Damn Charles! If I don't tip you by the end of the week YOU ARE ENTITLED TO WRITE A NASTY EMAIL TO REMIND ME.

Even though it is a pre-printed form it is still monospaced.

Another 16 penny nail for the Rathercoffin.

OUTSTANDING (like a cow in the field) WORK, CHARLES!

Did CBS mention anything about Ra^thergate in tonight's broadcast?

Oh yeah, Blather's vindicated for sure now ...
:-)

"That's all the evidence I need!" -- Chief Wiggum

Check this out.

[Link: www.speakeasy.org...]

OT

And when did LGF lose the bouncing football in the upper left corner?

No ball in the house?

Look at the date and place entries on the top right, as well as the tour length entry. These do not appear to line up with the other characters on their lines, suggesting that this is a form letter with the (underlined) blanks filled in.
To replicate that formatting would take two passes through a printer, or some very clever formatting to get the characters vertically offset from the underline which is aligned with the other characters.

Well, just because that document wasn't done on an IBM Composer doesn't mean that the others weren't.

Doesn't prove a thing.

/do I have to?

Also note the military date format, sans commas.

Charles,
What I fear is that we're doing well in THIS instance, but we're teaching the liars HOW to LIE correctly the next time around, say, next week...?

Good work, Sir.

B-b-b-b-b-b-but it doesn't state THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, it only states The Air Force.

Thanks, Charles. I had been thinking of suggesting a test to try and replicate typewritten monospace Courier with MS Word to show how difficult it would be, but the Democrats beat me to the suggestion.

Oh well, next time.

The worst part out of all of this (or maybe it's really the best) is watching all the different contortions currently taking place by those defending the "veracity" and "authenticity" of these obvious forgeries.

Why do I say obvious? Anyone who ever worked in a government or other large institutional office pre-PC (and it's pretty hard to find anyone under 30 who fits that bill) could have told you that these were as fake as a $3 Nixon or Billy Carter bill (now am I dating myself?)

Bravo to Charles, Powerline, "Allah" & INDC: the blogosphere's new Gang of Four! (Maybe Cox & Forkum can come up with a fitting illustration!)

PS, Go Falcons!

#4 SoCalJustice

Yes, Rather was still defending the documents. Wizbang has the skinny

And when did LGF lose the bouncing football in the upper left corner?

Charles said this morning:

I’ve temporarily set up a stripped down version of our LGF template, anticipating a surge of traffic today as the CBS forgery story spreads across mainstream media.

#7 SoCalJustice,

He tried to reduce the size of the frontpage so it would load faster (and probably cost him less money) during this high-traffic period.

#11 Carridine

What I fear is that we're doing well in THIS instance, but we're teaching the liars HOW to LIE correctly the next time around, say, next week...?

...and that's why CBS and Dan Ra_ther must be punished for this: so that the next time around, the MSM will demand the original documents and check them.

Tonight on the evening news, Dan Rather gave all of us the middle finger, and once again proclaimed the documents to be genuine.

Big Brother would be proud. "Oceana is at war with Eastasia. Oceana has always been at war with Eastasia ".

But didn't Rather take a baby step toward the truth tonight? In the transcript I read, Rather didn't use the word "authentic," but rather said the documents "should be taken seriously." It's one small step for [a] man, though admittedly not a giant leap for the network.

Tomorrow morning there will be a dozen or more editorials from around the country, including possibly some of the major papers, and my guess is that tomorrow night wil be a watershed for CBS.

I think there are lots of smart people at CBS who are internally insisting that reality prevail.

Thanks Oat!
Thanks Security Mom!
Thanks addison!

LGF has just been en fuego lately - too hard to keep up.

Sweet Mother of God

We almost elected this guy POTUS!

I am not convinced by this latest 1968 memo that you show to us. Although this is a form letter as you state and it is monospaced many huge leaps in technology occured in those intervening four years.

