Tim Blair

It sure as heck is.

There are experts in identifying document forgeries, and I'm awaiting their inevitable input on this, but I'll be laughing my a** off if CBS News missed an obvious forgeries that a bunch of bloggers noticed right away.

The right hand margins are what get me. Typewriters do not know how long the word is you are going to type.

The odds that a person in the early 1970s would anticipate what word to end each line with so that it would exactly replicate a default setting of Microsoft Word are not exactly good.

That's really pathetic -- they couldn't even be bothered to pick up a typewriter at a thrift store to commit their forgery?

Not to worry: Puce is on the case.

Great googly-moogly!

Perhaps this was something out his father's plan for a Time Machine with the Stars and Stripes on the Side and *NOT* the Hammer and Sickle, Mr. Harvard Yard Braniac!

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88adebate.phtml

OK, the LGF link is hammered so are we talking about CBS-provided links to scans of source documents i.e. in PDF? Or is it the usual screen-cap of "documents" that the networks like to use in video presentations to indicate that they've got source documents, but are actually from the art department?

I've known for years that those things in the videos were faked up. They all look the same and they all look like what I've seen of the CBS "documents."

I'm not at all inclined to give CBS a pass for being the obvious Bush-hating twerps that they are, but this *could* just be much ado over a sloppy presentation.

I'm more worried about the Puce evidence. Damning, or at least danging.

Obvious forgeries. Look, folks, if you're gonna forge docs, your best bet is to hire a professional, not farm the job out to some schnook at DU who'll screw the pooch in record time.

Needs:
1) Original paper, in proper size
2) typewriter from the period
3) old-time 70's Xerox machine for copies

What, CBS/60mins couldn't check this out before crapping in their kitchen?

The blogosphere is all over this.

In DC Journal has contacted a Forensic Document Examiner who's an expert on this kind of thing and he's almost certain it's a fake.

It looks like CBS News is going to have some 'splainin' to do.

Having had to labor with those old bitches of typewriters in the 1970s, and seeing as Bush was in the Guard earlyish--HAHA! (/Muntz)

"60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic."

God, the Democrats can't even smear right these days.

"OK, the LGF link is hammered so are we talking about CBS-provided links to scans of source documents i.e. in PDF?"

Yep.

Charles (at Little Green Footballs) retyped the memo in MS Word, he had Word Wrap enabled, as it is by default. Word wrapping uses a complex algorithm to space letters out, that no typewriter of that time could reproduce. It laid perfectly over CBS's PDF document.

Also, the location of the date on the memos is at the default tab spot for the date in Word.

I would like to know the name of the "expert" that CBS got to look at these.

The Freepers are all over this like white on rice, including dubious terminology, doubtful post codes and a lot of other things. Posted here with 500+ responses

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210702/posts?q=1&&page=1#1

Powerline blog has the most comprehensive thread I've found on this issue so far. Seems to be a pretty thorough debunking. I've got a link to it on my site. Drudge is also running a story about the possible forgeries.

Gee, do you think the 111th Fighter Group's P.O. box number was really "34567"? Neither do I. At least they weren't in "Anytown, USA".

Maybe this is a fake too.

Sent in by someone who hates Miles.

SMH 9/9.

"Maybe I am missing something, but to me it seems that our world leaders are being incredibly naive of human behaviour in their approach to terrorism.

If getting Osama bin Laden or the Chechen leaders to a negotiating table begins a process that leads to peace, I am all for it.

Of course, it will seem outrageous to those whose loved ones have died, but what about the loved ones who may not have to die tomorrow.

I think bin Laden would find it much more difficult to recruit suicide bombers if he was being given an empathetic hearing by Western governments".

Miles Campbell, Rozelle, September 9.

Has anybody checked if it matches Alger Hiss's Woodstock typewriter?

Maybe I'm just more sensitive to typography, being a copywriter who works with a lot of designers, but I remember perfectly well what typewriters looked like in the 70s, and I recognize a laser-printed document using THE default font for PCs. Prestige Elite or Courier, that's a 70s typewriter. This is as obviously modern as a medieval manuscript written in Day-Glo yellow.

P.S.
I think Bin Laden would find it much more difficult to recruit suicide bombers if he were given a hearing by Western governments, followed by a trial, followed by execution.

... pants on fire!

This is at once hilarious and terrifying. CBS caught in flagrante delicto peddling a fake document that any high-school freshman could have produced? How many honest people has 60 Minutes ruined with "authentic documents" over the years? MSM arrogance is simply breathtaking.

And such a cheap smear, leveled against a Commander-in-Chief in wartime.

This is...big. Not big in the way the Treacher/Puce thing is big--and it is big--but big in he way that the self-implosion of 40 millon moonbats is big.

holy crap. strange days and interesting times.

rod

((( BOOM )))

Loony Leftist Moonbat heads simultaneously a'splode.

Kids today. *sigh*

From 1970 to 1973 I was active duty Army in communications. I used Kleinschmidt teletypes, IBM 029 keypunch machines, and typewriters.

I know what those documents should have looked like from personal experience.

Today of course, I use a computer and word processor software like everyone else including those who can't imagine there was ever another way.

This looks like such a stupid fraud I would almost feel bad about jailing someone for it but I know in my heart of hearts that someone needs to go to jail for this.

Oh, did I mention that former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes is a convicted felon, a known crook, and a big Democrat fund raiser? Nah, but then you knew that already, because the three roles are practically synonymous these daze.

Disgusting Rumor Alert: According to an unsubstantiated tidbit of tittle-tattle that was whispered into the ear of your humble correspondent in 1969, making him blush, Barnes's wife divorced him after he infected her with syphylis.

A real credible fellow, that Mr. Barnes.

They have nothing to lose.

They are crashing and burning. The idea is this.

If they don't do this BS then they lose

If they do this and are caught they lose

If they manage to pull it off they have a chance.

It's a penny ticket in a lottery, they won't lose any worse if it fails.

I used tywewritters extensively in high school, being on the school newspaper. We had state of the art machines, IBM Selectrics, and I got to be quite good on them (which really helped my slide into computers, even back then), and later on in college and in the Army.

These memos are not from anything made in 1972. No, I'm not an expert, but I sure as hell can tell what those machines did back then. This is a forgery.

Other circumstantial evidence: all of this comes out in the big push before Election Day. And the DNC top leadership is all over it.

One interesting note: I saw the ABC news (US version, folks) blip on this. They went through the story, but at the very end, the last thing stated was that ABC had the documents checked, and questioned their authenticity (and that CBS still stood by them).

Interesting.

TRACH/PUCE THING?? Im notgay liek trach as

You used "tywewritters"?

And gallons of white out, too I'll bet.

HA! That's another reason to know the documents are forged: No whiteout!

It's the same as with the AP stuff: there will be no retraction. This is the last bitter attempt of the media to gain control of what people ought to be thinking.

