Exactly. That's the most obvious thing.

What are the odds Kerry people studied hy-phen-a-tion?

Maybe Kos can come up with some sort of conspiracy theory on this............Karl Rove time warped back to 1972 maybe ?

If CBS and the DNC told me the sky was blue, I would have to look up to make sure they weren't lying.

No amount of facts will alter the essential truth that Bush was AWOL.

(puts fingers in ears)

Actually, this scandal is going to be completely forgotten next week when CBS releases a properly typewritten memo from 1972 in which Bush is reprimanded for playing Halo on his X-Box when he was supposed to be on duty.

Really, if Dan-Co and his "News" manufactures has just spent the time to type this on a real IBM Selectric typewriter of the appropriate age, they likely would have gotten away with this whole business.

Just think how close they came with this lame attempt?

Isn't this great though ?

Is this all the Dem's can come up with ???

Is this all they have ?

I feel a landslide victory for Bush is becoming more and more realistic.

sooo BUSTED.

I still don't understand what CYA means. Can someone enlighten me, please?

Thankyouverymuch.

In an age of Mickey Moore and F/911, why does this forgery still shock me? Is this what it all comes down to? Fabrication and distortion? Who's trying to steal the election now, Mr Rather?

Hell hath no fury like a Lizardoid and his keyboard.

Three more cheers for Charles "Unconditional Surrender" Johnson.

Charles:

You've earned the day off.

60 Minutes' credibility is nil. Rather's been shown to be a credulous whore.

"The source, who asked not to be named, described CBSNEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES correspondent Dan Rather as being privately "shell-shocked" by the increasing likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent." He wouldn't be so shell-shocked had he bothered to pull his cranium out of his anus, don the mantle of journalistic integrity and do some background work before airing such a fraud. Just a pathetic, discredited Democrat tool.

#10 Miss Trixie

IIRC, Cover Your Ass.

And that's a WRAP, folks.

Charles,

WORTHY, WORTHY, WORTHY!!!!!!!!

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" — as evidence indicating forgery.

Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.

"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.

Charles, how can you plagiarize Ms Lines' work like that? Blogosphere...what blogosphere?

Neither Bin Laden nor Zawahiri stoop as low as the dems. At least their emailed fatwas aren't forged to look authentically from Mohammed's time.

absolute zero????

what's that in Celsius?

Miss Trixie, it's cover your a$$. Don't know where it came from originally, but old nurses certainly are acquainted with the concept.

Could someone who's got an old Selectric sitting around please type out a copy of this memo and scan it or fax it tot Charles to show how absolutely ridiculous an assertion it is that this was somehow done on a typewriter.

FWIW, my printout of the doc file has the higher "th" superscript just like the thirty year typewriter makes.

Obviously Bill Gates knew about these memos years ago and created MS Word for the sole purpose of discrediting Killian and Harris.

Here in NYC the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, which featured the documents yesterday, today have NOTHING about it. It looks like the MSM will try to bury the story for the weekend and hope no one notices.

All week long on WNYC it's been a non-stop Bush-bashing.

And yet Mr. Lehrer touts himself as "neutral." WTF?

I'm a Democrat who voted for Gore in 2000, but I have witnessed the absolute worst coming from the Democrats and have come to admire Bush's leadership in tough times. I will be voting for Bush in November. Democrats for Bush, come join me.

*

Rather was just interviewed on CNN saying "they" want to get away from what the memos say. I guess that's you, Charles. Nobody asked him any tough questions, of course.

#18--

-273.16 centigrade.

Eric Burns of FoxNews said that CBS had these memos for six weeks. So they could have released them before the Republican convention, but waited to do maximum political damage. No surprise there.

The document expert CBS used to authenticate the memos must have been Stevie Wonder.

1st!

(Sorry, don't know how to do superscripts yet...)

... And it occurs to me, this may NOT be so obvious for younger folks who haven't used typewriters, especially those (e.g. internet users) who are intimately familiar with computers.

A typewriter is an essentially mechanical device for putting letters on a page. You get a fixed number of characters per line - no more, no less. If you attempt to continue typing past the right margin, the carriage (the moving part of they typewriter) simply stops. If this happens, you can cheat by hitting the "margin release" switch, but then you get text creeping into your margin and it looks sloppy.

The way to avoid this is to listen for the little bell that goes "ding!" when you're about five characters away from the margin. Then you estimate how many more keystrokes you can type before you hit the "carriage return" to start a new line. If you're in the middle of a long word, you hyphenate. (That's why we learned all these complicated rules of hyphenation, and that's why dic*tion*ar*ies show the proper way to break up words.)

People who aren't familiar with typewriters should realize just how radically different the typing process is from the computers we use today. As Charles says, the odds against a typewriter duplicating the product of a computer are astronomical.

Actually, this scandal is going to be completely forgotten next week when CBS releases a properly typewritten memo from 1972 in which Bush is reprimanded for playing Halo on his X-Box when he was supposed to be on duty.

Wait till Bush's 1973 credit card bills for Everquest surface.

I bet they had help.

Charles, you're just piling on now. Don't you realize that John Kerry served in Vietnam? How dare you question his word wrap!

#17: I read somewhere that no printed copies of the Koran were available until the seventeenth century or thereabouts because Mohammed didn't have a printing press, therefore only handwritten copies were authentic. Would they still followed that logic, since Mo didn't have cell phones, airplanes or explosives, either.

#18

I believe that would be -273 C.

Definitely,
Not That Gordo

Charles,

Question. Is there any difference in the paper used by typrewriters in 1972/1973 and the paper used by laser printers in 2004? Any differences could also be used to further test the validity fo these documents.

#23 Beagle

Rather actually said that?!

Who the hell cares what they say if they're forgeries?

I mean, sheesh ...

Rather was just interviewed on CNN saying "they" want to get away from what the memos say.

Um, Dan... if the documents are fake, it doesn't matter what they say.

Damn, how does anyone that stupid get a job as a network anchorman... it's just like that movie, Anchorman.

On ABC's morning show George (former Clinton staffer) Stephanopoulos implied it was a Republican set-up.

Yeah .... Because Bush is a genius. NOOO, Bush is a fool! Dan, can ya help us out here ... maybe you could type up some authentic SAT scores or something.

This is farce writ large.

Charles, you silly boy.

You are labouring under the false assumption that facts mean something to the LLL's and their fellow travellers.

Is it possible that the algorithm that is used to convert a printed document into a pdf distorted the original memo? Or better yet, converted it to look more "microsoft-ish"?

Or does scanning a document into pdf actually just "take a picture" of the original?

#31

or absolute zero = 0 K

Hey guys was Charles the first to do the MS Word doc trick?

Because now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. I've seen it on blogs, web news sites and a couple network news casts. Of course they all act like they were the one to figure it out...

So can anyone point to the first time it was done and by who?

BREAKING NEWS:

John Kerry in Cambodia confirmed

#32--

Paper analysis is another time-honored approach of forensic investigation. Watermarks and other characteristics have often been used for authentication--or debunking.

28/stoj

that's priceless!

