http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040920/usnews/20guard.htm
This report is based on the documents Bush released, not CBS memos. Bush falls short again. Again, the White House comment is not to reject the reasoning or argue to the contrary of the damning facts, but merely repeat that Bush served honorably, whatever THAT means to them.
This would explain things if they had stayed silent. Instead, they came out and said they had no reason to doubt their authenticity. This despite the fact that they directly contradict the stated position of the administration on the matter. And now, perhaps the second part of your theory is the case, because several news orgs are reporting that the very documents that McClellan waved around to show that Bush had completed his requirements show that he did not.
Does seem pretty horrible, if you’re looking for absolute proof that they are real (which is what CBS should, admittedly, have demanded, and that case, for absolute sureity, seems to be falling apart). The reality is that we aren’t going to get that until someone actually runs through all the type balls that were available (instead of picking one that clearly isn’t the case), or tracks down Killian’s machine, and tries to reproduce the document. But he does offer an opinion contrary to the prima facie case being made that establishes the claimed “strangeness” of the documents. It does appear that the initial claims about how proportional spacing wasn’t available and Selectrics weren’t used are bullplop.
And what about the basic point on the kerning? Is it true or not that repeated photocopying destroys alignments? This should be a matter of simple fact, not sneering disdain. This is something someone could confirm.
His argument, I think, both makes sense and hurts the case for both sides: it means that CBS should be a lot less sure of their documents authenticity if they have no actual originals, and we should be a lot less sure that they are definately forgeries.
Can somebody answer this question:
If it was proved that these documents could not have been written on a 1970s typewriter, and therefore they must have been written in a modern word-processing program, would it mean that they are necessarily fakes? How does OCR’ing and re-typing decaying memos work for governmental files? I don’t buy the crap about “intentional aging,” as ISTM that one bad copy or one good fax machine would create all of the noise seen in those documents.
FTR, I don’t believe that anyone can prove anything without the originals and the provenance of the documents, but I’m doubtful that they were created in the 1970s, simply because the type from then looks nowhere near as neat as the memos.
Why are they going to take a “major” hit?
People on the right already believe the “mainstream media are liberal” and don’t trust them.
People on the left trust (to a certain degree) the mainstream media and will consider this an honest mistake.
I just don’t see the “hit”. The only effect may be that the right now has one more “argument” in its list of proofs that the “mainstream media are liberal”
CBS will take a major hit because they clearly didn’t do their research before putting these on the air. If the consensus among document experts had been that they were legit but it turned out they were forged in an extremely clever way, then CBS would be fine. But that’s not the case. NO ONE outside of CBS thinks these documents are real. If they are forgeries, they are very bad forgeries. There were plenty of things that CBS could have checked to verify the documents which they didn’t do. For example, checking to see if all the people mentioned in the memos were actually in the guard at that time. Or consulting a typesetting expert rather than a handwriting analyst.
The other thing that’s going to hurt CBS is their stonewalling on this. If they had issued an immediate mea culpa and said that they were withdrawing the claims until the documents could be verified, they could have walked away from this with minimal damage. Instead, Dan Rather gave a snotty and very inadequate defense of the documents and announced the issue closed. Sorry, but when a news agency brings documents out which could effect an election, and those documents come under reasonable question, they have a duty to investigate. They have not done so. They continue to report the story as if true, without mentioning the misgivings everyone has.
In fact, they did that right from the start. Killian’s family was interviewed by CBS and they all said that the documents were fake. How did CBS respond? The correct thing to do would have been to mention the family’s misgivings in the original report, but they didn’t.
The other plank of CBS’s ‘verification’ involves Hodges, who they claim helped validate the documents. Now Hodges says he was manipulated by CBS. He says that they told him that they had handwritten documents in Killian’s handwriting, and over the phone they asked if he could have said the things that were in the memos. Hodges response: “Well, if he wrote them, then I guess that’s what he thought.” Which CBS then spun into ‘validation’ of the typed documents. Hodges himself thinks they are fakes, but CBS won’t report that.
All in all, a shameful performance by CBS.
Here is a good website with an overview of the charges. Note especially the centering stuff. There is an address that reads like this:
111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron
P.O. Box 34567
Houston, Texas 77034
Try this: Copy the document. Then use centering in word to type the same address. Then cut and paste the word result and place it over the original. They line up exactly. At first glance this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but think about it - back then, centering was done manually, by spacing over what you think is the right number of spaces for each line. But the problem is that with proportional type, you don’t know how wide the line will be, so you don’t know where to start typing. You can ‘eyeball’ it, but it’s not going to be exact.
Then you have to look at how MS Word does centering. It doesn’t just center the line on the page so that the ends are equal distances from the margins, like a human would do. It uses an ‘optical centering’ algorithm which takes into account the structure of the line itself, looking for a visual ‘center of mass’. Also, a typewriter can only center to the nearest character space, but Word centers to within a twip, a much smaller adjustment.
Given all that, for the three lines to match word perfectly sort of beggars the imagination, doesn’t it?
Don’t even try it, Sam! I had the word “kern” stashed away deep in the Obscure Vocabulary Archives, so it wasn’t a big deal to haul it out for a few moments, but “twip”?..no way! No way am I learning that one just so I can participate in this festival of typographic arcana. I’m going to assume its a bit of Canadian effrontery…“He’s a bit of a twip, don’t you think, 'ey?”…and leave it at that! So back off!
You don’t remember ‘twip’? He was that little robot guy on Battlestar Galactica.
