Posted on 09/26/2004 7:20:50 AM PDT by OSHA
The following evidence from a forensic examination of the Bush memos indicates that they were typed on a typewriter:
1. The specific font used is from a typewriter family in common use since 1905 and a typewriter capable of producing the spacing has been available since 1944. 2. The characters “e,” “t,” “s,” and “a” show indications of physical damage and/or wear consistent with a well used typewriter. 3. The characters that are seldom used show no signs of damage or wear. 4. The quality of individual characters is inconsistent throughout the memos beyond expectations from photocopying and/or digitizing but quality is consistent with worn platen and variations in paper quality.
[Snip]
6. Critical indicators of digital production or cut and paste production are missing.
Implications are that there is nothing in this evidence that would indicate the memos are inauthentic. Furthermore, from the point of view of the physical evidence in the documents (excluding any rhetorical evidence or external evidence, which is not examined in this study) no amount of additional research on the part of CBS would have lead them to exclude the documents from their 60 Minutes report.
[Snip]
First, The documents are not Times New Roman, or any similar font, nor are they produced with word processing software (or at least, were not printed using contemporary printing technologies). The documents are almost certainly printed using an impact printer (typewriter or daisy wheel) and are not digitally produced for the following three reasons:
[Snip]
None of the fonts available on the Internet seem to be exact matches, however. It is unlikely that a digital typeface could have produced any of these memos. Specifically, the quality of strike between characters is inconsistent, and the effect caused by photocopying and digitizing are inadequate to explain the differences.
(Excerpt) Read more at imrl.usu.edu ...
POOF!
This is ridiculous.
I can't believe there are still people out there willing to embarrass themselves so as to destroy a president they can't stand.
With respects to Lanny Davis....
Not gonna go there, wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. The memos are fake as is the 'story' behind them. To buy into this BS story is only proof that liberals will never stop trying to get someone to believe their LIES!
" a mechanical Olympia typewriter and the IBM Selectric "
Well, how the hell can this guy provide such in-depth analysis of documents that nobody seems to have the originals of?
Another point...this guy's reume shows no signs of any kind of forensic document training. (see link) http://imrl.usu.edu/Hailey/content/topic01.html
So who the hell is David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D.? Looks like he's a glorified art and english prof. Hmmmmmm... the plot thickens...
Would any so called expert conclude anything definitive from copies?
The reaction of the perpetrators leaves no doubt they didn't trust the authenticity.
This guy stands alone as far as I know in a sea of skeptics amidst powerful pronouncements that these documents are fakes. The statement of Col Walter Staudt alone is powerful, Bill Burkett himself warned that they should be carefully vetted, Gary & Mrs Killian said they were crap, the typist Ms Knox said garbage, Col Hodges said crap, Ghenghis Kahn in Germany said he didn't know squat about them, the term "billets" is Army, not AF and on and on. This PhD is clearly a Kerry Koolaidite.
Yup.
The poor doofus hasn't even seen the overlays that people have created showing how extremely close the forgery matches a creation using MS Word ...
Ok, if this is true, then let's see a sampling of some other memos that came from that Guard Unit at the same time. Should be easy enough to do, right?
Proof of the ironic truth that institutions of higher learning are often just hiding places for stupidity. Truthfully, many of the things the 'expert' outlines are indefensible, even laughable, in the true context of the situation (such as his indepth analysis based on digitized images of documents generations away from the original).
The only line by line comparison he does was with one that he created on a computer!
Hey that's NOT FAIR! The fact that they are photocopies are part of his proof! LOL
BTW... if the copies that CBS posted are any indicator of their current condition...how many generations of copying have occurred to the copies in existance? Even one generation of copying would obliterate many of the fine details of the documents. So how can this fellow see these subtle differences in the paper, subtle flaws in the letters...etc...? And I'm sorry, the variations in the lign straigtness can be more easily explained by someone trying to yank the documents out of a printer while it's still printing...or a bad clutch on the document feeder on a fax machine, etc...(I used to fix copiers and faxes for a living, and know about all kinds of "special effects" you can get off those things, especially when they're not working right).
This guy doesn't seem to pass the smell test.
As for Dr. Hailey, I like his own words:
"My motto, "cogito ergo falsus sum," means "I think, therefor I am wrong." I say it often to remind myself that my opinions are always suspect; I am unqualified to judge the ideas and opinions of others. If I am unqualified, as far as I am concerned, so is anybody else. (That statement is made with the full knowledge that I am unqualified to make it.)"
Typical post-modernist, the-truth-is-whatever-I-think-it-is, relativist namby-pamby.
no amount of additional research on the part of CBS would have lead them to exclude the documents from their 60 Minutes report.OTHER than Staudt retiring in '72 and one memo CLEARLY showed a date in '73?
C'mon - how stupid do you think we are?
No typewriter I ever saw was able to do anything approximating kerning the way Microsoft Word - and the machine which produced these "documents" does.Any typewriter which did do it would be more complex in operation than a standard manual typewriter.