Testing...

Memo to File

SUBJECT: CYA

So what are the odds that in these documents, supposedly typed by hand in 1972 and 1973, the line breaks would match exactly with a document typed into Microsoft Word, using Word’s default margins?

There are only four places where a decision was made to hit CR and break the line. The probability that the person typing the document made the same decisions as would MS Word, given the lengths of the words that appear before and after the CR, is pretty high. The typist heard the little bell ring and hit CR after finishing the current word. MS Word looked at the length of the next word to be printed, looked at how far it was to the margin, and inserted a CR. It happened to be at the same four places both times, no big deal.

I thought you supposedly knew about this kind of thing.

Another clue to the forgery:

If you take every third letter in the memo, and string them all together, you get:

'whatsthefrequencykenneth'

I think someone is out to get Rather.

Furious J

I've seen several stories like that. They intimate that the documents may be forgeries, then they hit Bush for his actions in the Natl Guard.

WTF?

32 and 41,

The next thing I'd look at would be the presence - or more likely, the absence - of the impressions made by the typing ball striking the paper. Last time I checked, laser printers don't have a typing ball.

It is my personal opinion that this kind of dirty politics and mudslinging has been going on for the longest time. I agree with the above that CBS was blatantly retarted and failed even the simplest standards of journalistic integrity, however, some of the above posters fail to win my support for their DNC bashing among other things.

Firstly, this "anonymous source" could be on either side of the fence, looking for a personal fame or powertrip of some kind, and we can't automaticly assume it was democrats who pulled this stunt.

Just because something is anti-bush does not neccisarily mean that it has to have been comming from the democrats, or one of the affiliated lackeys.

We also must however acknowledge what we DO know about the issue of Bush's T.A.N.G. Service:

In that era, the TANG, and many other units like it, was for, as one of my favorite songs dubbed "Fortunate sons", of those lucky enough to pull strings to get out of service.

Second, we must also recognize that Bush left the air national guard to work on a political campaign, whether his leave was approved or not.

Contrast this with Kerry, who is a decorated war hero, winning three purple hearts (regardless of the circumstances) and was ACTUALY in a hot combat zone.

Let's add up the score when it comes to military service:

Kerry: Skipper on a swiftboat patrolling the Mekong Delta, 3 Purple Hearts, 1 Bronze Star, and 1 Silver Star.

Bush: Served in the Texas Air National Guard, No combat experiance.

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

The real question is whether the news about the fraud will become sufficiently widespread that CBS actually regrets having spewed forth the original story.

Yes, CBS will suffer, but will they suffer enough? Their hope is obviously that they will do enough damage to the Bush campaign that it will all be worth it in the end.

I recognize that CBS has been proven wrong. But will the public become aware of it to a greater extent than they are aware of/believe the original fraudulent claims, which have received front page coverage throughout the MSM?

I fear that these left-wing scum may yet come out ahead.

32 Paul

A reader on Powerline yersterday said the paper used at the time was 8 x 10 1/2, not 8 x 11.

look for reader John Risko's comments

I haven't seen anyone say definitely or not, though.

Somewhere,

the Unabomber is laughing his @$$ off.

I work for a paper manufacturer. There are a ton of differences. Just run your hand across a sheet of today's copy/printer paper. Even the cheap stuff is way smoother than it was 30 years ago (fillers added today for printability). But the originals will never show up. CBS either never had them or have already destroyed them. Otherwise, they would have noticed that they had toner and not ink on them.

If they ever checked. Which they didn't.

Word wrap indeed. My wife is not much for the finer points. When I showed here these last night she just said "No f'in way they didn;t have to hyphenate even ONE word at the end of a typewritten line."

I think we gotta stop calling these people journalist and instead call them "network personalities" or some such...

Incoming!

I agree with the above that CBS was blatantly retarted and failed even the simplest standards of journalistic integrity, however, some of the above posters fail to win my support for their DNC bashing among other things.

"Retarted".

[Link: dictionary.reference.com...]

#48

...and you registered just to post this bullshit?

If the odds that this happens in one memo is approaching zero, what must the odds be that it happens in two memos?

#48--

And by your criteria, Dole beats Clinton hands down.

Right?

(sound of crickets chirping)

Democrats always lauded those who went to Canada to avoid Vietnam. Now they condemn a goy who flew F-102 supersonic fighters (which had a nasty tendency to kill their pilots) as a shirker.

#57--That's "guy", not "goy."

#48 Little_Green_Rhobot

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

I hope you know that the 'someone' you refer to has to be Kerry. He is the one bringing up his Vietnam service, not Bush. Kerry started this and now cries when he gets questioned on it.

Real quick - What is Kerry's stance on the Iraq war ?

Final Jeopardy theme music

50 me : (

Bad measurements, but the guy in the link knows his stuff.

The Washington Post has this revealing bit of insight into CBS' journalistic method:

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."
"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."
The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush.

So they phoned one guy who told them what they wanted to hear and because he was a Republican that was good enough for their partisan purposes. Questions of truth didn't even enter into the equation. They didn't talk to Killian's widow. They didn't check with people familiar with policies etc. in the National Guard at the time. They didn't compare the memos to other memos from the period. They probably never even really checked where the documents came from (CBS: '...a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file').

And CBS calls that going 'several extra miles' journalistically. Ridiculous...

#48: Why on earth would you think 4 months of service, leading a boat with less than a dozen people on it, 35 years ago, would trump 4 years of leadership in times of unprecedented attack by a sophisticated, extremely dangerous enemy?

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

Actually, Kerry is the only one making that "retarted" argument and it's really going swimmingly ...

{tee hee}

Somewhere, Al "Gearloose" Gore is kicking himself. *mutter* stupid internet *mumble*

Have to agree with one of 48/LGR's points, though. Remember those forged Nigerian yellowcake documents? They were obvious forgeries, planted by France to embarrass Bush and discredit the case for war, providing a "smoke screen" to cover authentic evidence pointing in the same direction.

I'd like to think nobody on our side would stoop to this kind of nonsense. But I'll be happier when I learn that the documents did, in fact, originate with the anti-Bush side.

#45 Maine's Michael

LOL.

Another odd thing is that if you start playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album when you start reading it, the...album...goes...right...along...with...the... memo !!

Freaky !

#55 Mr Pol

...and you registered just to post this bullshit?

But, but listen to me! Just because the documents were forged doesn't mean that they're not real, you Freeper!

OMG Charles,Dennis Prager just mentioned you and LGf on his program. YOu have arrived?

I typed some of the memo on my Word 2000. The default settings come out different for me.
But here is an interesting point. When using Word, if you type "1." in the first paragraph, when you get to the second paragraph Word automatically uses different paragraph settings and automatically changes the spacing between "1." and the first word of the paragraph and it automatically adds "2." to the second paragraph. This is the question. A normal person typing would leave one space between the period after 1 and the first word of the paragraph. Word does not. It has an automatic setting. In the supposedly forged document, the space between the period and the first word appears longer than one space bar.

