RATHER WEAK
...AND EMBARRASSING

By: Geoff Metcalf

Dan Rather is between the rock and the hard place…and to borrow from Dan’s lexicon, it’s getting "hotter than an armadillo’s hide at a west Texas picnic on the Fourth of July".

Any news organization that cherry picks factoids to support a preconceived prejudice and specifically rejects any and all facts that fail to support the prejudice can and should expect to get bit in the butt.

Despite the manufactured assault on the President’s military service, the blowback to the Dan Rather-Ben Barnes interview has created multiple sucking chest wounds. Rather, CBS, Barnes, AND John Kerry are all wounded and all seem to lack sufficient character or common sense to recognize they are bleeding to death. Talk about unintended consequences.

CBS and Rather are in the unenviable position of defending the indefensible. If they were to do the honorable thing and either throw themselves on their sword with a mega mea culpa, OR (God forbid) include as part of their reportage the refutations of Barnes claims and the probably forged Killian memos, the fiction of their credibility/objectivity is challenged.< p>Apparently Rather intentionally failed to include any witnesses who challenged the content of the controversial (possibly forged) Killian memos. Why? Because they were deemed too "pro-Bush."

So, Danny is comfortable with offering his audience anti-Bush witnesses but not pro-bush witnesses?

Rather, kinda like a philanderer caught in bed, replies, "Who are going to believe…your eyes or ME?" The philanderer’s presumption is if you deny the obvious long enough and loud enough eventually the wife will believe you…because she wants to. However, in the case of CBS/Rather et al…the audience is less inclined to believe the presumed ‘loved one’ than the facts in evidence. That is a reality check CBS’s senior pontificator fails to accept.

The son of the late Jerry Killian, Gary Killian says he was interviewed two weeks ago by "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes. He even urged Mapes to interview Dean Roome, who roomed with Bush during his time in the Guard.

However, Mapes noted that "60 Minutes" had already conducted the interview. Roome’s story wouldn’t make it onto CBS…why?…because, "We think he is pretty pro-Bush." In other words, he offered facts that contradict the preconceived opinion and prejudice.

Rather is clinging to one hiccup in the hoax charges like a rat on a floating piece of excrement: that the fonting used in the alleged memo was not available in 1972 when in fact it WAS. Big whoop!

How about other ‘anomalies’ indicating the memo is bogus?

• The memo is not properly formatted?

• The commander’s signature block is WAY wrong! The proper format would be: JERRY B. KILLIAN, Lt Col, USAF Commander

• Whoever attempted to abbreviate Lieutenant Colonel as "Lt. Colonel" soiled the sheets! There are NO PERIODS in USAF rank abbreviations. NONE. NOWHERE. EVER. And what branch is he a "Lt. Colonel" in? Just because the letter purports to come from an Air Force unit does not mean an Air Force colonel signed it!

• Killian’s family says Col Killian COULDN’T TYPE?

• His son says he wouldn’t create let alone maintain such a document.

• Barne’s daughter claims her dad is lying for politics.

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Guard, says that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

Remember, ‘handwritten notes’ could have been written but Killian DID NOT TYPE…he didn’t know how.

Regardless of whether to accept or reject the CBS spin, Rather refuses to even attempt to offer a ‘fair and balanced’ view of the story. Why?

Even Democrat operatives acknowledge that if or when the Hoax is revealed, it will be a death knell for the Kerry crowd.

Some people just don’t want to be confused with facts that contradict their preconceived opinion or prejudices. CBS/Dan Rather are personifying that Metcalf bromide.

By the way…Lt G.W. Bush’s records indicate (notwithstanding the Dem caterwauling to the contrary) that he exceeded the required number of drills of each and every year of service.

Also ignored by the Kerry complicit media is that Lt Bush reportedly asked TWICE to participate in a flight program, which would result in combat duty in Vietnam but was rejected because of insufficient flight hours. I haven’t heard ‘Jack’ about that in the mainstream.

It is also significant (and revealing) that Rather apparently feels a rabid Democrat partisan like Ben Barnes deserves voluminous airtime, but the non-partisan Swift Boat Vets are somehow ‘unworthy’ of the lofty venues of CBS.