Awwwwww right. (First reaction.)
This is almost too easy. (For a while.)
This is almost too easy—have we swallowed some bait?—& there’s too much going on in this. (For now.)

NRO’s Kerry Spot
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp says Power Line’s got what ought to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back:

Reader Amar Sarwal points out that General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972.

Yet the August 18, 1973 memo refers to Staudt’s involvement. “Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.”

Camel’s back broken? Unless Staudt was exerting pressure from out of retirement? How plausible is that?

CBS defends itself by saying that it both consulted an expert to authenticate the documents & talked to “individuals” who knew Killian at the time & who said that the memos reflected his thinking.

CBS wants an excuse to bring out more of what those “individuals” said? Just in order to defend its journalistic integrity of course.

A bit incredible but have we swallowed some bait?

Meanwhile Killian’s son, according to an AP article, says that he doesn’t believe the memos are real & that his father wouldn’t have kept them.

Amy Barnes, daughter of Ben Barnes, has reportedly been by phone on ABC radio, saying that she loves her father but that he made up the things which he told 60 Minutes about Bush.

At the online Burnt Orange Report, it was remarked not long ago that 60 Minutes’Dan Rather’s daughter Robin Rather is considering a run for mayor of Austin, Texas in 2006. She co-sponsored the Texas Dem fundraising event in 2001 (at which time she was also considering a run) where her father Dan spoke & for which he got in trouble. I can’t google up anything connecting Ben Barnes with that event but it’s said that he’s connected with just about any Texas Dem fundraising event. Ben Barnes is a disgraced former Lt. Gov. of Texas who is influential, a major fundraiser in Texas, & the third-largest Kerry donor in 2003, almost half a mil.

Yes indeedy, the evidence keeps piling up-- good point about the POB number, Rob C.

I worked temp jobs as a typist and word processor during college in the early 80s, going through perhaps a dozen different companies and a whole lotta Selectrics and other typewriters and weird word-processing platforms. Almost never saw variable-width fonts at all, and for heaven's sake, even a basic Google search shows that there's no "th" key on the keyboard. Really, now!

The really strange thing, though, is that my humble experience and knowledge in this realm is undoubtedly common to millions of people...but somehow foreign to the people at CBS. How could such a sloppy collection of forgeries get past the smell test?

Well, my German wife reminded me that Stern surived the Hitler Diaries debacle. CBS News will survive this one. It should not.

It's a pathetic forgery. I mean, even the Hitler Diaries kept people fooled for a little while (a couple of weeks I think, from memory). But how do reporters that are so stupid get to work for CBS?
Well, they are Old Media......

Fred Boness: LOL! And you're right....bottles and bottles of whiteout! Or an "erase" function. God, I love the backspace key.....

How could such a sloppy collection of forgeries get past the smell test?

Wishful thinking. The reporters wanted the story to be true.

CBS hasn't named the anonymous "expert" who vouched for the documents. What's the bet there wasn't any "expert" in the first place?

LGF didn't check to see if the Karl Rove font was being used?

CBS may want to bring out more of what it says certain “individuals” said, “individuals” who, according to CBS, knew Killian & who say that the memos accurately reflect his thinking. And in the process of bringing more out from those “individuals”...?

Something. Smells. Wrong.

The link to PowerLine points out that CBS is backtracking somewhat on the claimed authenticity of the documents.

CBS seems to be claiming that the opinions expressed in the memos have been confirmed by witnesses from then-and-there, not the documents themselves. Or words to effect. Read 'em yourselves, the write up is excellent.

Can we spell "damage control"?

Oh, the coffee is brewin' at CBS tonight!

haha media retraction haha.

Honestly, this story, in Australia at least, will just disappear if it turns out the documents were faked (which certainly appears to be the case)

Even if they are real, as Mark Steyn (i think) has pointed out, holes in Bush's vietnam story are not nearly as damaging to him as holes in Kerry's story are. Bush isnt running on what he got up to as a booze fueled draft dodger in the 1970's, whereas Kerry's sole claim to fame is his 'nam service.

The Real JeffS —I recall the story about a clerk-typist in 'Nam (somewhere forward of Kerry's AO) who stencilled the following warlike slogan on his helmet cover: "Retreat, Hell! — Backspace."

ABC Nightline is doing a story on the forgeries tonight, according to Instapundit:
http://instapundit.com/archives/017710.php

ANOTHER UPDATE: A media contact emails: "ABC'S NIGHTLINE DOING THE forgeries tonight, and their experts say most likely forgeries. CBS had serious meetings this evening over this."
I'll bet they did. . .

Richard -- LOL! And I'll bet CBS wants to seriously backspace right now....

From Scott Ott's Scrappleface.com :

"Mr. Rather said the authenticity of the 32-year-old email has been confirmed by several Nigerian officials who specialize in electronic funds transfer by email."

LOL! Hattip: Instapundit

Okay, now I doubt it’s all a big trap.

Like somebody at Lucianne.com said:

And next week on 60 Minutes: Dan Rather with the Dead Sea Scrolls in the original PowerPoint!

What can I say? Amateurs built the ark, professionals built The Titanic.

Re: Butch

Read up on what the anti-Lincoln newspaper call him during the Civil War, and you'll get a taste of what Journalistic Integrity used to be like. And I'm talking about Northern Republican newspaper.

Dan and his co-hort are merely lazy and partisan enough to fall for this amateur hour hack. And I'm being genereous, since the alternative is that Dan and his cohorts deliberately forge this puppy.

Andrea, Tim, gang:

check out front of drudge.....holy shit. The blogosphere--oh my God.

guys i gotta give you the tick tock of how this played out in our newsroom....

holy shit.

Well, I guess the Kerry Krew successfully turned our attention away from Swift Boat ads. Cunning Bastards!

CBS, Scrappleface, now CNN. Check this out:

Man Arrested for 1974 Spam-related Homicide

But everbody knows there was no spam in 1974!

(Actually, this is a sad story.)

Dan Rather must feel like he’s caught in an episode of the original Outer Limits. You can see how this would have been science fiction in those days. You can imagine how they would have done this all as an episode.

RATHER, IN THAT QUINTESSENTIALLY AMERICAN EXPRESSION, YOU’RE ALL WASHED UP.

Anyone remember that physicist who wrote some impenetrable article filled with nonsensical jargon and got it published in a peer-reviewed sociology journal? The article, inasmuch as it could be understood at all, purported to show that reality was not real. After it was published, he said he made the whole thing up to discredit post-modernism.

Could it be that this document was the equivalent of that journal article?

That would be Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at University & old-style hard-headed leftist shaking out some flakes. The whole sorry tale of his successful sting is at http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/#reviews

Now it's serious.

This took, what, 12 hours? 14?

The message the MSM should be taking from this is "Quit making shit up". The message that will be taken is likely going to be "What just happened?"

