"New" Documents crictical of Bush may be fake, 60 Minutes fooled

[valvano]

wonder if CBS will be doing a retraction should the documents referenced be positively proven to be fake!

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200409\POL 20040909d.html

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php

[Bob]

wonder if CBS will be doing a retraction should the documents referenced be positively proven to be fake!

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200409\POL 20040909d.html

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php

they'd kind of have to, wouldn't they?

what's bush's response to all this?

[bilbo]

CNSNews.com :confused:
ROTFLMFAO :eek:
How about a NewsMax link :rolleyes:

I doubt there'll be any retractions being how the documents are authentic. Your boys goose is cooked. Deal with it. :p

[valvano]

instead of cricticizing the source, why dont you criciticize the substance?

[bilbo]

instead of cricticizing the source, why dont you criciticize the substance?

What substance?
Come on, you have to be better than that.

[D_Raay]

Valvano...you are the worlds biggest sucker.

Everything in your bullshit link is pure bullshit. "Documents on Bush might be fake", "according to typography experts".

Is anyone a "typography expert" for a profession?

If you use "might" it means you aren't telling facts and you aren't exactly telling a lie since it "might" be fake.

I've said it many times and I'll say it again...the Bushbots around here are the most gullible people on earth.
Well the nutjobs weren't going to just sit around for this after all were they?
I might be a sumo wrestler you know, or I might be the Lindbergh baby.

[bilbo]

The IBM Selectric model typewriter was introduced in 1961, not the 1980's.


Next excuse from Team Bush:
My dog ate my Guard service :rolleyes:

[D_Raay]

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=290
Can you believe this shit? Every radio and tv station has a backup transmitter.
Notice how they promptly resumed service at 9:00?
“When the CBS affiliate goes off air at 8:00 PM, and promptly resumes coverage at 9:00 PM, and no other stations had technical problems – it’s a clear case of censorship,” the viewer wrote. “Folks have been calling WYOU non-stop about this since last night, and station officials are extremely
defensive and hostile.”

“They refuse to re-broadcast the 60 Minutes episode,” the letter continued, “telling callers to “get a life” and “take it up with CBS” if they’ve got a problem.”
This is going on in a swing state (Pennsylvania)!

[bilbo]

The Selectric typewriter was first released in 1961 and is generally considered to be a design classic. After the Selectric II was introduced a few years later, the original design was designated the Selectric I. The Correcting Selectric II differed from the Selectric I in many respects:

* The Selectric II was squarer at the corners, whereas the Selectric I was rounder.
* The Selectric II could be switched (with a lever at the top left of the "carriage") between 10 and 12 characters per inch, whereas the Selectric I had one fixed "pitch".
* The Selectric II had a lever (at the top left of the "carriage") that allowed characters to be shifted up to a half space to the left (for inserting a word one character longer or shorter in place of a deleted mistake), whereas the Selectric I did not.
* The Selectric II had auto-correction (with the extra key at the bottom right of the keyboard), whereas the Selectric I did not. (The white correction tape was at the left of the typeball and its orange take-up spool at the right of the typeball.)
* The Selectric II had a lever (above the right platen knob) that would allow the platen to be turned freely but return to the same vertical line (for inserting such symbols as subscripts and superscripts), :eek: whereas the Selectric I did not.


http://www.fact-index.com/i/ib/ibm_selectric_typewriter.html




Is that enough critique of the substance for you?:rolleyes:

[Echewta]

On October 1, 1987, a group of young determined conservatives set out to not only prove - through sound scientific research - that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene. What they launched that fall is the now acclaimed --- Media Research Center (MRC).

Good source.

[infidel]

If these documents are fake then how come the White House released the same exact ones today?

[D_Raay]

You speak only with crap and no proof bib boy.
Only crap speaker here is you. Always have been always will be.

[yeahwho]

Forgive me, I'm new to this board..............but,

gmsisko1 is so far my favorite poster on the Beastie Boys Political Forum. He is the ultimate sounding post for all I need to know in combating Bush. I do not agree with his choice for a candidate, nor do I see how anybody with a clear view of the past 4 years can say President Bush deserves one more day governing our Country.

Yet, the wonderful optimist of gmsisko1 see's a leader and better man in Bush than any other viable candidate. gmsisko1, you are a man of conviction and dreams. You are not alone in this optimism of, how shall we say this, "Catastrophic Success" of a President, George W. Bush. The polls see Bush leading too. My hats off to you, and all the others willing to gamble on exactly the same thing for 4 more years, folks like you enjoy the comfort of the sameness. Even if that is Terror, War, less Freedoms, Worldwide disbelief and a religous interference in a citizens life.

You are a "Big Thinker" aren't you? Keep 'em coming.

