I have slowly come to the conclusion that the documents are real....

[kentuck]

Maybe I'm not as slow as Josh Micah on this but I was not sure at first. If there were any fakes, it would probably have been one single document. Since we have 5 or 6 documents come out, I cannot believe that a "forger" would go to the trouble to make that many 'fake' documents. Even counterfeiters usually stick to one bill at a time.

The right-wingers have shown how powerful their sphere of influence is when they organize their vast right-wing. They have almost hoodwinked the cable television reporters in their entirety. It is frightening that people that call themselves journalists are so gullible and naive so as to be persuaded by such a contrived effort to discredit a truthful and straightforward news story. Of course it is real!

But, they say, look at that font. Why, that typewriter wasn't even in existence then. Of course, they were wrong on both counts, and other records of Mr Bush have the same fonts and number capabilities. It was an organized effort to discredit the truth and the media fell for it hook, line , and sinker - except for one or two, including Dan Rather.

Yes, the documents are real. Otherwise, the White House would have said they were a pack of lies a long time ago. But it's much easier to discredit whether documents are fake or real than it is to discredit whether something is true or false. Another thing, if someone were going to create a fake document to discredit someone, they could have done a better job than some of these ambiguous ones that are difficult to interpret, as to who said what and who they were going to, etc. If they had been fake, they would have been much more dramatic in substance and much easier to comprehend the nature of the memos.

[Nordic]

1. Why would you even consider, for a second, the GOP's claim?

They do nothing but lie.

The story was damaging to them.

They yelled "forgery".

Right there, that tells me that it's absolute silliness to even consider for a second that they're NOT real.

WE could have videotape of George Bush fucking a goat on the 50 yard line of the superbowl, LIVE, and they would yell "forgery!"

[kentuck]

3. I'm skeptical....

Wherever it comes from....i should have been a reporter. :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Once again

welcome to the right conclusion... the fact the WH did not even
aknowledge it raised any doubts I may have had... and the fact that this was spread by Bozell and his pack of Liars

[salinen]

4. Except for your line

"They have almost hoodwinked the cable television reporters in their entirety."

This wasn't a case of "hoodwinking." The cable television industry is a subsidiary of the right.

[kentuck]

5. You are probably right but I think many reporters on cable TV are...

are about as bright as refrigerator bulbs...They do what they are told and they don't ask questions. They don't have the independence or skepticism of true reporters. They are nothing more than talking heads...

[doubleplusgood]

7. They're not reporters

...they're "News Models", to borrow a phrase from Randi Rhodes

[girl gone mad]

6. Welcome to the club, Kentuck..

Small but growing. Be prepared to take a few hits.

What I would like to see happen is to have this snowball roll back down the mountain and take out a whole lot of freepers along the way.

[yardwork]

8. LOL! I know what you mean....

One way to tell a long-time lurking freeper is to see how they frame their arguments. Do they express reasonable uncertainty, or are they defiant?

For example, those of us who think that these documents are genuine don't claim to be sure. We can't prove their authenticity because we don't have enough information. What we can say with certainty is that the arguments to date raised to question the documents' authenticity are false. We know this based on our research or our personal experience with typewriters in the 1970s.

Right away I noticed that those who disagreed fell into two camps. Some people said they weren't sure, thought the documents were probably fake, didn't want us to be embarrassed, felt they weren't that relevant, etc. All of those are reasonable positions to take. (My own husband felt this way for days until I made him look at the documents closely.)

An unreasonable position was taken by some posters who insisted that they knew for sure that these documents just had to be fake and we were being stupid to be taken in any fool can see they are fake etc. Most of those were newbies who got tombstoned fast. Some of them were long-time posters....

[Nordic]

9. Well, the DU homepage Top Ten list says it best:

<<The media certainly had a huge story last week - and promptly decided to drop the ball. The day after CBS's bombshell revelations, three wingnuts suggested on their blog that their documents might have been forged. Suddenly the Drudge Report picked up the story, and the media was off and running. At this point the story was being concocted out of whole cloth: the blog reported that the documents might be fake. Drudge reported that the blog was reporting that the documents might be fake. Drudge reported that CBS was holding an internal investigation. The blog reported that "it had been reported" that CBS was conducting an internal investigation. Dan Rather announced that the documents were genuine. Ergo, Dan Rather must be the culprit. Look, here's how it works: if you're a Democrat and the public record overwhelmingly supports the fact that you won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star, it only takes a few people with a grudge to lie about your actions and the media are all over it. "Did John Kerry really win a Bronze Star?" "Did he injure himself on purpose?" "Some people are saying..." - you get the picture. But if you're a Republican and the public record overwhelmingly supports the fact that your dad got you into the National Guard, you skipped out on your duties, you ignored direct orders from your superiors, and you didn't finish your six-year obligation, it only takes three Republicans with a website (and a lazy, complicit media) to turn the story on its head. Next thing you know the media is taking the word of "experts" who say things like, "These sure look like forgeries." Amazing how it all works, isn't it? Oh, and a note to Judy Woodruff: shut the fuck up about Bush's "honorable discharge." John Muhammad got an honorable discharge from the National Guard. In case you didn't know, that was after he was court-martialed twice, went AWOL, and spent time in prison; and before he went on a sniper rampage in DC, Virginia and Maryland, leaving 10 people dead.
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