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60 Minutes to Infamy- those forged memos and The Shot Heard Round the World
various FR links | 09-10-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

Posted on 09/10/2004 4:28:44 AM PDT by backhoe

Here is a pretty good current summary of the situation:
The Shot Heard Round the World   The echoes of the big Internet bang which annihilated a 60 Minutes story in under 12 hours are still resounding. The key riffs apparently started at Powerline and as Samizdata notes, the distributed intelligence of the Internet took over. Under the scrutiny of thousands of analysts, the CBS story began to melt down.
 
The start of it all:
 Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard
 
-more-
The Thread that broke the Camels Back:Post 47, and the Freepers who busted C.B.S.
 Let us not forget the contribution of TankerKC
 "Free Republic: Tomorrow's News Today."
 
 Forged Documents (electronic overlay of CBS PDF file and Word document) [perfect match]  CBS and the rest of the MSM - the Old media - with their JFKs - Journalists for Kerry - have been working overtime to bury Bush since he won the election. Do they stop at anything or is any lie too big for them?
 
 Authenticity of Bush memos questioned Typographical, formatting questions emerge
 
 CBS News denies Bush docs forged (CBS in credibility meltdown)
 
 CNN Still Ignoring Falsity Of Docs  Old Media-Old School. Five years ago they would have gotten away with it.
Thank you, Rush Limbaugh, the godfather of the New Media.
 
 New Documents May Shed Light on Bush Military Rec (AP ran this story even after forgery revealed)
 
 Bush Piloted Guard Trainers Before He Quit (AP buries new info on hoax)
 
 Guard Memos Fuel Another Vietnam-Era Battle; ... some question the documents' authenticity
 

Microsoft announces release of Word '73
 
 Guard memos on Bush fake, says squadron leader's son (new information about the signature)
 
 Woman at CBS Just Yelled at me and hung up! (212) 975 3691
 
 60 Minutes docs on Bush may be fake (UPI)
 

Guard records stir Democrats
- saying 'character counts' in a president --
 
Question: Who from the Kerry campaign is responsible?
 
 Democrats.com asks volunteers to replicate forged memos on their typewriters
 
CBS'S BIG BLUNDER? (Credits Free Republic)
 The Minneapolis lawyers who run powerlineblog.com were on the case early. Two of the blog's readers directed their attention to a note left on an Internet bulletin board on the freerepublic.com Web site — the 47th posting on the topic there.
 Post #47
 
 Pro-Kerry Media Expose Their Partisanship
 
 Seattle P-I running dubunked Bush docs in big headline (Day after questions arose)  "Dewey Beats Truman," only worse!
 
 Steve Malzberg on WABC with the forgery story
 
 John Ziegler on KFI (Los Angeles) discussing Forgery Documents  John Ziegler on KFI out here is all over this. His first segment was a brilliant lead in, playing all the groups and individuals attacking President Bush on the memos. He is making the case for a complete coordinated attack by the media and the DNC and the Kerry campaign.
http://www.kfi640.com/interactive/streaming.html
 
 But Why? (list of candidates who forged the CBS document)  This was going to be a late October surprise. They were going to release these forged documents on the weekend before the election, In this manner the Republicans wouldn't have time to respond. However, Kerry's numbers were so low, they panicked and release earlier
 
 Democrats Step Up Attack on Bush Guard Record  A link has been established between sKerry and the forgeries. Check out related stories on Drudge. 
 [Killian] WIDOW TO APPEAR ON 'NIGHTLINE'... Live Thread 
 CBSNEWS LAUNCHES INTERNAL INVESTIGATION AFTER SUSPICIOUS BUSH DOCS AIRED (drudge Siren)
 There's also some information on the American Spectator  
 Anatomy of a Forgery
 site that makes a connection. Kerry is a stupid desperate man right now.
 
 WHO faked the "60 Minutes" documents?
 
 Late Atlanta news ignores controvery over documents... Reports about Bush AWOL only...  Like the booing story, they will do everything they can not to retract. Folks, its painfully true - the media is not about reporting the news, but about advancing a liberal and Democrat agenda. It's becoming more and more clear.
 
 McAuliffe Statement on Breaking News About Bush's Military Record  It's too perfect to have this press release right after the story.
 
 The Media Prepare Kerry's Excuse
 
 O.K. Fill ME IN. JUST HOW WAS DAN RATHER CAUGHT WITH PANTS DOWN?
 Rathergate
 
 DNC ACTION ALERT: Demand the truth from Bush on National Guard service  Thanks. Once the document story settles, and (if) they are proven to be fakes, I plan to e-mail this to a lot of folks to show just how slimy the DNC can get.
 Gosh, the DNC is gonna have to stay up all night to keep up with the New Media in the future, aren't they?
 
