Also can a 1970 typewriter printer every letter perfectly with the same amount of power.

"No definitive proof!"

/Blather

Never mind that you can just imagine the little Bush hating fascist sitting there, in front of his computer, making this crap up.

Frist!

Well, how much longer until they get it?

Seriously, it keeps piling up.

I saw Dan on TV today, and he said they were authentic. I believe him.

I also hope Mr. Streisand gets the nod for his performance as Reagan: it was inspiring. Not since his acting in Amityville Horror has he been so "on". Granted, the flies stole the show (and to be fair, they were just phoning it in), but still...

Now, as the crack wears off, I think this drags out a couple weeks and Dan retires amidst cries of censorship and vast right wing - the word escapes me. In the best of all possible worlds, that is.

Please, let him go down for this. Please Don Vito - make these men pay for what they have done.

Ummm, people it's wonderful to win a BATTLE, but the war goes on. It is the WAR that must be won.

Slow-Motion Train Wreck
We noted earlier that the Boston Globe cited Dr. Philip Bouffard as its prime source for the claim that the forged CBS documents were created on a typewriter, but that Dr. Bouffard has now complained that the Boston Globe misquoted him and that in fact, "There are all kinds of things that say that this is not a typewriter."

"Now, unbelievably, CBS News is relying on the Globe's misquotation of Dr. Bouffard to shore up their own untenable claims of the documents' authenticity! I guess I'm beyond being shocked by anything CBS News does, but they must have known that Bouffard has complained about the Globe's misuse of his name."

"This is, of course, a sign of CBS's desperation, but it is revealing in this respect: CBS claims to have thoroughly investigated and validated the documents before they ran their story. Yet the key witness they relied on Gen. Bobby Hodges, has said that he was lied to by CBS News and that in fact, he things the documents are forgeries. Notwithstanding their supposed investigation, CBS is so hard up for ammunition to support their position that they have to repeat an already-exposed lie by the Globe."

Pentagon Sources: Documents Are Fakes

A reader emails us:

KELLY WRIGHT [FOX NEWS]: Tony, here's the latest that we're finding out on this story. At least three Pentagon sources believe the documents about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard are fakes. CBS as you mentioned is standing by its story...
Good. I'm not as optimistic as many bloggers that just because we won the argument, we'll win the war. This story is one more thing that will damage President Bush unless the administration moves aggressively to counter it, and demonstrate to the majority of Americans--not just the news junkies--that CBS News has perpetrated a fraud of astonishing proportions in an effort to influence the election.

[Link: powerlineblog.com...]

What movie was the line "I didn't know they stacked *** that high!" from? CBS seems to be performing the definitive test.

FWIW

Viacom's Investor Relations Department 800-516-4399

Viacom, Inc. Headquarters
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
Ph: 212-258-6000

Viacom CEO is Sumner M. Redstone

Charles- after all you have done on this I hate to ask you do to more. But USA today had 2 new memos out and one of them had the centered text but this time with the superscript th. as shape of days pointed out, on a typewriter with proportionally spaced fonts, centering text is exceptionally hard but the precious memos were all dead on perfectly centered. THe left avoided that argument by saying it was possible that they ordered that letterhead previously and were just using it for all of them or that Killian may have taken the time to center it perfectly then just xeroxed a bunch of copies to use over and over. But on the new june 24th memo the heading is different because of that superscript th. Any chance we could get you to do a new overlay using that new header on the June 24th memo? We just need to tackle these lefty talking points one at a time. Thanks again for all your hard work on this.

#7 - stacked ... you trying to sneak 2 inches in on me?

I am pretty sure that's from Full Metal Jacket... A very poor date movie, as I recall - she is still suffering flashbacks...

Someone said that the four digit year has only been used since 2000. Anyone know more about that?

The odds of two 30-old typewritten memos having the same layout as their MS Word remakes is 0².

Y'know what gets me?

Why on G-d's green earth would anyone who's attempting to make a word-processed document appear typewritten use Time New Roman?

The Courier font is the first thing I'd think of. It's a no-brainer.

I mean, what the hell? Is anyone with me on this?

Why would the Democrats or the liberals “leak” the obviously forged memos to CBS? Because the SBVT came out with it attacks on Kerry’s combat record, and it was hurting Kerry badly. Clinton gave Kerry good advice on dropping his ‘Nam service record. My guess is someone in one of the 527’s came up with the forgeries and then gave them to the DNC or Kerry. It might be that at the highest levels of the DNC or Kerry’s campaign are clueless about the document. Someone who has deficient judgement leaked them to CBS. CBS groupthink mentality refused to properly vet the document, so now we have obviously forged documents that CBS cannot release the source because of the connection to the DNC or Kerry. After the savage investigation against the SBVT, this forgery is the smoking gun of active collusion between the Democrats and CBS. They have shot themselves in the foot, and are now in denial.

#11 zulubaby

Someone said that the four digit year has only been used since 2000. Anyone know more about that?

That was Reagenite yesterday.