The interesting question now is -- who forged the documents?

The Kerry Campaign?
CBS News?
Someone else?

If the forger turns out to have been associated with Kerry's campaign ...

Mainstream media...

Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You!

Now it’s OUR song!!!

All We Are Saying,
Is Give Truth a Chaaaaance!

Now sign Form 180, Mr. Kerry!

Anyone remember that physicist who wrote some impenetrable article filled with nonsensical jargon and got it published in a peer-reviewed sociology journal?

Alan Sokal. The journal was Social Text. I'm not sure it's a sociology journal.

Now I've got one:

... named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges...

Does anybody remember something about sources which must be protected, even unto death? Something about the First Amendment or other? Had something to do with Valerie Plame, I think, but I can't quite recall...

Furthermore -- isn't forgery a crime?

Will there be a criminal investigation?

Geeeez!!! Let me get this straight...a squad of pencile necked, geek, moma boy's, typwriter commando's are gonna save W's A?.....faster than a platoon of studly (yet hansome in a somewhat primitive fashion) bull necked, Jarhead, commie kill'n (read...any antagonist) Marines!! Well ok! I'm sorry for all those years of grief that I gave to anyone that knew that "font" was not french for "font me Marine"

What a bunch of wanka's (commie, pinko,lefties)
Say Howdy To my bro in Sydney

Ahhhh, so the Democratic National Committee gave the documents to 60 Minutes. DNC & Kerry Campaign had seen ’em. Not that the DNC so sure about it. Sourcing was a problem! And some 60 Minutes producer & researchers were worried about it buuut of course of course, ’twas too hot to hold back, you know, (i.e., it was doubtful but it was about a Republican President).

“Anatomy of a Forgery,” Sept. 10, 2004, The American Spectator
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7096

Then again,
having been forced to think on occasion, no one would throw out something so easily discoverd to be a forgery....why...hmm? Swiftvets? what better way to muck up a muck up throw more muck. So smuck,s like us will spend hours/days/weeks regaling in our new found....blah! you get the idea...food for thought...back to the swifties and how they are......

That is a good point, dmz. The mainstreamm media are onto the forgery and actually covering it for a change, so maybe bloggers don't need to spend a lot more time on it.

But the Swift Boat Vets, Stolen Honor and Winter Soldier are still being covered up by the mainstream press -- so we should ceep up the pressure on those issues.

Rod,

Please send that newsroom narrative (trblair@ozemail.com.au). I'd love to post it. All confidentiality assured, etc.

Keep up the pressure on those issues & the issue of the Dem drive to stop the military from voting, including a Florida Dem judge’s decision today which may have effectively disenfranchised overseas Floridians in the US armed forces. Dems don’t like soldiers to vote, soldiers tend to vote Republican. Florida is an important electoral state, in case anybody didn’t know.

The best point I've seen so far is about the kerning. You simply cannot do kerning without a computer, period. In the early '70s this would have required very sophisticated and rare typographical equipment. The kerning on the MS Word entries are identical to the alleged '73 documents. The only reasonable conclusion, factoring in other evidence as well, is that these documents were created using MS Word. The only possible CYA excuse for the CYA memos is that they were typed up after the fact from some other source material. Which gives them very little authenticity, of course, but they still could be "real" in some sense. Though it doesn't explain why they look to have been photocopied about a zillion times for no known reason (other than to make them look older artificially).

Anyone with a properly calibrated stink-o-meter should note that the needle is pegged at "high heaven" on these documents.

I'm only a middle class dupe, but I've never seen a typewriter so accurate and precise.

Try this one on for correct fit, Krash & Burn Kedwards will make Dukakis' loss look good.
Spectators server is currently overloaded, so link is unavailable.
courtesy of Orrin Judd, http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/015700.html

Anatomy of a Forgery (The Prowler, 9/10/2004, The American Spectator)

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." [...]

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."

" You simply cannot do kerning without a computer, period."

Of course you can. It was done by hand for a very long time before computers arrived on the scene.

So the Democrats' media buddies have embarked on a mission to defraud the US electorate. Big surprise (not).

Calm down, they're not forgeries. From: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/0718/84894

"Houses of Cards, All Falling Down (#252)
CaseyL (User Info) Posted on: Thu Sep 9th, 2004 at 09:04:35 PM EST

The documents are not forgeries.

I've been visiting blogs all day. The analysis has been done to a fine turn, by experts and by people who used Selectrics, and knew them.

Selectrics are well remembered because they were greatly loved. I used a Selectric way back when, and I can tell you they were fine, fine machines. (I adore the word processing age, absolutely, but I have NEVER found a keyboard I liked as much as I did the Selectric's.)

Because Selectrics were well-liked and well-remembered, people can speak authoritatively about their fonts and idiosynchracies. Not a person who ever used a Selectic doubts for one moment a Selectric was used in the TANG documents.

The documents were typed up on a typewriter. Unquestionably: they have the irregularities of letter placement, the signs of wear on a few keys that "moosh" the paper and crowd into other letters.

The Selectric had changeable balls of different fonts...and of "special" characters, including the superscript "th," "st," and so forth. Popping the balls in and out was something you got very good at very quickly.

"Times Roman" font was a standard in typing long before MS created the same font for Word. MS used Times Roman precisely because it WAS the standard. The Selectric version and the Word version have specific differences: the "4" is not the same. The "4" in the documents is the typewriter version, not Word's. There are other details - serifs and non-serifs, the crossbar of the 't' -- that confirm the use of a Selectric.

There's no great mystery in identifying whether the document was typed: it was. There's no great mystery in identifying the typewriter used: typewriters are individual enough that forensics can identify the kind and even the specific machine used to type a given document. Police used to do this frequently, with ransom notes, threatening letters and the like.

The mystery is in trying to believe the documents are forgeries. In order to do so, you have to ignore every single fact about Selectrics; you have to make believe you don't hear or don't understand when people who USED THEM say "Yes, those documents were typed on a Selectric."

This forgery nonsense reminds me of JFK Assassination Theories. The chain of reasoning becomes more entropic as the quantity of data which must be ignored and disbelieved increases.

The chain of reasoning to support the notion of forgery has already reached absurd proportions. It's all post hoc ergo propter hoc: you start with the conclusion that they're forgeries, and then arrange the facts to support your conclusion. It's gotten to the point where the "conspiracy" involves CBS News' most senior journalists, AND CBS' upper management, AND every typewriter analyst who's vouched for the documents, AND members of the Bush Administration and/or Bush Campaign.

That flies in the face of Chaos Theory, which holds that complex events cannot be predicted toward a given outcome.

Not to mention Ockham's Razor: The simplest explanation is usually the accurate one."

Oh, goody. The far left loonies are defending the notion that the documents are real.

They'll go down with the Kerry ship!

