Last Thoughts on CBS Follies
Here are some last comments about the Dan Rather document scandal.
We begin with some obvious truths that apparently have never occurred to CBS or to the blue ribbon investigating panel.
You cannot prove authenticity of documents by document analysis alone. There is nothing to stop a forger from using the identical paper, ink and writing implements as used by the supposed creator of them. If they do so there is no way to distinguish between the forgery and an authentic document by analyzing these.
An original signature can be analyzed for compatibility with other signatures created by the supposed author, and some believe it can be authenticated. Forgers have been known to practice the handwriting of others assiduously, and it is certainly plausible that a persistent forger could eventually come up with a signature that no handwriting expert could find incompatible with an original. On the other hand, a copied signature on a copy of a document cannot in principle provide authentication of the document. Even a bungler can copy an authentic signature onto a document using a copying machine, and fill in the rest of the document as he or she sees fit.
So authenticating a signature on a copy of a document proves absolutely no information about the authenticity of the document.
When the document has initials rather than a signature, or has no signing whatever, handwriting analysis is obviously even less useful for authentication.
On the other hand, document analysis can be valuable in the opposite sense. It can provide absolute proof that a document was not produced by its supposed creator.
If the machine or implement is known, then typographic elements in a document which could not have been produced by that device provide absolute proof that the document is fraudulent.
Similarly, but less definitively, a handwriting that differs in many characteristics from the known handwriting of the signor can be judged a forgery (as can an exact copy of a known signature), unless the supposed writer has a history of signing documents in varying styles, a distinctly rare situation.
How then can authenticity be proven?
Testimony from the author or from the typist, for a typed document, can be definitive (unless perjured).
Without it, information about the history of the document: that various witnesses saw it at various times, that it came from a file that was expected to contain it and was not tampered with, can be at least supporting evidence for authenticity, and can theoretically be proof of authenticity..
The statements above are common knowledge, that every educated or even semi-literate person will instantly acknowledge.
Yet, when it came time to authenticate the documents, the Mapes crew did nothing to contact the supposed typist (the supposed author being dead), took no steps to examine the history of the documents, (not even contacting the individual said to be their immediate source), but rather chose to use handwriting and document analysts who could, as we have noted, not possibly provide positive evidence of authenticity.
They chose analysts in a rather haphazard manner, according to the panel report, and received a somewhat negative response. Two of the analysts found questions about the documents that bothered them. Another would only say that the signature that appeared on one of the documents (which had been copied many times) seemed right. The fourth, in the panel report appears as a prostitute, willing to give oral and written opinions that are exact opposites of one another. His initial oral opinion was that he didn’t see anything to disprove the documents.
The vetting committee for the program that quoted the documents seemed to be satisfied by this authentication. One has to wonder: what were they thinking?
The fact that the methods used for authentication could not possibly succeed should have disturbed the vetters in at least some way. What could they have been told about the results of the claimed authentication?
If they were told that the experts authenticated the documents, they should have known that this could not be, unless the vetters are ignorant fools.
If they were told that the authenticators had found nothing wrong with the documents, or had “given them a clean bill of health”, this would have been a lie, but Ms. Mapes definitely lied on several occasions related to these event, according to the panel report, so we have to consider this possibility. Shouldn’t the vetters have been expected to question how this provided authentication?
If they were told the truth, how could they possibly allowed the show to go on?
What is curious about the matter is that Rather was willing to tell the public that he knew the documents were authentic, without any rational source for this knowledge, without it is said knowing the nature of the authentication process or knowing that it could only be bogus.
Contrast this with the attitude of the investigating panel. They had definitive testimony from a true document expert, (as given in an appendix to their report) which establishes that the documents could not have been constructed by the typewriter used in the office they supposedly came from. There was additional evidence which they never mentioned, of pseudo-kerning, which no typewriter of the period could have produced, that they never even investigated. This was supported by evidence from the supposed typist who denied ever typing them. The supposed source turned out to be no source at all, his name as a source being an admitted lie used to shield somebody unknown. And yet the panel refused to de-authenticate the documents, that is to declare them forgeries.
