush's military record.

We'll see what AP comes up with (unless the way that the wingers have "worked the refs" on CBS with this one succeeds in killing the story).

The tragic irony of it all is that Kevin Drum (or Orcinus, or Atrios, or Corrente) could have told Dan Rather not go anywhere near Burkett, but to look at Paul Lukasiak instead.[2]

And now, a very interesting point:

There's an added element here, though, that needs discussing: The whole scenario -- particularly the way the Bush AWOL story has been effectively nullified -- that stinks of a classic Rovian Ratfucking.

This is especially the case if Burkett is telling the truth about how he came into possession of the documents: From a "mystery woman" named "Lucy Ramirez" who gave them to him at a rodeo.

Given that Burkett's credibility cannot be any lower than it is now, it's extremely unlikely that he received any such phone call or talked to any such person.

But on the off chance that he is telling the truth, it raises a question:

Any chance that "Lucy Ramirez" has a more than a passing resemblance to Yvette Lozano?
(via Orcinus)

And now, for your viewing pleasure:



NOTES
[1] Incidentally, I don't recall the issue of the variation of the baseline that a manual typewriter would produce. Was it? How manaically thorough was the forgery? And why not, after all, just buy a $75 typewriter?
[2] The story isn't about "the blogosphere." The story is about how a Republican elf transmitted a story to the winger blogosphere, thence to the Standard, thence to ABC.... And why CBS didn't look to the one portion of the blogosphere that could have saved them. "Liberal" media, ha.