EXCLUSIVE : CBS Faked Ben Barnes Interview
Well, it looks like there’s a lot of doubt about the CBS documents now. I’m willing to concede that they might be fakes, but I still stand by the point I made earlier that there’s a big difference between proving you can replicate a document using modern technology and actually proving the documents in question are fakes. Among other things, I haven’t heard anyone refute the “impact printing” defense over at Mark Kleiman’s. Or this detailed font comparison (via Pandagon).
Unfortunately for those of us on the left, we’ve got even more to worry about. In researching the 60 Minutes piece, I came across this photograph which sheds a lot of doubt about the authenticity of the Ben Barnes interview.
That’s right, the Ben Barnes that appeared on CBS was a fake. Leave it to the Kerry campaign to supply that socialist bastard Dan Rather with a robot that’s been programmed to bash our great leader.
As Instapundit sez : They’ve got a lot of explaining to do….
UPDATE : For those who are too dim to see through this joke, let me explain the point here : Discrediting the documents in the CBS piece may falsify part of the story, but the conclusion that was supported by the Killian memos and the Ben Barnes interview remains intact. George Bush was allowed to skip ahead of hundreds of people in order to get into the TANG and once he got there, he didn’t complete his duty. Thats the obvious conclusion based on every eyewitness account (or lack thereof) as well as every other document available (even if we discount the Killian memos).
Does this have a bearing on the job he’s doing now? Probably not, but the fact that the President has been lying about it for more than a decade is at least as newsworthy as that Swift Boat Veteran bullshit. And considering the “regular Joe” act Bush uses to appeal to swing voters, I think it’s extremely relevant to point out that he’s a spoiled rich-kid who got to cut into line ahead of normal people who ended up getting killed in Vietnam. To paraphrase what conservatives love to say about Kerry’s Vietnam service, Bush invited these charges on himself when he made his personality a centerpiece of his campaign
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Salon has an excellent article detailing several aspects of this controversy.
Comment by Becky — September 11, 2004 @ 8:25 am
Sorry for this mini-rant….but why let Rove, et al., move the left back to the defensive? Christ, no one needs memos to figure out that Bush slacked on his national guard duty. If we go back to attacking, they won’t have time to dwell on “forgeries” and the media won’t have time to repeat it ad naseum (it will cut in to time slated to re-run Paula Zahn’s interview with Bush, Sr.)
Comment by ksh — September 11, 2004 @ 8:51 am
Is it me, or does Ben Barnes’ head there look an awful lot like Gerald Ford?
(Also, what’s up with this “questionable content” stuff? It wouldn’t let me post my hotmail addy.)
Comment by Michael — September 11, 2004 @ 5:48 pm
Sorry about that. I’ve got MT Blacklist installed to get rid of the comment spam and sometimes if I don’t pay attention to the stuff I automatically add, it can be a little too aggressive. I didn’t see Hotmail in there, but I did see that I accidentally added yahoo.com and yahoo.co.uk. As long as your email isn’t something like v1agra@s1ut-rape.com, you should be able to post without any problems.
Comment by greg — September 11, 2004 @ 8:12 pm
Why was the White House happily passing out copies of these memos when they have dragged there heels kicking and screaming over every other record of Bush’s mal/nonfeasance? Cuz they wanted them out there. Hoping the dems would embrace them. Hoping this would discredit the whole “Bush is a lying slacker and always has been” thing. Keeping the debate away from social programs, the economy, pandering to rich supporters, raping the environment, etc.
Comment by Jerry — September 12, 2004 @ 1:31 am
Nope. Still won’t let me post with a hotmail address. Or gmail. Seems to be blocking on anything that ends in “…mail dot com” (and I had to spell it out so it wouldn’t choke on it in the comment body.
Comment by Michael — September 12, 2004 @ 9:39 am
Sure enough, there was a “mail.com” rule. I’ve deleted it, so you should be able to comment now. Thanks for the detective work.
Comment by greg — September 12, 2004 @ 10:46 am
How exactly can falsified documents and false testimony support any conclusion as in:
“the conclusion that was supported by the Killian memos and the Ben Barnes interview remains intact”
Comment by cbassos — September 12, 2004 @ 8:27 pm
The documents are not faked.
Comment by Don — September 13, 2004 @ 7:15 am