At this point, it’s only fair to note that the documents used to shape much of the 60 Minutes report on Bush’s time with the Texas Air National Guard are now, shall we say, in question.
Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.
Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.
This is by no means a done deal. CBS News not only stands by the documents, but insists that it used a series of experts to validate their accuracy. Moreover, as Matt Yglesias accurately pointed out, the White House has not only failed to dispute the accuracy of the documents, officials have actually argued under the assumption that they are accurate.
That said, there are some legitimate questions being raised, enough to suggest everyone should be at least cautious about using the reports as part of the case against Bush.
I should also note that while the 60 Minutes report is extremely damaging to Bush’s version of events, the question as to whether or not the president fulfilled his obligations to the National Guard do not rest solely on the accuracy of these four documents. Whether the pages are real or forgeries, the overwhelming evidence continues to clearly point to a service record of a man who failed to meet his military responsibilities. In other words, even if CBS’s case falls apart, it’s not as if Bush is exonerated. Not even close.
On a related note, I’d like to extend my “good point of the day” award to Mark Kleiman.
Wouldn’t it be astonishing if a major news organization turned out to have been as foolishly credulous about documents “proving” what some people in it wanted to believe about George W. Bush’s National Guard record as the Bush Administration was about documents “proving” Iraqi uranium purchases?
In my view, any organization that acts so foolishly needs a complete change of leadership.
Unfortunately, I don’t get to vote for the President of CBS News.
Damn straight. We don’t know if the 60 Minutes docs are legitimate and whether the network was fooled by forgeries. We do know that the uranium-in-Niger documents were forgeries and that Bush used them to make the case for a war against a country that wasn’t a threat.
If CBS was recklessly irresponsible, as some conservatives are now saying, for running a story based on questionable documents, what does this say about the Bush White House?