You know, I read this and thought “I don’t recall claiming anything that concrete”. Then I checked post #150 to see what I had said and I guess I did say something like that. I think I overstated the case a bit. I should have said that it couldn’t have been created on MS Word using Times New Roman font. There’s always the possibility that there’s some other font that’s very similar but with some minor differences in some of the characters. And I never said anything about other word processors, although I suppose that would follow since they would presumably use the same installed fonts as Word. That’s only talking about Windows of course. In theory it could have been a Mac or something. But the claim was that they could be duplicated on MS Word and that’s what we’re discussing.
One other point. Since I got back to work, I was able to experiment with Word, and I personally can’t see any differences in the "4"s so I don’t know what’s going on there. However, Kos is correct about the "8"s. They are noticeably different. In the memos the top loop is definitely smaller than the bottom loop. In TNR in Word the top and bottom loops are the same size. This in itself would seem to argue against them have been created in Word.
But why someone make such an obviously wrong claim about the 4 if it’s not what he sees? I would think if you were trying to mislead people you would do something a little more subtle than that. Of course, this whole affair seems to be marked by people making easily verifiable bald-faced claims that turn out to be wrong, so I just don’t know what to think. Is it possible that there is more than one version of Microsoft TNR?
My mistake, then.
Regards,
Shodan
I noticed the same thing. I’ve been wondering if the issue with the eights could be a result of copier degradation. If the copy of the copy of the copy that we have scanned in progressively increased the size of the bottom fo the eights and decreased the size of the top we might notice exactly the same thing. I may have missed some of the documents, and I may have missed some of the eights, but I only noticed one on each of 2 memos. One of them clearly shows a smaller top than bottom. But the other one seems much closer (although not really a match for the Word TNR 8).
Also, the cite you posted earlier suggested that other National Guard documents had the superscript “th” in them. He did not mention which ones, however. Can any of you give me a cite for such a document?
To be fair he only said they do not match. It is possible that he was using some size, spacing, or other printing arcana technique to compare the two 4s. I did not notice any obvious differences, but I am by no means an expert and cannot claim that no difference exists.
Well, most versions of Microsoft word should use the same font. It could vary depending on which printer or platform was used. Also, I noticed the the top and bottom of the 8 can look slightly different if you play with the size a little. At 200% zoom, they are clearly symentrical. At 100%, however, there seems to be a little more meat on the bottom. Not a lot (not the same difference as seems to be on one of the memos), but I noticed a definate difference.
Font scaling in general doesn’t work that way. That is, a 72-pt glyph is not identical to a 12-pt glyph magnified 6x. Many fonts look “weird” if you do that. I did check TNR on Word and its 72-point “4” looks a lot like a magnified 12-point “4”. There are many ways to scale fonts, such as optical scaling (essentially defining a new font for each size), nonlinear scaling, and hinting. I don’t know what Word uses. In digital typesetting, the scaling problem is complicated additionally because glyphs must be built from finite pixels. Then there is the problem of trying to represent a glyph so that it is visually pleasing both on a screen and in hard copy. In Word, TNR looks very, very different on the screen versus when it’s printed out - cf. the by now well-known “superscript th” controversy.
It seems likely to me that the typescripts released by CBS were produced using a modern word processor, most likely Word. The various inconsistencies between Word-generated documents and the CBS documents are probably explainable by looking at different versions of Word, different platforms, and different print software and hardware. However, the sentiments expressed in the documents are consistent with the other evidence. When the documents were read to Hodges over the phone, he didn’t say, “No, that is not how I remember it. Staudt was not pressuring Killian.” He said, “These are the things that Killian expressed to me at the time.” Unless the forgery can be traced to one of the campaigns, the issue is politically moot.
I noticed it on every 8 I could find but it’s certainly possible I could have missed some. I find it pretty farfetched that copier degradation would consistently do that to 8s throughout more than one document. I don’t see that happening with any of the other characters. I suppose there could be something about copier technology that I don’t understand but it’s beyond me how it would single out 8s to do this to.
Someone posted a link to it in this or another thread. I can try to find it.
Actually he said that the MS TNR 4 was “open at the top”. I guess that phrase is open to interpretation but I don’t see anything that looks like that. In fact I don’t see any differences at all.
pervert,
Here’s a link the that “th” document.
It’s here. Go to page three. It’s sideways so it’s a little hard to see but it’s obvious once you see it. Look in the second row, third column. It starts out “Pilot Trainee, 111[sup]th[/sup] Fighter Sq.”
TNR is a TrueType font, which uses outlines plus hinting for font scaling. So, yes, a give character may have a somewhat different shape at different point sizes.
Thanks. It definately shows the raised and smaller “th”. Odd that none of the other "th"s are small or raised, but that one definately is.
Perhaps I am the one missing some 8s. I only noticed 2. Did you find more than that? Perhaps I am looking at the wrong pdf files?
Thqnk you again. The copy I was looking at the second 8 did not appear to be an 8. It was partially obscured.
I’m not sure these documents show the sort of thing your cite was talking about. The 8s on the first page seem pretty symetrical all the way around. Not quite the thin on top and thick on bottom I saw in the single 8 on this page.. The second of the pages you posted shows some diferentiation, but not what I was expecting. The 8s seem to be thicker on the top rathre than the bottom. All in all, I think the copies we are looking at are not good enough to judge clearly from letters which only appear a few times.
I agree that copier degredation would not do the same thing to every 8 on several pages. I was only looking at one of the 8s when I suggested that.
Thanks for the patient posting of the links, BTW.