Right you are, BigFire. Many in the press have always been vicious, but for me the worst thing is their sheer laziness.

Lazy reporters go around quoting each other all the time with scarcely an original thought to be found anywhere in their work. Remember "The Wimp Factor" with George H.W. Bush? After a while it became common "knowledge" that he was a wimp. Why everyone knew he's a wimp.

It's amazing the quality of research that gets done on blogs! Bloggers know how to check facts. Hasn't anyone at MSM heard about Google? Despite their vast resources (Lexis/Nexis, big staffs, etc.), MSM doesn't check their damned facts. Pathetic.

They're going sown and into prison: several major criminal offences have been committed including by Dan Rathers and CBS starters, commencing with forgery and fraud. The Dems campaign memebers involved go down to: and as for treason master Kerry , the shit flung is his too, as part of his campaign. This bloody good and hilarious.

So used to lying, the whole lot of them that they crossed a line so far they no longer recognised that what has been exposed is not an irregularity on their part, and that criminal charges can and should be laid along with stiff prison terms.

RS; was that arguement an example of Skokal's Post Modernist arguement?Should I be laughing now?

I'm assuming Atrios can also explain the wild difference between Killian's other (verifiable) memoranda, the fact that the military terminology in these new documents is completely boggled, not to mention the fact that when reproducing the document in a regular Word file (I just tried it, as have many, many others) the spacing comes out exaaactly the same?

Atrios is right on one thing: Ockham's razor does apply here. Just not in the way he thinks.

For the documents to be genuine, several pretty interesting coincidences would have to occur

1) The secretary typing the memos would have just so happened to type them in a way that would exactly duplicate the way MS Word would lay them out 30+ years later

2) Killian would have had to drastically change his signature over the space of about a year, for no apparent reason.

3) Killian would have to drastically (and secretly) change his opinion of Bush over the course of a year. Possible, but according to his wife and son, they never got any sort of indication of such an occurrence, and since they remembered him mentioning Bush on other occasions, it probably would have come up.

4) The secretary would also have had to suddenly forget the most basic details of how a memo was headed, what standard abbreviations for military rank were used, how to type the date, etc.

5) Apparently, he/she would also believe that "CYA" was an appropriate memo heading as opposed to a huge red flag saying "HEY! LOOK HERE AT THIS SHADY ACTIVITY!"

6) Last but not least, quite a number of typographical experts would have to be willing to *put their reputations on the line* by publicly stating that they believed these documents to be forgeries when in fact they were not. They can't all be Bush partisans. Furthermore, since not one acknowledged typographical expert (and sorry, having used a Selectric does not qualify you as one) has publicly contradicted them or gone to bat for CBS, you have a couple of options:

1) The typographical experts who think the documents are genuine are cowed into fear by the Bush Terror. Not one is brave enough to stand up and authenticate an old memorandum because of FEAR, even though Michael Moore, whose done much worse to Bush's reputation, is still a free man.

2) The aforesaid typographical experts have all been paid off to keep quiet while their colleagues lie about the forging of the documents.

Notice how none of the things I've listed has anything to do with the inner workings of a Selectric; I can't comment on what features they may have had, but I can say the above string of occurrences is...unlikely. A few of them I can see possibly happening (though the bolloxing of the titles would argue, at best, extreme incompetence for whoever was typing, and I refuse to believe in a Vast Typographical Experts Conspiracy). I can *possibly* see two. But put them all together and they spell...I don't know yet. But something is definitely off-kilter.

Here's your Ockham's razor: if the documents are genuine, all of the above, unlikely-in-themselves incidents would have had to occur - every single one of them, every last weird coincidence. The likelihood of their all happening *together* is minuscule.

If the documents are false, it means that somebody who did not-quite-enough research typed them up in MS Word, photocopied them on a darker setting (produces that smudged look *very* easily), and came out with documents that looked, on the surface at least, like something that could have been produced on a Selectric; however, the *contents* of these documents were inconsistent and extremely questionable.

Just a thought.

IBM’s first proportional-space typewriter was the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter in 1941.

And I’d heard about these golf-ball typewriters being used in the 1960s, & the popping in & out. But with proportional spacing working out to EXACTLY what you get when you type the August 18, 1973 CYA letter into a Word 2000 document in its DEFAULT setting (12 pt Times New Roman)?? Too hard to believe.

Sorry - I meant Michael Moore, *who has* done much worse. My grammar disappears after midnight :).

And not just the character spacing, but
all the line breaks too.

I just had to check out the Democratic Underground to see what the loons were saying about this. As expected they're alternating between trying to convince themselves that the documents are authentic and trying to pin it all on uber-Machiavellian Karl Rove.

That's got to be interesting for Rove - I'll bet sometimes he wishes that he had 1/500th of the power that gets attributed to him... :)

Clinton. Hillary '08.

These forgeries were made just good enough to convince a lazy and hyper-partisan news outlet that they were safe to air, before detonating and damaging the cred of anti-Bush Kerry supporters. The docs could have come from deep within the DNC from certain people who are looking ahead to the election four years from now, given to the Kerry campaign by a believable source and then passed on to CBS with "assurances". (The advice for Kerry and his campaign to focus on his heroics in 'Nam could have been a put-up job designed to backfire, too. Wow, has it ever done that!) Anyway, Rather, who has detested the Bush clan ever since their mutual Houston days, and the egotists at 60 Minutes were easily set up.

The timing for Hillary and Bill couldn't be better for a false story to break, with Bill in the hospital, being sympathetic and very much indisposed. Clinton's necessary surgery was a "sudden" but somewhat electively scheduled event (no heart attack, yet, etc.) He entered the hospital on the heels of the GOP Convention and not on its toes, allowing Bush to have a great and uninterrupted finish. Now, this week while Bill is out of action, CBS' post Labor Day exclusive starts to self-destruct almost as soon as it airs. While other Democrats look a bit guilty and desperate, Bill and Hillary are far removed from the fall-out.

Kerry's campaign was still reeling from the assault of the Swiftvets and GOP convention when it just got hit by this mine. It was hidden and lethal and doesn't look like the work of amateurs at all. But please remember this is only a working theory from someone who does not normally think like the Oliver Stone of the right--- (Note to self: look into reported problems between the Clintons and Rather, as well. This could be a two-fer.)

“they have the irregularities of letter placement, the signs of wear on a few keys that "moosh" the paper and crowd into other letters.”

Sorry, bullshit. The CYA memo’s spacing is PROPORTIONAL & is CLEARLY not the result of key irregularities. If it were merely key irregularities within a regular spaced movement, the overall spacing should still be monotype. And even if the key irregularities actually resulted in accumulated departure from monotype spacing, it STILL would not end up looking like a perfect job of default-settings Word 2000 automatic character spacing.

Must remember in the future not to be impressed with the eminently reasonable sound of a post like that from the Daily Kos.