There is no claim that any secretary typed these purported "documents," and not only is all available information to the effect that the colonel who supposedly did type them could not type - yet there is no sign of an erasure anywhere. And, it has to be said, in the pre-WP era being known as someone who could type had a tendency to erode your professional standing (I should know).
No it isn't. It isn't even very close. Spacing is off and you had to use/omit extra periods and characters to get it line up. Even your first line does not match.
Fine, there are plenty of these old typewriters in museums, closets and probably National Guard offices.
It's time for these idiots, or CBS, or Berkett, or anyone to reproduce the memos on a typewriter from that period, much like the bloggers did with MS Word.
Come on, trot em out.
These are people that do not believe in Truth, they believe in a "cause" which to them supercedes truth. They are not dumb, ignorant, or stupid people, just selfish and arrogant.
I agree with you that too often we (I mean people, not writers) assume that we are qualified to do things when we aren't.
Do tell, Dr. Hailey.
This is so bad it is laughable.
He has a picture of a page written on a 1932 Underwood that looks nothing like the typeface on the CBS fraud.
He also does not address the remarkable coincidence of the tabs and word-wrap being identical to MSWord defaults.
He is an "Associate Professor" and he should know that becoming a laughingstock is a career-limiting move.
Let's dig up the sources of this guy's grant money: imrl.usu.edu
Ph. D = Piled higher and deeper
CBS was planning on reporting that we went to war based on those fraudulent documents.
Can they really be that stupid? However, simply by announcing that they are not going to run that story they put the lie out there again for the wackadoodles.
Then I tried an experiment in which I ran off a duplicate of the memos, produced in MS Word in Times New Roman, then copied it twice and faxed it once. The result was distorted in the same way as the memos.
But one factor that couldn't be distorted was the unique spacing characteristics, which match identically--IDENTICALLY--with the MS Word default settings in Times New Roman.
In order for the documents to be genuine, the person who produced them would have to have known those default values and painstakingly applied them in a manner in which he would have had no interest in doing.
Mad professor smoking crack alert!
You might also note that there is evidence of multiple levels copies being made on the same copier: "Stray" marks repeat themselves.
This clymer should be willing to reproduce the documents on a typewriter in public and show that it matches exactly like the word documents does.
One more thing.
Even if the documents were typed on a typewriter, which I don't believe they were, the Signature is very suspicious.
When I sign my name, it is in a continuous movement and generally flowing.
Looking At Killians signature, it appears to be 'jagged' throughout the entire process.
Similar to what a 'forger' would do trying to duplicate someone else's signature.
The 'jaggedness' usually appears because the forger cannot produce a flowing movement, because of the foreigness (being unfamiliar) of the name.
People, don't get yourselves in a lather over this liar. All he's done is make unfounded assertions that he can't possibly support. He might as well keep repeating that time travel is possible. He can say it, but it doesn't make it so.
"He can say it, but it doesn't make it so."
True. But it can be FUN pointing out someone else's desperation and stupidity!!
LOL!!! you found me out.
Phlogistin is the substance that causes fire.
Lead can be transmogrified into gold.
The author of this is a Democrat shill without either the basis for these judgments, nor of course, the original documents to examine. He's allowing his political bias drive his academics. Gee, I've NEVER heard of that happening in any American university before now.
Pity this clown's students.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Kerry Hasn't Read a History Book"
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
Incontrovertible proof that you can find a PhD somewhere to support almost any silly argument.
? Huh ?
This PhD (of what?) is claiming what?
Kerry must be emulating Groucho in "Horsefeathers." Whatever it is, he's against it.
That was exactly my thought when I was reading his article.
"4. Overall inconsistency of the characters goes well beyond what one would expect from photocopying and digitizing and indicates that they were produced using an inconsistent (i.e., 'mechanical') process."
The only proof that he offers for this statement is is a small close up of a picture that was printed, photocopied, and scanned, but evidently only once. He also didn't mention what equipment was used for this "experiment". I have a feeling that it was fairly high end. Notice the other samples are scanned at 4200dpi. A high end scanner set to 300dpi will produce very differant results from a 300dpi fax.
As far as inconsistancy from a digitizing process? I bet Dr. Hailey would be suprised at noise that is added to a signal from low sampling rates and quanitization. Additionally, at some point in time documents created digitally are still subject to a mechanical process. There are a lot of moving parts inside printers and faxes.
But I'm glad that his education background in technical writing gives him such authority to set the record straight.
His resume: http://imrl.usu.edu/Hailey/content/topic01.html
Notice how his thesis research qualifies him for document analysis: "The Objective Metaphors: An Examination of Objects as Metaphors and Metaphors as Objects; 1994"
People like this make me wonder why I'm bothering with grad school at all.
-paridel
David Hailey (Ph.D., University of New Mexico)
Professor Hailey researches and teaches interactive media courses, including online help, online instruction, intranet technologies, and visual design for interactive technologies. His research has been published in journals such as Technical Communication, Computers and Composition, The Journal for the Association of Engineering Educators, and Text Technology. His current research focuses on the processes involved in capturing and archiving critical, professional skills before they are lost.
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