Lead Experts Admits Forgery Possible :: Commentary

Commentary: September 14, 2004

Lead Experts Admits Forgery Possible

In a New York Times article, Marcel Matley, CBS' lone "document" expert, has now admitted that the signature he authenticated in several Texas National Guard Memos could have been previously lifted from any document for the purpose of forgery.

Asked if the signature could have been lifted from an official document by Colonel Killian and pasted onto forgeries, Mr. Matley said: "Sure. But we can't draw a conclusion from a possibility."

Consequently, he admits what many have been saying for days: his opinion related to authenticity is meaningless. In doing so he also reveals that CBS never validated their memos that were used in a primetime news program to impune the character of the President of the United States just weeks before a presidential election.

In addition to the remarkable admission by Matley, the mainstream media is now realizing that the burden of proof has always been on CBS and that CBS clearly failed to meet that burden. At the same time, I wonder if other news organizations with Rather's same bias are breathing a sigh of relief knowing that had the memos been given to them they would now be in Dan Rather's uncomfortable hot seat.

What seems to have provided the greatest perception of authenticity to the public and major media outlets was not "experts" but Dan Rather.

Back to the Times article:

One network correspondent said, "I've talked to colleagues who would love to see more of a defense."

This person described the state of the staff as "deep concern, I'd say not panic - we all want it to be right." This person, echoing others, said that Mr. Rather's resoluteness in addressing the charges on the air was allaying some of the concern. "Dan really put himself on the line and I can't imagine him knowingly defending something he knew not to be the case."

A longtime correspondent said flatly, "I'm distressed."

The National Review's Goldberg comments:

Dan Rather considers it outrageous and offensive that anyone would question the judgment that led to this situation. He defends what appear to be very shoddy methods (reading letters over the phone to sources, asking sources not to talk to the press, etc.), as if only a "partisan" or a fool would question them.

Finally, I note that the individual quoted by some media outlets (including CBS) as a document expert is shown by the Times to be a "typewriter specialist" who spent 15-minutes with CBS' memos and gave his opinion that he "believes that they could have been created using the kind of typewriters he worked with at I.B.M."

Posted by bLogicus at September 14, 2004 09:31 AM | TrackBack

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