[D_Raay]

Forgive me, I'm new to this board..............but,

gmsisko1 is so far my favorite poster on the Beastie Boys Political Forum. He is the ultimate sounding post for all I need to know in combating Bush. I do not agree with his choice for a candidate, nor do I see how anybody with a clear view of the past 4 years can say President Bush deserves one more day governing our Country.

Yet, the wonderful optimist of gmsisko1 see's a leader and better man in Bush than any other viable candidate. gmsisko1, you are a man of conviction and dreams. You are not alone in this optimism of, how shall we say this, "Catastrophic Success" of a President, George W. Bush. The polls see Bush leading too. My hats off to you, and all the others willing to gamble on exactly the same thing for 4 more years, folks like you enjoy the comfort of the sameness. Even if that is Terror, War, less Freedoms, Worldwide disbelief and a religous interference in a citizens life.

You are a "Big Thinker" aren't you? Keep 'em coming.

very well said (y)

[Jasonik]

From CBS. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml)

You can view the documents in question. To my untrained eye, they don't look typwritten. Look at the two memmos and compare the irregular horizontal orientation of the letters in the title (Memo to File) with the text body. Also the signature footer has a raised (e) that appears nowhere else, miraculously none of the other letters in the body of text are raised or dropped.

[Jasonik]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5955784/

Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush

By Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01


Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.

The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to drill."

The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who saw them "at the time they were written."

CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. Experts interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit.

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas.

In a telephone interview from her Texas home, Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, described the records as "a farce," saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not "keep files." She said her husband considered Bush "an excellent pilot."

"I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person," she said, adding that she was "livid" at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records.

If demonstrated to be authentic, the documents would contradict several long-standing claims by the White House about an episode in Bush's National Guard service in 1972, when he abruptly gave up flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to take part in a political campaign. The CBS documents purport to show that Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, was unhappy with Bush for his performance toward meeting his National Guard commitments and resisted pressure from his superiors to "sugarcoat" the record.

After their initial airing on the "CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes II" programs Wednesday night, the documents were picked up by other news organizations, including The Post. A front-page story in The Post yesterday noted that CBS declined to provide details about the source of the documents, the authenticity of which could not be independently confirmed.

On Wednesday evening, the White House e-mailed reporters copies of the documents, as supplied by CBS, as well as the transcript of a CBS interview with White House communications director Dan Bartlett rebutting allegations that Bush had shirked his military duties. While Bartlett described the emergence of the documents as "dirty politics," he did not dispute their authenticity.

After doubts about the documents began circulating on the Internet yesterday morning, The Post contacted several independent experts who said they appeared to have been generated by a word processor. An examination of the documents by The Post shows that they are formatted differently from other Texas Air National Guard documents whose authenticity is not questioned.

William Flynn, a forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice, said the CBS documents raise suspicions because of their use of proportional spacing techniques. Documents generated by the kind of typewriters that were widely used in 1972 space letters evenly across the page, so that an "i" uses as much space as an "m." In the CBS documents, by contrast, each letter uses a different amount of space.

While IBM had introduced an electric typewriter that used proportional spacing by the early 1970s, it was not widely used in government. In addition, Flynn said, the CBS documents appear to use proportional spacing both across and down the page, a relatively recent innovation. Other anomalies in the documents include the use of the superscripted letters "th" in phrases such as 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Bush's unit.

"It would be nearly impossible for all this technology to have existed at that time," said Flynn, who runs a document-authentication company in Phoenix.

Other experts largely concurred. Phil Bouffard, a forensic document examiner from Cleveland, said the font used in the CBS documents appeared to be Times Roman, which is widely used by word-processing programs but was not common on typewriters.

CBS officials insisted that the network had done due diligence in checking out the authenticity of the documents with independent experts over six weeks. The senior CBS official said the network had talked to four typewriting and handwriting experts "who put our concerns to rest" and confirmed the authenticity of Killian's signature.

The doubts about the documents left the White House and the Bush campaign in a state of suspended animation, with Bush aides encouraging doubts about the documents but conceding that the possibility that they were forged seemed too good to be true. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that officials there had not attempted to authenticate the documents but simply released copies "provided to us by CBS in the interests of openness."

The Bush administration's strategy yesterday was to let news organizations raise doubts and conduct forensic examinations, without taking an official position on whether the documents were genuine.

"It's clear in reviewing the documents that they do nothing to change the fact that the president served honorably, and was proud of his service in the Air National Guard," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

Staff writer Howard Kurtz and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7-2004Sep9.html

[infidel]

Will any of you libs admit Kerry was wrong when he said Nixon sent him to Cambodia in 68.

Nixon was not president during that time 68 Johnson was, and there is no record of Kerry ever being in Cambodia.
When I served in Vietnam we went into Cambodia and Laos several times, it was illegal and not on my records either. Big fuckin deal.

Guys like gmsiko are the reason most of the world considers Americians brainless Rambos.

