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."
It seems to me, and I'll check this out later, that the standard date format for my USAF stuff was: DDMMMYY -> 09SEP04
Absolutely. Good catch there.
Some of the documents Bush released have the date in the longer format. That, in itself, only indicates that not everyone was aware of the procedure or thought it was especially important.
NO typewriters in the 70s had "curly quotes" or curved apostrophes. They ALL used "straight" apostrophes - left over from the days when making an exclamation point was a two-part process: apostrophe, backspace, period.
This forgery was by someone too young to be familiar with typewriters.
Our local CBS news just led off with CBS's story from yesterday, with no apparent comment about how the documents are no in question! I could only switch away.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... SNORT!
Did you see Rivera's big BOO BOO when he was covering Hurricane Frances? I think it was Saturday, but it was during the hurricane and he kept showing and talking about this sailboat on the intercoastal waterway that looked in real danger. He went on and on and on about how the guy (that he could see) was in danger and where he was trying to go and how he couldn't get there and how it was unlikely that the Coast Guard would be able to reach him. This went on for about 10 mins it seems. Then we went to lunch. When we came back they had him on again and he was trying to assure people that they didn't haven't to worry about all these boats because they were moored and the owners had left them the night before. All of that panic for an anchored boat. It was too funny. We thought maybe it was Al Capone's boat. :)
CNN played it as a straight story ...Howard Wolfson DEM shill was on Fox...saying Bush should come "clean...Gibson said Clinton said you guys should get away from Vietnam.
What do they mean by "proportional spacing"?
It looks like some of the letters in the "CYA" memo are different point sizes. Look at the "y" in "any" as in "I don't have any feedback" and it looks completely different in size, almost hand-drawn, and lacking its upper serifs. Varying the point size would create the impression of baseline shifting.
...from my stand point about was it around (white out)
I was talking about the military, and normal procedures.
You usually started over on a fresh piece of paper.
Doogle
If this turns out that those documents are fake, it's the end of Kerry's campaign. It should also be the end of Dan Rather's career.
"Typewriters have a straight mark for the quotes and/or apostrophe, so it can be used for any of the marks.
The CBS documents apostrophe is curved, not straight. So they came from a computer, not a typewriter."
***
True. They call it "smart quotes" on a computer. An electric or manual typewriter has no way of knowing if the apostrophe you type is at the beginning or end of a quote. Hence the straight-up-and-down design of the apostrophe.
In short, you're right, and that particular argument is in error.
From everything else, though, I agree these 60 min docs appear forged.
If it is a lefty trying to harm Bush, it is a Bush win because it shows desparation by anti-Bush goons.
If it was done by a Bush supporter, again a Bush win because it shows the desperation of anti-Bush goons, this time, the media who are all too willing join the RAT campaign againt President Bush.
"If the memo were typed by someone else, wasn't it common practice to put the typist's initials somewhere below the signature? Maybe 2-3 lines down left-justified?"
***
It still is. I do this for a living, and the common practice is the initials of the writer of the letter or memo in caps, followed by either a colon or a slash, and then the typist's initials in lower case.
Thanks, we should all be on the same page now.
BUMP .... Look for that picture on the next kitty humor thread. You get credit for it.
212-975-3691
Number found on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133594/posts
Ask just what "investigation" went into authenticating the memos and whether they will offer an on-air retraction.
Demand they apologize for this EXTREME lapse of journalistic practice and basic skills.
Also, contact the president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:
Phone: (212) 975-4321
Fax: (212) 975-1893
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.
