Posted on 09/09/2004 11:14:40 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
During last night's 60 Minute program on President George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, the CBS News touted a number of documents which seemingly indicate that the future president failed to meet his service obligations.
That may well be the case but it is becoming increasingly evident that 60 Minutes, and the Dan Rather, the reporter behind the story, may have been relying on forged documents to prove their case.
Several indicators point to this conclusion including the fact that the four memoranda, which Rather said were written during the early 1970s by Bush's commanding officer Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian, are printed in a proportionally spaced type style similar to the common computer font Times New Roman. But such computer technology had not even been invented when the documents were allegedly written.
This does not imply, however, that the memos could not have originated during the 1970s since IBM, the dominant player in the office equipment at the time had several years earlier invented a typewriter which allowed typists to use proportional fonts.
Such machines, marketed mainly under the model name Selectric had become quite popular by the early seventies even though they were extremely expensive according to Jim Forbes, who collects the now-discontinued machines and operates a web site about them called Selectric.org.
For the most part, organizations who could afford the typewriters only allowed professional typists to use them especially since they were often cumbersome to use. Non-professionals stuck to the older, less-complicated typewriters which printed in the traditional monospace fonts like Courier.
As a government installation, it is quite possible that the Texas Air National Guard had a few Selectric (or its successor models) in its possession. However, examination of Bush's official records released by the Pentagon reveals that Killian and his fellow officers did not use proportional spacing typewriters (1, 2, 3, 4) for their correspondence.
For its part, CBS has refused to disclose where it had obtained the controversial documents. During last night's program, Rather stated "we are told [they] were taken from Colonel Killian's personal file." Contacted by The Washington Post, Kelli Edwards, a spokesperson for 60 Minutes declined to elaborate any further.
Other evidence points toward the conclusion that CBS News may have been duped. Two of the alleged memos, dated May 4, 1972 and August 18, 1973, use a font technology that was beyond the capabilities of the day.
Both documents use relatively sized fonts to write out ordinal numbers, a typographical convention used to spell out numerical orderings or rankings such as "twenty-fourth." In normal English usage are often written in shorted form using the relevant number followed by an ordinal suffix. Thus "twenty-fourth" becomes 24th. The 1972 document uses the ordinal 111st and the other refers to 187th.
The fact that the person who made the documents used this notation casts doubt on their authenticity since typing it out numerically with a superscript ordinal suffix was quite difficult to do on an Selectric model typewriter which required a very involved process in which the user would have to feed the paper up half a line, manually remove the device's "font ball" which was used to place characters onto the paper, replace it with a ball with a smaller-sized font, advance the page back down half a line, and then put back the original font ball.
While it is conceivable that the memos' creator may have actually followed the elaborate procedure to get the perfect superscript ordinal suffix, that does not seem likely according to Gerry Kaplan, another Selectric collector who operates IBMComposer.org.
"The person who produced this copy does not appear to have taken the time to properly space things out, such as 'May,1972' has no space after the comma; '(flight)IAW' has no space after the parenthesis. So, it would be hard to believe that they would take the time to produce the superscript 'th' manually. So, if no general-use typewriter existed with such keys, it is unlikely that they took the time to superscript that," Kaplan says.
Theoretically, it is possible that Killian may have had access to a font ball which contained superscript-sized ordinal suffixes, but such an accessory would have been very rare.
"If one had a font ball that had a superscript font, then it could be done, but as far as I know, the only common superscript font was the number set available on the Symbol balls," says Forbes. "These would be used for formal papers with footnotes, most likely. So, the short answer to your question about a letter superscript is 'No.'"
The typographical case against the documents' authenticity is further undermined considering that all of the memos appear to use a font that was not in wide use on Selectric machines during the early seventies. A search of Forbes's online archive of common Selectric fonts reveals none matching typeface used in the purported Killian memos. In fact, the CBS documents' font looks much more similar to the modern-day Times New Roman.
In the face of such evidence (including the fact that Killian has long since been deceased), and CBS's refusal to reveal its third-party source, it seems increasingly likely that Dan Rather's "exclusive" has turned out to be a hoax. Should that be the case, it would not be the first time that the 72-year-old anchorman has been embarrassed by reporting unconfirmed stories.