Oh, just to top it off, in case anybody was wondering (as I was) whether there ever was a proportional-space Selectric:

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Typewriter

Even so, all Selectrics were monospaced -- each and every character was the same width. Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine, the IBM Executive, with proportional spacing, no proportionally-spaced Selectric office typewriter was ever introduced. There was, however, a much more expensive proportionally-spaced machine called the Selectric Composer which was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter.

What we have hear is a convergence of evidence from various directions. The memos depart from standards & customary practices, & they depart from the usual typeface appearance, & they depart from Killian’s usual tone, & they depart from Killian himself as his widow & his son understood him.

I've gone over the typographic evidence at obnoxious length elsewhere. I'll leave it to military and ex-military types to dissect the content, but early indications are that it's equally bogus on that score.

Interesting news via the American Spectator (via Ace). DNC gave it to Kerry HQ who gave it to CBS (though some at ABC believe Karl Rove started it all!?!)

grassy knoll, you're scaring me, stop it!

;)

Come on, guys! Clinton's DNC did this. Rove didn't need to generate bogus docs to embarrass the Dems, when all they would have done six weeks ago (when Kerry's campaign got them) is divert attention from the Swiftvets' attack on Kerry and from the GOP Convention. It would appear that the Kerry campaign and CBS decided to sit on this story until right after Labor Day, when Kerry needed to come out swinging hard against Bush in the final stretch before Nov. 2. There is no other reason for CBS to have held back on this exclusive for so long. Research all that time? Too risible. (Sorry, Quentin!)

RS, you are so full of shit I'll bet your eyes are brown. But then again, since you seem so easy to fool, could you send me the ATM number for your bank account? I want to deposit $2,000,000 I got from this lady in Nigeria to your bank account.

Geez, Trach, the only way that document Puce found could have been more convincing is if it were typed in Comic Sans MS and had some frowny emoticons.

You know I've been thinking of a great money-making scheme. The left seems gullible enough to pay money for any old piece of crap that they think defames Bush.

We RWDB's could start a tidy little business sellling obviously forged documents about such things. Better yet, we could discredit political foes at the same time.

Genious...

Kerry was in Cambodia after all!

"That's really pathetic -- they couldn't even be bothered to pick up a typewriter at a thrift store to commit their forgery?"

This is one of the first things I wondered about too. How stupid are these people? How stupid do they think the rest of us are not to notice something like this?

I have never been so entertained during a presidential election. If it weren't for the fact we've got terrorists that want to kill us, I'd just sit back and enjoy the entertainment.

Perhaps the media and the DNC can board the time machine and come back to present time. They've spent more than enough time going over Bush's National Guard records. We went through this already when Bush ran last time. It's been done to death.

What hasn't been done to death, and is still unfolding, is Kerry and what he did when he became involved with the VVAW. The 'Swifties' have been promising more surprises are in store.

>How stupid are these people? How stupid do they think the rest of us are not to notice something like this?

C'mon. They only had to fool Dan Rather.

C'mon. They only had to fool Dan Rather.

actually, all they had to do was confirm what he already believed to be true.

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said.

Even though the whole question seems to be whether Killian wrote the documents in the first place, CBS defense seems to be, at least in part,that the documents are valid because they represent what Killian was putting into the documents. I mean, talk about disappearing into your own navel.

RS, selectrics never had kerning.

hey rc, forgred documents that support themselves and they back up hearsay too! woo-hoo for that standadrd of proof!

"That's really pathetic -- they couldn't even be bothered to pick up a typewriter at a thrift store to commit their forgery?"

Chris et al, they're stupider than that. I could produce, right now on my Mac, a document using a non-proportional font which would look much more like a 1970s typed document than this. That's well short of the level of intelligent forgery that would involve an actual typewriter from the period.

Leaving so many obvious signs of 1990s or later word processing is like trying to pass off a photo of Lincoln passing Union documents to Jefferson Davis-- at the food court at the Tyson's Corner mall. It's not just that it looks fake, it SCREAMS fake to anyone professionally involved in design and typesetting.

While on the whole I do think this looks like a forgery, I'd like to correct a couple of the points being made here:

"The right hand margins are what get me. Typewriters do not know how long the word is you are going to type."

If by this you mean that all the words are aligned along the right hand margin, there is no example of this in any of the four documents.

"Charles (at Little Green Footballs) retyped the memo in MS Word, he had Word Wrap enabled, as it is by default. Word wrapping uses a complex algorithm to space letters out, that no typewriter of that time could reproduce. It laid perfectly over CBS's PDF document."

While the documents use proportional fonts, I don't see any evidence of additional distortions such as by Word Wrap. The text goes to the end of the line, concluding with the end of a word (no hyphenation), and the right side of the text is not lined up neatly, but jagged.

"even a basic Google search shows that there's no "th" key on the keyboard. Really, now!"

The basic Google search would be wrong. Josh Marshall points out that a superscripted "th" was most certainly possible, as shown in Bush's own military record of the time - see his observation here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_05.php#003460

Also, proportional typewriters were available before 1972 - http://www.etypewriters.com/1954-b-2.JPG

On the whole, though, I do think it's likely the documents were forgeries.

As for Ben Barnes, it doesn't really much matter whether he is a partisan Democrat or the son of Satan - the White House has never refuted his story.

Nor, come to think of it, have they refuted the content of these memos.

Blacker64, translated: "Lalalala, can't hear you!" How does it feel to be a dupe, blacker? Oh -- and can I have your bank account number? I need to deposit the rest of this $2,000,000 I got from Madame Sese-Seko. You get to keep all the interest! Pinky swear.

You know what gives me chills? I mean, terror-sweats? The knowledge that before the Web, major media was GETTING AWAY WITH SHIT LIKE THIS ALL OF THE TIME.

My life has a very clear Before Web/After Web demarcation. And BW looks so much different to me now. It must be a lesser version of what people behind the Iron Curtain felt like when Communism fell and they saw the lies they had been told for fifty years.

That an automatic word-wrap with jagged right edge produces the same resulting line breaks as a manual typist becomes increasingly unlikely as the sample grows increasingly large. The memos were comparatively brief, so I didn’t put a lot of weight on that. I did put a lot of weight on the CYA memo’s having not only the same line breaks as the text typed into Word 2000 in default settings, but the same character spacings.

Also, the earlier claim copied from a Daily Kos commenter onto this thread was that an IBM Selectric had done it. As I pointed out in earlier comments on this very thread, no Selectric except the Selectric Composer (really a typesetting machine) ever did proportional spacing. I myself mentioned that the first proportional-spaced electric typewriter was introduced by IBM in 1941.

I know it’s a long thread, but commenters might try reading it before posting.

Andrea,

maybe you missed the bit where I agreed that the documents were most likely forgeries.

The White House has not refuted either Barnes' story nor the content of the memos. Maybe you're the one going "lalala I can't hear you, Barnes is partisan lalala...".