Another thing to keep in mind, when they tell you that the memos must have been "retyped" at some point:

Killian passed away in 1984.

That's at least ten years before the version of Windows and Word that used the TrueType fonts at all, let alone the specific font "Times New Roman" that is used in these cheap fakes.

If Killian couldn't have written these as originals, AND if he couldn't have retyped them, AND his family rejects the idea that he even wrote them, all we're left with is that they are fakes.

As for bona fides, I worked for Sun Microsystems in the mid 90's on a project to duplicate the functionality of MS-Windows and enable Windows applications like MS-Word to run on UNIX systems.

I was specifically tasked with designing and developing our font support, and we bought TrueType rendering technology from BitStream in Cambridge, MA. At that time, it was one of only a handful of places where you could even find TrueType rendering engines.

I mean you have arrived without the question mark , sorry, Guess I got too excited for you

[ Re-posted ]

. CNN is reporting a ' growing controversy ' over ' allegations that the CBS documents are forgeries. '

Truth triumphs over lies.

Congratulations, Charles. Strong and timely work in a righteous cause.

As a Minion of the Graveyard Division, at 0911 hours PST, I hereby begin the F N D T with a toast to our Lizardoid Master :

May the luck of the Irish possess you.
May the devil fly off with your worries.
May G_d bless you forever and ever.

[ Drink! ]

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

LOL
Thanks for playing.

Paul (#32),

Charles,

Question. Is there any difference in the paper used by typewriters in 1972/1973 and the paper used by laser printers in 2004? Any differences could also be used to further test the validity fo these documents.

Yeah, there's a fundamental problem with the paper size. Until Reagan changed it Armed forces used 8x10.5 not 8.5x11.

Actually, Kerry is the only one making that "retarted" argument and it's really going swimmingly ...

The Rhobot is a mental retart.

48 little green rotgut

vote for whomever the hell you want....but in this case you are voting for a feckless, self promoting, self movie re-enactor, self inflicted, false medal making, piece of human excrement.

Other then that...he's a usless as tits on a boar, senator...but vote...ASSHAT.

Now back to sanity...take a look at the savaging kerry is getting at links from Instapundit.

Wow ... Rush playing a clip with Dan Rather being interviewed a half hour ago saying he absolutely believes this story is true and there will be no retraction.

Just heard a top-of-the-hr radio newscast. McAulife seething about how it's a GOP set-up.

#68 buglar365

I guess that's what Charles meant by his #53.

Go get 'em Charles. You're the cat's pajamas : )

#48, Hello Tool. Welcome to the Real World. Here's some education:

After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.

According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).

Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. . . .

That brings the story to May 1972 — the time that has been the focus of so many news reports — when Bush “deserted” (according to anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore) or went “AWOL” (according to Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee).

Bush asked for permission to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. His superior officers said OK. Requests like that weren’t unusual, says retired Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush in 1970 and 1971.

“In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots,” Campenni says. “The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In ’72 or ’73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem.”

So Bush stopped flying. From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points — not much, but enough to meet his requirement.

Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.

In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.

Then, at his request, he was given permission to go.

Long story short, Bush spent much more time flying jets than Kerry spent riding in his swiftboat. And Bush sure as hell never claimed to spend Christmas in Cambodia. And Bush double sure as Hell didn't piss all over the soldiers still honorably serving in Vietnam by making up stories about atrocities. (Or, would you prefer to believe that your man Lurch actively participated in atroctiies that, by his own admission, were orders of magnitude worse than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib.)

Charles--I know this is probably a stupid question but a LLL friend of the family says that a document scanned into PDF is automatically formatted to Microsoft Word specifications...that's a bunch of bull right? It still doesn't explain the postscript......

You'd think that, coming from the party of hyphenated-Americans, the partisan demobab[y/ies] who produced these bogus documents would have been more nuanced.

Rush just played a CNN clip of a Dan Rather street interview that took place a half hour ago. Dan still maintains that the story and documents are real. When ask about an apology, he said none was coming as there was no reason for it. He finished with the comment about being more conserned with the questions raised about Bush in the story then about he story itself.

SHAMELESS! BsTard!

what scares me the most is how long has shit like this been going on. how many decades has the MSM had carte blanche to say or do whatever it wants, swaying public opinion with their half-truths and flat out lies. scary shit indeed.

"CBS was blatantly retarted"

Put that one on the rotating titles list, PLEASE!

Amir, Bob Maunck(sic), Rhobot et al:

You all remind me of the Black Knight from MP&THG!

#78 brianstien

That clinches it. McAuliffe is one of the biggest liars/spinners out there, and even he thinks they're forgeries?

#81 citizensoldier

Yes, your friend misunderstands what PDF conversion does.

With scanned documents, all a PDF file contains is a glorified image of the original.

No modification of fonts or layout will take place in that instance.

Another thing about the margins...
Government used 8x10.5" paper at this time (instead of our letter standard 8.5x11" now), which means your actual margins on the page should differ. With a narrower page of paper, the word wrap should be different on nearly every line vs normal letter size.

Not that we need yet another demonstration of the falsity of these documents.

#81

No, then the PDF would be "clean" because the person would have run OCR (optical character recognition) to turn the image into actual words. No need for all the extraneous dots (supposed photocopy/fax artifacts).

I *am* slightly concerned about the character shapes -- the numbers in particular DO look different from Times New Roman. TNR has all numerals the same height, whereas the alleged memo has slight descenders on the 7 and 9 (and others taller) -- and that IS a real style.

Somebody needs to try to find an alternative PC font that has this slight but real difference from TNR.

And I don't think Charles is quite right when he mentions a diference between screen and printer fonts. These are not separate anymore, typically. Truetype is used to render fonts on both devices. But the actual printer drivers do sometimes introduce some very slight variations.

Charles, I would be interested in seeing your overlay redone with your text as a translucent red or blue over the black if at all possible.

One more -- while we're all justifiably gloating (and I do include myself w/o sarcasm), that little voice asks "What is the blowback if CBS magically produces some apparently authentic originals?"

amir wrote:

When using Word, if you type "1." in the first paragraph, when you get to the second paragraph Word automatically uses different paragraph settings and automatically changes the spacing between "1." and the first word of the paragraph and it automatically adds "2." to the second paragraph. This is the question. A normal person typing would leave one space between the period after 1 and the first word of the paragraph. Word does not. It has an automatic setting. In the supposedly forged document, the space between the period and the first word appears longer than one space bar.

There are two spaces after the numbers in the document, and this is actually another good argument that the document is forged. To prevent Word from automatically turning those paragraphs into a numbered list, you simply type two spaces after the numbers.

And that's what they did. Unfortunately, they missed Word's automatic superscript feature, which turned "187th" into a giant red forgery flag.

Whoever typed this document into Microsoft Word used two spaces after every period.

Government/military smaller paper would mean that a photocopy onto modern paper would be off-center if it was placed against the edge of the glass, like most office humans would do.

Did somebody say DRINK?! (#72 Tumulus 11)

Okay, if you insist... DAMMIT! I'm at wokr and it's only 9:30.

