Posted on 09/09/2004 4:42:30 PM PDT by dep
DOCUMENTS CITED Wednesday by 60 Minutes in a widely-publicized expose of George W. Bush's National Guard Service are very likely forgeries, according to several experts on document authenticity and typography. The documents--four memos from Killian to himself or his files written in 1972 and 1973--appear to indicate that Bush refused or ignored orders to have a physical exam required to continue flying. CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported the segment and sourced the documents this way: "60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file," he said. The 60 Minutes story served as the basis for follow-up news reports for dozens of news organizations across the country. The memos were almost immediately questioned in the blog world, with blog Power Line leading the charge.
And according to several forensic document experts contacted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD say the Killian memos appear to be forgeries. Although it is nearly impossible to establish with certainty the authenticity of documents without a careful examination of the originals, several irregularities in the Killian memos suggest that CBS may have been the victim of a hoax.
"These sure look like forgeries," says William Flynn, a forensic document expert widely considered the nation's top analyst of computer-generated documents. Flynn looked at copies of the documents posted on the CBS News website (here, here, here, and here). Flynn says, "I would say it looks very likely that these documents could not
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have existed" in the early 1970s, when they were allegedly written.
Several other experts agree. "They look mighty suspicious," says a veteran forensic document expert who asked not to be quoted by name. Richard Polt, a Xavier University philosophy professor who operates a website dedicated to typewriters, says that while he is not an expert on typesetting, the documents "look like typical word-processed documents."
There are several reasons these experts are skeptical of the authenticity of the Killian memos. First the typographic spacing is proportional, as is routine with professional typesetting and computer typography, not monospace, as was common in typewriters in the 1970s. (In proportional type, thin letters like "i" and "l" are spaced closer together than thick letters like "W" and "M". In monospace, all the letter widths are the same.)
Second, the font appears to be identical to the Times New Roman font that is the default typeface in Microsoft Word and other modern word processing programs. According to Flynn, the font is not listed in the Haas Atlas--the definitive encyclopedia of typewriter type fonts.
Third, the apostrophes are curlicues of the sort produced by word processors on personal computers, not the straight vertical hashmarks typical of typewriters. Finally, in some references to Bush's unit--the 111thFighter Interceptor Squadron--the "th" is a superscript in a smaller size than the other type. Again, this is typical (and often done automatically) in modern word processing programs. Although several experts allow that such a rendering might have been theoretically possible in the early 1970s, it would have been highly unlikely. Superscripts produced on typewriters--the numbers preceding footnotes in term papers, for example--were almost always in the same size as the regular type.
So can we say with absolute certainty that the documents were forged? Not yet. Xavier University's Polt, in an email, offers two possible scenarios. "Either these are later transcriptions of earlier documents (which may have been handwritten or typed on a typewriter), or they are crude and amazingly foolish forgeries. I'm a Kerry supporter myself, but I won't let that cloud my objective judgment: I'm 99% sure that these documents were not produced in the early 1970s."
Says Flynn: "This looks pretty much like a hoax at this point in time."
CBS, in a statement Thursday afternoon, said it stands by the story. The network claims that its own document expert concluded the memos were authentic. There are several things CBS could do to clear up any confusion:
(1) Provide the name of the expert who authenticated the documents for Sixty Minutes.
(2) Provide the original documents to outside experts--William Flynn, Gerald Reynolds, and Peter Tytell seem to be the consensus top three in the United States--for further analysis.
(3) Provide more information on the source of the documents.
(A spokeswoman for CBS, Kelly Edwards, said she was overwhelmed with phone calls and did not respond to specific requests for comment.)
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
I suppose this will lead us to the "Clinton Liars in Action Plan" aka CLAP and would suppose that unless Freepers go after them, the Dem OWNED media will "kill it". It loooks like they're on that path already.
CBS has no more credibility than Al Jazera.
Authentic? How about authentic forgeries?
Thank you for the post.
Forgery AND Fraud.
They can't. They don't have the original. IMO.
In an upcoming 60 Minutes segment, Dan Rather will produce documents suggesting that George Bush was involved in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
developing...
It's Bill Gates fault!
Rather was probably an eyewitness.
Is CBS having a meltdown? What the heck were they thinking?
The blogosphere comes of age...
If the forgers were smart enough to use Linux, they may have gotten away with this. (Joking, I actually use Linux)
If they had the original "typewritten" document then wouldn't it still have indentations from the striker keys?
The Scrappleface article needs its own thread.
FOFL.....THAT's where they got the letter.....from NIGERIA!!!!
Now that's got some gravitas.
And FR got it all rolling. Between this and the Swiftboat Vets, the New Media has come fully of age.
Actually another Freeper on another thread pointed out that forging military records (even of an air national guard unity) may be a fairly serious felony!
I think we should start using the term for this as
Kerry's (Dan Rather's) Felony-Forgery-Gate
Quote from CBS expert: "Yes, they're real," she said as she gently pressed the papers to her chest.
LOL!
Kerry had no idea who he was up against. We've got FR and all he's got is those lousy trial lawyers!
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