And oh yeah, that joke does get better the second time around. Keep repeating it and eventually it'll be absolutely hilarious.

Great point, Dave S., about the "truths" we were told in yesteryear! The funny thing is how the media had us believing they were protecting the public from Big Brother and government propaganda and corruption (a la F451), when in reality the media was just as, or maybe even more, guilty of purveying lies and distortions for their own agenda (a la F911).

Correction: I meant to speak of the earlier Daily Kos comment on this thread & my subsequent ealier remarks on this thread. I mean that having read those things in sequence would have clarified some issues for a later commenter.

Here’s another one. At www.BlogsforBush.com it turns out that P.O. Box 34567, though it is correct for the TANG 111th FIS at Ellington Field in Houston, has to be a forgery because five-digit P.O. Boxes were not introduced with Zip Codes but with the Zip Code+4 system, which came into use during the early 1990s! P.O. Boxes used to run from 1 to 999.

As for Barnes, he is not just a major donor to the Kerry campaign & a major Dem fundraiser in Texas, though by the standards applied to Republicans by the news media, that should be MUCH more than enough to cast into doubt his claims against an opposing party’s member — if he were a Republican talking like that against a Dem politician, the news media would denounce him as a fraud without further evidence. But Barnes is not just a major Kerry donor & long-time Dem fundraiser. Barnes is a man whose involvement in scandal destroyed his career as an elected official. It is in that light that one should regard his involvements in Texas Dem money.

A week or two ago when I first heard that Rather would do an interview with Ben Barnes about Bush & Barnes’ supposedly helping him, I knew it spelt fraud & corruption, basically because a Texan had just told me about Barnes, his scandals, & his long-time association with Dan Rather. I don’t remember whether I said it here, but I asked, is this how Rather wants to bring his career to an end?

I have trouble believing that Barnes is not involved somehow in these fake memos.

Ben Barnes was discredited as a politician in Texas for corruption prevalent while he Lt. Governor. Cohorts of his were indicted. The Dem Gov. was named as unindicted co-conspirator. Barnes was denounced for his part, but prosecutable proof was apparently not produced even though it was strongly felt he was the plan’s ARCHITECT. But he was so discredited it destroyed his chance for elected office afterward. Connections still let him become a multimillionaire (or more) by his involvement in the Texas Lottery. Since the Texas Lottery’s start in 1992, Barnes had been getting 4% of GTECH's gross revenue from operation of the Texas Lottery, exceeding sometimes $3Mn yearly for Barnes. But then...

“GTECH, Barnes terminate contract” by Chip Prown, AP via Texas News, Feb. 13, 1997
http://texnews.com/texas97/gtech021397.html
Agreeing that former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes had become a lightning rod for questions involving the Texas Lottery, GTECH Corp. announced Wednesday that it was cutting all business ties with Barnes.
[snip]
The move comes after a series of shakeups at the lottery, including the firing of executive director Nora Linares on Jan. 7.
Ms. Linares had been dogged by questions about a contract involving a close friend, Mike Moeller, and GTECH.
Published reports have said a federal grand jury is investigating GTECH's business relationships in Texas.

Barnes being involved in fraud in Texas doesn't exactly make it impossible that he pulled strings to get Bush into the National Guard. Knowing that about his character actually kind of supports the storyline.

Ben Barnes has been a major contributor to Kerry’s campaign. This shows 2003 & he reportedly has said that he has raised even more for Kerry in 2004.

http://www.capitaleye.org/KerryFRchart.11.13.03.asp
[TOP THREE FROM] Contributions From Kerry's Top Fund-Raisers, 1999-2003*^

Contri- Organi- ___________ Total ____ % _ % _ 2004
butor _ ization _ State _ 1999-2002 _ Hard Soft Cycle†
·
Alan _____Solomont _MA _$612,327 _ 27%_ 73% $82,500
Solomont _Bailis
_________Ventures
·
Orin _____Kramer ___NY _$425,835 _ 21%_ 79% $83,500
Kramer ___Spellman
·
Ben ______Entrecorp TX _$389,750 _ 54%_ 46% $74,500
Barnes ___

*Includes contributions from the 30 individuals and couples listed by the Kerry campaign Web site Oct. 21, 2003, as having raised $100,000 or more apiece. Also includes contributions from these individuals' families.
^Based on data released by the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 16, 2003. Totals include PAC, soft money and individual contributions to federal candidates, party committees and leadership PACs, 1999-2003.
†So far. Only hard money contributions are allowed under the new campaign finance law.
------------

Barnes is, as said, a major Dem fund raiser in Texas, involved all around. Dan Rather is from Texas, his daughter Robin has political aspirations there, she co-hosted the 2001 Texas Dem fundraising event at which Dan spoke & got in trouble for doing so, though I haven’t succeeded in googling up in connection of Barnes to that particular event.

CBS cannot claim to have missed the story about Barnes’ big bucks to the Democratic National Committee. In fact, there really should be questions of just how involved the Kerry campaign has been involved with this, because they know about the money which Barnes has been giving to the DNC.

“Kerry Keeping Eye On Big Donors”
By Beth Lester, CBS News Political Unit, Washington, June 18, 2004
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/18/politics/main624711.shtml

The Kerry campaign has begun tracking major fundraisers using a Trustee Leader Board, CBS News has learned. While keeping tabs on fundraisers is nothing new, the twist is that the Kerry campaign is tracking donations to the Democratic National Committee, not to the campaign itself.
[snip]
As of last week, according to information received by CBS News, 20 donors have given and/or raised more than $250,000, enough to earn them the designation of Trustee. Of those, eight have actually raised more than $500K. Those half-millions include Texas lobbyist Ben Barnes, Wall Street financier Stan Shuman, Iranian American PAC Board of Trustees member Hassan Nemazee and Texas lawyer Mark Iola. Eventually, says a source inside the process, the over-$500K raisers will have a special name designation but no moniker has been chosen yet. [emphasis added]
[snip]
The possible impropriety between major donors and major appointments is not lost on anyone. After CBS News obtained a copy of the memo, several donors were alerted by the DNC and members of the Kerry campaign. . [snip]
.... For now, the Kerry campaign is keeping much more mum on its tracking.

Now, how is Bush supposed to go about disproving a bunch of charges by a crooked poliician about things that supposedly happened 30 years ago? Barnes needs some credibility in order to require that effort of Bush. The credibility, in multiple ways, is negative. If ever there was a case of means, motive, opportunity, & requisite seasoned unscrupulousness to drum up a phony scandal, it’s in Ben Barnes. He doesn’t even claim the Bushes asked him to do anything. Who will ever know what he did or didn’t do to curry favor or attempt to be owed a favor or drag another politician into a carrot-&-stick network of favors & skeletons in the closet? The burden of proof or cogency is with Barnes & anybody else who just starts up with this sort of thing. On a he said / she said level, Barnes flattens out like gelatin under the weight.

