True Lies? False truths?


Colin Powell and Dan Rather: Forgery victims.

What a mess. Powell seems to have reached his peace with bad WMD intel. Is Rather far behind?

Are the memos later computer- or typewriter-transcribed versions of hand-written orginals? Whose originals? Fake memos, but accurate and dispositive of Killian's mind and that of other TANG higher-ups at the time? Some of whom said "yes, that's what I recall" before seeing the actual memos or hearing of their new-found doubtability and formatting challenges. Somebody ain't talkin', and some are. But the one's who were talking are clamming up, and new players are seemingy popping up to fill the vacuum.

Drudge has found COL. Killian's secretary:

The DRUDGE REPORT has found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary who claims that the Texas Air National Guard documents offered by CBS in its 60 MINUTES II report filed by Dan Rather last week are indeed 'forgeries'.

"I did not type these particular memos. I typed memos like these," Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT from her home in Houston.

"I typed memos that had this information in them, but I did not type these memos. There are terms in these memos that are not Guard terms but that are Army terms. They use the word 'Billets'. I think they were using that to refer to the slot. That would be a non-flying slot the way we would use it. And the style... they are sloppy looking."

But Marian Carr Knox stands by the accusations contained in the allegedly fraudulent documents that Bush skirted a medical and flight exam without suffering institutional repercussions.

Knox is now 87, so many are going to "wonder out loud" how reliable her memory is.

After a radio interview, theNY Daily News has:

First Lady Laura Bush told an Iowa radio station on Monday the documents "probably are altered and they probably are forgeries." When the story broke last week, the White House did not question the veracity of the Killian memos.

And, after her interview was aired in Iowa and on CNN, the White House was quick to point out that that is the First Lady's opinion "not an 'official' White House statement.

Geez, is that pushing the limits of non-denial-denial or plausible deniability? "Is your product really better than your competitors? Yes, but you can't quote me and I'll deny that's my company's stated belief because we don't know." How encouraging.

USAToday seems to be on top of the central storyline of this--if that's even possible.

So far, neither the White House nor former officers in the Texas National Guard have challenged the central assertions in the documents: that Bush's performance as a pilot was under scrutiny by commanders beginning in 1972 and that Killian, his supervisor, was unhappy with him.

Oh, yeah, by the way. It's been a horrendous week of "catstrophic success" in Iraq.

As Dick Morrris wisely noted, slimy as he may be, "If you want to call yourself 'a War President,' you have to be winning the war." I personally like less generic talk about "War" and more specific, reasonable doable talk about "Winning" and what it takes. So far, this ain't it.