The military used the date format: DD MMM YY when I worked with them up to the 90's. That was something that caught my eye in CBS's docs: they spelled out August in one place and they put a comma after the month in another.

#9 killbuckner

IIRC, copy machines in 1972-73 used thermal paper. Plain paper copiers were not common until the late '70's. In other words, I find it unlikely that the CO would have typed up a perfectly-centered leterhead, then copied it. Not only would it have looked like hell at the time, it would look even worse now.

I'll have to research to see what I can find ojn the subject.

I wonder how many people from Can't Believe Sh*t have their resumes out there now, because they know it's going down like a hulled ship?

Lysander

Charles, this is incredible!!
What are the odds, statisticly, that a random memo typed by a random typist on a typewriter will be word-wrapped exactly like the default automatic word-wrapping function of Microsoft Word?

I wonder if expert is statistics can quantify the odds and maybe demonstate that the posibility of these memos not originating from MS Word is very improbable.

Drudge has the excerpts form Dan Rather's attempt to prove they are real.

[Link: www.drudgereport.com...]

#13 Lewis

The Courier font is the first thing I'd think of. It's a no-brainer.

I would have used Notepad. If they had, considering that the docs have been faxed/copied, they would probably have got way with it.

#13 Lewis

Actually, I'd probably open the trusty Yellow Pages to the "typewriters" section, make some calls, and buy me a freakin' typewriter.

I have never heard or read a professional examiner of documents state even a hedged opinion about a copy of a document without including a disclaimer that began "Of course, without access to the original document..."

If it's created with an inkjet or laser printer, you can't deliver the original document, or the game is up before it begins.

Amateur hour at Bush-Hating Headquarters.

Those who claim the documents were typed in 1972 on a machine designed to produce photo ready text don't explain why, if this is the case, someone copied the documents over and over again to try to make them look like they were created on a relatively poor quality manual typewriter.

You have to see this:

[Link: img41.exs.cx...]

Someone did an animation of creating the document in Word!

(Found at PowerLine)
 

#11
Let's not Marcia Clark the case - CBS can rebut many of the protocol issues by claiming that Killian personally typed the private memos while a more protocol experienced 'secretary' typed the official documents. If we can document that this is not true than swing away. But don't throw stuff that won't stick when we've got the DNA evidence.

#11 zulubaby: Here's a Bush doc that has year in four digits.

I am with Charles in the other thread. Let's vote Dan Blather as "Grand Master Idiotarian 2004" in honor of this tremendous and quite public, meltdown of a LLL's career.

Can-ahhuh? Please, please please...

Think about it. He either thinks America is this stupid, short-memoried or apathetic or he can't mentally digest the facts. What a drooling, blithering imbecile!

I am sure you all have now seen the flash animation linked on powerline in the same post/update where they show The Great Lizzard's .gif.

If you have not seen it I would state that it is a must see. Three documents out of six are now fully proven to be fakes for a host of reasons. Current odds: 20498723089373908290832093270983279236717893758972 34576134475198734150981723478901723475123489751234 98751234761456761612386792371560496147234234685101 9238548234 googolplexed to 1 that any of the others will be legit.

OT

Just got back from a walk around Berkeley on 9/11 and I saw the spookiest thing: a shadow on the sidewalk that looked exactly like one of the World Trade Center Towers, down to the last detail of leaves next to it that looked like people jumping off. Really freaked me out -- it felt almost supernatural. Luckily I had my trusty zombie camera with me and I snapped a picture. Came back and just put it online.

Check it out: spooky WTC shadow on 9/11 in Berkeley.

William beat me due to my failure to refresh before posting. =) Oh well, it happens.

The last few days have kind of been like Christmas.
What a joy to be watching the Main Stream Media body-slammed to the mat. And then get up and asked to be pounded again, and again.
After years of suffering through the Media's Liberal bias without any real remedy,it is wonderful to see the effect that Charles and a group of Bloggers have had on these arrogant journalists.
Rather's suffering will be enhanced by his insufferable pompousness and inability to say he screwed up.
Hey Dan just say, "I made a mistake" and move on will stop much of the Pain. But Dan can't do that, so the slow death of his career goes on.

CBS=Compiled By Soros
CBS=Complete Bull-Shit

Bigel had a good one, but I forget.

Dan Rather is one of many reasons I no longer watch TV for the news. With Ed the Weather man, I no longer have to watch Jim Spencer either. (sorry Jim)

I hope his daughter or Ben Barnes forged this. My G-d, that would be wonderful.

Blather repeats Globe lie:

[Link: wizbangblog.com...]

Notice how the "st" in "1 st" in the subject line has a space between 1 and "st". This fools the MS Word Superscipt feature. I didn't ever do a lot of typing but wasnt it common to either run the whole thing together 1st or roll the carriage up 1/2 turn and type full size "th" above the baseline of the 1?

I think we should all print this stuff out and leave it on the tables at every fast food joint and Starbucks we can think of on Monday morning. It will make more interesting reading for the patrons than the USA Today that's at our our local Starbucks.