Blacker, I don't know what your point is then. The documents "are no doubt forgeries" but the evidence that they are can't be true?

By the way, have you ever used a typewriter? Do you have any idea how it operates? Because, from what you wrote about the right margins, I don't really think you do.

"He doesn’t even claim the Bushes asked him to do anything."

That's right, he didn't. Which, btw, is why he did not contradict his earlier testimony, as it has been suggested on some right-wing blogs, IIRC.

He said a Bush family friend asked him to do it. Corruption one step removed still counts. They got Al Capone on income tax evasion, but would you say that that's the only thing he's guilty of?

"The burden of proof or cogency is with Barnes & anybody else who just starts up with this sort of thing."

Let him do a lie detector test. Then give one to Bush jr and sr that they're really not aware of any special favors being pulled on their behalf. I'm only semi-joking here. Barnes has told his story under oath - let the Bushes do the same. Let's see how worried they might be about other witnesses out there.

I think it's fair to say that Bush is a partisan Republican. Does this mean that he is not to be believed when he says anything that is favorable to his cause?

Fantastic, ForNow! Good work on that contemptible Barnes and the Texas DNC machine. When I grew up in Texas, the Dems were the 'good old boy' crooks. I even remember the Sharpstown stock scandal that Barnes was behind back in the early 70s.

And here we are in the 21st century. Some things never change. Barnes and Houston boy Rather are still after the Bushes and are still unethical.

Andrea,

"I don't know what your point is then. The documents "are no doubt forgeries" but the evidence that they are can't be true?"

I take it part of the reason you don't know what my point is is that you're putting quotes in my mouth. I did not say that the documents "are no doubt forgeries". I think they probably are, but the case has not been settled yet. Certainly some of the evidence that looks persuasive on the face of it (like the superscripted "th") turns out to be quickly dismissed.

My point is that regardless of whether these particular documents are forgeries or not, the White House has not refuted their content, and it has been confirmed by people who were there at the time.

To illustrate this point, the best example I can give you is this: the Nigerian memo. Not the one you get with your spam about getting millions that you're so fond of quoting, but the one about Saddam's uranium connection. The memos have become famous as being easily detectable forgeries.

Question: does this mean that there was no connection between Saddam and Niger re. uranium?

You’re welcome, Texas Tradition. Somebody had given me a heads-up, somebody who had been following Texas politics for some time.

The document forgeries are already settled, Rather just doesn’t want to pull his propaganda off the CBS Website sooner than he has to. Staudt was retired, the PO Box 34567 did not exist at that time, etc., etc. Many other points totally unrelated to the typograhical character of the phony memos have been pointed out on this thread, if somebody would go back & read them. (Or maybe somebody is just here to do agitprop, counting on some other readers not to have read the whole thread.)

And in general regard to Bush-hating, it’s inevitable that interpretation is mixed up with emotion. We interpret from a viewpoint & in accordance with standards of significance & value & our own purposes. It’s just natural, it comes with life, there’s no other way to do it. On top of being living things, we have brains & can check our interpretations in advance of getting killed by by them. Of course checking up on things is a lot of work, & Dems have gotten lazy because of their trust of the Dem-slanted media. But coherence with our habitual or beloved interpretations is a reasonable economic substitute for confirmation or corroboration only up to a point. At some point one has to come to grips with a reality that may make one let go of an interpretation that just hasn’t been panning out.

At this point, it’s the Barnes-Rather-DNC-Kerry axis which needs investigation.

To blacker and others,

As someone who works with Records for the US gov't., I just have to say that, knowing that all records by anyone in the gov't., including the armed forces, may be kept for up to FOREVER length of time, and with the case of personnel records, for maybe 75 years, nobody with any brains or sanity would use a subject line like "CYA."

It would be like shooting off a flare when undercover.

Plus, it may take a while (records storage is like that scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the Ark, in a box, is put in amongst a zillion other like boxes in a huge warehouse), but unless documents are lost due to fire, flood, or terrorism, we can find them. Any of them. All of them.

I seem to have lost my syntax today. Has anyone seen my syntax?

OMG Power Line reports that Rather went on CNN & is sticking by his story! He must be the one who authenticated the memos! Any staffer supplying them would have had to get them REALLY authenticated!

Rather’s old boss Don Hewitt wouldn’t let Rather do this story for months, so Rather has done it now that Don Hewitt has retired. I wonder what Don Hewitt knows, is thinking, & would say!!

Rather also said that there will be no investigation, although CBS had promised one.

I am told that FOXNEWS just reported the CNN release as reported on CNN. They also reported:

They just talked with the son, Gary Killian. Gary said that, in a meeting with his father in the Officers Club in San Antonio (for dinner), his father told him that:

LT. GEORGE BUSH TWICE (2 times) asked to be sent to Viet Nam on its one-year program for fighter jets.

The typewriter issue has had an interesting rundown over at Kos - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

However, based on the gaffes/facts re. Staudt being retired and the zip code being wrong for the 70's, consider me now convinced that these documents are forgeries. Yes, Andrea, I am now saying that they "are no doubt forgeries". (And incidentally, 12 Angry Men is one of my favorite movies.)

"Plus, it may take a while (records storage is like that scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the Ark, in a box, is put in amongst a zillion other like boxes in a huge warehouse), but unless documents are lost due to fire, flood, or terrorism, we can find them. Any of them. All of them."

It's good to know that - so we can rest assured there will be no gaps once Bush and Kerry finally allow all their military records to be released? At least none that can't be explained away by a fire at location A or a terrorist attack at location B? (Wouldn't that be ironic?)

Has the White House refuted any of the charges underlying either Barnes' story or the forged documents?

People are not required to respond to or disprove scurrilous charges from crooked politicians about things that happened 30 years ago. If such an expectation were normal or reasonable, government would be impossible.

Rather has hubristic & egotistical tendencies, as many of us do, but his now seem hardened, along with his views, perhaps by advancing age. It happens. He will destroy himself.

ForNow,

I believe Don Hewitt is a friend of Bill. As in Clinton. Perhaps he departed CBS to distance himself from the implosion he knew was coming. I am convinced that Rather was picked to be the fall-guy for this scandal because he's so fiercely anti-Bush and would go with the iffy story when told the timing was right.

Rather, CBS, the DNC and the Kerry campaign have been compromised just enough to maybe ensure a Bush victory. Wanna bet that the Clintons aren't crying over this?

Yes, it’s always worth considering in a given case whether Bill & Hill smile while the puppets dance....

"People are not required to respond to or disprove scurrilous charges from crooked politicians about things that happened 30 years ago. If such an expectation were normal or reasonable, government would be impossible."

True, but there are a number of questions here that did not originate with Ben Barnes. That have never been answered by Bush, the so-called straight-shooter.

