The Fake CBS Bush Document

The blogosphere exerts its power to self-correct the major media once again. The document trying to slander Bush that 60 minutes acquired is the worst US document forgery I've ever seen in my life. It's so bad that over at the HabitableZone several folks suspect that pro-Bush folks were baiting the vitriolic anti-Bush 'reporters' at CBS with blatant forgeries.

However, it is much more likely that the Kerry kiddies were playing with photoshop and thought that one level of blur over a computer generated document was good enough to look "old typewriter-ish."

The real story here isn't who created it. The real story is that CBS ran with it without even a cursory inspection. All this seems to have nicely coincided with the media's celebration of the 1000th US casualty in Iraq and the National Guard talking points all coinciding at the major media outlets as if the planets all came into alignment.

First we have Susan Estrich coming out of the media closet and saying it's time for dirty tricks because the left should learn the lesson of "President Dukakis."

Here's the background context most are missing. The polling data that has been coming in has been absolutely horrible. Bush has a complete lock on the election. Folks like Zogby, who have come right out and say they support the Kerry candidacy, are not reliable measures of the poll data that's being collected. America hates Theresa Heinz Kerry. She has absolutely no positives. Kerry as a rich, white bread, career politician with a sense of entitlement to the White House and a bit--y, billionaire, sugar-mama wife bankrolling him, is just not a very compelling figure for African-Americans, hispanic voters or the working poor. And what's more the polls show it. Insurmountable 15 point Bush leads exist now in states like Arizona which were a toss-up only two months ago.

The result. Total desperation! Media panic! The media is experiencing their "OMG Kerry is going to lose this thing even after all the Bush-Bashing we have done for the past year" moments. So Susan Estrich comes unhinged and reveals her anti-Bush vitriol which is not even masked anymore, CBS forwards patently fake news stories as if they have been bought by TASS.

The major media is discovering they can't rig this thing like they did in '92 and '96. No more George Stephanopoulos phone calls coming into Larry King talking about a nonexistent "smoking gun." Those days are over. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw are now just liberal artifacts fit for an television museum--their exorbitant salaries, and sardonic facial grimaces as they mock impartiality are obsolete in the internet era. 60 minutes is no longer a show-it is a throwback. The internet news cycle is realtime and the blogosphere can catch the deception faster than the media outlets can respond.

I suspect the forgery was done by someone who wasn't alive in the 1970s. Anyone who was would NEVER have thought that passed for a 1970's typewritten note.

The story here:

CBS and 60 minutes were likely fooled by a kid. Whatever the reason, they aren't qualified to deliver or report news anymore. The television broadcasters should stick with reality television and soap operas.