So the vetters were perfectly right in accepting a failed useless and nonsensical authentication process as being sufficient to determine authenticity, Rather was willing to stake his reputation on it, yet the infinitely stronger contrary argument is not persuasive to the panel. This is truly remarkable, a high water mark in inconsistency!
There is a great mystery about these documents, and that is: who forged them?
It would have to be someone with some familiarity, but not that much, with the Texas Air National Guard. The forger would have to know the names of various individuals and some addresses, and something at least sketchy about the time table of Bush’s military service.
But the documents had flaws, beyond having wrong fonts. Here are some.
Many of the abbreviations and stylistic details in the forgings were incompatible with TANG usage.
The dating in the claimed order to Bush to take his physical was somewhat off from what it could legally be.
The superior who was supposedly trying to sugar coat Bush’s record at TANG was not connected to TANG at all when he was supposedly trying to do so.
One of the documents appeared to be a memorandum from Col. Killian to himself, which would not naturally be in any official file but his own.
The source of these documents was supposed to be from those taken out of Bush’s official files, when they were supposedly expurgated to remove incriminating documents.
That is the reason given that there were only a few documents (6 of which 4 were published), from widely different dates.
There are also other clues.
A peculiarity of the documents was the number of copyings that they had apparently undergone. If they were taken from a file and kept by someone, why would it be copied at all? What reason would anyone have to copy each document then copy each copy and so on, and provide only the final copy of copy of copy etc., to Burkett and CBS. If they are spurious then this could have been done to make them look old, but only by someone who believed that they would not be examined carefully.
If we assume the documents are forgeries, we can ask, what the forgers were trying to accomplish. Apparently they were trying to get something against Bush that someone could publicize to damage his campaign.
To do this they wanted to establish: that Bush had done something wrong during his career in TANG, something that deserved punishment.
They also seemed to want to show that Bush had avoided punishment through political pull, (though I do not understand what the pull of an ex-Republican representative in Democrat-controlled Texas in those days would have been).
Now Bush joined TANG in 1968, did lots of flying in the first two years, and even volunteered for service in Viet-Nam. By 1972 we were out of Viet Nam and the military was downsizing. Bush stopped flying and took up other interests.
Bush’s service in TANG was quite uninteresting, and without anything positive or negative worth mentioning.
One forged document claims to be an explicit order from his superior, Killian, to take his physical in the spring of 1972. His failure to do so could then be described as a failure to obey a particular order, and therefore something wrong and worth punishing. (Killian was not known to issue such orders to anyone, and there is no record of anyone in that year or any other receiving an order from him to take a physical, which suggests there is something strange about this order and is consistent with it being a forgery.)
A second claims to be an order suspending Bush’s permission to fly, for not taking the physical and other unspecified reasons. (Again this document is suspicious because the automatic suspension for not taking a physical was issued by another office and doesn’t refer to unspecified reasons.)
A third is a claim of resentment by Killian at attempts to influence Bush’s record by someone who was not in Tang at the time.
These documents are each suspicious each being unlike anything in any TANG record; they are almost unquestionably forgeries. (It is also impossible that exactly these documents and no other Killian documents had been composed on an unknown and unknowable typewriter.)
And what do they convey?
The first claims that Bush did something wrong by not taking his physical.
The second suggests there were other wrong doings.
The third suggests that there were efforts at a cover up.
So who would want to establish these claims?
The perpetrator would have to be somebody familiar with Bush’s record, and of its points of vulnerability, and in particular, in the fact that he did not take his physical in 1972, his fifth year of service, when he was no longer flying.
It seems as if the perpetrator was strongly anti-Bush, with a powerful urge to bring him down.
The perpetrator apparently was so excited about Bush’s record that he or she was unaware that few people if any could be influenced in their vote by anything that happened back in 1972. (otherwise Kerry would have lost in a landslide given his behavior in those days.)