[Jasonik]

You're as big a dipshit as he is. Why don't you PM him rather than cluttering up this thread.

[infidel]

You're as big a dipshit as he is. Why don't you PM him rather than cluttering up this thread.Spoken by a turd who has made three posts in the last twenty minutes that say absolutely nothing. :rolleyes:

[Jasonik]

Citing what it calls "one of the country's top authorities on document authentification," Bill Flynn, the ABCNews.com story (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/bush_documents_040909-1.html) lists the following evidence in questioning the veracity of the CBS report:

"* The memos were written using a proportional typeface, where letters take up variable space according to their size, rather than fixed-pitch typeface used on typewriters, where each letter is allotted the same space. Proportional typefaces are available only on computers or on very high-end typewriters that were unlikely to be used by the National Guard.

* The memos include superscript, i.e. the "th" in "187th" appears above the line in a smaller font. Superscript was not available on typrwriters.

* The memos inclued "curly" apostrophes rather than straight apostrophes found on typewriters.

* The font used in the memos is Times Roman, which was in use for printing but not in typewriters. The Haas Atlas--the bible of fonts--does not list Times Roman as an available font for typewriters.

* The vertical spacing used in the memos, measured at 13 points, is not available in typewriters, and only became possible with the advent of computers."

http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/gborse_20040910.html

[bilbo]

You can show you a typewriter that has superscript and different fonts and proportional spacing from the early 60's, but that doesn't matter to the corporate whore media, they still run cover for President Idiot.


I guess a lot these documents (http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/contents.htm) from 1963 are forgeries too. No way a typewriter can do this. :rolleyes:

[bilbo]

http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/gborse_20040910.html


Puhleeze, Frontiers of Freedom? :rolleyes: You lose credibility daily with some of your nutjob links.
http://www.ff.org/

[Jasonik]

Puhleeze, Frontiers of Freedom? :rolleyes: You lose credibility daily with some of your nutjob links.
http://www.ff.org/

Calm down, it's just Google (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&tab=wn&scoring=d&q=cbs+hoax). It brought me to the ABC story anyway. The petty battles you pick.... :rolleyes:

[bilbo]

Calm down, it's just Google (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&tab=wn&scoring=d&q=cbs+hoax).


OK, but I resisted the urge to choose Bush and picked "write himself in" on the Frontiers of Freedom Poll. :D

Adios, it's vacation time in Toronto for me (y)

[valvano]

[QUOTE=bilbo]OK, but I resisted the urge to choose Bush and picked "write himself in" on the Frontiers of Freedom Poll. :D

Adios, it's vacation time in Toronto for me (y)[/QUOTE

Vacation is usually a term used by those who work for a living.......you post on this board all day and all night......so when do you have time for a job?

[bilbo]

Vacation is usually a term used by those who work for a living.......you post on this board all day and all night......so when do you have time for a job?

Good one,:rolleyes: you're right on par with eskimo and some of the other intellectual giants on this board.

See you in two weeks sweetie :eek:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=291


This from Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum.

For what it’s worth, I spoke to someone a few minutes ago who’s familiar with how the documents were vetted, and the bottom line is that CBS is very, very confident that the memos are genuine. They believe that (a) their sources are rock solid, (b) the provenance of the documents is well established, and © the appearance of the documents matches the appearance of other documents created at the same place and time. In addition, people who knew Killian well have confirmed that the memos are genuine.

[yeahwho]

The polls whould disagree and so will the election on Nov. 2

HUH? You haven't enough respect to read what I say, then you comment on it. I said George Bush is ahead in the polls, that most of the country supports him.

Do you agree, or are you disagreeing and saying Kerry is ahead in the Polls and will win in Nov. 2nd.

A little clarification on your part so I can figure out your position. I thought you wanted to see Bush win against Kerry. I never knew you were a democrat. Welcome aboard gmsisko1, always need a volunteer.

[infidel]

I would hope bush stays way ahead in the polls that way the arrogant brain-dead bushites will fail to vote figuring the other guy will do it. Same attitude they take with military service.

[ASsman]

Volvano just shutup and move to some random FAR AWAY South American country.

[saz]

Researcher Paul Lukasiak has closely examined the paperwork, and more important, analyzed U.S. statutory law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of the 1960s and 1970s.

As a result, Lukasiak arrived at the overwhelming conclusion that not only did Bush walk away from his final two years of military obligation, coming dangerously close to desertion, but he attempted to cover up his absenteeism through swindle and fraud

Lukasiak's findings, detailed on his Web site the AWOL Project (http://www.glcq.com/), have since been bolstered and augmented by independent research by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press.

CBS News reported what may be among the most damaging details yet: that Bush's squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian, complained he was being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a favorable evaluation after he suspended him from flying for failure to take his annual physical exam. Titled "CYA," Killian's memo concluded, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

Link (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/index.html)

[infidel]

Here's another link to the gist of Paul Lukasiak's study that's easier to read and well worth it
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091004D.shtml bottom article.