I'm still waiting for the 1973 photocopies that Dan Rather made of his ass.

#81

Your friend doesn't know what they're talking about. Scanned PDF's (which this is reported to be) are just like taking a photograph.

I think your friend is confusing creating a PDF from a Word file (using print to PDF or Distiller) with creating a PDF from a scanned source.

#86 Thom

Yep. Now we know he can pull his head at least part-way out of his ass.

Somewhere

A heavily perspiring James Carville is hunched over an old Underwood, pecking out a memo with two fingers as Paul Begala can be heard yelling into the phone, "Don't worry, we'll have the real documents over there before the 6 o'clock news!"

Joel, be craeful about drniking at wokr ...

you don't want to get fried.

#18 Rock the Casbah:

-273C, IIRC.

Hey...Limbaugh is talking about "the blogosphere"

@48 robotshover

Bush served more hours of service than Kerry. You need only look up his service record using Google.com
The year that is in question he had to make a mandatory 53 hours of service for the year, he did 56.
Kerry's remarkable service is in question, only because he made the mistake of making it his platform to lead this country. He has no one to blame but himself.
Bush has never even insinuated any bias about Kerry's service. But since Kerry's service has been shot to hell by others not affiliated with Bush, it's all been dumped on Bush.
He's to blame for the actions of everyone else who is against Kerry. According to the opposition he is responsible for every breath, act, sneeze, fart and thought of anyone who disagrees with Kerry.
This is madness, it's irresponsible and it's dangerous. Now, the MsM is actually advocating dereliction of duty on Bush's part with no substantiation. They use the McCain Feinstein act to protect their asses, and the Bush campaign can do nothing to them.
If the MsM actually is successful in helping Kerry to gain the white house, you will see the same kind of carnage in this country we just witnessed in Ossetia. Kerry will be hiding underneath his desk asking for his mommy.
You are looking a mortal wound this country will experience. So, with all of your arrogance, I hope you've enjoyed the last days of true freedom you've had in this country.

/rant

#29 sharksauce:

How dare you question his word wrap!

And, judging from his recent MTV appearance, neither should you judge his rap, word.

;-)

From The Corner at National Review:

THE CBS PAPERS [Jed Babbin]
I spoke to Col. Bill Campenni (USAF ret) earlier this morning. As I've written before, Campenni was a member of the President's squadron and flew with him often. Campenni told me that there are a whole slew of reasons -- beyond those being debated now -- to question the authenticity of the CBS papers:

1. The 4 May 1972 order and the 1 August 1972 memo both have a letterhead for the wrong organization. Correspondence and orders in those days would be issued in the name of the parent organization -- the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group -- rather than the squadron. The letterhead is typed. They used printed ANG letterhead;

2. Orders were issued on the standard USAF orders form. (I still have a stack of my old ones. There's not a "memo" among them). Campenni remembers that orders weren't issued as "memos" like the 4 May 72 document;

3. The Killian "CYA" memo of August 1973 refers to pressure by Gen. Standt. The problem with this is that Standt retired in 1972. Why would anyone be worried about pressure from him?

4. Jerry Killian, according to Campenni, never went near a typewriter. In the Air Force, in those days, notes -- if anyone kept them at all -- were handwritten. That raises questions about both the 19 May 72 and the 18 August 73 memos. And, lest we forget, bureaucrats -- not fighter jocks -- write "cya" memos.

5. Orders -- like the purported 4 May 72 order to take the flight physical - wouldn't normally have been signed by Killian. They would be signed by a senior sergeant "by order of" Killian.

That clinches it. McAuliffe is one of the biggest liars/spinners out there, and even he thinks they're forgeries?

He knows they're forgeries. McAuliffe's tenure at the DNC has been a disaster. Personally, I think he's Karl Rove's stooge. I also think Karl Rove's banging my girlfriend, stealing my socks, and frustrating my career plans.

Jeez, McAulife is saying it's a GOP set-up, while Rather is insisting they are legitimate.

Sounds kind of like "There was no holocaust, but the Israelis are Nazis"

When did the American left adopt arab logic?

citizensoldier wrote:

Charles--I know this is probably a stupid question but a LLL friend of the family says that a document scanned into PDF is automatically formatted to Microsoft Word specifications...that's a bunch of bull right?

Right. A scanned document is imported into Acrobat as a picture. An image. No formatting whatsoever is applied to it.

OT but indiciative of the mentalities that are out there, Justin Raimoondo goes way off the deep end in his article Ghosts of 9/11

He actually writes the following in his article:

The Israelis, a silent omnipresent bodyguard, encircled Mohammed Atta and his cohorts, watching, and waiting – for 9/11, the catalytic event that would trigger a war binding the U.S. and Israel closer than ever before, a war that would not end even with the American occupation of Iraq – and would redound mostly to the advantage of the Israelis.

There's more baloney there, and worse he's even floggin a new cospiracy-laden book he wrote on the subject.

Like I sayin my discussion of his article , tinfoil must be in short supply. Either that or he's off his meds and busy dowing gallons of paleo-con Kool Aid.

#48

In that era, the TANG, and many other units like it, was for, as one of my favorite songs dubbed "Fortunate sons", of those lucky enough to pull strings to get out of service.

So there were "fortuneate sons" that got string pulled for them, you have proof that Bush was one of them??

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

So because Kerry served in vietnam 30 years ago he is more qualified?? Huh?? Bush's TANG record ISNT THE ONLY record he has....he has his record in the WOT, and the Iraq War, you can judge him on those positive or negative if you wish.

But to say that what Kerry did that long time ago, not to mention his ANTI MILITARY VOTING RECORD much more recently makes him a better choice than Bush with a proven record is asinine.

#106--

A day or so after 9/11/2001.

One more -- while we're all justifiably gloating (and I do include myself w/o sarcasm), that little voice asks "What is the blowback if CBS magically produces some apparently authentic originals?"

That's the problem. They're learning from all this information being posted and are scrambling to find old typewriters and paper.

The next forgery will probably be undetectable.

[b]Jeez, McAulife is saying it's a GOP set-up[/b]

heh. Riiiiiight. The GOP slanders it's own candidate which makes headlines for at least a day, then gets bloggers to investigate and claim it's a fake?

It's clear now.... and the Dems are intentionally making Kerry act like an asshole then have bloggers claim he's just under a lot of stress and uh.. what was I saying?

Way up at #10 Miss Trixie asked about CYA. I know this is common in today's parlance for Cover Your Ass. But was this really a popular expression in 1973???

Isn't Kitty Kelly scheduled for 3 consecutive appearances on one of the networks next week? I wonder if anyone is having second thoughts.

I just looked over on the Dem's website and they are just DROOLING all over this bogus story. Wonder what those idiots are gonna do when this whole big castle crumbles, which is going to be shortly?

[Link: www.nationalreview.com...]

RATHER: NO RETRACTION, 'THIS STORY IS THE TRUTH' [09/10 12:21 PM]

Media source in New York says Rather just did an interview with CNN on the street: "I know this story is the truth...There will be no retraction...When people talk about where we got the story they're only doing it because they don't like the story..."

