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."
Wow. That document is amazing. Looks just like the ones from CBS.
Click the link to read the details.........ANG Docs are Fake
Hank All-American | September 9, 2004 | Hank All-American
Posted on 09/09/2004 2:16:21 PM CDT by Hank All-American
Okay, guys and gals. As a former Air Force officer and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), I have reviewed the documents released by CBS and can say with a high degree of confidence they are fake.
He's gone, Sarge. Drat, I always miss the fun.
"The CBS documents apostrophe is curved, not straight. So they came from a computer, not a typewriter."
"Clearly, the apostrophes in the documents are curved. I am not familiar with the typewriters in question. If it is true that typewriters from this time period have straight apostrophes, it pretty much confirms a forgery."
I just performed an interesting little experiment. I graduated from high school in 1989. For my graduation gift, my Grandmother bought me a brand new Smith Corona typewriter model Deville 265. This was one of the most advanced typewriters on the market. I think she paid over $200.00 for it. I'm ashamed to say that I hardly ever used it in all of these years. However, I just dug it out and tried using both the single and double apostrophes. Both of them came out straight! This typewriter even has the "Spell Right II Dictionary" with a LCD readout. Even with all of this stuff, the apostrophes are as straight as an arrow! When did opposing curved apostrophes come out in typewriters? I honestly don't think that I have ever seen one before.
No I believe it is the fonts that were use on a typewriter in 1970 are not the same that was used on the supposed document furnished by 60 mins to prove that Bush missed guard duty. My must you be so foolish to post the comments like you did. thanks for playing ... buh buh!
It's quite likely that Begala and Carville are behind the strategy. SOP for them. Lost a small positive story (AWOL Bush) in the hopes of destroying a huge negative one (Kerry Liar).
Got scandal fatigue?
I so want this story to be true. It'd be so damn entertaining. I've been following it all day.
yeah it was called another piece of paper...lmao!!!
Actually, white out has been longer than you may think:
In 1956, Bette Nesmith Graham started the Mistake Out Company (later renamed Liquid Paper) from her North Dallas home. She turned her kitchen into a laboratory, mixing up an improved product with her electric mixer. Graham’s son, Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame), and his friends filled bottles for her customers. Nevertheless, she made little money despite working nights and weekends to fill orders. One day an opportunity came in disguise. Graham made a mistake at work that she couldn’t correct, and her boss fired her. She now had time to devote to selling Liquid Paper, and business boomed.
By 1967, it had grown into a million dollar business. In 1968, she moved into her own plant and corporate headquarters, automated operations, and had 19 employees. That year she sold one million bottles. In 1975, Liquid Paper moved into a 35,000-sq. ft., international headquarters building in Dallas. The plant had equipment that could produce 500 bottles a minute. In 1976, the Liquid Paper Corporation turned out 25 million bottles. Its net earnings were $1.5 million. The company spent $1 million a year on advertising, alone.
The above is snipped from this site:
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blliquid_paper.htm
No, Dan Rather was no duped.
Dan Rather is the willing accomplice in perpetrating this fraud.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210987/posts?page=127#127
Note, the apostrophe's are straight.
Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that.I thought that was a great movie, too.
Too Late. Post # 73 removed. : (
I believe that Rather is "rather complaisant " and needs to be held personally responsible. The Swift Boat information was ignored and scrutinized as nauseum because it was a story that the Media did not want to report. The forged documents happended to support the Media's position so no scrutiny was necessary.
Time for a celebratory Diet Dr. Pepper. Life is good. Even after 11 inches of rain.
I just dragged out some old letters I typed on a 1973 IBM Selectric and the apostrophe is straight up 'n down like the one here...Sample: ' ' ' '' ' ' ' ' '' '' '
It was used with a Letter Gothic "ball" at pitch 12.
**
Note, the apostrophe's are straight.
**
And also note that even though there are the fractions 1/2 and 1/4, there is no small "th" for ordinal numbers. (Nor the "st" nor "nd" either, although they were never used in the CBS memos. But it would not make sense for IBM to incorporate a "th" superscript without also including the "st" and "nd" along with it.)
..and there is NO superscript "th" as found in the apparently forged documents relied on by CBS.
While the Selectrics of the time offered an exclamation mark, the straight apostrophe in other typewriters afforded one the ability to create such a mark by typing the apostrophe, backspacing and typing a period.
Now wouldn't a curved apostrophe look goofy above the period?
I would submit that there is a due diligence standard that they need to have met, and IMHO they didn't (even I would have know to question the modern appearance of 32 year-old memos).
If I'm right in a legal sense, they were therefore negligent.
Whether the negligence is actionable is another matter, but if I were CBS I would at least be working up a bit of a sweat right now.
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