If The Truth Is Not Repeated Often Enough The Lie Will Take Over

Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted an article with a quote from Dan Rather on the supposed National Guard documents concerning George W. Bush.

Dan Rather is quoted as saying:

Number 1 – the facts of case are not in dispute.

Number 2 – no one had ever established that the documents were forged (those who attack them argued that we didn’t do enough to demonstrate that they were not forged) The whole documents argument was a camouflage – what was described in the documents was factual. As for the trap argument — could have been, might have been but nobody has ever proven that. What I know, all I know, is we reported a true story. Whatever you think of the documents, facts are facts.

Yes, Mr. Rather, facts are facts. First of all, the charges against President Bush have never been proven. Second of all, the fact that the documents were forged has been proven.

The article includes comments by Font expert Thomas Phinney, who has built a career on typography:

I am on the left wing of the political spectrum, and I am also a typography expert who was quoted twice in the Washington Post about the memos, and approached by ABC News to get my opinion on the topic. TL;DR: they were blatant forgeries.

…The assertion that all the attacks on the Bush National Guard story were “partisan political” attacks is nonsense. I voted against Bush in both elections, and I donated money to his opponents. But that doesn’t change my assertion that the memos were clear forgeries. None of the hundreds of typographers who have come to one of my presentations has even tried to collect the $1000 reward I have repeatedly offered to anybody who can produce a device, available in 1972, that could have produced those memos. (The Selectric Composer and the IBM Executive typewriter are not plausible candidates, btw.)

It’s an old story, but I guess it needs to be retold occasionally. Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” In this case at least we have the information to refute the lie.Enhanced by Zemanta