Stunning. Either this memo turns out to be the real deal, or Rather is going to be a joke by the time this is over.

#105 Dirk Diggler

I also think Karl Rove's banging my girlfriend, stealing my socks, and frustrating my career plans.

And the evil bastard kicks my dog ...

...Rush playing a clip with Dan Rather being interviewed a half hour ago saying he absolutely believes this story is true ...

Really. Can someone get me Dan's email address? I'd like to forward an email to him on an exciting opportunity in the field of Nigerian banking.

I'd have his account numbers within the hour, if he's that gullilble.

This article says the docs were given to CBS by the DNC.

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

#114--
Someone needs to ask a slang expert (they're out there) about that.

Dan Rather is still standing by this story?

Well, I guess that puts my doubts to sleep. Given that this is such a transparent fraud, it crossed my mind that it might have been planted by a wayward GOP partisan (yellowcake-memo style) in order to embarrass the Democrats - which it is certainly doing.

But if after all this, those fools are still standing by this foolishness, rather than howling about being duped by the evil Bush minions, then they have no one to blame but themselves.

#113

So predictable. When they get caught doing something, blame it on the other guy. As a man wiser than me said the other day...."If you want to know what the Dems are up to, look for what they accuse the other side of"

re: my #90

I actually meant to point out the relative heights & positions of the 8 and the 9 versus the 1 to the immdediate left in the 18 August 1972 date.

So because Kerry served in vietnam 30 years ago he is more qualified??

People forget that Bush had to study and do a lot of class to be able to fly a jet. A high school drop out cannot get to fly jets.

Kerry on the other hand, tried to get deferments to go to paris to study, then when he was turned down, only enlisted in the navy so that he'd have a choice in which military service he'd serve in. The Army wasn't a good thing at the time. So Kerry sat around in the navy, which was a safe job at the time.. until they started having the swift boats patrol. Soon as that happened, Kerry racked up 3 purple hearts in record time, and got out of dodge in 4 months.

Could a high school drop out do what Bush did? No.
Could a high school drop out do what Kerry did? Yes.

CBS will not be off the hook if it now produces "the authentic documents." In fact, they'll just dig a deeper hole.

They aired and linked to inauthentic ones, so they can't just say--"Aha, stupid you. You attacked the authenticity of copies we advertised as originals, but THESE are the real originals! You fell right into our trap, right wing bloggers!"

Also, if documents now appear that look more convincing in typescript, paper, etc--whose gonna believe now that CBS didn't just employ a better forger after the shit hit the fan?

#118:
"#105 Dirk Diggler

I also think Karl Rove's banging my girlfriend, stealing my socks, and frustrating my career plans.

And the evil bastard kicks my dog ... "

And shaved my cat bald.

And stole my bike.

OT - but two things.

DC LGF meetup is Sunday at 12:00 noon. Email me for details if your interested

Secondly, since LGF is getting a helluva lot of traffic right now I figure that maybe we can help out Chief Wiggles -
Trying to save a little girl

You know what is so sweet about this forgery? It's the 2-for-1 hit coming out of it.

First, it backfires on Kerry for being so desperate to try such a stupid forgery. It makes it pretty hard for him to wail about Bush "misleading the nation". And secondly, the ease with which CBS was duped with the forgeries. Their over-eagerness to slam Bush is open for all to see.

CBS will not be off the hook if it now produces "the authentic documents." In fact, they'll just dig a deeper hole.

They aired and linked to inauthentic ones, so they can't just say--"Aha, stupid you. You attacked the authenticity of copies we advertised as originals, but THESE are the real originals! You fell right into our trap, right wing bloggers!"

Also, if documents now appear that look more convincing in typescript, paper, etc--whose gonna believe now that CBS didn't just employ a better forger after the shit hit the fan?

Even as a conservative Democrat (if not Libertarian), I must say that this is absolutely disgusting. I have a great deal of confidence that the DNC (if not very high-ups in the Kerry campaign directly) was 100% behind this scandalous attempt to create a scandal. So disgusting. This letter is such a fraud, that the people responsible for this should not just be scolded and scorned, but they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It's criminal liabelous. Awful, awful people.

#48

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

Let's see...

Candidate #1:
Served in active duty 4 1/2 months in an unpopular war 35 years ago. Self-confessed war criminal, yet honorably discharged (Lt). While in Senate, consistently voted against defense/intelligence spending. Not endorsed by any veteran's organization.

Candidate #2:
Served in reserves during an unpopular war 35 years ago. Honorably discharged early with points in excess of required service (Lt). Since served as commander in chief of the US armed forces during arguably the most successful war on terrorism, destroying two terrorist sponsoring governments. Endorsed by the VFW and American Legion.

Seems to me Candidate #2 is a lot more qualified and recognized as such than Candidate #1.

#114 Smitty

I grew up in the 70s, and my dad used CYA all the time. I don't know if he picked it up in the military - he was in the Guard in the late 50s & early 60s.

from Drudge:

Edwards says Bush needs to address the forgeries:
[Link: www.nashuatelegraph.com...]

"I know this story is the truth...There will be no retraction...When people talk about where we got the story they're only doing it because they don't like the story..."

They key part of this quote is the "I know this story is the truth" part. In his warped mind this story is true, Bush was AWOL yadda yadda yadda.

It doesnt matter to him that THESE PARTICULAR DOCUMENTS may be false, to him the overall story is true. So just bring the story to light in his mind has some moral purpose...even if the method of bringing the info to light may not have been truthful.

#105 Dirk Diggler, #118 Thom

And stole my Bible.

/Romancing the Stone

One expects the usual bullcrap from McAuliffe, but if Rather is sticking by this flimsy story it must mean that the source is too important to reveal.

Fess up, Dan! Who's the typist?

The full text (I think) of the story I linked to in #120

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."

The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from."

The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush's personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them.

According to a Kerry campaign source, there was little gossip about the supposedly hot documents inside the office of the campaign on McPherson Square. "Those documents were not something anyone was talking about or trying to generate buzz on," says the staffer. "It wasn't like there were small groups of people talking about this as a bombshell. I think people here weren't sure what to make of it, because provenance of these documents was uncertain."

A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story.

"The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.' And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different."

The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.

Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries."

ABC News' political unit held a conference call at 7:00 p.m. Thursday evening to discuss the memo and its potential ramifications should the documents turn out to be a forgery. That meeting took place around the time that the deceased Killian's son made public statements questioning the documents' authenticity.

According to one ABC News employee, some reporters believe that the Kerry campaign as well as the DNC were parties in duping CBS, but a smaller segment believe that both the DNC and the Kerry campaign were duped by Karl Rove, who would have engineered the flap to embarrass the opposition.

The headline keeps getting bigger and bigger at Drudge.

Kerry's camp could be responsible for giving the docs to CBS.

[Link: www.dailyrecycler.com...]

Watergate anyone? Dirty Tricks?

Yeah, I saw that Dan Rather on CNN interview. He acted like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar. His eyes were shifting back and forth and he was stumbling all over his words, the lying SOB.

