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November 13, 2005

Mary Mapes and the 'new KKK'

Either Mapes is having a very public mental breakdown (and her "friends" are remiss in trying to help her) or she is just continuing to underline her basic moral scumminess. However, that her risible claim that no one has "proved" the fraudulent memos were frauds is being repeated another "journalist," Jim Schutze, of the Dallas Observer who asserts

One of many intriguing points in Mapes' book--a thing I shouldn't have had to be reminded of--is that the documents she and Dan Rather based their story on were never exposed as fakes. In her book due out this week from St. Martin's Press, Mapes insists that the documents are authentic.

The people who made the most adamant accusations at the time were anonymous amateurs on the Internet, not known experts. Somehow all of a sudden everybody and his blog was an expert on 40-year-old typewriters and proportional spacing.

Jim is either lazy or just as morally scummy as Mapes. Jeff Harrell is certainly not "anonymous"
We weren’t anonymous, Jim. I was one of those adamant accusers, and I’ve published every single word I’ve written on the subject under my own name with various methods of reaching me, including a telephone number, prominently displayed on every page. And no, I’m not an expert. That’s why I went out and found people who were.
Jeff did what actual, old-fashioned reporters used to do before they became "Journalists" like Jim -- investigative legwork. Charles Johnson is not anonymous, just a programmer/developer/designer (with font geek bonafides) who looked at the 32 year-old memo and thought it strangely modern. He then opened Microsoft Word, left it at its default settings and then overlaid the two. Joseph Newcomer, expert and pioneer in computer typesetting, is not "anonymous" and his extensive research was published, not of some rightwing conspiracy but
"I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate. I know it is asking far too much to expect the news to be unbiased. But the people involved should not actually lie to us, or promulgate lies created by hoaxers, through their own incompetence.

There has been a lot of activity on the Internet recently concerning the forged CBS documents. I do not even dignify this statement with the traditional weasel-word “alleged”, because it takes approximately 30 seconds for anyone who is knowledgeable in the history of electronic document production to recognize this whole collection is certainly a forgery, and approximately five minutes to prove to anyone technically competent that the documents are a forgery.

Even as such substansive reporting and research was published by these gentlemen, others rightly questioned the authenticity of the memos because...well frankly, they are such bad forgeries it doesn't take an expert to spot it. I'm not "anonymous" and I posted on Sept. 13, 2004 (when pompass, Bill O'Reilly, was telling everyone to "shutup" until the "experts" weighed in) an analogy of trying to pass off a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa as the real one:
Despite the sneering of "bloggers in pajamas" or the dismissive condescension by Dan Rather that Internet is nothing but a "professional rumor mill," what the Old Media fails to grasp is that the Internet is filled with millions of ordinary people from a wide range of backgrounds and expertise who, when confronted with a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa are not so cowed by "appeals to authority" that they won't say "Hey, hold on. What are you trying to pull here?"

Now, I'm not an expert in type fonts nor typsetting. As I participated on numerous blog sites, I did relate my own experience as a professional secretary in the 1970's and how my use of both the typical office equipment and the accepted business protocols of the era had caused me to look at these memos and see them as much a "real" product of the era as the paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa was painted in 1506.

When such obvious and credible questions about the authenticity of the memos arose, it then because the responsibility of Mapes, et al, to substantiate the assertion. The most important fact of this affair is no expert has ever authenticated the memos. Such authentication is the exclusive responsibility of anyone, including Jim Schutze, claiming that the memos are "real." You assert it, you prove it. Period.

Of course, besides Jim Schutze's perfidy when it comes to the actual facts behind the exposure of the fraudulent memos is the blanket libeling of everyone that participated the Internet debate. Jim not only dismisses them as "anonymous extremists", but (akin to human-embarrasment Gore's "digital brownshirt" slanders), Jim casually tosses in

My point is that the anonymous haters and extremists on the Internet are the Ku Klux Klan of today. They are the vile enemies of fundamental decency.
In my humble opinion, that is a classic case of projection, seeing that Mapes, Schutze, et al, don't find their attempts at libel and slander as "enemies of fundamental decency."

Why not let Jim Schutze know what you think?

Posted by Darleen at November 13, 2005 09:13 AM

Comments

- This whole leftwing canard is way past shelf life. What you won't see is the real facts behind this whole brain-dead effort to "get Bush". These "documents" were shipped around for years, having been offered to the RNC with veiled extortion threats, whence the perps were laughed off, and then the DNC, who at first demured and then acted as a silent "partner", abated Mapes when she just couldn't contain herself any longer, after 5 long years of obssesive digging for any dirt she could find on Bush, with nothing else to show for it. So they went with it. The Documents are clearly faked by any standard, and the people who perpetuated this scam are just going with the only pethetic responses they can dream up. Mapes speaking on O'Reilly, basically contended that "[because] I really believed Bush got prefferential treatment it doesn't matter whether the documents or the facts reported are exactly accurate.... the story is fundementally true". Thats not only the worst type of partisan yellow press "journalism", its outright scarry that the left has taken such a stranglehold on the MSM press and some of the large TV networks, that the Marxist credo is now alive and well in much of America's media, "The story justifies the means". Apparently CBS upper management and stockholders decided that going with the truth was a better option, because "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" Mapes is now on to greener patures.

Its just too bad we don't actually enforce the treason or election manipulation laws. Fitzgerald could be doing some serious "commy" exposure, but even the Republicans don't have the heart to bring down the core of the Democrative extreme left, for fear of destroying the entire party as a viable political entity. Thats why, once it was clear he had no chance, they let Kerry off the hook. The left continues to survive by hiding behind the majority of the moderate Democratics.

Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at November 19, 2005 09:57 AM