In September of 2004 the CBS program 60 Minutes reported that President George W. Bush had been given special treatment during his Vietnam-era service in the Texas National Guard. Central to the story were documents written and signed by President Bush's late National Guard commander Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. In several of these documents Killian wrote that he had been pressured to "sugarcoat the performance ratings" of Bush who was at the time the son of a Texas congressman (George H. Bush). The memos also showed that Bush failed to follow orders to take a physical examination required by the National Guard. The documents, copies of originals, had been obtained from "unnamed" sources that CBS claimed were reliable.
If true, the allegations and these documents would be embarrassing to Pres. Bush as he entered the last two months of his reelection campaign since they raised questions about his military service and his use of family connections to get into the Guard, avoid getting drafted and probably sent to Vietnam. His Democratic opponent Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts had made his own Vietnam service and heroism (3 Purple Hearts and other medals) a cornerstone of his campaign. Vietnam war veterans hostile to Kerry and allegedly linked to the Bush campaign had recently run attack ads questioning the veracity of Kerry's heroism and successfully damaging Kerry in the polls.
This story would have gone virtually unchallenged in the past because the power of CBS and the "reputation" of 60 Minutes and veteran anchor and reporter Dan Rather, have been almost unassailable. However, in this case something amazing happened literally within hours of the airing of the story.
Web loggers, Bloggers, began to raise questions about the documents' veracity. The first to enter the fray were Freerepublic.com, powerlineblog.com, and littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog. Blogs are on-line journals or "publications" that allow for easy posting, are interactive, and sometimes investigative.
Bloggers claimed that some of the documents looked like they had been produced by a computer using modern software, probably Microsoft Word, neither of which were available in 1972 when the documents were supposedly written. In question were the type style, Times New Roman, the use of superscripts on the 111th (the number of the squadron Bush served in), and the spacing of the type. Also in doubt were the signatures of Col. Killian.
The Dallas Morning News asked Col. Killian's former secretary, an 86-year-old woman by the name of Marian Carr Knox, about the documents. Regarding the documents, she was quoted as saying "These are not real. They're not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him," but she said the content was true. Dan rather later interviewed her and clearly seemed delighted that she verified the spirit or message of the memo’s, never mind that they were probably fake!
Thus "Rathergate" was born. (Note; in the US any scandal is "gated" following the big enchilada of scandals, Richard Nixon's Watergate).
What I find extraordinary about this tale is that ordinary people, using the Internet and web logs, were able to challenge and seriously threaten the veracity and credibility of a multi-billion dollar news empire such as CBS. More amazing is the fact that these Bloggers have damaged and perhaps in the long run destroyed the credibility of Dan Rather who was the lead reporter on this story and who, in the face of these serious allegations of fake documents, clearly decided to sandbag questions from other news outlets about the credibility and origin of the memos. The venerable 60 Minutes itself may be at risk.
Rather and CBS refused to reveal where or how they obtained the documents and also did not come forward with all the "experts" who had been consulted. Several document specialists, who came out on their own after the story broke, told CBS the documents were fake, but they were ignored. The program seems to have relied on only one document specialist who had, as it turns out, looked primarily at the signature of Col. Killian on the documents. When he was asked after the scandal broke, he said he'd only verified Killian's signature, but he said felt it was possible that a legit signature had been copied and pasted into the memos.
The arrival of Bloggers on the scene has totally changed the nature of media.
I attended the 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Boston. For the first time in history there was a Bloggers Section. Bloggers were accredited by the DNC just as they accredited TV, Radio, and the print media. In fact, so many Bloggers had applied for credentials that the Democrats had a difficult time sorting out a reasonable number to whom credentials were given. In the "Talk Radio Alley " where I was located for part of the convention, Bloggers were much sought out celebrities. Young men and women who in the past might work their way up the traditional institutional media ladder for many, many years were now directly injected into the news and commentary stream. All of them were producing commentary and descriptions that were far more exciting, novel, passionate, intense, interesting, and often brilliant than the usual fare we read or hear.