The perpetrator apparently was so strongly motivated as to be willing to commit a crime to advance his or her political goals.
The number of people who could do this is actually quite small.
Here are the possible candidates.
1. Mary Mapes, or one of her collaborators, especially Mr. Smith.
2. Burkett or one of his pals
3. an outsider
4. Karl Rove or some Republican mischief maker
5. Someone connected to the DNC
Burkett is a flake and a crank, and a Bush-hater. This qualifies him as a potential forger. He does not appear to be particularly careful or intelligent, which qualifies him further. However, Burkett was in TANG for many years and would be unlikely to make the stylistic and abbreviational errors in the forgeries. He is also a bit old to turn forger. He is a possibility but not a strong one.
One problem with Burkett is his story of where the documents came from. His initial story was an admitted lie. If he originated the documents, this story would be dangerous and stupid. It would be relatively easy to check it with the source, and discredit the enterprise. He would have had to assume that CBS would check on the source and as a result kill the story. The story seemed aimed at making the documents appear plausible, but to have no capacity for withstanding investigation.
There are large numbers of Bush haters who might stoop to forgery, but it is hard to envision one who would use Burkett as a conduit for the forgeries, Burkett being am established crank.
The notion that Rove or a Republican operative would create this mess makes little sense. Why would the documents go to Burkett? What would be the purpose of the plot? The author of the plot would have to assume that CBS (or whoever Burkett gave the documents to) would be too incompetent to evaluate them sensibly, and would be unable to trace them to their source. The authors of the plot could have had no idea that CBS would discredit itself over the documents, and have no particular reason for trying to make CBS News self-destruct. And the author could have had no idea that CBS would show the documents to bloggers, and that bloggers would discredit them. He or she would have to assume that the documents would cause damage mainly to Bush.
Similarly, while the DNC as a source is slightly more plausible than the RNC, there is no evidence at all that it had anything to do with the matter. One has to credit the DNC with either the integrity or good sense not to do something whose exposure would discredit the party. The prospect of being blackmailed by participants is just too horrible for an organization like DNC (or RNC) to risk.
The only remaining potential forger is someone in the Mapes group. Mapes had the opportunity to direct the authentication process down the futile and inane direction she did. Smith had military experience and might have been responsible for some of the stylistic errors. She had the motive to do it. Otherwise her contribution to unseating Bush would never see the light. Mapes was able to handle the vetting and get the documents approved for airing. Yes, the documents could not stand much scrutiny, but where would they get it?
It was only the arrogance of CBS in displaying the documents on its website, and the intelligence of bloggers who noticed problems with them that created doubts.
Without that arrogance, without bloggers, it could have taken weeks or months for the documents to suffer an investigation. An investigation, once initiated, would have proceeded at the pace of the panel investigation; with a conclusion available in January 2005. If Rather and Mapes stonewalled as they did quite probably no investigation would have taken place at all. If nobody got to see the documents and no questions were raised about details of the documents that made investigation inevitable there would have been no obvious channel for investigation.
In fact, anyone creating the documents would have had to expect that the main authentication effort would be aimed at verifying them with the typist, or tracing down the supposed source, and that no document could be authenticated at all without a plausible history attached to it.
Mr. Burkett and Ms. Mapes both impeached themselves by telling admitted lies about these documents. Only a fool can then give credence to anything they have to say about it.
So who was the author of these documents?
Mapes or Smith had the strongest motive, sufficient knowledge, opportunity, appropriate degree of ignorance, demonstrated lack of scruple, unique ability to guide authentication and unique ability to shield investigation necessary to make this hoax succeed, under normal circumstances. No other candidate comes even close.
We cannot know who was responsible for the hoax because all this evidence is circumstantial.
Nevertheless, by the Dan Rather criterion of “preponderance of the evidence” we are justified in concluding that the forgeries came from Mapes and/or Smith or a trusted accomplice.
