A Rush to Judgement on the President's Military Records?

The initial report:

The memos, obtained by USA TODAY and also reported Wednesday on the CBS program 60 Minutes, reveal that Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, was critical of Bush's performance as a pilot in the latter years of his Vietnam-era Guard career. Killian cited Bush for "failure to perform" to Air Force and Air National Guard standards and called for him to be replaced "with a more seasoned pilot." [more]

New Questions:

ABC News is now reporting that both Killian's family members and document experts are asserting that the documents themselves are fake.

Questions about the memo were apparently first reported by Powerline Blog and have been picked WorldNetDaily, the Washington Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post as well as the Drudge Report:

INDC Journal reports the criticism of a Forensic Document Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard. Rupert has posted a close (computer generated) approximation of the supposedly typed memo, Blogs for Bush is blogging the story, Powerline has reported additional errors in the memo, the Command Post has a summary and Heroes from the Past weighs in.

Unfortunately, when a preson dislikes (hates) another, any story that justifies the hatred is accepted as credible. If these memos were truly a hoax it will certainly put to shame a number of news and political organizations. Questions remain about who is the source of the documents published but CBS is not talking. However, it should be a lesson to all concerning the receipt and belief of untested and unsubstantiated allegations.

Update: I watched Nighline (9-9-2004) and was surprise when (1) Chris Lehane, a Gore and Kerry consultant whose specialty is negative (attack) campaigning, suggested the memos could be the work of Republicans. During their discussion, Ted Koppel and Lehane both concluded that the alleged forgery could not have been the work of those connected with the Kerry Campaign but possibly some well-meaning democrat.

Update: Dan Rather said in an interview today (9-10-2004), "I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier."In addition, CBS has issued a statement confirming the memos as authenitic:

Update: See One Hand Clapping for an interesting analysis of Typewriter technologies available in the earlier 70s that could have been used to make the CBS Memo (there were none). Captain's Quarters has listed numerous style related errors in the memos and One Hand Clapping weighs in on this as well.

Update: Fairness to CBS requires the posting of their statement:

Update:

Here is a link to a 4-minute Dan Rather Interview. I haven't watched it yet and would be interested in your comments.

Update:

Here are few sites that comment on CBS' defense of their original report:

• Blogs for Bush - CBS undisputably aired one side of this two-sided story: (i) CBS trotted out its original analysis, (ii) supressed all exculpatory evidence; and (iii) concluded, based on the preponderance of the evidence, that the documents are real.


• Powerline - Dan Rather has disclosed the identity of one of the CBS/60 Minutes document experts (are there more? I don't think Rather mentioned any): Marcel Matley. Matley's expertise is handwriting analysis. But the issues raised throughout the blogosphere yesterday and the MSM today relate primarily to the apparently word-processed nature of the documents.