In 1972 equipment did exist to print proportionally spaced documents. I think what you should be looking at is an example of a military document written a few years AFTER the 1972 and you can immediatly see the widespread use of fancy typeriters in the military.

Take a look at this form letter from 1978.

The form was created in August 1976.

[Link: www.johnkerry.com...]

I think this shows the "state of the art" in 1976.

:)

Charles you rule.

you will never buy yourself a drink in my presence if I can figure out who you are...

Do the Democrats even try anymore?

Their entire "fortunate soldier" attack wing has been shot down before it even left the runway.

On a ROLL.

All the same though, I suspect that you could match just about anything with MS Word if you took enough trouble.

In fact the real problem might be that the Word version might be too perfect, lacking the minor imperfections of an electromechanical typewriter.

You'd really have to see the original to verify what printing technology was used.

To create an adequate forgery of such a document would require a monospaced version of Times New Roman, otherwise it's not possible.

Whoever created the RatherGate documents was obviously not very informed or resourceful, which leads me to not suspect the Kerry campaign. But I could be overestimated them?

I find it hilarious that people keep trying to defend these elementary forgeries. They are either martyring their credibility for the party, or are just plain stupid. There are no other options.

It looks like Elite type, so choose Courier font as your best substitute (built-in printer font if you have an HP laser printer; Truetype Courier New is not quite the same); Elite is 12-pitch so set font size to 10; set line spacing to "Exactly 12 pt". To simulate the typist's margin release key, set margins to 1.0/0.8 inches. The biggest difficulty is simulating a dirty cloth ribbon.

#24 Wurm

Let me make sure I'm reading it right, you're saying that the report shown around now could have been written years later after he supposedly skipped out? If so, sounds like you're grasping for straws man.

Right Wing Animator,

Nah, what I am saying that 1976 the military was not using proportional spacing for generating forms, let alone casual memos.

Unless someone knows different...

Wurm --your logic is lacking. NO wonder you linked to a Kerry site.

You are trying to make a case that comparing a 1972 document to technology available in 1976 or 1978 would be more valid?

The military was more likely still using typewriters from the late 60's.

You are gropping to not believe. Painful as it is, those "unearthed" memos were fakes.

#28 Dan Dare

Anything can be forged with an example of a real document, a custom font and photoshop.

Which is why I think these documents are an amature job. Probably the work of the

Wurm --maybe I misunderstood what you were saying as well.

It sounded as though you were saying that the 1972 documents should be compared to the technology of the 76 and 78 memos --

In this excellent analysis there is a link to a Courier Font letter signed by Killian in 1973 Bush's discharge doc [I don't know for sure if this is a legit doc]

#35 Nancy

At least I'm not the only one..

Nancy,

Well my english may not be too good. But yes, I am saying that from the 1972 Bush memos to 1976 they went BACKWARDS in technology.

That is why I put a :) on my first post.

Wurm

...so are you saying that the documents are likely authentic, or not authentic? Your posts seemed contradictory to me. Perhaps I didn't see the tags?

Click here for proof!. Lies!!!, it's all a pack of lies!!!

Anyone bored enough to watch Countdown with Kenneth Over-man.

He had 2 brilliant and convoluted theories.

1) It was a Bush plot to discredit the media. Discussion ensued about how much moxie this required on the part on the Bush team. He made this assumption because the original guy to email Powerline was a lawyer w/ GOP ties. He forgot to tie in Halliburton, so maybe he'll figure that part out tomorrow.

2) GOP unibomber

He quickly dismissed this being Dems because it would be too obvious. WELL I GUESS NOT...DAN RATHER jumped on it.

I am amazed they assume Bush would do this when the election is swinging his way. This isn't something the party that is winning would normally do.

#34 AdvancedMammoth

Yes.

You have to examine the original - then you can tell if it was printed by laserjet or ribbon/impact technology or whatever.

Three 1972 ones are fakes, however the 04 May one I seem to remember seeing a long while ago. (the text that is...)

My point was, CBS claims that the equipment was around in 1972. It wasn't in widespread use in 1976 though...