We begin with some obvious truths that apparently have never occurred to CBS or to the blue ribbon investigating panel.
You cannot prove authenticity of documents by document analysis alone. There is nothing to stop a forger from using the identical paper, ink and writing implements as used by the supposed creator of them. If they do so there is no way to distinguish between the forgery and an authentic document by analyzing these.
An original signature can be analyzed for compatibility with other signatures created by the supposed author, and some believe it can be authenticated. Forgers have been known to practice the handwriting of others assiduously, and it is certainly plausible that a persistent forger could eventually come up with a signature that no handwriting expert could find incompatible with an original. On the other hand, a copied signature on a copy of a document cannot in principle provide authentication of the document. Even a bungler can copy an authentic signature onto a document using a copying machine, and fill in the rest of the document as he or she sees fit.
So authenticating a signature on a copy of a document proves absolutely no information about the authenticity of the document.
When the document has initials rather than a signature, or has no signing whatever, handwriting analysis is obviously even less useful for authentication.
On the other hand, document analysis can be valuable in the opposite sense. It can provide absolute proof that a document was not produced by its supposed creator.
If the machine or implement is known, then typographic elements in a document which could not have been produced by that device provide absolute proof that the document is fraudulent.
Similarly, but less definitively, a handwriting that differs in many characteristics from the known handwriting of the signor can be judged a forgery (as can an exact copy of a known signature), unless the supposed writer has a history of signing documents in varying styles, a distinctly rare situation.
How then can authenticity be proven?
Testimony from the author or from the typist, for a typed document, can be definitive (unless perjured).
Without it, information about the history of the document: that various witnesses saw it at various times, that it came from a file that was expected to contain it and was not tampered with, can be at least supporting evidence for authenticity, and can theoretically be proof of authenticity..
The statements above are common knowledge, that every educated or even semi-literate person will instantly acknowledge.
Yet, when it came time to authenticate the documents, the Mapes crew did nothing to contact the supposed typist (the supposed author being dead), took no steps to examine the history of the documents, (not even contacting the individual said to be their immediate source), but rather chose to use handwriting and document analysts who could, as we have noted, not possibly provide positive evidence of authenticity.
They chose analysts in a rather haphazard manner, according to the panel report, and received a somewhat negative response. Two of the analysts found questions about the documents that bothered them. Another would only say that the signature that appeared on one of the documents (which had been copied many times) seemed right. The fourth, in the panel report appears as a prostitute, willing to give oral and written opinions that are exact opposites of one another. His initial oral opinion was that he didn’t see anything to disprove the documents.
The vetting committee for the program that quoted the documents seemed to be satisfied by this authentication. One has to wonder: what were they thinking?
The fact that the methods used for authentication could not possibly succeed should have disturbed the vetters in at least some way. What could they have been told about the results of the claimed authentication?
If they were told that the experts authenticated the documents, they should have known that this could not be, unless the vetters are ignorant fools.
If they were told that the authenticators had found nothing wrong with the documents, or had “given them a clean bill of health”, this would have been a lie, but Ms. Mapes definitely lied on several occasions related to these event, according to the panel report, so we have to consider this possibility. Shouldn’t the vetters have been expected to question how this provided authentication?
If they were told the truth, how could they possibly allowed the show to go on?
What is curious about the matter is that Rather was willing to tell the public that he knew the documents were authentic, without any rational source for this knowledge, without it is said knowing the nature of the authentication process or knowing that it could only be bogus.
Contrast this with the attitude of the investigating panel. They had definitive testimony from a true document expert, (as given in an appendix to their report) which establishes that the documents could not have been constructed by the typewriter used in the office they supposedly came from. There was additional evidence which they never mentioned, of pseudo-kerning, which no typewriter of the period could have produced, that they never even investigated. This was supported by evidence from the supposed typist who denied ever typing them. The supposed source turned out to be no source at all, his name as a source being an admitted lie used to shield somebody unknown. And yet the panel refused to de-authenticate the documents, that is to declare them forgeries.