Lukasiak's study stands alone in proving bush should have been classified AWOL even without Killian's memos. All he has used is bush's records supplied by the White House and military regulations in place back when bush violated them.

[sneakyimp]

you guys seem to have forgotten that the content of the documents (regardless of whether the actual copies are real) have been corroborrated by Killian's superior officer. ALSO, Linda Allison, widow of Jimmy Allison (who was a long time political advisor to Bush Senior) has recently been interviewed by Salon magazine. She says that the late Jimmy himself made the call to Alabama to get W hooked up with a job because Bush Senior considered him a "p9litical liability". And what about Texans For Truth? Those guys actually served and claim they didn't see Awol W.

face it neocons...for 6 months bush was AWOL in the reserve getting drunk while thousands of soldiers on active duty were maimed or killed. The only time he showed up was to get some dental service that should have been reserved for those who actually served honorably. This makes me particularly angry as I currently have a developing cavity and can't afford dental care. Furthermore, the clinics around here have been closed so we can blast the shit out of some 3rd world country and give tax breaks to motherfuckers like Ken Lay.

gimme a fucking break.

for your reference (and these are respectable media organizations, unlike GMPSYCHO's crap).

salon article here:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison_moveon/index.html

this is from msnbc.com...you can find the original article here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

i have quoted it for your convenience:
Name: Connie Kreienheder
Hometown: St. Peters, MO
Dear Eric,
I'm a regular reader and am grateful for the common sense (with sources) that I find in your column. With that said, I'm forwarding the following info because I know there are currently attempts to persuade the public that the 60 Minutes documents on Bush's "service" might be fake, so I've done a little research of my own and thought I'd pass along my findings. I don't know about these so-called typography experts, but they need to go back to school. They're out to lunch when they say the fonts in the documents weren't available in the early 70's.

The first IBM Selectric typewriter came out over 40 years ago, in 1961 and used the interchangeable font "golfball" typing element, better known as a typeball. Additionally, the IBM Selectric "Composer" was a hybrid that came out in 1966 and had proportional spaced fonts. The IBM Selectric I and II had the following fonts available to these models:

10-pitch type: Advocate, Bookface Academic 72, Delegate, Orator, Courier 72, Pica 72, Prestige Pica 72

12-pitch type: Adjutant, Artisan 12, Courier 12 Italic, Scribe, Prestige Elite, Courier 12, Elite 72, Letter Gothic

Special Type: Light Italic, Script, Printing ANSI-OCR, Symbol 10, 108 OCR, Manifold 72, Symbol 12

Even if superscript had not been available under one of the special type font "golfball" elements, all a clever typist had to do was change the ball to a smaller pitch font, roll the carriage roller backward one half-line, hold it there and type the two letters, "th", to achieve the superscript "look," and there were many fussy officers who desired these things in their correspondence. I know this because I was a clerk-typist and secretary for the Federal Government Civil Service and U.S. Army command in St. Louis, MO in the early 1970's, and had to use these tools.

So to those that say the fonts weren't available in the early seventies.......BALDERDASH!

[sneakyimp]

and another thing....

An unnamed "senior CBS official" told the Washington Post that one of the network's backup sources was retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, Killian's immediate superior. The CBS executive said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time," the Post reported Friday.



More importantly, why on EARTH does anyone think Kerry will be soft on defense? To me that is ludicrous. Why don't we ask ourselves how the hell we're supposed to pay for homeland security when we're spending $200 billion in Iraq and doling out tax cuts? Just how does that work exactly?

[Jasonik]

CBS News reported what may be among the most damaging details yet: that Bush's squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian, complained he was being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a favorable evaluation after he suspended him from flying for failure to take his annual physical exam. Titled "CYA," Killian's memo concluded, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

Link (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/index.html)

The "CYA memo" (PDF) (http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust18.pdf)is being disputed.

But CBS News said in a statement: "The documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but sources familiar with their content." Matley was the only expert cited, and he focused on signatures on the memos.

Matley and Rather acknowledged the memos were difficult to definitively authenticate because CBS has only photocopies, not the originals. Matley did not return a telephone message left at his office immediately after Friday's report.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040910_1578.html

I'm assuming the 'sources familiar with their content' refers to Hodges.

*********************************
sneakyimp: Join the National Guard if you want free dental care. gimme a fucking break.

[infidel]

and another thing....




More importantly, why on EARTH does anyone think Kerry will be soft on defense?
I think the idea of any future US president being soft of defense is long gone.
Happenings around the world just won't allow it.
If anything GW is soft on defence, his generals asked for twice the number of troops he sent to Iraq. We'd probably be done with that mess and pulling out by now if he would have listened.