From today's NY Times:
A former National Guard commander who CBS News said had helped convince it of the authenticity of documents raising new questions about President Bush's military service said on Saturday that he did not believe they were genuine.The commander, Bobby Hodges, said in a telephone interview that network producers had never showed him the documents but had only read them to him over the phone days before they were featured Wednesday in a "60 Minutes" broadcast. After seeing the documents on Friday, Mr. Hodges said, he concluded that they were falsified.
That's right: The documents were "verified" over the phone. Boy, I wonder what that conversation might have sounded like? I wonder... wonder... wonder...
CBS: Okay, this'll just take a second, sir, we're kind of under a time crunch here. So, we have what we believe are documents written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian in the early '70s. Do you know anything about that?Hodges: Killian? Early '70s? Hmmmm... I'm pretty sure by that point in his life, he did indeed know how to read and write. Yep, yep, I'm almost 100% positive.
CBS: Yesssss! [Pause] Ahem. Well, thank you very much for your time, sir.
[CLICK]
Hodges: Hello?
The headline of the NYT story is, "An Ex-Officer Now Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine." Which is kind of misleading, isn't it? Shouldn't it be, "An Ex-Officer Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine, Now That He's Been Allowed to Study on It for a Minute Using More Than His Gift of Hearing"?
P.S. Welcome Instapundit readers! This blog is suddenly All Hurricane Kenneth All the Time, so please feel free to look around.
Posted by Jim Treacher at September 12, 2004 04:01 AM