So the vetters were perfectly right in accepting a failed useless and nonsensical authentication process as being sufficient to determine authenticity, Rather was willing to stake his reputation on it, yet the infinitely stronger contrary argument is not persuasive to the panel. This is truly remarkable, a high water mark in inconsistency!
There is a great mystery about these documents, and that is: who forged them?
It would have to be someone with some familiarity, but not that much, with the Texas Air National Guard. The forger would have to know the names of various individuals and some addresses, and something at least sketchy about the time table of Bush’s military service.
But the documents had flaws, beyond having wrong fonts. Here are some.
Many of the abbreviations and stylistic details in the forgings were incompatible with TANG usage.
The dating in the claimed order to Bush to take his physical was somewhat off from what it could legally be.
The superior who was supposedly trying to sugar coat Bush’s record at TANG was not connected to TANG at all when he was supposedly trying to do so.
One of the documents appeared to be a memorandum from Col. Killian to himself, which would not naturally be in any official file but his own.
The source of these documents was supposed to be from those taken out of Bush’s official files, when they were supposedly expurgated to remove incriminating documents.
That is the reason given that there were only a few documents (6 of which 4 were published), from widely different dates.
There are also other clues.
A peculiarity of the documents was the number of copyings that they had apparently undergone. If they were taken from a file and kept by someone, why would it be copied at all? What reason would anyone have to copy each document then copy each copy and so on, and provide only the final copy of copy of copy etc., to Burkett and CBS. If they are spurious then this could have been done to make them look old, but only by someone who believed that they would not be examined carefully.
If we assume the documents are forgeries, we can ask, what the forgers were trying to accomplish. Apparently they were trying to get something against Bush that someone could publicize to damage his campaign.
To do this they wanted to establish: that Bush had done something wrong during his career in TANG, something that deserved punishment.
They also seemed to want to show that Bush had avoided punishment through political pull, (though I do not understand what the pull of an ex-Republican representative in Democrat-controlled Texas in those days would have been).
Now Bush joined TANG in 1968, did lots of flying in the first two years, and even volunteered for service in Viet-Nam. By 1972 we were out of Viet Nam and the military was downsizing. Bush stopped flying and took up other interests.
Bush’s service in TANG was quite uninteresting, and without anything positive or negative worth mentioning.
One forged document claims to be an explicit order from his superior, Killian, to take his physical in the spring of 1972. His failure to do so could then be described as a failure to obey a particular order, and therefore something wrong and worth punishing. (Killian was not known to issue such orders to anyone, and there is no record of anyone in that year or any other receiving an order from him to take a physical, which suggests there is something strange about this order and is consistent with it being a forgery.)
A second claims to be an order suspending Bush’s permission to fly, for not taking the physical and other unspecified reasons. (Again this document is suspicious because the automatic suspension for not taking a physical was issued by another office and doesn’t refer to unspecified reasons.)
A third is a claim of resentment by Killian at attempts to influence Bush’s record by someone who was not in Tang at the time.
These documents are each suspicious each being unlike anything in any TANG record; they are almost unquestionably forgeries. (It is also impossible that exactly these documents and no other Killian documents had been composed on an unknown and unknowable typewriter.)
And what do they convey?
The first claims that Bush did something wrong by not taking his physical.
The second suggests there were other wrong doings.
The third suggests that there were efforts at a cover up.
So who would want to establish these claims?
The perpetrator would have to be somebody familiar with Bush’s record, and of its points of vulnerability, and in particular, in the fact that he did not take his physical in 1972, his fifth year of service, when he was no longer flying.
It seems as if the perpetrator was strongly anti-Bush, with a powerful urge to bring him down.
The perpetrator apparently was so excited about Bush’s record that he or she was unaware that few people if any could be influenced in their vote by anything that happened back in 1972. (otherwise Kerry would have lost in a landslide given his behavior in those days.)