Go figgure

Wurm -- gotcha now-- you made a good subtle point. Where is your nic from? Where are you posting from?

Bravo, Charles! Like any good empiricist, you have now taken your experiments to the next level by performing the same tests on a document believed to be geniune.

If the genuine document can't be duplicated without all kinds of contortions, while the ones that we all by now consider blatant forgeries can be recreated without so much as a single change to default Word settings, it seems to me that we can now say QED. Quod erat demonstrandum: the damn things are fakes.

Countdown to massive breakdowns and public confessions by Dan Rather and his supporters: 10, 9, 8, 7...

Oh, never mind.

#40 artbatista

Good one!! LOL

levi from queens,

Short for Octavius Wurm, bain of Indymedia and ridiculer of anarchists. (even though I can't spell too good!)

Also a loose associate of the Kobe Krew.

In Continental USA but not American... :)

Charles - try replacing all the "soft" spaces with "hard" spaces - so they all take up exactly the same space.

And also set the line spacing to exactly 12 pt., rather than using the default Word settings.

@24 Wurm

Are your arms tired yet? From beating that dead horse into a pile of dust?

I suspect any 'original' of the forged documents aren't in dead wood existance. But I bet they are on a hard drive somewhere.

It would be nice, if we could get someone to be 'Deep Throat'. :)

#49, yep I quit.

The documents are fake and nothing I do or say will change that fact.

Fellas,

There is more to it than meets the eye. Watch the fun of what comes from now on. We shall see many more such tricks till the D day in November. I bet this is gonna be the dirtiest American election since the days of Jefferson. Last time around the demos did not take their defeat gracefully. This time they'll whine even louder, maybe they may even talk of going to the Hague! Who knows.

And these guys will never admit that they are in denial mode since there is no other way to shore up the sagging Democratic campaign. They did it with McGovern, they did it with Gore and they'll do it with Kerry. What we today is the beginning of the whining that will continue after defeat in November. remember "Losers always crib" The demos already are showing a defeatist mindset. This tells us loudly and clearly what they think will be the outcome of the elections.

[Link: www.newsonterror.com...]

Charles RULEZ!

Sort of ironic that W spent as much time in the Air Force as Kerry did in Vietnam.
I guess we're also supposed to believe the USAF had much crappier typewriters than the TANG.

#54 Leonard Pinth-Garnell

Your point?

I am not a Kerry supporter, and I intend to vote for Bush. However, I feel I should point out that this memo probably could easily have been forged using a commonly available typewriter. It uses a common typewriter font and it should be easy to find a late60's/early-70's model typewriter that could replicate this memo.

Proving that it was not forged using Microsoft Word does not prove that it was not forged by some other means (i.e. an old typewriter). If the dumbos who forged the CBS Killian memos had bothered to dig up an old typewriter to do their forgery, they might have gotten away with it.

This emphasizes that we need to be skeptical of all photocopied memos that mysteriously appear inthe middle of presidential campaigns. At the very least, we should have original documents to examine.

re #55:
No big point, just struck me that W's brief active duty in the USAF was just as long as the much heralded JF'nK's Vietnam adventure, but that more significantly it was only a very small portion of his >five years of total exemplary service for which he's not given any serious credit. If Kerry had served that long (without suffering from friendly fire) we'd never get any sleep from hearing about it every 3 minutes. Meanwhile on the details of what W actually did, we hear the sound of crickets chirping on the networks.

As for the typewriters, for these forgeries to be legit we'd have to assume that the TANG enjoyed such an abundance of operational funding that it could throw money at much more sophisticated word processing devices for routine memo authoring than the USAF had at the same time. Even LBJ couldn't pull that off.

This may be old news, but to perfect the memogate overlay, note that Microsoft Word's Times New Roman can create a nearly vertical apostrophe without the "curve." I simply wrote the sentence on my Outlook program's Arial default font, cut-and-pasted into my MS Word, then highlighted the sentence and converted it to Times New Roman...it works.