This month in Vanity Fair they posted an excerpt from a new book from Mary Mapes. She is the producer from 60 minutes who was given the "documents" that effectively ended her and Dan Rathers careers. My question is according to this article there has never been any conclusive evidence that the National Guard Memos were fake or real. So this leaves the question, why dont we know if they are real or fake? Does it matter? Should we question the character of our president 30yrs ago? Why did CBS fire employees when the documents authenticity was never verified?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate

Response of the document examiners
Prior to airing, all four of the examiners responded to Mapes' request for document analysis, though only two to Mapes directly:(Panel Report, pp. 84–86)

Emily Will noted discrepancies in the signatures on the memos, and had questions about the letterhead, the proportional spacing of the font, the superscripted "th" and the formatting of the date. Will requested other documents to use for comparison.
Linda James was "unable to reach a conclusion about the signature" and noted that the superscripted "th" was not in common use at the time the memos were allegedly written.
James Pierce concluded that both of the documents were written by the same person and that the signature matched Killian's from the official Bush records. Only one of the two documents provided to Pierce had a signature. Pierce also told Mapes he could not reach a conclusion about authenticity because he was reviewing copies, not original documents.
Marcel Matley's review was initially limited to Killian's signature on one of the Burkett documents, which he compared to signatures from the official Bush records. Matley "seemed fairly confident" that the signature was Killian's. On September 6, Matley was interviewed by Rather and Mapes and was provided with the other four documents obtained from CBS (he would prove to be the only reviewer to see these documents prior to the segment). Matley told Rather "he could not authenticate the documents due to the fact that they were poor quality copies." (Panel Report, p. 98–99). In the interview, Matley told Rather that with respect to the signatures, they were relying on "poor material" and that there were inconsistencies in the signatures, but also replied "Yes," when asked if it would be safe to say the documents were written by the person who signed them. (Panel Report, p. 101)

Mapes and O'Reilly debated this a few days ago, and it really made me realize how much of this centers on what everyone's definition of "preferential treatment" is.

For me, I could give less of a shit. There's a lot more fuck-ups that Bush has created here in the present than decades ago.

does O'reilly have any transcripts?

Not anymore.

Here's a little blurb:

Mary Mapes, producer of the discredited "60 Minutes" segment about President Bush's service in the National Guard, has written a book defending her journalism. Mapes told The Factor she still believes her reporting was sound. "I worked on that story on-and-off for four years, and had plenty of reason to believe those documents were real. In all kinds of journalistic issues in the past, reporters have gone with things they believed but could not prove. We were not sloppy or casual." Mapes maintained that President Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard, despite his denials. "I think he has selective memory. I think he got preferential treatment, and it's very clear that he did. He did not have a typical Guard experience by any means." The Factor criticized Mapes for putting such a questionable story on the air. "If you're going to report a story about the president shortly before an election, you have to have the standards they have in criminal proceedings - guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Surely here there was reasonable doubt here, and you got fired and Dan Rather got booted. I would not have gone with that story."

i wish o'reilly would hold himself to those high journalistic standards

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