In his legendary book on the 1972 presidential campaign The Boys on the Bus, author Timothy Crouse relayed how many of Rather's rivals on the White House beat resented him for his gung-ho approach to the facts.
"Rather often adhered to the 'informed sources' or 'the White House announced today' formulas, but he was famous in the trade for the times when he bypassed these formulas and 'winged it' on a story. Rather would go with an item even if he didn't have it completely nailed down with verifiable facts. If a rumor sounded solid to him, if he believed it in his gut or had gotten it from a man who struck him as honest, he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this. They knew exactly why he got away with it: being handsome as a cowboy, Rather was a star on CBS News, and that gave him the clout he needed. They could quote all his lapses from fact, like the three times he had Ellsworth Bunker resigning, the two occasions on which he announced that J. Edgar Hoover would step down, or the time he incorrectly predicted that Nixon was about to veto an education bill."
Ran Blather Duped? Hopefully, so! Hehehehe!
Well, for Dan Blather, stupid is as stupid does.
For reference:
Documents obtained by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" shed new light on one of the most controversial episodes in Bush's military service, when he abruptly stopped flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to work on a political campaign. The documents include a memo from Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, ordering Bush "to be suspended from flight status for failure to perform" to U.S. Air Force and National Guard standards and failure to take his annual physical "as ordered."
The new documents surfaced as the Bush administration released for the first time the president's personal flight logs, which have been the focus of repeated archival searches and Freedom of Information Act requests dating to the 2000 presidential campaign. The logs show that Bush stopped flying in April 1972 after accumulating more than 570 hours of flight time between 1969 and 1972, much of it on an F-102 interceptor jet.
--snip--
A spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," Kelli Edwards, declined to say exactly how the new documents were obtained other than that CBS News understood they had been taken from Killian's "personal office file." In addition to the order to Bush to report for a physical, the documents include various memos from Killian describing his conversations with Bush and other National Guard officers about Bush's attempts to secure a transfer to Alabama. Killian died in 1984.
From the Wash Post this morning.
The documents may or may not be forged, but the WH certainly hasn't made that argument.
It may well be they're not making the argument because they think this will blow away if left alone and don't want to add fuel to the fire.
Damn Font Balls!
Seems pretty clear they are fake.
Was he duped? Well, he is a dupe, so the chances are he was duped. He is also a dope!
I was doubtful about all the proportional-spaced hubbub, because I know that Selectrics could do that in 1973. But the superscript angle is the nail in Dan's coffin.
Nice work Perry Mason.
Do you know if the White House commented on any of this yet today?
Rather telling lies to attack the president? - I'm shocked I tells ya shocked!
Then, perhaps Drudge ought to make the argument. If there is good evidence to support a forgery, this is one heck of a story. Much better than the AP Tom Hays bogus "booing" story.
The point is that CBS doesn't care if they were duped. They got the story out that they wanted to get out, and as long as CBS itself didn't forge anything, CBS knows that they haven't made themself liable, so they don't care.
They are perfectly happy to do bad reporting that relies on someone else's lies and deceptions, because it gets out the message that they want out there, and they are not legally culpable.
I see the malignant leftists are ignoring the Swift Boat vets and the fact that some of Kerry's medals and stories aren't legitimate.
Old Media is just so darned tired.
Question: Why is the White House releasing further documentation? I'm hoping it's to highlight discrepancies in the Rather versions...
Even if the docs were "genuine", the fact that they were not a part of the TANG official file suggests they are meaningless as to whether W "did his duty".
The other interesting point is the memo alleges pressure from a specific named individual (Staudt) - who has denied applying such pressure.
Conveniently for the media, the people allegedly making the allegations are dead.
Considering the MSM will never print a retraction, it is best to just let it all blow over. I was at a large gathering of people yesterday, everyone was talking about the SBVs, no one was talking about Bush and the National Guard. People are not stupid and besides this is old news.
I'm not so sure Rather was the "victim" of the hoax. I'd say more likely the "perpetrator."
Itwas the Best of Times New Roman, Itwas the Worst of Times New Roman.....
Please get this straight. The typewriter used for these memos was NOT clumsy or hard to use. Please stop making FR look stupid.
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