One quick question / comment - the single document that was produced showing a "th" after the date looks completely different to me. Please, can someone tell me if this is a single key?

I have it in my head that there were odd keys on some of the replaceable balls (I took typing as a blowoff high school class in 78), and that "TH" with the line under it looks like a special character thing.

If so, that means there would have to be another model with the little, raised "th". I'm betting that combination of fonts / characters never existed.

What's the font, Kenneth!!?

#25 Lively
That's a different kind of document than a memorandum. Orders always used(use) the full date because of terms of service. Memos even today still use the shorthand for those of us that started that way.

To Charles and all those who think we will not prevail in bringing CBS to admit to the forgery.

1. The credibility of CBS, its stock in trade, is already a casualty what with all the Clippy parodies, fake funny memos, etc. No amount of stonewalling can stop us from having fun on the CBS expense account.

2. This is the weekend. Do you actually believe that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and many others are going to let CBS skate come Monday? I think not.

While these hosts may be dismissed as rabid right-wingers, they are also hugely influential and widely listened to, especially by opinion makers.

We're only at the beginning of this battle. CBS thinks it has escaped the kill zone (see Belmont Club), but we're just mustering forces.

Somebody needs to create a single, definitive webpage outlining the problems with the documents.

LGF has dozens of threads, but I can't very well link someone to a dozen threads. What we really need is a single page with:

1) the documents
2) descriptions of each and every part of the documents that wouldn't be expected from a 1973 typewriter, even top-of-the-line. Things like: curly quotes, kerning, center-justified text, etc.
3) demonstrations of how accurately MS Word reproduces the documents using the *default settings*
4) descriptions of how the document content is suspicious -- say, a date in the wrong format, or an inconsistant use of superscripts, or a military abbreviation being abbreviated wrong
5) comparisons of the signatures on these docs to memos by the original guy
6) quotes from the guy's family, etc.

If it was all on one page, it'd be a good page to link people to. As it is, only junkies who are willing to read a dozen threads will really capture the magnitude of the obviousness of the forgery.

#37 check out ratherbiased.com

brent- for fixed fonts like courier there can be superscripting. the generic selectrics could do superscripting, but they can't do the proportional spacing that we se ein the documents in question.

#26 Sol Roth

I am with Charles in the other thread. Let's vote Dan Blather as "Grand Master Idiotarian 2004" in honor of this tremendous and quite public, meltdown of a LLL's career.

Now... let's not insult Grand Masters, eh? ;)

Lysander

This is one of the new set of letters, right? Why would CBS commit the same error again? They can easily do the MS Word overlay. They have to know the vulnerability to a meltdown expose.

What incredible arrogance or stupidity, or both, or worse.

They have got

Poll Suggestion: Who is the forger who created the fraudulent Bush TexANG documents?

1.) Dan Rather or someone else at CBS News

2.) Democrat Activist Ben Barnes (concurrent with his claim that he helped GWB get into the ANG)

3.) Karl Rove (Cackling Demonically as the ANG story is discredited once and for all.)

4.) DNC Chairmen Terry McAuliffe

5.) John Kerry (Typed them using a rare Cambodian typewriter used for illegal special ops missions, before he didn't type them)

6.) Sam "Quantum Leap" Beckett, sent back in time to 1973 to change history.

7.) John Edwards (Hoping to finance his 2008 campaign with proceeds from the libel suit.)

8.) John Edward (After Lt. Col. Killian contacted him from beyond the grave.)

9.) Hillary. (Who has kind of a knack for this thing; missing records turning up at suspiciously convenient moments)

10.) Miss Sullivan's third period typing class.

rather rebutted

Here's the page -- point by point rebuttal of Rather's defense serves as one round-up on memos' problems.

Somebody needs to create a single, definitive webpage outlining the problems with the documents.

FYI, I gave that a shot in this thread:

[Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]

I'm sure Charles can do something far more comprehensive once the dust settles...
 

11.) Michael Moore (After you've made an entire hoax of a movie, what's a few forged memos?)

Full Metal Jacket, ahh what a flick. My favorite film quote of all time is from that film (and very applicable to what CBS News will go through):

"Its a giant shit sandwich, and we're all going to have to take a bite."

Even Bill Clinton has told Kerry that he needs to stop harping on Vietnam. Maybe he doesn't trust ole Billy-boy any more than we do.
I'm sure that this will all lead back to some Kerry support group in the end.

-JusTalkin

It was Right Brain.

Also they pointed out that dates are stamped, never typed, and they began using four digit years in 2000.

I forgot who said it--- several LGFers, I believe-- but the LLL media is taking the Dems right off a cliff. I've reconsidered: I want Blather to stay on...what goofy B.S. will he come up with next? They are damaging themselves more. Every time they try to stop the bleeding, they tie the tourniquet too tight, cutting off blood flow to the brain.

#46 mateo_g
My favorite line is the "duality of man".

#20 Engineer . . .