And the rats are abandoning ship. Here’s Today’s Boston Globe:
How lame is that on CBS’s fault? A newspaper calls them and asks for corroboration that the documents are real. They give the newspaper the name of a source. Newspaper calls source, and source says, “I think the documents are fake.” Oops.
On a side note, The Boston Globe has an annoying ‘feature’ on their pages now - they’ve disabled right-click events so you can’t select and right-click ‘copy’. Of course, you can sidestep this ‘feature’ by selecting your text and using ctrl-C to copy. Morons.
er, ‘On CBS’s part’.
Gosh all a-roony, if only someone who saw Bush show up for duty would just step forward and testify to the fact, this whole matter would evaporate faster than morning dew, and Dan Rather would be left with undeniable egg-on-face syndrome. Meanwhile, poor ol’ besieged George can do nothing but hope that the legions of self-appointed Right-Wing Typewriter Repairmen can leap to his defense with enough “proof” to convince folks that the documents are fake.
Oh, the suspense! Oh, the anticipation! Why won’t a fellow Guardsman just step forth and save Bush’s bacon already?
That would be TWO people now. I notice you conveniently forgot Mr. Calhoun, who has been saying for months that he drilled with Bush during the AWOL period.
A member of the political campaign Bush worked for also says he remembers at least one occasion when Bush couldn’t make it to a campaign meeting because he had to drill.
Now, I’m sure you’ll try to discredit all of them in some way, but let’s not say that ‘no one has ever come forward who remembers seeing Bush’, okay?
Man oh man, are we are going to see rjung get all repentant on us?
You know, if I had to do that on the fly, it’d be very difficult. But don’t you think that the secretary to the commander of the 111th would have had a bit of practice typing the squadron’s address? If there was trial and error or ‘eyeballing’ involved, it would have been a few years back, or whenever the squadron moved into that particular base. After a few false starts years back, the secretary would only have to remember something like “8 spaces, 17 spaces, 10 spaces” to get it to line up perfectly every time. This “issue” is yet another non-starter.
Except that Word does its spacing to the ‘twips’ level. So unless Word’s algorithm just happens to calculate the start as the right number of twips to land perfectly on a character boundary, it wouldn’t match.
Oh, and the spacing would have to match to the character boundary on all three lines. Does that seem likely to you?
Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly notes that the USA Today also obtained the Killian memos, and has two additional ones posted on their website not revealed by 60 Minutes.
So. Are they fake? Dan Rather has experts saying they’re not.
Sam?
Yeoman’s work as always, Sam. I’m simply exhausted from reading all your [clearly unbiased] posts in the pursuit of The Truth. Lord only knows how many hours upon hours of work you’ve put in your relentless defense of anything to do with Fearless Mis…er, Truth, TRUTH!. But hey, don’t think your work goes by unappreciated by progressive slackers such as myself. I mean just because I spent the day lazily sunning myself at the beach, chasing beers and drinking women (twice the fun and no hangover that way), doesn’t mean that upon my return I don’t look forward to reading the steaming piles of Truth you’re sure to have uncovered. Quite the contrary, Sam, quite the contrary!
BTW, you simply never cease to amaze moi. I mean, amongst your ever increasing areas of expertise, I am dumbfounded (dumbfounded I tell ya!) to find out that you Know All There Is To Know About 1970’s typewriters! Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Christ on a pogo-stick, who knew?!
Come on, Sam, don’t hold back anymore, throw modesty and caution out the window, and tell us, once and for all, everything and anything you’re an expert on! Must be quite the list. And I for one, can’t wait to read it.
Think I might impose on you for an autograph afterwards?
Thanks in advance.
Oh! I just about plumb forgot something else I wanted to mention in this post. Just overly excited, what with being your number One Fan and all…
Anyhoo, would you please investigate the following claims a bit further?
Memories place Bush in Alabama if records don’t
From reading the above, one would almost be tempted to say there’s a bit of a problem with this Calhoun guy’s testimony, huh?
But I won’t. Not until, you, The Relentless Pursuer of The Truth, tells me that there is. After all, Calhoun could have seen Bush’s ghost instead. That’s possible, right? 'cause I’m sure you know a lot about ghosts too.
Right then, if you’ll excuse me, got more women to drink and beers to chase.
Cheers!
Redfury said:
Is there some point to this? Or are you just trying to slide ad-hominem attacks in the back door?
You just had to ask, buddy.
No, I’m not an expert. However, I have been doing desktop publishing work for twenty years, all the way back to the days of the earliest Ventura Publisher. So I’ve picked up a fair bit of knowledge about typesetting along the way. And I’m a professional software developer by trade, so terms like twips are second nature. Plus, I am capable of googling. I know it’s an arcane skill amongst such as yourself, but it’s worth learning. You should try it sometime.
Geez, if you think I’m an expert on so many things, you must set an incredibly low standard for yourself.
You really should calm down a bit, dude. But it warms my heart to know I cause you so much consternation that you’re reduced to dive-bombing threads just to leave big turds like this. You should get out more.
“Dude”? “Dude”! Guards! Sieze him! He’s an impostor! Clever disguise, Dr. Evil, but you made one little mistake…
When I was little we had a electric typewriter that would center text, you just hit the “center” key, type stuff and when you hit enter it would type it all out centered. I thought it was neat. That would have been around 80, though, though I seem to remember the typewriter was thought of as old then. The memo header could also be pre-printed letterhead.
Doesn’t work when I do it.. The spacing goes badly off at the zip and PO box.
I’ll wait and see for more info, we’ll know in a few days. Only low res scans it’s hard to be doing more than wild speculation. The stuff about old typewriters is cool. Sniping at each other is not. 
