BILL AT INDCJOURNAL earlier reported that the Boston Globe misquoted the statement of forensic expert Philip Bouffard. [LATER: Maybe “deceptively presented” is better?] He has posted the results of a telephone interview with Bouffard, where Bouffard says they misrepresent his conclusions, suggesting that the documents may be genuine when he didn’t say that, and reports that he’s “pissed.”

Now Bill reports that CBS is repeating the Globe misquote as part of its efforts to defend its own position. Bill has posted the Globe ombudsman’s address and suggests that you contact her.

UPDATE: I don’t know what they said on the air, but CBS is amazingly sloppy on their website, where they get Bouffard’s name wrong, calling him “Phillip Broussard” — even though they’re referencing the Globe story which, despite misquoting Bouffard, at least gets his name right. CBS reports: “Saturday’s issue of the Boston Globe reports that one document expert, Phillip Broussard, who had expressed suspicions about the documents, said ‘he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.'”

Bear in mind that to be quoting from the Globe article they must have had it in front of them, and they still got the name wrong. (Even adding an extra “l” to the first name.) Sheesh. Get these guys some pajamas, fast!

ANOTHER UPDATE: David Hogberg saw the broadcast and reports. They seem to have gotten the name wrong on the air, too. [LATER: Hogberg updates and says he’s not sure what they said on the air — he checked the CBS website for the name. Bad move, David!]

Meanwhile, Brian Carnell notes that although Dan Rather last night said that CBS’s expert authenticated all the documents, the Los Angeles Times says that he only looked at one.

MORE: I notice that some commenters over at INDCJournal think that the Big Media is trying to bury this story. I actually don’t think so. I was interviewed today by a journalist for a major paper who’s doing a story, and it’s getting big play in the latest Weekly Standard. Plus, as a scroll down will demonstrate, it’s getting a lot of major-media coverage already.

And the thing is, even if CBS never admits that the documents are forged and just lets the story die, it’s suffered a crippling blow. Sure the diehard Bush-haters will still listen. But if CBS becomes known as the broadcast equivalent of the Democratic Underground (which seems about right, lately), its ability to affect events goes way down.

With all this noise and fury, and lost credibility, their ability to initiate some sort of last-minute anti-Bush scandal and make it work is gone. (Even people who might have been persuaded have by now, as several readers email, gone numb from the constant onslaughts of “Bush lied” over the past years). And the ability of the Big Media to maintain preference falsification by presenting a unified message is already long gone. Those costs exist regardless of whether Rather fesses up to either forgery or carelessness.

STILL MORE: A reader offers this take on the Bouffard/Broussard bellyflop:

In addition to the unnamed experts who originally verified the documents, CBS has now added confirmation from a source whose name they don’t know.

Heh.

MORE STILL: A journalist reader offers this speculation:

I’m wondering if anyone is going to do to Dan Rather what they did to Stephen Glass of “Shattered Glass” fame- suggest that it’s unlikely that this is the first time he “cooked” a story. Maybe rob him of his legacy, somewhat? If anyone wanted to do the fact-checking on old Rather stories that seemed to be “too good”. . . .

I think it’s kind of like lifeboat ethics at this point, for the MSM (print and network news). The little market-share pie that they’re dividing is ever-shrinking as their readership ages and dies off, the young news junkies go for cable news and the internet, and now the last few haggard old survivors-desperate and hungry, now ganging up on the weakest guy (CBS) as the picture grows more bleak.

That seems a bit dramatic, but not entirely implausible. In fact, I’ll have a related post tomorrow.