Ms. Goldstein appears to be following the script set out by the headline "Documents Fake But Accurate", which made the NYT a laughing-stock. She repeats the canard that GWB used family influence to jump the Queue and get into the Texas ANG. How many applicants were there at the time who could pass the very rigorous standards which the USAF imposed upon applicants for flight training? She doesn't know nor does she care? Combat flying in a super-sonic fighter, such as the F-102 was and is quite dangerous and demanding---not the way a coward would chose to avoid combat. Has she ever looked at the instrument panel of an F-102?

The reason that anyone but a fool knew within hours of the broadcast that the documents upon which it was based were forgeries had nothing to do with Bill Burkett's shady reputation or with his "credibility". It was simply that exact replicas of them could be easily produced by anyone with a computer using microsoft word in its default settings. My son sent me such a replica within days. Apparently, Mr. Rather is so stupid or poorly informed as to not be aware of this, right up to the present day. Ms. Mapes, however, is not stupid, and we must look elsewhere for her motivations. I have always thought that she herself could have been the source of the forgeries and arranged to have them "discovered" by the gullible Burkett, whose animus against the (Army) NG would have been well known to her. This possibility is at least worthy of investigation. His story of how he obtained them is not believable.

Finally, the return of many pilots from Viet Nam during the latter part of GWB's tour created a glut of very qualified pilots with relatively few flying slots to accomodate them. For this reason the ANG allowed him to complete his tour with only nominal duties in Alabama and finally. the Harvard Business School.

With the exception of my conjecture about Mary Mapes, everything I have written here has been well known for years---lazy and/or ignorant journalists, such as Ms. Goldstein, instead propagate myths.

The documents from 1964 were produced on a laser jet printer which is why they were immediately spotted as fake. Times New Roman was licensed by Microsoft in 2000. Dan Rather is old enough to have spend a good portion of his career with manual type writers. How could he have not spotted the laser jet printing?

Either he is letting others do the work and not even bothering to oversee or he went ahead and published what was clearly very very suspect. Either way, he loses and deserves to be "retired"