Let him do a lie detector test. Then give one to Bush jr and sr that they're really not aware of any special favors being pulled on their behalf. I'm only semi-joking here. Barnes has told his story under oath - let the Bushes do the same. Let's see how worried they might be about other witnesses out there.

lol...you obviously haven't heard of a bloke called Scrafton! For a little while he was the Australian lefties walking talking wet dream. He took a lie detector test, swore on this an that, and took oathes left right on center, only to be discredited by his own obvious mistakes (which contradicted his lie detector success - much to the embarrassement of the lie detector guy I would imagine)

Because of the Scraton debacle, I doubt many Australians would take seriously any oath's or lie detector tests taken by someone as partisan as Barnes. You say the Bushes should take an oath because Barnes did, but that really is a nonesense because Barnes has been proven to be a liar and is a strong democrat supporter, which in most peoples minds will make the statements made under oath by him as meaningless as the forged memos.

To me, it seems a fairly immature and desperate argument to suggest that someone has to respond to the statements of a liar with a lie detector test or a oath of their own just because the statements were made under oath. Simple fact is that liars lie, under oath or not.
Maybe in response to someone with strong credibility, but not to someone whose word mean nothing.

Gee, Blacker, thanx so much for condescending to believe the evidence after getting the okay from the Kosheads. K HUGS BYE

Yeah whatever Andrea. I guess weighing different sides of an argument is something that should be frowned upon, eh?

The typewriter "evidence" does not appear to be settled in the slightest - and I still wonder why somebody would simply forge the doc in MS Word, but then go for a superscripted "th" that doesn't match the rest of the standard settings. It may well be entirely possible for this document to have been produced at that time. I have not seen conclusive evidence on this issue...

... but it doesn't matter: I went for the two pieces of evidence I consider solid and persuasive, I haven't seen dkos address them, and I don't see how CBS possibly can.

Hugs. Bye.

Michael,

Liars lie. Bush never lies.

Did I get that right?

It was BlogsForBush.com that ran a comment saying all P.O. Boxes used to be from 1 to 999. But that appears to be wrong. I did start thinking that I had dim memories of P.O. Box numbers like “1010” & so on. Also, ZIP+4 was first introduced in 1983, though it may not have come into broader use till later. I once spoke to a mail deliverer who told me of having assigned those in my building himself.

Anyway, sorry, I retract the argument about the P.O. Box Number. Many new P.O. Boxes may have been added since the old days, & it is still worth trying to verify whether 34567 was a valid P.O. Box at that address in the early 1970s.

"Yeah whatever Andrea. I guess weighing different sides of an argument is something that should be frowned upon, eh?" Snip, snipe, snippety-snip snip snipe.

Oh I see. You're going to be a jerk about it. Well, really bye this time.

OT- Hey Andrea, if you're still listening :-)

Next time you're in contact with Blogads, could you please ask them to do somthing about their @#&$%! javascript page layout code. Under Mozilla it (frequently) does something that breaks Tim's comment page stylesheet, rendering only the ads down the left side of the page, and leaving the rest of the page blank. If I turn javascript off I can read the comments, but then I don't see the ads at all (not good for them or Tim!). Typical broken pages also show a URL of the form "wysiwyg/0/http:...." which Google tells me has something to do with the Mozilla javascript rendering routines, at which point I become lost. Thanks.

Well there goes that one...

Grouch: I'll send them your complaint. (I basically had to stop using Mozilla because it had various issues. At least on my computer. I use Foxfire mostly now, I've had no problem so far.)

Blacker: do you not know when to shut up?

Andrea: Thanks!
FWIW, more often than not have the same problem at Command Post, but have only seen it a couple of times on Instapundit (although the ads there go away with javascript off, too).

Andrea, should I even bother answering blacker's snide implication about records? I'd prefer not to, as that would cause me to have to stop my laziness.

Okay, here’s the deal with the zip code & the P.O. Box.

34567 has been confirmed as a valid P.O. Box for that address & its first two digits are the last two digits of the zip code 77234, which is the way it should be.

The BlogsForBush comment claimed that this way of assigning P.O. Box numbers came in only with the ZIP+4. Why it should have waited for that, no reason is given, maybe it just happened that way or maybe that claim is also wrong. according the USPS Website history section, ZIP+4 was introduced in 1983. The BlogsForBush comment said that ZIP+4 came into use in the 1990s. I don’t know how long it took the USPS to fully implement ZIP+4 throughout the USA. Also that doesn’t really confirm any answer the question of when it came to be that P.O. Box numbers’ first two digits are the Zip Code’s last two digits.

Ushie: well, as he seems to be parrotting the Josh Marshall line of reasoning -- As Ace puts it here: "Read him if you want; but you'll burst a bloodvessel as he explains why the charges are nevertheless true even if the documents making those charges are proveably false" -- I think you'll be wasting your time. And you'll want to wait a while anyway, until he finds a new IP to sign on with.

I give up. I can’t find a reliable account anywhere. Every time I think I’ve found one, I find counterexamples to the claims.

Post Office Boxes may be any number, as far as I can tell. The two-digit thing is no rule at all. Nobody knows. Nobody at the Post Office answers phones. No phone numbers at Websites are undisconnected. It's ridiculous.

I guess weighing different sides of an argument is something that should be frowned upon, eh?

When the different side of an argument you're defending is equivilent to claiming that "the earth is flat" based on some minor misconceptions of the "round earthers", yeah, I think that should be frowned on.

"Read him if you want; but you'll burst a bloodvessel as he explains why the charges are nevertheless true even if the documents making those charges are proveably false"

Sounds like Dan Rather! :)

I, loyal VRWC member, have been weighing both sides of the argument &, weighing in at INDC Journal, delivered (by lucky timing) the coup de grace to the kerning argument. http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000851.php

When you type the CYA’s text into Word 2000 with default settings, the result perfectly matches the memo in terms of character spacings (& line breaks), but the Word 2000 text has no special pairwise kerning that I can see, merely proportional spacing. Now, this question regards the nature of Word proportional spacing. I don’t think it involves any automatic pairwise adjustments of spacing between particular paired characters. “f” lets the next character crowd in under it, which works great with “e” as in “feedback,” but crashes the “f” into a succeeding “b” or “k” (“fb”, “fk”, etc. don’t occur in the CYA memo). Automatic pairwise kerning would use more memory, I think, with kerning info for combos numbering the square of the number of available characters.

Michael,
Liars lie. Bush never lies.
Did I get that right?

Let me see if I've got this right - Barnes "oath" wipes out any doubt in your mind about the veracity of his statements? despite the fact that he has been caught out lying in his story and despite the fact that he is a major contributor to the Dems?
If so, I have to say, it's good to see that people with such a trusting nature still exist in this world :)
(You wouldn't happen to be a CBS fact checker by any chance?)