..a circa 1967 IBM Electric
Where, oh where could the superscript "th" be? (And check out the apostrophe, too.)
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."
Did Rather at any time claim that these documents were created on the dates stated thereon?
I smell a skunk.
Look, ol' Dan may just have signed CBS off as a reliable news source. And he may have done so trying to earn a place in liberofascist mythology as the newsboy who did in President GWB. His failing in this will be deliciously ironic, since Dan the Goofball may have to retire "infamously" instead of famously.
> ... it is best to just let it all blow over.
I disagree. If opponents are creating forgeries, they
won't stop with this one, and their accomplices in the
legacy media will continue to run with this junk.
This mess needs to be made very painful to both the
forger and CBS.
Are the selected Navy records on Kerry's site forgeries?
The question is now on the table.
Only an SF-180 can answer it.
Ever notice how the left has no problem getting ahold of government files, whether these are forged or not? And notice no one ever goes to prison for it?
**I was doubtful about all the proportional-spaced hubbub, because I know that Selectrics could do that in 1973. But the superscript angle is the nail in Dan's coffin.
Nice work Perry Mason.
**
There is also the issue of the left-curved apostrophes in two of the CBS documents. Word processessors type open and closed quotes, both single and double, curved in opposite directions. The single closed quote also serves as the apostrophe.
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.
Ya know, the typewriters of that period that the govt used were IBM Selectrics. And the type of the day was either pica (10 space) or elite (12 space).
60 Minutes Spokesperson: Kelli Edwards 212-975-6795
...as long as CBS itself didn't forge anything, CBS knows that they haven't made themself liable..."
Not that it would make any difference to them.
When has CBS ever been worried about getting the story right.
No.
Pan Blather came out of an
insufficiently aborted womb
DUPED.
Oh, dear. Did I write that? Shame!
Uhhhh, let me rewrite that . . .
Pan Blather was born that way. There. That's enough.
Bamn Dont Falls!
The problem is confusion about the typewriter used. It was NOT a Selectric. Selectrics did NOT have proportional spacing. To get proportional spacing you needed the IBM Executive. It was very clumsy to use well. Correcting mistakes was difficult because different words had different spacing. The Executive was used only by experienced secretaries. I cannot imagine a GS1 or GS2 having one. I could give you more details about why it was clumsy to use if you are interested.
Thanks.
ping
The NYT, as well. The NYT is now running the same story. I wonder how long it's going to take before both of those stories disappear from the NYT and CBS websites. The more I look at those memos, the smellier it gets. If even I can figure out that it's a fraud, then they really have some 'splainin to do.
Rather IS a DUPE....
LOL
I hope he gets hung out to dry..
The Capt.
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