Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Are CBS’s Documents Real?

Posted on September 10, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Questions, credible ones, swirl about the authenticity and provenance of the Lt. Col. Jerry Killian documents revealed by CBS.

There are very odd things about these papers. Yet, the case for forgery is lessened, I think, by the White House's failure to claim the documents are not real. That said, I have no faith at all in arguments that claim 'if this were a forgery they surely would have done a better job'—carelessness is rampant in the world.

Document authentication not being my forte, I'm just going to link here to anything interesting I read on the subject. I'll update this post in the next day or two if I find more interesting stuff.

  • Powerline jumps all over them
  • CBS stands by its documents, and a former colleague of Col. Killian's thinks they are real. Col. Killian's son, however, doubts they are real.
  • Warblogging.com looks at the technical issues, the possible motivations for forgery
  • The Washington Post interviews experts dubious about the documents
  • At “The Blogging of the President: 2004”, Stirling Newberry summarizes the ways in which the documents look too modern and then offers and evaluates various hypotheses as to how they came to be that way. Most plausible:

    Any expert worth his salt would look at the signatures we see, and the difficulties in producing the documents contemporaneously, and scratch his head. However, if there are hard originals – that is typed or hand written originals – and these are the readable typed or “fair” copies, then the problem vanishes. CBS saw the real things, can't release them (off the record), but can release documents which, while not originals, are copies which have the same content in them, prepared by Killian (his signature on them). They are on solid ground, with provenence, and the holders of the originals – whoever they are – are not bothered by nagging questions of how they got those originals. CBS protects confidentiality, and if need be, can prove that yes, these things are legitimate.

Update1: The Spectator claims that 'a retired military officer' has been peddling these documents for weeks and that the Kerry campaign may have passed them on to CBS.

Update2: First Draft, Now I'm a 'Document Expert', Too finds superscripts in old National Guard documents

Also CBS News has reiterated its full confidence in the authenticity of the documents. Dan Rather said, “The story is true” and “no retraction has been discussed, nor should it be.”

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 29 Comments

Angry Bear is Very Angry

Posted on September 10, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

[UPDATE: Angry Bear has nothing on Mad Magazine (via Atrios)]

Angry Bear — one of my favorite online economists — sets out his vision of what the Democratic ad campaign would be like if it fought fire with fire:

“what would total political war against Bush look like?
Here's a start:”

  • A commercial juxtaposing the President reading from My Pet Goat with the towers burning. Voiceover: “While America was under attack, here's what your president was doing.” End with headlines describing the President spending 9/11 hiding out in air bases and locations other than DC. For good measure, add that “Osama bin Laden remains at large.”
  • A commercial about Bush's failure to serve. Start with this quote from The Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 1990:

    “I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.”

    Then cut to Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett alleging that he witnessed Bush's National Guard records being scrubbed, and point out that Bush has never accounted for his whereabouts during 1972 and 1973, nor why he stopped flying. Then end with Linda Allison:

    Before there was Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or even James Baker, the Bush family's political guru was a gregarious newspaper owner and campaign consultant from Midland, Texas, named Jimmy Allison. In the spring of 1972, George H.W. Bush phoned his friend and asked a favor: Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W. Bush?

    “The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing,” Allison's widow, Linda, told me. “And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal.”

    … Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: “Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way.”

  • And as long as unfounded and unsupported attacks are fair game, don't forget the Bush Abortion story. There's no evidence, but hey, the Swift Boat Veterans not only lack evidence, their story contradicts all available documentary evidence! And don't forget Clinton's love-child!

  • And don't forget that Bush won't say when he stopped using cocaine. Sure, this is nearly on the level of “When did you stop beating your wife?”, but that's where this campaign is heading. Perhaps more accurately, that's where the Bush side of this campaign already is. This would surely be less egregious than Falwell and Robertson pushing the Clinton Chronicles video, complete with tales of Clinton running a drug ring out of the Mena, Arkansas airport.
  • I'm not sure whether it would resonate, but there's also fodder in the fairly well-documented story of Bush's string of business failures, complete with bailouts by friends of his father, throughout the 1980s.
  • Bring back Henry and Louise to talk about eating dog food after their Medicare premiums increase 17%. (Since this is true, documented, and contemporary, it may not even count as negative.)
Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | Comments Off on Angry Bear is Very Angry

#2 Again

Posted on September 10, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Hispanic Business Magazine's annual ranking of the Top Ten Law Schools for Hispanics rates UM #2—again.

Continue reading →

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on #2 Again

Three Days as a ‘Political Prisoner’ in NYC

Posted on September 10, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

James Gaites has an excellent first-person account of his recent experience of very civil disobedience during the Republican Convention. Death and Life in New York: Three Days in the City for an RNC Protester.

There is surely grist for the mill here for everyone. The police arrested many people whithout cause, including bystanders. They also penned up protestors and then arrested them for failing to disperse, having made it impossible.

Once arrested, it's obvious that at the very least NYC did not make much effort to process protestors either as quickly as the law required or as quickly as they could have, indeed managed (intentionally?) to put them on ice for the entire convention. And the outdoor pen in which people were held may have had biohazards that people were forced to sleep on. Sanitation was rough.

On the other hand, there were no systematic beatings, some food was provided eventually, and even people who were clearly guilty of parading without a permit were released without fines. No one disappeared, and now they are free to write about it and to litigate.

How do we score this? To call it a 'win' for civil liberties is to set the bar far too low. Yet, is the term 'political prisoner' really apt? If so, it's the mildest confinement regime for a 'political' I ever read about.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 3 Comments

Senate Denied Access to CIA ‘Ghost’ Detainee Headcount

Posted on September 9, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

It's good that the Senators care enough, belatedly, to try to get to the bottom of a small amount of information about who did what to whom in the great Iraq prison/war crime scandal. But it doesn't sound as if they are getting very far.

Senators Criticize C.I.A. in Inquiry on Iraqi Prison Abuse: Senators examining the Abu Ghraib prison scandal criticized the CIA on Thursday for failing to provide Army investigators with documents on unregistered “ghost detainees.''

At a hearing, lawmakers indicated their frustration that Army generals who investigated the prison abuses couldn't put a specific figure on the number of ghost detainees and could only give a range of up to 100 detainees, though they said it was more likely closer to two dozen.

“It's a very difficult question for us to answer, Mr. Chairman, because we don't have the documentation,'' Gen. Paul Kern, who oversaw an Army investigation of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, told Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va.

The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said “it's totally unacceptable that documents that are requested from the CIA have not been forthcoming.'' And, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the ghost detainee issue “needs to be cleared up really badly.''

Contacted after the hearing, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield declined to comment on number of ghost detainees and said it is one aspect of a review under way by the agency's inspector general

Translation of the CIA's comment: [                           ]

Posted in Iraq Atrocities | Comments Off on Senate Denied Access to CIA ‘Ghost’ Detainee Headcount

Navy Has Not Yet Decided on Kerry Medal Inquiry

Posted on September 9, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

I recently blogged the UK Telegraph's claim that the Navy was going to investigate Sen. Kerry's medals based on a preposterous demand by Judicial Watch. I expressed some doubt about that report, and according to Squeaks from the Squirrel Cage – A cube with a view, that doubt was justified. In fact, says he, Stars and Strripes reports that the Navy has not decided anything at all on the subject.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | Comments Off on Navy Has Not Yet Decided on Kerry Medal Inquiry