Posted on 09/09/2004 7:33:57 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
See my #608.
I don't care if a $5000 typewriter in 1971 could have produced proportional fonts, this is not posible.
My issue is not with proportional types, but with a small, superscript "th". No one has yet proven to me that this was possible in 1972.
Try this thread where the examples are posted
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211150/posts
I just hope that the docs are really forgeries because if they are not we have just given this story the legs that it didn't have.
Army is correct.
The problem with the secretary hypothesis is that these are supposedly CYA memos destined solely for Killian's "personal file." It's hard to imagine he would have his secretary, after typing such a document, proceed to SIGN it for him. It's somewhat surprising that he would feel the need to sign the document himself.
Which raises another point: what good is a CYA document that doesn't actually go into the file to which it pertains? How does such a document fufill its express purpose of covering Killian's ass if it is not even in the file to be found in the first place?
Thanks for your contribution. If someone can easily duplicate those memos using readily available word processing, CBS has a problem. On the other hand, if someone could come up with an old IBM Executive typewriter model and reproduce them, then the balance tilts back the other way. CBS needs to come up with their source, explain how they came by them and allow examination of the originals. Bet you a beer they don't!
I dunno, maybe we were special, but our family had an IBM Selectric typewriter in the mid 1970s that did proportional fonts.
Just a minor nitpick which doesn't take away from the rest of the analysis.
Desperate people do desparate things.
How is it a non-issue? From what I've read on this thread, it seems to have been impossible to do back then on any commonly available typewriter (or, for that matter, almost ANY typewriter at all...). Hence, it is prima facie proof of a forgery. What am I missing?
Thanks Dave.
WOSG: See #608.
It is true we all knew as a matter of record that Bush had been ordered to take a physical and did not due to non-flying status in Alabama and so was grounded. That is not new. So Memo 1 and 3 appear to buttress but evidently are "new" as saying the same thing but are written differently than what was placed in GWB's file. Memo 2 completely vindicates GWB as Killian notes that GWB informs him he'll take the physical IF he maintains flight status and Killian doesn't note that this is against the rules or anything. Memo 4 is the most obscure and if it is authentic it is open to intrepretation and in the final analysis again does not indicate wrong-doing by Bush.
I see some dems going around very pleased with themselves. I actually just saw Richard Goodstein simpering to Shep Smith that this shows the Bush WH was not forthcoming *and you won't see that with John Kerry*. I wanted to smack his smirking face. How on God's green earth would the WH be in a position to release documents from someone's personal file?
CBS needs to disclose who gave them these documents.
'Preciatecha!
We'll grant that.
What's disturbing is that two completely different printing/typesetting technologies used 30 years apart would give exactly the same results with minimal effort on the part of each user. That's exactly the same (allowing for pixellation by one faxing) spacing, kerning, character shapes, positioning of superscripts, line breaks, use/absence of hyphenation, absence of spelling errors, etc. I've fiddled with nuanced formatting for a couple decades, and there's no way these would match that perfectly with so little effort. Fake. Huge fake.
The "th" superscript is what convinces me this is a FORGERY. You just couldn't do it on typewriters back then.
I agree 100%. There is just no way.
Probably the same guy who guaranteed the authenticity of the Hitler Diaries.
The documents in question are at post #1
This is not problem at all. Just give someone a few days to correct these grave mistakes and come up with a new and improved version of some "authentic" documents.
Go back and read some more. The "th" and proportional fonts were available. There are other issues, so let this one die.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.