Millions of American and indeed people all over the world are now writing and also reading Blogs as their primary source of information, commentary, and communication. Bloggers are building virtual communities of people who share interests ranging from food, sexual orientation, surfing, human rights, health, information technology, to environmentalism, sailing, Scuba diving, and politics, which are my four passions (I have four Blogs but of course my political material is the most active and has been quoted by many mainstream electronic and print media).
Blogs are the "new media" and as challengers to the established, previously unrivaled, and arrogant "mainstream", BIG and Powerful media, I think Blogs are one of the most amazing and significant developments of the information technology revolution.
Orlando Sentinel's Kathleen Parker had a column titled "Bloggers do job better than media" (9-16-04). She refers to the blogosphere as an " ... intellectual ecosystem wherein the best specimens from various disciplines descend from the ether, converge on an issue and apply their talents."
Ok, maybe not.
I have seen Blogs that represent the worst specimens descend on the blogosphere, racists, misogynists, stupid and misinformed people, predators, identity thieves, and, I would assume, even terrorists.
Still, from where I sit right now in 2004 looking over the vast battleground of American politics, it's a remarkable thing to watch the New York Times, Washington Post, the major networks, Newsweek, and CNN pull up the rear on this scandal. And by the way, all the evidence tells me it was not a mistake, not an oversight, not "sloppy journalism", but a deliberate act.
Blogs are the ultimate democratization of information. They represent "disintermediated empowerment", the direct connection between people without the old information "brokers" (intermediaries) who have spun their tale and told us not just what is news but also how to think about events, and who often represented the views and interests of a small, national cultural media elite. If you’ve ever watched any of the network programming, you realize that it's all the same, the sequence of stories, who's interviewed, the message we're supposed to get. Anyone who watches mainstream TV news or political talk programs can't help but wonder why the same people are the "experts" on all the shows and why they come from New York or Washington DC but rarely from San Diego, Des Moines, or Tuscaloosa. Even Public Radio and television use the same commentators and in many cases they also write columns for the New York Times or Washington Post. It often looks as if all of mainstream media political news is produced in one large warehouse and then delivered, like so many Krispy Kreme donuts to all the outlets. True, the Fox Network and media mogul Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio add a more conservative perspective on events. In fact, the absence of a successful liberal talk radio alternative makes this medium disturbingly monochromatic.
Bloggers are the "bottom up revolution" of media. For better or worse they add ideological and philosophical diversity to news and commentary. They reflect the divided, fragmented, and interesting plurality of American society. E pluribus unum has been misused by the political, cultural, and media elites. The unum is what they define it as. Bloggers are the pluribus!
Bloggers also represent a serious challenge to the arrogance of the establishment who now must be very, very careful what they print, transmit, or articulate because the Bloggers will be looking over their shoulders. This will make news reporting and analysis more complete, more diverse, and ultimately more precise. In the final analysis bloggers will make this a more democratic and accountable nation and improve the quality of our political discourse.
Postscript - A day after I wrote these comments the Washington Post reported that a retired Texas National Guard officer, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett had posted comments on several Yahoo and other discussion groups (including Online Journal) urging the Democrats to wage "war" against the Reblican ticket of Bush/Chaney. He had also laid out a strategy for justifying "down and dirty" tactics.
blog n. [short for Web log] 1. a website that accommodates easy and frequent posting on any topic; 2. an online platform for personal anecdotes, criticism and discussion, often featuring links to other websites;
About the author: Steffen Schmidt is University Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University and is also Professor of Costal Zone Management and Environment at Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. His weekly radio talk show can be heard at WOI.org streaming live. He is a frequent commentator on CNN in Spanish, the BBC, Clear Channel station KASI, Radio Francia en Espanol, and the Arne Arneson Show in New Hampshire. His comments also appear in the Christian Science Monitor, Reuters News, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Newsweek, and other major publications.
© 2004, SEAS Consulting blog.
