Cuz We Said So

Did you hear the big story on Wednesday, when CBS' 60 Minutes unveiled "previously unseen documents", allegedly written by Jerry Killian, Bush's late squadron commander, saying various uncomplimentary things about the president?

If you read the New York Times or the Washington Post, or listened to NPR's Morning Edition on on Thursday, you probably saw it--both papers printed it above the fold, and it was the second story on NPR's program. In fact, look--NPR they has expanded coverage of the story---oooo!

I hope the embarassed retraction will be featured as prominently now that it appears the documents are not only forgeries, but poor ones. Microsoft Word, you see, wasn't invented until a decade or two after the memos were allegedly written, yet the documents use fonts and typography that indicate they were written with using it or similar (also non-yet-invented) software. Plus the memos contradict things said by Killian in other memos. Plus the signature doesn't match Killian's. Etc., etc.

According to Matt Drudge (via InstaPundit) CBS News has launched an investigation into what went wrong. RatherBiased.com offers a theory:

Against the advice of many of his colleagues, Rather almost single-handedly put a story on the air that had relied on at least two forged documents.

The widespread re-reporting of the original story does suggest something important about fact-checking and quality assurance across the news industry, which is basically that there isn't much.

Oh, and here's an interesting angle: The Prowler is reporting the documents came from the Kerry campaign. Oops.

(Brilliant graphic by Jay Reding)

UPDATE: Okay, now this is funny.