 Burden now on CBS to authenticate its documents, lest it become a co-conspirator in fraud
 
 Valley Widow Casts Doubts on Bush Memos
 
 Killian's Wife Disputes Document Authenticity
 
 Signature on CBS documents don't match original
 
And finally, the MSM ( MainStreamMedia, AKA the Jackal Pack Press ) catches up with the New Media of the Internet & Talk Radio:
 WASH POST - "SOME QUESTION AUTHENTICITY OF PAPERS"  This is just too wonderful if this blows up in CBS face. And may I add the face of the national media as a whole who all ran with this story completely!
 False Documentation? Questions Arise About Authenticity of Newly Found Memos on Bush's Guard Service  As the honorable judge and great American Sanders Sauls of Floriduh once said during the Gore War... "It's like being nibbled to death by ducks."
 
 Killian Signed a Doc with a Different Typeface and Other Diffs One Year Later (FR EXCLUSIVE)
 
 CBS Bush's National Guard Service Documents --Hoax??
 Kudos to our friends on FREE REPUBLIC who I understand started this ball rolling. My understanding of the timeline:

Free Republic members post about the documents being BS.

Story picked up by INDC Journal http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000838.php

The Blogosphere picks it up at:
Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php
Little Green Footballs http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Drudge does what Drudge does http://www.drudgereport.com/

The blogs continue to run with it and the evidence continues to mount.

The Weekly Standard picks up the story (see above posts)

CBS stands behind their story.

CBS capitulates. Then....

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html

MSNBC
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5955784/

ABCNews
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/bush_documents_040909-1.html


The Main Stream media ("MSM") is TOAST. This story show the power of the web, the power of the blog and the demise of the MSM.

The shift is shown by our Free Republic brothers, and our own Grig (with the subliminal story break).

A huge hit to the credibility of the leftist MSM has just been struck...lets stand back and bask in the glow.

Pat yourselves on the back...you deserve it.
 
Fox News to break forged document story ON NOW!  The only down side on this that I can see is that we haven't gotten to spend any time discussing Teressa calling us all "common people"...
 
 
 
 Son of Late Officer Questions Memos Attributed to His Dad  Just to realize that in less than 24 hours, TankKC's suspicon and Freepers' fabulous investigative skills and know-how hatched the biggest story to hit the air waves since Zell's give-em-hell speech. Hell has just frozen over for CBS and Kerry/Edward...
-more-
 
 Hello SEAN HANNITY ( Hannity credits FR with breaking "Selectragate" document scandal )
 
 
 
 
 
 "Crude and amazingly foolish forgeries"  -see my COLOCALIZATION of one of the "original" ANG documents with a Microsoft Word version written in Times New Roman.
 
 
 
 
Final nail in coffin:
 
Was Rather Duped by Anti-Bush Hoax?
 
 Bush Guard Documents: Forged  Well in truth CBS said the "believed" them to be authentic. They have given themselves a legal out. They didn't or can't "CERTIFY" them as authentic.
 I've been working in the field for over 20 years and currently serve with a text processing company so I am intimately familiar with these technologies. The document is an OBVIOUS forgery. Note last night I cautioned it's probably not even worth the exercise because it's not part of the current agenda. However, now that this forgery has been proven so effectively, Dan Rather must be held accountable.
 
 They are spinnig as fast as they can. In the wake of the revelation these documents are fake they think they can spin it into a negative for the White House.
 
 If theses DOCs are proven to be a hoax......The election is OVER and Dan Rather's career ends on the low note he'll be remembered for and rightly so.
 
THe THmoking Gun on Forged Killian Memos: UPDATE to Powerline Blog's "61st Minute" EvidenTH
 
 
 Bush "Memos" Look Forged  There are a couple of threads like this going, Howlin is trying to get all the info consolidated in one place. Could you repost your info here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210702/posts?q=1&&page=301
 
Better read this;
 In summary, the variable type reveals the Killian memos to be crude forgeries, the tiny "th" confirms it in the 8/18/73 memo, and I offer my other points as icing on the cake.
 


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2004electionbias; 60minutes; 60minuts; backhoe; barnes; benbarnes; brownshirtsforkerry; bush; bushmemos; cbs; cbsmemos; ccrm; danrather; democratslie; dirtytricks; dncliars; forged; forgeries; forgery; fraud; frlibrarians; goebbelswouldbeproud; guards; hoax; hoaxmemos; kerry; kerrycampaign; killian; libel; lyingliars; mediabias; memogate; nationalguard; ratherbiased; rattricks; slander; smearcampaign; snopes; snopesmia; stephenfhayes; tang; texasnationalguard; thebiglie
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To: backhoe

Good Work!