Small point:

While the memos are undoubtedly fake, I cannot see any kerning pairs in the documents. I don't think that Word kerns letters below a certain size (I remember this being a setting in the old Aldus Pagemaker) and especially when looking that the letters CYA where one would expect kerning between the Y and A there does not appear to be any. Same thing with the period after the W. in George W. Bush - if it was kerned it would be more to the left.

If someone sees a kerning pair and can point it out I'd appreciate it but I don't believe there are any on these "memos".

120 justdanny

it took me a while to read the thread. I see you posted the same story as my 140 link

great minds think alike, me boy

#120 just danny

see you posted the link I put in my #140 while I was reading the thread.

great minds think alike, me boy

#134

JohnAnnArbor  9/10/2004 09:47AM PST

from Drudge:

Edwards says Bush needs to address the forgeries:
[Link: www.nashuatel......]

Bush needs to address? Ummmm I think the DEM's need to address this issue.

Why would the Bush camp make fakes? To have the whole thing blow in the Dem's faces? As if to say they tried to sabotage us, but were too stupid to realize they didn't have computers back then to type this stuff out...?

I am trying to understand the logic behind this.

Andrew B.

Has anyone see the ORIGINAL documents? Is the PAPER they are "typed" on 30 years old?

Are there key face strike imprints in the paper? The look and feel of a typewritten document are completely different from something printed out on a laserjet printer.

Did anyone at CBS demand to see the originals? If not, why not?

Who has the originals? What, only recent Xerox copies? Ah well, I'm convinced.

Not Watergate...

PAPERWEIGHT

(pun intended)

forget the word wrap, the kerning and the fact that most typewriters probably didn't use a font similar to Times New Roman. They most probably used something similar to Courrier.

The major faults:

1) In writing a memo to himself, whom in their right mind would take the time to superscript the 'th' on a typewriter.

2)If this is a military man knowlegeable about the structure of the guard and the different units, when writing a memo to himself, it probably would not be natural or neccessary to write that the 187th is in Alabama. He would know this and would probably not include this in a personal memo.

This is just like the Boston Globe going with the fake Abu Ghraib torture pictures....they were to busy salivating over the prospect of portraying our troops as murderous tourturing thugs no better than Saddam that they didnt check it out.

The only difference here is they were going orgasmic in the newsroom with the prospect of getting the evil Bushitler back for trashing that war hero's record.

CBS, welcome to irrelevancey

whoa

when I submitted the first comment, I got a server timeout, reloaded, and my message wasn't there. So I posed a new one. Then it shows up.

Your traffic must be ginormous, Charls

#133 brianstien

Okay, thanks. I'll accept that. I still think its unusual putting it as the subject line of a typed memo in what would normally be a hand-written note.

#146 Daniel Dravot

Great point Daniel

The paper stock from back then was much different than it is today

Paper was more yellow in color than it is today...plus from natural aging the paper should be completely yellow if not a dark beige color.

Paper today is made to stay white for a longer time than old stock...

Andrew B.

#48

So using your criteria to be president, Neither Lincoln or Roosevelt were fit to be president.
Plug in your brain before commenting next time.

justdanny spectator must be getting hammered

This whole story has been amazing. I must admit, I laughed it off when I first saw this yesterday (surely, proving a forgery could not be that easy), but within the day, the mainstream press picks up the story, completely overshadowing what the original allegations against the president were.

It seems quaint now how our conceptions of media in the future (television broadcast directly into your brain, VR goggles, etc.) all were of the passive consumption of information paradigm. In fact, the new model is that no one will be a passive consumer, nor will anyone have a monopoly on the truth; we'll all be the reporters, the fact-checkers, the information synthesizers.

Brave new world, indeed. As Warner Wolf might say, The Future is Now.

Is anybody monitoring NPR? So far, as far as I can tell from the radio and they're website, they still have their thumbs in their eyes and their fingers in their ears while singing "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA".

Can anybody find a link to a transcript of Dan Rather's remarks this morning? I can't find it yet on the web. I want to archive it for posterity.

Still giddy.
WWHHEEEEEEE!

Dems spin artists in the media are claiming that Karl Rove put out theses documents as a trap for CBS and the Kerry campaign!!! That is the single most absurd statement I have ever heard, they must really be in trouble.

Seriously, why would you put out documents that hurt your candidate because you HOPE that they would be found out to be frauds and pinned on your opponent?? Not to mention that to pin something like that on Kerry the media would have to be complicit in the buy line.....and the liberal media would not follow that story line unless dragged kicking and screaming.

That theory has no chance of catching on....I hope.

The document has true apostrophes, not typewriter quotes, which are vertical because they double as opening and closing quotes.

The memo was either produced using a typesetter or a word processor, not a typewriter, which makes it extremely unlikely that they are original documents.

That's even before you take into account all of the indications that the memo was produced using Microsoft Word with the default settings for tabs, margins, and fonts.

orbit

click on my 140 link

its to the recycler reprinting the spectator

#48 Little Gray Matter -

Let's add up the score when it comes to military service:

Kerry: Skipper on a swiftboat patrolling the Mekong Delta, 3 Purple Hearts, 1 Bronze Star, and 1 Silver Star.

You left out his Oscar as Best Actor in a Self-Serving Unauthorized Combat Re-enactment and the phantom "Valor" addition to the Silver Star. But I digress...

Bush: Served in the Texas Air National Guard, No combat experiance.

So if someone is going to play the "More qualified to be commander in chief based on military/combat decision making", Im going to have to go with Kerry.

Let's see...

Kerry's 'combat decision making' experience apparently consists of deciding which way to run when a mine detonates and deciding how to bug out on his shipmates after only three months in country.

In contrast, Bush only has three years as Commander In Chief.

You're obviously confused. We're not discussing who is more qualified to be C-in-C of the French military. Got it?

Can anyone here, believe that tomorrow is the third year date of that horrific morning?

I can't use the word (even though I will here for the purpose of illustration) anniversary. It isn't one. It is a day as FDR said "that will live in infamy

Infamy defined...1 : evil reputation brought about by something grossly criminal, shocking, or brutal. 2 a : an extreme and publicly known criminal or evil act . 2 b: the state of being infamous.

I want every damn islamic extremist, killed and the so called "moderates", better get on board damn fast, or I will want the same for them.

I probably won't be posting tomorrow as my silent tribute to those innocent lost souls and also a tribute to the young and older brave men and women, that have fought whether wounded or dead, in avenging the deaths of those on 9/11 and also their attempt to kill this foul stench of humanity known as islamic extremism.

To me 9/11/01 will seem as though it was yesterday, tomorrow will be that yesterday.

May the higher being rest the souls of all of those lost, to include the children and adults of Beslan.

Charles you and others have done an absolutely magnificent job to out the enemy within, be they media or be they mad dogs named carville, begala, rather, lehane , mccauliffe or kerry.