I would have used Notepad. If they had, considering that the docs have been faxed/copied, they would probably have got way with it.

Hey, don't tell them what to use next time! Of course, now we all know about Notepad, so we can catch them again. ;)

#48 zulubaby
Dates were stamped on some letters, the one's written by others. If it was self written it was typed. It's still the same today.

I ran across this on CBS's web site

Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real. And he is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced.

I thought I recognized the name "Marcel Matley" he is the document expert who verified the Vince Foster suicide note. This is getting better by the minute!

#41 Contd...

...got to be trying to establish a case of innocent ignorance. "We were duped, but we did it for good reason and out of honest motive..."

#42

I think the '6 weeks' thing may be an attempt to misdirect - so, I'm going with a recent source: Barnes related or Clinton team.

#37
This is the best I've seen.

He's the only one I've seen to try to reproduce the memo on a Selectric Composer and shows the terrible results on the overlay. He also shows that not all Times New Romans are the same, and only Microsoft's matches.

There are so many points of correspondence between these two versions that anyone arguing the CBS ?original? could have been created with anything but MS Word is either: 1) dishonest, or 2) ignorant.

Are you saying you're certain it was made with MS Word, or saying you're certain it was made by some word processing program?

If the former, would a good challenge be to see if any anti-Bush people can come across a word processing program that matches your document as well as the CBS document matches it?

(The reasoning being that it'd be implausible that a 1970s typewriter matches Word closer than any current software program)

#53

Matley . . . hmmm
Door Mat(ley)

Johnson:

And the last line does not automatically wrap ... until you type the final period.

That's an excellent point because if Killian was, as his widow says, a non-typist, just how likely would it have been for him to return the carriage to type the final word when even a skilled typist would have just gone ahead and put it on the previous line, overriding the margin stop to enter the period? After all, this was supposedly just an informal memo to himself.

Charles, you are the shizznit.

#37 LotharBot

Here ya go
This covers most of your requests I think.
via Powerline

#57

It should be possible for most modern word processing programs to create a document that is a very close match. It is unlikely but possible that one of them would create such an exact match with their default settings. It is absolutely beyond the realm of possibility that any 1972 technology could create such a close match at all - even if they had a version of Times Roman or Times New Roman!

In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries. From a copy, the document examiner cannot authenticate the unseen original but may well be able to determine that the unseen original is false. Further, a definite finding of authenticity for a signature is not possible from a photocopy, while a definite finding of falsity is possible.

Marcel B. Matley
Volume: 13 , Issue: 5 , The Practical Litigator
Using and Cross-Examining Handwriting Experts 9-27-2002

Mr. Matley is the CBS source for authenticating this 10th generation copy. We're burning you down Dan, better come clean.

reaganite:

My favorite line is the "duality of man"

Son, don't you love your country?

Andjam wrote:

Are you saying you're certain it was made with MS Word, or saying you're certain it was made by some word processing program?

I'm certain it was created with Microsoft Word. Other word processing programs do not use the same algorithms for displaying text, and there will be very noticeable differences in other programs; I demonstrated one of these differences yesterday, using Apple's TextEdit.

I think Charles should start a new poll based on Furious J's list, but I would add Dan Rather's daughter based on what Bill Whittle implied on the other thread.

And you know that if it was a DNC or CBS insider (beyond a doubt with a confession and everything), the left will still blame Bush. In their "minds", Bushitler has driven people to commit felonies.

#42 Furious J

Assuming it's not a Bush support playing an early April Fool's joke, it's gotta be someone young (ignorant about differences between typewriter & word processor techology). Someone w/out a lot of moxie (see for ex. donaldsensing.com -- whoever did this got their hands on some military docs to use as models but didn't think it through to the next step, i.e., have military correspondence conventions changed over the years).

Someone w/ no scruples, obviously.

I don't think this can be the work of a heavyweight. Someone absolutely itching to bring Bush down of course. But a "with friends like these" sort of DNC supporter, as opposed to a genuine contributor.

The other thing, it occurs to me that whoever it was is visiting blogs like this one. Kind of like arsonists who come back to watch the fire. Totally getting off on creating this media sensation etc. . . .

#37 LotharBot

Wikipedia already has an article on it:
[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

all get in there and add what you know

Baghdad Bob...Demagogic Dan...Both have a home waiting for them at Al Jaz. Both can take turns fellating Saddam, denouncing American "imperialism" and promoting "Islam is peace" dreck for the captive masses.

#63 Toby Petzold
It's the Jungian thing...

So the overlay technique is not as effective with this one; but if you overlay them and nudge one of them by single pixels from side to side, words and lines come into exact focus in different parts of the image.

I know nothing about this, but is it possible that by PHOTO-copying the document several times, it slightly begins to alter the position of the characters due to a flash-imaging process?

When this story is all out in the open, and we know who made this, would the widow and son of Lt. Col. Killian be able to sue? I mean, someone is trying to use the good name of their husband/father, trying to make him say something he never said, etc... And if we don't know who personally did it, I'd love to see them go after Rather and CBS, until they give up the names.

