Signature on CBS documents don't match original

Powerline ^ | 9/9/04

[Cableguy]

The signatures on the CBS documents do not appear to be authentic. Check out the two signatures below, courtesy of Michele Catalano of The Command Post. The one on the left is an actual signature of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. The one on the right is from one of the CBS documents. It's not even close; in fact, it doesn't even look like the person who signed it made any attempt to copy Killian's signature:

Since I posted this, a number of readers have written to disagree with me--they think the signature on the right is a crude effort at forgery. Dafydd ab Hugh's characteristically thorough and brilliant analysis is too long to include here, and Diana Magrann also argues persuasively that the signature is an attempt at a forgery.

[Torie]

Hi John. The desert thingie is proving to be a pain in the ass (few obey my explicit "orders." :(

The font thing is where the action is. I doubt if the signatures are forgeries (but of course, cut and paste and re-photocopy is another matter), but I could be wrong, and I really think it would require the originals to really know. Forging where one depresses the pen, even if one is good at it, is really tough. Yes, I have litigated forgery issues.

[Torie]

Well playing the devil's advocate, husband's don't tell their wives everything, and she is probably a Bushbot. :) Frankly, I don't put much weight on her testimony. She wasn't there.

[TheCrusader]

What I notice is that the slant of the letter "J" is much different in the bottom signature; it's more vertical while the first two "J"'s slant markedly to the right. The slant or direction of the writing I believe is what handwriting experts look for.

[jwalsh07]

The signature is neither here nor there. Its easy to photshop anything, even I can do it. So I agree there. But the font thing, the superscript thing and the testimony of the Mom and Son is very powerful as is the testimony of the foremost men in the filed on authenticating these type documents.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. :-}

[Timm]

I don't know. The "K"'s in "Killian" are both significantly different, more than you would expect from the same person signing his name during the same period in his life. Notice the difference in the "n"'s at the end of his name, too.

But the "Jerry" looks pretty good, the same in each one.

[Timm]

Actually, I take that back on the "J"'s, maybe not the same.

Onto Nightline. I haven't watched Koppel since the Bulls won 70, I think.

[Torie]

Of course, we both hope for the same end. We both passionately want Kerry defeated. On that one, there is NO daylight between us. And embarrassing CBS and Rather would be a very savory lagniappe indeed.

[jwalsh07]

Well playing the devil's advocate, husband's don't tell their wives everything, and she is probably a Bushbot. :) Frankly, I don't put much weight on her testimony. She wasn't there.

Except for one thing Counselor. :-}

These files are from the personal files of LTC Killian but the mother and son don't know anything about where they came from.

Now what?

[TheCrusader]

"Frankly, I don't put much weight on her testimony. She wasn't there."

When husbands & wives live together for a very long period of time there is definately a sixth sense in a matter like this. She would probably know her husbands signature, as well as his writing style, as well as her own. Not that it could be entered as "expert testimony", but her feelings still counts as a sort of circumstantial evidence that the document is a fraud.

[Torie]

Maybe some of the personal files were kept elsewhere or purloined. That isn't a smoking gun either. The point is, is that the substance of the memos has a certain verisimilitude. If it was all a forgery, somebody had the right ear for how to give it traction from that standpoint.

[jwalsh07]

LOL, but of course, they aren't stupid they are just misguided lunatics.

[ThomasPaine2000]

Reminds me of an AF Captain I knew, who after having to much to imbibe at the O'Club NAS Pensacola, called for base taxi to take him back to VOQ, When the driver arived, found out who had requested the transportation, laughed and just left him. It was a long walk...

[garjog]

Tin Foil Moment: If Kerry was the actual forger, then he wouldn't have to worry about a leak exposing the hoax. And, coming form the guy who chose to rest his campaign on his Vietnam record maybe he thought that he could get away with it -- just like the V on the Silver Star.

[Redcoat LI]

It's simple,once you put your tinfoil hat on.

That C.I.A guy John Kerry dropped off in Cambodia on Christmas day was Carl Rove in disguise,he told him one day he would need to forge this guy's signature,so Kerry must sighn his name in a differant fashion.

My proof:Carl Rove never wears a hat,he gave it to John Kerry!

[Republican Wildcat]

I'd have to agree with that.

What would be, as another post above noted, proof of forgery would be to find another document with the identical signature on it, showing a copy and paste routine was done.

[The South Texan]

A couple of serious questions here:


Can someone at CBS or whomever fabricated these documents go to jail for forging a person's (even a dead person's) signature to a document?

Is there a Federal Statute involved here as well having to do with falsifying records to make them look official even tough they might be his personal notes? Does that make sense?

[ALWAYSWELDING]

It's the K on Killian that is the give away in my opinion. I get sloppy when I sign sometimes but my pen never starts in the opposite direction as it did at anypoint in the past. If you look at the top of the K, the original is curved to the left and the memo K is curved in the exact opposite direction. This doesn't happen in anyones signature in my experience. A signature is what it is because it is such an automatic movement that it can be verified by even a visual analisis by a even the most inexperienced among us. It could be sloppy, but not without holding it's common patterns.

[Boazo]

[txzman]

No way. I know mine too - but they ALWAYS start out the same.

[LiteKeeper]

For what its worth, Lt. Colonel is not the correct abbreviation. It is either Lt Col, or LTC