81 citizensoldier
in this instance, the document scan was created as a photoshop-style pdf, rather than a postscript-format pdf. in other words, it's a snapshot... the letters are no longer letters, but fixed as dots on the page.
and speaking as somone with a few hours "flying time" on military ibm selectrics, there is no way you could get that output from a typewriter of that period. period.

Wait a minute, how can CBS be "certain" the docs are real and then have McAulliffe and Lehane claim its a "setup"?

Unless you were CERTAIN the documents were phony why would you EVER offer a "setup" excuse?

Wouldn't you defend CBS's integrity? Why would you ever, immediately, entertain an alternate explanation......unless you knew they'd soon be exposed and you HAD TO HAVE a somewhat plausible fallback to feed the press and other "faithful"?

They're lyin so fast they can't keep up with their own stories.

I'd like to ask Rather, McAulliffe and Lehane one question: Do you remember anyone using the term "feedback" prior to, say, mid 1980 (after the guy's death)?

Then explain how this term appears in a 1970 "document".

It was word processed by someone less than 30 who did not realize "feedback" is only a recently accepted word in common usage.

#142 -- I see kerning in a couple of places, for example the top hook part of an "f" hanging over the next letter, an "e" -- don't remember where at the moment -- but look for the letters "f", "w", "t", etc.

With all due respect, another angle...

Let's say somebody WANTED these to be found. Somebody WANTED these poorly-forged, moronically-poorly made forgeries to be found, in order to... what?

Well, let's discount gutting Dan Rather. That's just an incidental dollop of icing.

A far, far more valuable payoff is in Mr Bush's team being able to state that 1) trusting national security to clumsy bunglers as stupid as the Kerry team would be indicative of openly obvious suicidal tendencies; and 2) these poor forgeries, although clearly done by an inept, incapable mental retard, are prima-facie evidence of the Democrats' unbridled, unprincipled lust for power AND clear indication of the presence of probable previous forgeries attempting to smear Mr Bush.

Hence at least two valid motives for this to have been originated by a Bush supporter, who cannily made sure that all significant players on the Bush team had plausible deniability.

Maybe, just maybe, they weren't so abysmally poorly done after all.

But then that requires that (The Perp) had faith that, once they were used, they'd be caught...

Does this fit with observable facts so far?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh,Lord Rove did post those Doc .The dems were just Idiots to run with it like they have.
Dan is gong to have another what is the frequebcy Kennth moment in the near future.
Full bore break down ,Teeth ,gnashing,salivating like a rabid hyena in heat.
Oh the humanity of it all....

"Way up at #10 Miss Trixie asked about CYA. I know this is common in today's parlance for Cover Your Ass. But was this really a popular expression in 1973??? "

I was in the US Air Force in 80. One of the first things we were taught by our TI. Cover Your Ass.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to suspect Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.
I commented on farque yesterday that this reminds me of when the kids solved the mystery of Jan's secret admirer b/c Alice's typewriter dropped it's y's.

# 28 stoj

HAHAHAhahahahahahaha

Ok, I give up!

Who is Kenneth, and why would Dan care about his frequency?

:-)

(or should I know this?)

What is the blowback if CBS magically produces some apparently authentic originals?

What about time-dating the ink and/or paper from the original? Is there one -- if there is, that would be the definitive statement on this whole kerfuffle.

#165 Carridine

Okay, but let's take it further. Assuming the docs were "planted" by Team Bush. Whose to say that the DNC dimwits or even the dumbasses at CBS would ever be so stupid as to actually come out with them? Surely the repubs can't control where/when the documents get "outed". There is the issue of timing - IIRC, these documents have been floating around for some time now. So how does the Bush side tell the dems when to actually leak the story??? No way...

#105 Dirk Diggler, #118 Thom

Karl Rove shrunk my pants and made my hair fall out! And aimed the hurricanes at Florida! Karl Rove makes me drink cheap beer!!!

#170 CheezNCrackers

It has to do with an R.E.M. song; the origins of which are outlined here.

Rove and Bush are not nearly smart enough to have planted this. We know the only people smart and evil enough to have done this. Does an intelligence agency beginning with "M" ring any bells? Rather and Kerry are discredited, Bush gets re-elected, and Microsoft gets all this free advertising for their fancy word processing programs.

Smitty, I am NOT suggesting Bush Team made them, commissioned them, wanted them or planted them.

I'm ONLY suggesting that they're forgeries.

We don't -at this juncture- know WHO forged them, or for what purpose. I agree with you that it boggles rational thought to suggest Bush's team planted these, even taking as a given the rabid, knee-jerk, shameless Bush-Hatred Syndrome of the Rather-Be-Democrats...

Simply saying, Think Like a Detective. Don't let Kerry-loathing color your reasoning.

And thanks for the reality-check. :)

#170 CheezNCrackers:

Some years ago Rather was accosted by a deranged man on the street who kept screaming "What's the frequency, Kenneth" at him over and over again. It was later made into a song by R.E.M.

As it happens I have an IBM Selectric in the other room. I picked it up at a garage sale for about $10.00 a few years ago and though I don't use it often, I still do use it. It's very smooth and the golf ball moves, instead of a carriage which has to be returned.

So that as you are typing and come to the end of a line... a bell rings which gives you another five spaces plus a release which would give you another two if you had to finish a word or pick a spot for hyphenation; at that point as the bell rings, you finish your word, your pinky finger (right hand) hits the return key (approximately where 'Enter' key on 'puter keypad is) and the golf ball moves across the page to begin the next line of type. It's great for dashing off notes and typing labels where the computer is sometimes engaged.

But wordwrap it doesn't have though you can squeeze a 1/2 space to insert a missing character if needed. But it doesn't have a superscript "th" though it does have the 1/4 and 1/2 key for those fractions.

I have another field typewriter (an Olympic) in a zippered case that is totally manual and has a carriage return and a two-color ribbon (red and black). This little guy was so cute I had to have him at another garage sale. I can imagine some dashing reporter on the battlefield in the thirties or the Spanish Civil War typing despatches from the front on it. And you never know when the power will go out and your fancy Selectric and Computer won't be worth a damn but you'll still have your little manual in the zippered case set to go to Saudia Arabia or Siberia, no problem!

#176 Carridine

Yeah, I hear you. I'm actually trying to stay out of the red/blue partisanship on this matter (okay, not very successfully) and remind myself: A major media outlet has used fake documents to further it's own agenda. That, in itself, is enough to make this a major story.

"Meanwhile this blow-up sucks another week's worth of potential from Kerry, as his campaign struggles to get anyone to believe it is capable of a comeback from the disastrous numbers inside the ABC-WashingtonPost poll."
Quoting Hugh Hewitt here...

Which, Smitty, is a puh-retty good reason to plant something like this. One week's worth of defloration comes Kerry's way.

Ouch! Dat gotta hoyt!

But then, I served in uniform from 64 to 68, and I actually DO loathe Kerry. I find his lies, calumnies, distortions, slanders and cowardly non-interaction with media questioners to be far, FAR less than what is required of all who lead from the White House.

CUL. (Its pushing 1 AM in beautiful downtown Bangkok, and I've gotta work Saturday. This story will walk on without me. Best of wishes to all Liza Droids here, whatever they are...)