6.) Sam "Quantum Leap" Beckett, sent back in time to 1973 to change history.

I vote for this one because Scott Bakula is hot.

Another thing to consider. Every typing course that I ever saw in the 60's and 70's trained the typist to enter dates by going to the right margin then backspacing the exact number of spaces needed to insert the date flush to the right margin.
I notice that the forger simply used tabs to get the date somehwere near the right margin. Hell the forger couldn't even figure out how to use right justiefy on his MS word program!

#72 Throbert McGee:

I vote for this one because Scott Bakula is hot.

True, true!

#72 Throbert McGee

I vote for this one because Scott Bakula is hot.

Don't you watch Enterprise? He's alternately a hawk and a dove! Don't tell me you're into roll playing! :-Þ

Assuming it's not a Bush support playing an early April Fool's joke, it's gotta be someone young (ignorant about differences between typewriter & word processor techology)

Why would you assume it's someone young, rather than, say, a grizzled old anchorman who hasn't done his own typing since the '60s?

My law office, like many others, still has a IBM Selectic, Circa 1973. These machines are highly tresurd. Yhere are even repair shops that stock and rePair only this type writer. That is because the machine, with its various balls is very useful for legal forms, labels and the odd piece of paper that cannot go through a printer. First, let me say that the spacing between letters and numbers can easily demonsrate that these memos were not done on an IBM. You see, even though we have specialty balls, the spacing among the various fonts is the same. SO all anyone has to do is type out a sentence or word and super-impose. Secondly, the Selectric has a 5 space margin after the tab bell to hyphen or period. No wrap, every sentence has a different number of letters. Also, my secrtaries have used these machines for 30 years with all the baals: elite, pica, scientific, legal and business. No"th, nd, rd or st". Lastly, I have done a number of forgery cases and with regard to text, the method of suoerimposition used by Charles and others is definitive. As to the signatures, I can demonstrate to anyone how to forgr this with a copy machine and have done so in court. When one reviews the elements of forgery determination:format, text, context and personality this case fails miserably.( all typos intentional)

70 LSD

A photocopier and Fax machine are both analogue devices, ie like a film camera. This means that if the paper is wrinkled the image's type is distorted when the copy is printed flat on the paper.

Some fax machines do not have platten like feeders for the document scans, the feed tires can induce the document to be scanned "wrinkled".

Next time you are near a copier take a good quality laser print, wrinkle the paper, then flatten it out, then copy it. ... heh... you will see similar distortions.

Some one has probably already noticed this, but on the off chance that no one has...

The 01 May 1972 document has this -
"...to conduct annual physical examination (flight)IAW AFM 35-13."

And the 01 August 1972 document has this -
"...and convening of a flight review board IAW AFM 35-13."

So AFM 35-13 covers both annual physical exams and flight review boards?

The dates - 01 monrh year.
Isn't "01" instead of "1" kind of a geek thing?

The 01 May 1972 document has the signature block -
"JERRY B. KILLIAN
Lt. Colonel
Commander"

Commander of what?
Isn't the word "Commander" in a military title always followed by the designation of what is commanded?

I did the "Johnson test" on all four documents, sometimes a word would wrap on the last letter. One of the documents didn't line up properly, until I noticed that I hadn't capitalized the first letter of "Alabama", when I capitalized it the line wrapped properly.

Someone should try to age one of the Word docs using Photoshop and default settings, convert to PDF and compare the resuting file to the corresponding CBS PDF on a bit by bit basis. If someone could prove that there never was a hardcopy it would be a major coup.

I don't own Photoshop or Acrobat, so I don't know if what I said in the previous paragraph is feasible.

So this is what it feels like to Fact Check Their Asses?
Cool!

#79 SporkLift Driver

Isn't the word "Commander" in a military title always followed by the designation of what is commanded?

Yes and no. If the letter is on "Letter Head" then it only says "Commander". If it isn't on Letter Head it will include what he/she commands.

"JERRY B. KILLIAN
Lt. Colonel
Commander

The real signature block would be

JERRY B. KILLIAN, LtCol, USAF
Commander

Correction
It would have said TANG or TNANG instead of USAF.

Long time lurker, first time posting

#37 LotharBot

Check out

[Link: orsa.blogspot.com...]

Knights Of The Mind quotes SKY PILOT from FreeRepblic.com with 48 mistakes in the memo. This is the most definitative list that I have seen.

I almost pity the LSM.

Enjoy,
Dark Wing Duck

For fun Charles, you should photocopy your original a couple of times in succession and then see how close it really becomes. According to a well-placed friend, not only can they determine what generation the document is (i.e. how many intervening copies were made), but they can narrow down the copier brand based on the noise pattern and ink type.

