CBS anchor Dan Rather, who is under fire for publicizing obviously-forged
letters about President Bush's military experience, unveiled a new set of
letters today, supposedly from John Kerry's military file. The handwritten
letters claim to be evaluations of John Kerry's "overall time in the military."
The first letter is signed by "Gen. Eisenhower" and begins, "Corporal Kerry as
a certain je ne sais quoi (I don't know what)." The addition of the
parenthetical translation has some bloggers crying foul. "First, the 'i's are
dotted with a hearts, which, to say the least, was not common among military
personnel at the time," claimed right-leaning powerlineblog.com, "second, no
pun intended but most everybody knows what "je ne sais quoi" means, so the
supplementary translation must mean that the real author is snotty and
pretentious in a Francophile-type way, in that (s)he thinks Americans are
idiotic. hmmm . . . . who can that be?"
CBS retorted by issuing a statement from talk show host and relationship expert
Oprah Winfrey. "Gen. Eisenhower could have dictated this letter to his
secretary, which easily explains the hearts over the 'i's. Also, we all know
that people in the military are dumb, so it's not surprising that they had to
translate the French phrases."
A second letter, from a Gen. MacAurthor (sic), begins, "I have full faith and
confidence in Pvt. John Kerry's abilities. He is not at all arrogant, and in
fact gets along with poor people quite well. In a sense, while in Vietnam,
they were literally all in the same boat together. Moreover, I know in my
heart that Kerry will marry a sexy, smart and cheeky woman some day, and, if
that woman happens to support him in a bid for the presidency, he will keep his
promise to spend some more time au sud. Also, it makes perfect sense to me
that Kerry may at one time report to have witnessed and committed atrocities in
Vietnam and yet later claim to be a war hero."
CBS stands by the authenticity of the letters, claiming that they were
validated by experts "from moveon.org to the New York Times." Dan Rather even
concluded Sunday night broadcast by stating, "I don't want to let the cat out
of the bag here, but having read these letters I think we can just start
calling Sen. Kerry 'President.' What a remarkable man."