So Charles, you used a Macintosh running OSX, MS Word 10.1(Internal version number) and you never renamed your hard drive from "Macintosh HD"....:-)

MS-Word embeds all kinds of crap in a .doc. If you look at it with a file editor, you can see it.

If only we had the original MS doc that they used to forge the memos....

Test.

umteen^th

Aaah.

Congratulations again, Charles. The News World is tilting towards actual truth. This is a nice revolution.

Guys,

The scenario will be something like this:

Rather (know as "The Dan at CBS News) will disclose his profond disappointment that an apparently trustworthy source had betrayed him. He will continue that throughout his long career, he has been committed to the truth (eyes moist), that anyone suggesting otherwise is the real partisan.....

In other words, cover-up by the cretins at CBS. So much the better really. Rather is not only irrelevant at this point, he is a pathetic character who actually thinks people care about what he thinks or says.

At 12pt my Word2000 does not kern, at 14pt it kerns. On-screen, at least.

I'm not enough of a typographer to know if it would be a coincidence or a requirement for a Times New Roman to use the same character widths as an older version.

(And I still cannot recall ever seeing a typewriter that did Times Roman, but then, I'm giving myself a headache trying to remember the last times I ever saw an IBM Executive typewriter at all, and back then, I didn't know squat about fonts either.)

I'm a bit surprised that at this point I haven't seen any posts from people who are professional typographers, optimally someone of sufficient age to have been doing so already circa 1973. Must all be libs, or gone so nearsighted they can't web surf.

If it turns out there really was a hardcopy device (typewriter, that is) in 1973 doing Times Roman, and the letter widths have come down to us in Windows, we will all have learned a nice bit of trivia. Charles has me mostly convinced this is a fake done on a PC, though I still see minor font differences that suggest to me that an amateur fontographer - and very amateur forger - was involved. But y'all know why railroad tracks are exactly as wide as they are, right?

Ten seconds with the original typed documents would be conclusive, btw. Maybe even 1973-era photocopies would be determinative (well, duh, since they would have been made in 1973! Tho I suppose they could still be forgeries even then!).

There do seem to be clear ribbon-texture marks on some of the other memos, but I suppose those could be faked, too.

Fun and games.

Try again.

umteen^th

Am I doing this correctly here? It looks fine in preview.

#184?
I tell you time. Again.

Check out Charles' Geek bona-fides. He IS a professional fontographer, a professional typographer and an intelligent blog-poster. He HAS examined the evidence and stated in no uncertain terms that the document in question is a fraud, unable to have been created at the time it claims to have been created: 1972.

Please re-read his posts in the main thread.

To make yourself and your posts read in a more informed manner.

Maybe these documents came from Arafat's red binder?

Wow! Double Wow! Yowsers! That was a stunning bit of detective work: Elegant in its simplicity, overwhelming in its reproducibility.

60 minutes made fools of themselves, either through ignorance, arrogance, mendacity, or some combination of the three. Danny says they ain't gonna retract (like it really matters at this point). A fall from that height is gonna hurt some.

I want to know what they knew and when they knew it ;).

Heh,
GTC

#25 Gary of Carlsbad -- "Eric Burns of FoxNews said that CBS had these memos for six weeks. So they could have released them before the Republican convention, but waited to do maximum political damage. No surprise there."

Eric Burns has it right for the wrong reasons.

They waited until now to get within the 60 day McCain Feingold "Free Speech Freeze". No one can independently raise and spend money to advertise the true facts and ask the hard questions. The massive power of the media in perpetrating this fraud in cooperation, as they are, with John Kerry and the DNC have a stranglehold on political discussion between now and the election. That is why they waited and it is going to get worse between now and then.

The media is actively cooperating with the Democrats in the most massive violation of campaign laws in this nation's history. And because of McCain Feingold, we are powerless to prevent it.

#186, I'm trying to be very polite about the many small differences that Charles is overlooking no matter what qualifications he brings to the table, which are not all that different from my own.

I just heard yet another pretty much clueless forensic "expert" on the Larry Elder show, tons of experience and qualifications, on paper, but nothing new to say, and still worried about Selectrics. The only professionalism shown was that he took ten minutes to come to a highly-hedged opinion, there was (disappointingly) no depth of knowledge demonstrated that a dozen posters here haven't covered already.

Again, find anybody in your neighborhood who has produced a custom font for a design class, show them the two samples, and get their conclusions.

Better if such a person has ever touched a typewriter with a cloth ribbon at all, much less an ancient IBM Executive, but let's just focus on whether the fonts match 100% or not.

BTW, I've seen a post that "Times New Roman" was actually created in 1931, so it would NOT be entirely shocking to find a machine built in 1972 (or 1952) to match very closely to our modern TrueType digital versions. An *exact* match might be a shock, but I do not see an exact match.

My conclusion at this point is that the most likely scenario is that these were forged more or less as Charles claims, but with a customized font, and I find no way at this time to exclude the possibility that they are authentic. Charles is very certain about what existed (or did not) in 1973, I am not that certain, that is perhaps our biggest difference of opinion.

Again, ten seconds with the originals would tell the tale, with fancy chemical tests coming later to confirm. And the truth may yet be something off the wall.

FYI, the first part of the font metric structure used by Windows API:

Display and Print Devices: Windows DDK

EXTTEXTMETRIC
The EXTTEXTMETRIC structure is used to specify font-specific information within Unidrv font metrics files (.ufm files).
typedef struct _EXTTEXTMETRIC {
short emSize;
short emPointSize;
short emOrientation;
short emMasterHeight;
short emMinScale;
short emMaxScale;
short emMasterUnits;
short emCapHeight;
short emXHeight;
short emLowerCaseAscent;
short emLowerCaseDescent;
short emSlant;
short emSuperScript;
short emSubScript;
short emSuperScriptSize;
short emSubScriptSize;
short emUnderlineOffset;
short emUnderlineWidth;
short emDoubleUpperUnderlineOffset;
short emDoubleLowerUnderlineOffset;
short emDoubleUpperUnderlineWidth;
short emDoubleLowerUnderlineWidth;
short emStrikeOutOffset;
short emStrikeOutWidth;
WORD emKernPairs;
WORD emKernTracks;
} EXTTEXTMETRIC, *PEXTTEXTMETRIC;

[Link: msdn.microsoft.com...]

You still need char widths and kerning data (which are different things, btw), and that still doesn't touch the actual character definition curves, I've never gone that deep into it, though the guys who write font editors of course do.

#190 itellu

You've been most polite, Sir or Ma'am.

If no one fact or discrete instance can set your mind free to accept these as forgeries, (including type-centering, word-wrapping AND superscripts), then I suggest you reconsider these myriad details IN AGGREGATE.

Any one or two, okay, discount. But all of these? Too many to attribute to 'chance' or 'coincidence'.

Concur yr analysis re: Actual Paper. But even the clumsy forger in this case knew enough to avoid THAT problem.

Stay the course, Amigo. I find you an ally and a clear thinker.