#77 The claim is that it can be done on an IBM Selectric Composer, more exactly a Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer, or MT/SC. But this is getting truly silly, I operated one in a print shop in the early 70's, firstly it costs $28,000. at the time. A staggering amount of money and certainly not something to be lying around on a military base. Secondly to acheive his sort of centering and and word wrap one would have to type the text onto a tape, remove the tape and insert it into the other end of the machine and after some time print it out using film onto clay covered paper. About twenty minutes for a document of any length. I would sooner believe he set up these memos in lead galleys than I would he used an MT/SC. Then there is the issue of the word wrap, try it yourself, I did, type the text into MS Word using the default settings and you get a memo with the exact words in the exact place. That alone is prima facia evidence that these are forgeries.

My father was in the Navy and duirng the late seventies he would sometimes bring home a typewriter that my sister and I would use for school reports and term papers. I can tell you right now, that it was not a top of the line IBM. In fact the papers looked like crap and my dad had to spring for a new Selectric himself.

I'm not totally up on nuances of typewriters of the '70s but didn't all of the letters line up as you looked down the page? Like the letter N in the word November in the second line, first paragraph. It would have been clearly between the m and the B of the sentence above it; not "encroacing" on the B. Furthermore, the d in the word told (second line, first paragraph) "lines up" with the d in the word Discussed, in the line above. Wouldn't the letter h in the word him (second line, first paragraph) then "line up" with the letter o in the word options in the line above?

# 84 Right Brain:

Then there is the issue of the word wrap, try it yourself, I did, type the text into MS Word using the default settings and you get a memo with the exact words in the exact place. That alone is prima facia evidence that these are forgeries.

The fact that it wasn't just Charles, or other bloggers, making a duplicate of CBS' slam Bush story documentation with sophisticated equipment that matters. No. It was the fact that John and Jane Q. Public could print their own documents on Microsoft Word 2003/4 and compare the two copies at their leisure, at home, in their pyjamas, as printed from a readily available word processing package set on default. That, alone, IS the "beyond a reasonable doubt" that would convict in criminal court, not a "preponderance of evidence" that Blather wants to hide behind. That is, unless someone can get their hands on a copy of Microsoft Word 72.

"Information. We want information." Which is power. Which is changing hands as I type. The Brave New World truly begins.

Ref: #82. Has anyone checked into this?
36. Why were these exact same documents available for sale on the Internet y Marty Heldt, of leftist web site Tom Paine, as early as January 2004? Is this where CBS obtained their copies?
Good Luck!

I finally understand the remark I heard a decade ago, that it was the Internet that brought down the Soviet Union.

Someone help me on this - Is it a crime to forge DoD documents? Or would this not apply to this guy's private files even if he was military at the time.

Could there be an official investigation leading to arrest and serious jail time?

Does someone have to make a formal complaint?

# 88 dandr:

that it was the Internet that brought down the Soviet Union.

Not quite. Copiers, definitely. The ability to photocopy, and pass around samizdat, proved fatal. This was 1989. At that time, one was extremely fortunate to have intra-office email on the job in the States.

---

BTW, is it just me, or does anybody else not have their name and password show up automatically anymore?

RickZ, you need to put it in the box to have it show up. If you have "remember me" checked then it will remember it.

Now you see it...

...and now you don't!

Charles:

I compensated for the photocopier's distortions in Photoshop. I did the following:

- squeeze horizontally by about 2 pixels
- stretch vertically by about 1 pixel
- shear slightly by around 2 pixels
- rotate counterclockwise by about 2 pixels

I then superimposed over your Word document: They match so close its eerie. The main difference is the letters in the forgery are chunkier as expected due to multi-generational copying.

If you want the corrected/compensated photocopy image, I have uploaded it to my photobucket directory (where the inlined pics on my blog link to). Feel free to use it. The filename is:

kenneth.gif

BTW in your Word file, you need to type an extra space between "SUBJECT:" and "Discussion"

Let me know if you need anything else,

-Tony Abu Tuz

BTW I suspect what the photocopier that was used was doing was stretching and warping the paper unevenly due to uneven roller pressure, heat from the copy lamp, and irregular distribution of fibres in teh paper.

evariste:

Thanks. I lost something with all the traffic here! My cobwebs aren't even aflutter with a wisp of intelligence at this point.

“Physical. We talked about him getting his physical situation fixed before his date. Says he will do that in Alabama if he stays in flight status.”

This sentence makes me think that the document in question was generated by a total amateur: that is, someone who wouldn’t know that a physical wouldn’t be required for someone who was already grounded. Remember, then-1LT Bush’s flight platform, the F-102, was being deleted from the AF inventory, so, without training in some other aircraft, he was already grounded by the facts.

The “if” is the key element, which is why I bolded it. If 1LT bush was already grounded, he would not care about the physical, since the only penalty for missing it was and is to be grounded. If his AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code; an Air Force person’s job, in this case, F-102 pilot) was being deleted, as it appears it was, he, like all others in the same situation, would be offered the option of an early-out of the military or cross-training, that is, picking and being trained in another job. He chose the former, which is a valid and honorable option.

