New Questions On Bush Guard Duty [CBS USES FORGERIES TO SMEAR THE PRESIDENT!!!!!]

CBS ^ | 9/10/04 | Staff

[TastyManatees]

New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

CBS) The military records of the two men running for president have become part of the political arsenal in this campaign – a tool for building up, or blowing up, each candidate’s credibility as America's next commander-in-chief.

While Sen. Kerry has been targeted for what he did in Vietnam, President Bush has been criticized for avoiding Vietnam by landing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard - and then failing to meet some of his obligations.

Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president’s military service – and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

...

But 60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file. Among them, a never-before-seen memorandum from May 1972, where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

Lt. Bush tells his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama…. and may not have time to take his physical." Killian adds that he thinks Lt. Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs."

Col. Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

[TomGuy]

IIRC, the IBM Selectric of that era did have proportional typing ball-heads. They were high-dollar machines, running in the $800+ range.

What bothers me more than the type faces used in the memos is in #1 and #4:

#1 uses the phrase in para. 2: Report to 111th
#4 uses the phrase in para. 1: feedback from 187th

Notice that both 'th' items are raised (superscripted). I don't think that would have been typeable and reduced size. For such raised (superscripted) characters to occur, the typist would turn the platen/carriage slightly downward, type the characters, and return the plate/carriage to its normal position. Note that the characters then, though raised/superscriptied, would be the same size as those characters in the regular line.

Someone more familiar with the Selectric of that era would verify this. Some typeset machines did exist, but they were too expensive and too large to be used in a typical office of that era.

[TYVets]

"CBS is using blatant forgeries to smear the President,"

CBS is just being CBS, true to the way they have operated since the Vietnam war and before.

Business as usual as CBS.

.

[freeperfromnj]

Wow. CNN, the Clinton News Network, is dismissing the charges against the Bush guard service They must be reading the FR investigation threads.

[TYVets]

Dan wants all that back pay for his retirement.

[TomGuy]

Addendum to my post 121:

Memo #3 in para. 2 and para. 3 has the phrase 147th.

Notice that the 'th' in this memo is not raises/superscripted nor reduced size. The 't' and 'h' are on the same line as the other type and not raises. That is how a 'th' would typically have been typed (other than the platen/carriage movement described in post 121) in the 1972 era office.

[bondjamesbond]

The Selectric II did not do this.

Look at the picture...

See the black band on the vertical face just above the keyboard? That is the ball position indicator. It advances one space for each letter, and the indicator jumps one tenth, or one twelfth of an inch for each space, depending on the font pitch selection.

There are five levers on the top of the machine. The rear-most left lever set the font pitch for 10 or 12 spaces per inch. The rear lever on the right adjust the ball for half-spaces for forms and such.

The Selectric II was a nice machine. I held onto mine long after it should have been retired. Either that or a Selectric III were the best ever made at multi-part forms. But it could not do proportional fonts. No way, no how. It had no logic, no memory. It was completely mechanical.

[tophat9000]

From http://www.selectric.org/selectric/index.html

[Soul Seeker]

This is no different than AP lying about what happened at a Bush rally. The Old Media is a Propaganda machine for the DNC, U.N. & terrorists.

[jriemer]

It appears we have reached the phase of the election where the media has devolved into "felons with typewriters"

[aft_lizard]

The easiest way I would suppose would be for some older soldiers here to compare there paperwork from the period and see if the type matches, may not be a perfect way but it is a way.

[mcg1969]

Fair point, sinkspur---however the PowerLine blog entry has further evidence that this is a forgery. Check it out!

For example, the use of the small "th" to represent 147th...

[hawkaw]

This thread is absolutely fascinating.

You guys are outstanding and very interesting work.

[stockpirate]

ping

[nikos1121]

The MSNBC poll is the same one that has has Kerry up 55% to 45% Bush.

nick

[bondjamesbond]

An IBM Selectric II and a IBM Selectric Composer are not the same thing. The Selectric II was either on every secretary's desk, or she was trying to figure out how to get one on her desk, for all of the 1970s. The Selectric II was a great, rugged, reliable machine, but it could not do proportional fonts.

I have been in office environments for twenty five years, and I have never seen a IBM Selectric Composer, ever. This was a piece of specialty equipment, and was not in common use.

[Darksheare]

Read it.
Doubt anything will comeof it until someone gets the goods on who the perp is and it's juicy enough that the media cannot ignore it.

[Bogey78O]

Where's the superscript?

[FourtySeven]

2nd thread mark

[sdkhaki]

According to the IBM archives website, the IBM Executive Series typewriter with proportional spacing was introduced in 1941.

IBM announces the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter, featuring the revolutionary concept of proportional spacing. By assigning varied rather than uniform spacing to different sized characters, the Type 4 recreated the appearance of a printed page, an effect that was further enhanced by a typewriter ribbon innovation that produced clearer, sharper words on the page. The proportional spacing feature became a staple of the IBM Executive series typewriters.

I would still question the authenticity of the actual font face used and the "th" superscript, but it doesn't seem impossible that a 1972 document could have been produced with proportional spacing.

[Bogey78O]

You're right. I got confused with multiple pages I was looking at.