Statement by Typography Expert Joseph Newcomer
Joseph M. Newcomer, whose exhaustive technical analysis of problems in the CBS Killian memos demonstrates the forgery beyond a shadow of doubt, has asked me to post his statement on the issue:
I’ve gotten the requisite amount of hate mail. I just want to make my position clear.
I do not like George Bush. But as I explained to one correspondent, if he had produced a document which Fox claimed to be authentic, which castigated John Kerry for being AWOL the day he was supposed to be on the swiftboat, Brit Hume put his reputation behind it, and it looked like a modern forgery, you can be sure I would have ripped it apart as thoroughly as I have the CBS memos. I know that some people wouldn’t like this, but my view is that if CBS is allowed to get away with forged Bush memos, what other network or print journal would try to get away with forged Kerry memos? And once the media pundits figure out they can lie to us about this, what else can they lie to us about? To me, this has been an issue of journalistic integrity. I don’t often get a chance to make the truth so apparent.
“Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the war.” Charles Foster Kane.
(This is an urban legend of an exchange attributed to William Randolph Hearst; see here.)
I’m simply out to defend technology I helped create, and keep it from being used for immoral purposes, such as lying to the public about a Presidential candidate. I admit that a friend of mine who is pro-Bush put me on to this, but I have a lot of pro-Kerry friends, also. And I’m sure that if they had seen a similar anti-Kerry document they would have shared it with me. And had the circumstances been similar, I would have done the same thing.
And to those who have asked, no, Carl Rove hasn’t given me a cent. Neither has anyone else. Nor do I want any money for this. I like the freedom of doing it for nothing. I don’t owe anyone anything, and can say what I think is the truth without accusation of financial motivation.
Joseph M. Newcomer
FlounderCraft Ltd
610 Kirtland St.
Pittsburgh PA 15208