The reason why I say that the person vetting the document cited has little-to-no military knowledge is that he/she left the “if” statement in. Any military member who has had their AFSC (or MOS or whatever) deleted (as I have) would know that the military offers the “early-out or cross-train” option to all those effected. If the person who allowed this document to be seen by the reading public (including past and present military members) knew how the military worked, he she would have left the “if” statement out.

But, of course, that caveat applies to several of the other documents in question.

Sorry if someone has addressed this subject already,

Here's a post I e-mailed in earlier.
E-Mail me and I send the graphics file.
---
How the May 19, 1972 document was created.

After having reviewed and recreated the '18 August 1973' memo using Microsoft Word, I was confused by the inability to reproduce the '19 May 1972' document.

I then resized the graphic using a corner handle, which maintains perspective in both the horizontal and vertical axis -- but does not maintain the aspect ratio -- and the graphic fit perfectly with the standard Microsoft Word output (all default settings). What surprised me the most, is that the date even landed on a standard tab position.

Can a document aspect be distorted in a copy machine set to reproduce at 1:1? I did a test to find out on my Brother BMF 9600. I ran 5 generations of the '19 May' memo, and the results stunned me. The height of the 5th generation copy was 96.5% of the original -- but the width of the 5th generation was only 89.42% of the original! Not only were the documents shrinking slightly with each generation -- the shinkage was not proportional in respect to height and width. The results of that test are here (variation.jpg).

Heres how I did it.

1. The document was typed in Word just as it is shown, using default settings for font, leading, tabs, everything. The typist used 8 tabs for the date, and a double space after each period for a new sentence (common). There was no adjustment to any spacing, I simply typed the document as it appears. You can download the DOC file I used here (19May1972.doc).

2. The graphic from the pdf needs to be straightened. I used Adobe Photoshop and rotated the image 3/4 degree counter clockwise. That image is here (04-19-72-pdf-100pct.bmp).

3. I then expanded the image height 111% and the image width 112%. This was done simply to match the width and height of the Word document. Under no circumstances would anyone expect that simply matching the width and height of two documents would line up all other features, unless they were composed using the same process -- but it did. The sized image is here (04-19-72-Comp.jpg).

Note that changing the width percentage does not distort the placement horizontally -- everything remains proportional, the same is true for the height.

From this experiment, I have shown that a document may be reduced from 1 to 2% on each copy generation -- and that the reduction does not necessarily maintain the aspect ratio. That is why I was not getting a good overlay. If these copies had the same degradation as mine, they were at least 5-7 generations old. The graphic of the two documents can be downloaded here (04-19-72-Comp.jpg), and the overlay is here (04-19-72-Overlay.jpg).

My graphics for the 09-18-72 documents are here (09-18-73-Comp.jpg), and the overlay is here (09-18-73-Overlay.jpg).

SheetWise

98 SheetWise

good results!

I'd like to present my own analysis of the August 1st memo. I'm concentrating on three elements:

1) The type sizes of the text body and signature blocks appear to vary slightly, suggesting that the text was cut-and-pasted over the signature block.

2) The signature is cut off at the top in the exact place where it would be if the text body were cut and pasted over it.

3) The anomoly of the inappropriate spaces in "147 th", "9921 st", and "147 th"

August 1st memo analysis

Best regards,
John

See Lileks's RaherBiased.

Anyone else find the conspicuous space in '1 st Lt. Bush' just a tad suspicous? It's almost as if the author realized he should avoid the mistake of the 'th' in superscript from the first 'memo' but didn't go back and correct it in the first memo.

#78 Redneck dragon wrote A photocopier and Fax machine are both analogue devices...

Most photocopiers have been fully digital for at least the last 2 years. Analogue copiers are regarded as dinoaurs these days.

#102 Fenway_Nation,

The same spaces appear in an attempt to trick Word from creating 111^th. It is obvious in the May 4th, 19th, and very, very obvious in the August 1st document:

"147 th"

The amazing thing is that if the forger has just started with a manual typewriter instead of a word processing program he or she would surely have gotten away with this.
What was it that led to the discovery of the Watergate burglars? Didn't one of the put some tape on the exit door that led to discovery by a night watchman or something?
There is so much poetic justice in this whole episode for Rather and the gang. Nixon is enjoying it immensely, somewhere, I am sure.
And Rather is going to stonewall forever. Because he is so much like Nixon who could have come clean at the beginning without ruining his presidency. Rather will turn this into a carbon copy of Watergate because he will never back down. Or, a computer copy, at the very least.

#101 Trumpster (quote form your Lileks link):

Blogs haven’t toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you’ve see films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke – then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We’ve been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes. And when the dust settles we will be right back where we were 100 years ago, with dozens of fiercely competitive media outlets throwing elbows to earn your pennies.

I hope so.

#101 Trumpster (quote form your Lileks link):

Blogs haven’t toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you’ve see films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke – then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We’ve been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes. And when the dust settles we will be right back where we were 100 years ago, with dozens of fiercely competitive media outlets throwing elbows to earn your pennies.

I sure hope so.

Sorry for the double post. I got an error message each time, and thought nothing was posted at all.