The perpetrator apparently was so strongly motivated as to be willing to commit a crime to advance his or her political goals.
The number of people who could do this is actually quite small.
Here are the possible candidates.
1. Mary Mapes, or one of her collaborators, especially Mr. Smith.
2. Burkett or one of his pals
3. an outsider
4. Karl Rove or some Republican mischief maker
5. Someone connected to the DNC
Burkett is a flake and a crank, and a Bush-hater. This qualifies him as a potential forger. He does not appear to be particularly careful or intelligent, which qualifies him further. However, Burkett was in TANG for many years and would be unlikely to make the stylistic and abbreviational errors in the forgeries. He is also a bit old to turn forger. He is a possibility but not a strong one.
One problem with Burkett is his story of where the documents came from. His initial story was an admitted lie. If he originated the documents, this story would be dangerous and stupid. It would be relatively easy to check it with the source, and discredit the enterprise. He would have had to assume that CBS would check on the source and as a result kill the story. The story seemed aimed at making the documents appear plausible, but to have no capacity for withstanding investigation.
There are large numbers of Bush haters who might stoop to forgery, but it is hard to envision one who would use Burkett as a conduit for the forgeries, Burkett being am established crank.
The notion that Rove or a Republican operative would create this mess makes little sense. Why would the documents go to Burkett? What would be the purpose of the plot? The author of the plot would have to assume that CBS (or whoever Burkett gave the documents to) would be too incompetent to evaluate them sensibly, and would be unable to trace them to their source. The authors of the plot could have had no idea that CBS would discredit itself over the documents, and have no particular reason for trying to make CBS News self-destruct. And the author could have had no idea that CBS would show the documents to bloggers, and that bloggers would discredit them. He or she would have to assume that the documents would cause damage mainly to Bush.
Similarly, while the DNC as a source is slightly more plausible than the RNC, there is no evidence at all that it had anything to do with the matter. One has to credit the DNC with either the integrity or good sense not to do something whose exposure would discredit the party. The prospect of being blackmailed by participants is just too horrible for an organization like DNC (or RNC) to risk.
The only remaining potential forger is someone in the Mapes group. Mapes had the opportunity to direct the authentication process down the futile and inane direction she did. Smith had military experience and might have been responsible for some of the stylistic errors. She had the motive to do it. Otherwise her contribution to unseating Bush would never see the light. Mapes was able to handle the vetting and get the documents approved for airing. Yes, the documents could not stand much scrutiny, but where would they get it?
It was only the arrogance of CBS in displaying the documents on its website, and the intelligence of bloggers who noticed problems with them that created doubts.
Without that arrogance, without bloggers, it could have taken weeks or months for the documents to suffer an investigation. An investigation, once initiated, would have proceeded at the pace of the panel investigation; with a conclusion available in January 2005. If Rather and Mapes stonewalled as they did quite probably no investigation would have taken place at all. If nobody got to see the documents and no questions were raised about details of the documents that made investigation inevitable there would have been no obvious channel for investigation.
In fact, anyone creating the documents would have had to expect that the main authentication effort would be aimed at verifying them with the typist, or tracing down the supposed source, and that no document could be authenticated at all without a plausible history attached to it.
Mr. Burkett and Ms. Mapes both impeached themselves by telling admitted lies about these documents. Only a fool can then give credence to anything they have to say about it.
So who was the author of these documents?
Mapes or Smith had the strongest motive, sufficient knowledge, opportunity, appropriate degree of ignorance, demonstrated lack of scruple, unique ability to guide authentication and unique ability to shield investigation necessary to make this hoax succeed, under normal circumstances. No other candidate comes even close.
We cannot know who was responsible for the hoax because all this evidence is circumstantial.
Nevertheless, by the Dan Rather criterion of “preponderance of the evidence” we are justified in concluding that the forgeries came from Mapes and/or Smith or a trusted accomplice.
posted by daniel at 11:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home