The “th” in the linked document is a single glyph - you can tell because it is horizontally squashed to fit into the monospaced typeface being used. It was typed by hitting a single special key, just like you would type $ or &. Also, that document has entries that were typed at different times by most likely different people; some use the raised “th” and some don’t. It’s beyond dispute that typewriters in 1972 could do that kind of “fake” superscripting.
The disputed document contains a potential smoking gun. Whenever the superscript “th” is used, it occurs directly after a number with no intervening space. Whenever the normal-sized “th” is used, there is an intervening space between the number and “th”. This is exactly the default behavior of Word and it would be highly unlikely that a manual typist would reproduce it by chance. However, the header reads “111th…” — no intervening space and no superscripting. Is it possible that Word has a different default for “th” when it is used in a header? I don’t have Word at home, so I can’t check until tomorrow.
In my experience, superscripting the “th” is nonstandard. Pick up nearly any decently typeset book and check (Word’s default superscripting of “th” has always bugged me.) So I think it is unlikely that someone in pre-Word days would take the trouble to superscript the “th” unless it was demanded by a local manual of style, which should exist somewhere.
I have no respect at all for Bush and even less for his campaign team. So I want to say again that these (likely forged) documents are politically moot unless traced to one of the campaigns.
Did you deal with many secretaries back in typing days? They had their own rules for how things should look.
FWIW (I’ve not examined all the pages, and I’m not an expert), looking at the page 3 in the link, I find the following:
The superscripted “th” appears once, the first time the “111th” is entered on the page. IF the following entries were made by the same person, then it looks to me like they did the following:
“Oh, look, a ‘th’ key! How neat-o! I’ll use that…hmmm…that was kinduva PITA - I think I’ll stick with the old way of doing it!”
Of course, if the entries were made by different people at different times, then there were likely different typewriters involved…
…personally, I think it’s a forgery, but that’s my own opinion, based on zero scientific evidence that I myself have produced.
I wonder if the documents were forged by a Bush sympathizer who “punked” CBS to produce exactly that result.
The San Jose Mercury (Knight Ridder) seems to be coming down pretty heavily on the “forged” side of the debate in its latest article.
I disagree, especially since we’re talking about the government here. For example, recently the State Department decreed that TNR 14, and only TNR 14, is to be used for all official correspondence. Even in my own office, which is close to the government, we have a rather detailed local style sheet. Enforcing the local style in memos gives the managers something to do and makes them feel useful.
However, I just checked Word’s default formatting of “th”. It’s relatively easy to explain why the “th” is superscripted in the main text but not in the header. After typing the memo, the guy notices that he forgot to add “th” to “111th” in the header. He then goes into header mode, adds “th”, and closes the header toolbar. If you do it in this sequence, Word does not automatically superscript the “th”. You could almost call this a bug, since the automatic superscripting works differently depending on the order in which you enter an identical string of characters. This scenario is a simple explanation for the apparently inconsistent use of superscripting in the disputed typescripts.
The disputed typescripts were generated using Microsoft Word. They are either forgeries, or unacknowledged transcriptions of the originals.
John Mace said:
That’s actually a reprint of a major article today in the Washington Post. The Post is not exactly a bastion of right-wing journalism, and it’s considered one of the ‘newspapers of record’ along with the NY Times.
When the Post comes down on you that hard, you’d best pay attention. I wonder how much longer Rather is going to try to stonewall this? If he’s not careful he’s going to have the Justice Department knocking on his door. Or the FEC, or a congressional investigation.
I don’t see why that would happen. But I do think that CBS is just going to let (hope) that this story dies of its own accord. I think the public will lose interest quickly, if it hasn’t already. That article I quoted, for example, was burried pretty deep in today’s paper.
That from a guy who still believes the Niger yellowcake bill of sale to Iraq was real?
Thanks for the chuckle. We’ll see that right after the Valerie Plame investigation is completed, and Bob Novak is sharing a cell with Dick Cheney.
Tell us more. What FEC regulation do you think is involved? Did you know that the Supreme Court ruled in a Fox TV case that broadcasters are not legally required to tell the truth anyway? How about a GOP-led Congressional investigation - of what, do you think? Something that might keep Bush’s conduct during his AWOL years *in * the news during an election season? Better read a few different blogs than the ones you summarize for us here, ya know.
You’re all missing the point entirely - whether these documents are original, or later cleaned-up copies of earlier handwritten notes, or outright forgeries, the people who wrote them are still not running for President. *Bush * is, and his behavior during that period and the character it illuminates are not at all changed no matter the facts of this little episode. The longer this stays in the news, the harder it is for the Bushites to explain how their man is a bold leader.
Actually, the longer this stays in the news, the better for Bush.
Bush supporters have nothing to explain. It is the ones pushing these (apparently) forged documents who have some 'splaining to do.
The Kerry campaign had better come up with a distraction PDQ - change the subject, and to something new. Bush’s service is now pretty much off the table as a topic for the campaign, and the harder the Kerry contingent tries to re-introduce the topic, the more closely they are going to be identified with forgery and dirty tricks.
The one nearly suicidal thing Kerry could do would be to bring this up during the debates. All Bush would need to do is turn to him, shake his head sadly, and say, “We already went over this. I have already said that I honored your service in the military - why can’t we talk about the real issues that face us, instead of bringing up these clumsy frauds?”
Then he faces the audience, and says, “I am going to make a pledge. I will never bring up or respond to questions about anyone’s military service in this campaign, no matter what anyone else does. It is time to put an end to this kind of backbiting. What do you say, John? Will you join me?”
And, no matter what Kerry does, Bush winds up looking Presidential. And that will be what everyone talks about in the debate.
Regards,
Shodan