Charles, whenever I post I get this error message:

Request Error (invalid_request)

Your request could not be processed.
This could be caused by a misconfiguration, or possibly a malformed request.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Just thought you'd like to know. Thanks for all your hard work maintaining and updating this website, both in terms of stories and programming.

Charles, whenever I post I get this error message:

Request Error (invalid_request)

Your request could not be processed.
This could be caused by a misconfiguration, or possibly a malformed request.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Just thought you'd like to know. Thanks for all your hard work maintaining and updating this website, both in terms of stories and programming.

Even if the fonts, the tabs, the line spacing were all mismatched, a supposed typed doc's word-wrap being identical to MSWord defaults is beyond any statistical possibility.
Charles wins.

I typed the 19 May document into Word on Thursday. For grins and giggles, I typed the same document into both Lotus Word Pro and WordPerfect. I had to set the margins at 1.25" and 1.26" in Word Pro to get the wrap correct.

Both WordPerfect and Word Pro produced documents that have subtley, but clearly, different horizontal and vertical spacing.

I verified this by printing all docs to Acrobat Distiller and taking screen shots, then overlaying the Word Pro and WordPerfect images over the Word image.

The memos cannot be easily reproduced exactly using either Word Pro or WordPerfect. If I can't reproduce them using the same computer, the same font, the same printer and video drivers but with different word processing programs, there is no way that Word could magically create an exact replica of any circa 1970 word processing device!

I think it's our educational system. Why do people not understand the number of variables involved in setting a document? Why can they not comprehend the number of permutations of these variables which would define a documents properties? The probability that 17 years later someone would design a software program that exactly replicated these memos is?

The probability is very, very close to zero. In statistics this would be a good definition for a theoretical probability of zero.

I think it's our educational system. Why do people not understand the number of variables involved in setting a document? Why can they not comprehend the number of permutations of these variables which would define a documents properties? The probability that 17 years later someone would design a software program that exactly replicated these memos is?

The probability is very, very close to zero. In statistics this would be a good definition for a theoretical probability of zero.

In your "Another Document Experiment", you make a slight error (a single instead of a double space after the word Subject).

When you do one very simple correction in Photoshop for curvature alignment, you get:

[Link: defeatjohnjohn.com...]

Looks pretty right-on to me.

16 RadioMattM

Uh-uh -- copiers in the early seventies lacked today's over abundance of features, but they did not use thermal paper.

Xerography was invented in the 40's and is based on static electricity. Thermal printing is an entirely different technology, based on heat.

I know a little about this, I used to have my copies made at Tam's for 3 cents each in the early 70's.

By the way, my PC keyboard doesn't have a cents sign, but if i remember correctly, a typewriter did. Too bad Killian didn't use one, on the other hand one can alway insert an ASCII character -- ¢.

Wished he had used a happy face though. Would have been fun watching Rather explain that one.

: - ))

Wasn't the guy retired at that date anyway? So isn't it all moot?

FYI, I faxed the 18th of august document to myself a few days ago to see what artifacts it would generate. The results are as people predicted and can be found here.

Thie is a copy of a letter I sent to my representatives and hope you might consider doing the same.

To:The Honorable Robert E. Andrews
The Honorable Jon S. Corizone
The Honorable Frank Lautenberg

Sir,

I am writing to you regarding the GW Bush National Guard story broadcast by CBS on 60 Minutes last week.

I concur with the experts that I have seen interviewed by the media and I believe the memos presented were fraudulent. I believe that somewhere in this great nation there is someone who is guilty of perpetrating a crime, a crime against the American people. They are guilty of the crime of election fraud, guilty of attempting to influence the upcoming presidential election through deceit and misrepresentation. Such an attempt is abhorrent and must not be tolerated.

As I write this, CBS is asserting that the content of the memos has been vindicated by virtue of some 30 year old opinions, carefully selected opinions at that. They are defending forgeries with selected opinions!

I am writing to you to request that you support a Justice Department inquiry into this event. I want to know who it was that made the attempt to influence my vote by providing fraudulent documents to CBS. I want to know how and why CBS broadcast this fraudulent message to millions of American voters without sufficient safeguards to ensure the veracity of the story. Such actions by the media cannot be simply rationalized away.

A crime has been committed. Right now, CBS is abetting that crime. Media source confidentiality does not apply when the source provides blatantly false information in the commission of a crime.

We cannot, we must not, allow an attempt such as this, to subvert our electoral system, to go uninvestigated and unpunished. Turning a blind eye will only encourage more outrageous acts in the future. I expect you, as my representative, to pursue this travesty to its rightful conclusion.

There is an obvious, visible counterclockwise rotation of the bottom of the "original copy" that would indeed throw off "perfect" alignment.

As for the aging of the document you talk about, a fax machine will work quite fine. Just fax the document back and fourth a few times and the text will meld quite well into that aged look of yesteryear, but it can't age superscripts or the relatively new 1 instead of the lower case L as it used to be. The're fake, they have to be!