CBS Document Examiners Say They Were Forgeries

ABCNews.com is reporting that two of the document experts CBS hired to authenticate the Bush National Guard memos have come forward saying that they had told CBS that they were not authentic.

Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said....

The second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. She said she expressed her concerns to CBS before the 60 Minutes II broadcast.

"I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."

CBS had good reason to know that these documents were forgeries. I liked what Emily Will said saying that if they ran the story on Wednesday that hundreds of document examiners would question them on Thursday. CBS didn't count on the blogosphere to keep them honest.

CBS is going to make a statement today concerning the documents and, according to the Wall Street Journal, will bring additional evidence forward. CBS is cornered and just will not relent and so are digging themselves deeper and deeper. The truly sad thing is that they're destroying their credibility and a whole lot of careers for something that people won't even care about when it comes to voting for or against the president. The fact is, people can look at the last four years to see what kind of commander-in-chief he'll be. They don't need to look back at military service from 35 years ago. Bush released all of his military records back in 2000, something Kerry has refused to do, and since there was nothing incriminating there, they have to "discover" new documents saying what they want to them to say to try and discredit him. This may have been useful in the 2000 campaign, but for an incumbent, it's just plain stupid.

CBS can solve this real quick. Name your sources. Produce the original documents and have a panel of independent experts analyze it publicly. Of course, they won't produce the originals because there are no originals.

GOOD LINKS:

Powerline picked this up.

Captains Quarters goes more in depth about the burden of proof of these memos.

Check out The Politburo Diktat and Wizbang too.