161 posted on 09/14/2004 9:40:30 AM PDT by BJungNan (Stop Spam - Do NOT buy from junk email.)
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To: BJungNan
Thanks for looking- I am going to merge any more updates over here:

-John Kerry- some selected, informative links...--

162 posted on 09/14/2004 9:51:13 AM PDT by backhoe (1990's? Decade of Frauds. 2000's? Decade of Lunatics...)
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To: backhoe

If there's an annual award for the Greatest Cataloger in Cyberspace, it has got to be named the backhoe Award.

You are the man.

Bookmarked.


163 posted on 09/14/2004 9:53:31 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez ( Even Jane Fonda apologized. Will you, John?)
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To: Luis Gonzalez

Appreciate the kind words- thanks, Luis!


164 posted on 09/14/2004 10:33:44 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old Keyboard Cowboy, ridin' the Trackball into the Sunset...)
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To: All
 
 The man behind Rathergate

165 posted on 03/14/2005 11:46:05 PM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: backhoe

Another gem! Bookmarked for posterity.


166 posted on 03/14/2005 11:58:45 PM PST by bad company (There can be no freedom without right and wrong.)
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To: bad company

167 posted on 03/15/2005 12:32:17 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: All
The Producer (Mary Mapes produced story which accused cops of lying!)
 
 STICKING TO HER STORY (Mapes "No one has proved that the documents were not authentic")
 
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Mary Mapes: Rathergate Revisionist

Ousted CBS Producer Comes Out Swinging, and connects with absolutely nothing. Mapes’s pathetic attempt to continue the charade that the CBS National Guard memos were genuine documents is simply destroyed by this animated GIF graphic, showing my version created in minutes with the default settings in Microsoft Word for Mac OS X, overlaid on the CBS News Killian memo supposedly from August 19, 1973:

But if you need more, TigerHawk tears apart Mapes’s ridiculous, transparently self-serving excuses.

01:24 PM PST | link: 128 comments


168 posted on 11/09/2005 4:16:25 PM PST by backhoe
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To: All
Rush Limbaugh: Mary Mapes, Basket Case
169 posted on 11/10/2005 2:00:35 AM PST by backhoe
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To: All
Memo-Gate (Document Authenticator Speaks Out on Mary Mapes's Lies in Her New Book) -- MUST READ after the president's speech.
 MEMO-GATE (one of CBS's "lousy analysts" speaks
 
 Mary Mapes lying up a storm in WaPo live chat

170 posted on 11/11/2005 1:09:35 PM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: All
 
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php

CBS Document Examiner: Mapes is Lying

Emily Will, the document examiner who expressed serious misgivings about the infamous CBS News National Guard memos even before they were definitively proven to be fakes, takes apart some of the false and misleading claims in ex-producer Mary Mapes’ ridiculous book: MemoGate - Duty to Tell the Truth. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/

Those Wild And Hateful Bloggers

The architect chief victim of Rathergate is out flogging a book. It doesn't appear as though she used the time off since her firing to improve her research skills. The "anonymous" Bill Ardolino;

I will grant her one thing - the "school of sharks" analogy is pretty accurate, though her description of a helpless victim (a multi-million dollar respected professional news organization) is a bit ... off. And let's not forget who chummed the water.


This is good, too.

Posted by Kate at 12:01 AM | Comments (6)

171 posted on 11/11/2005 2:58:58 PM PST by backhoe (The Silence of the Tom's ( Tired Old Media... ))
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To: All
 Buckhead sent this message to Powerline last night informing them of his Web page refuting Mapes...
 
 How did Buckhead know? (Rathergate and Mapes) -- One aspect not often reported is the writing style. Before I even noticed the font spacing,  I noticed they were using the "new" USAF writing style which was introduced circa 1993.
 
 BUCKHEAD REFUTES MARY MAPES ON RATHERGATE DOCS

172 posted on 11/21/2005 2:46:52 PM PST by backhoe (The Silence of the Tom's ( Tired Old Media... ))
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To: All
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Slate Floats the Fake But Accurate Theory Again

These guys just never stop trying to pull that wool back over our eyes.

The latest mainstream media mouthpiece to float the idea that the CBS Texas Air National Guard memos—shown conclusively to be obvious frauds—could possibly be genuine is Timothy Noah at Slatelink: 110 comments


173 posted on 02/01/2006 1:41:43 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: All
Mapes: Crazy or Lying?

Mary Mapes is in the Huffington Post (your one-stop source for the craziest of the loony left) today, insisting once again that the fraudulent CBS National Guard memos were genuine typewritten documents from the 1970s: Mary Mapes: In Defense of Dan Rather.

As Newsbusters says:   link: 194 comments

"Typical Drive-By Media ( LLL3 ) partial truth hand waving bullsh*t. She's such a defensive malevolent liar."

174 posted on 06/07/2006 1:19:00 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, Ridin' the Trakball into the Dawn of Information)
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To: All
Rather Moralizing

The guy who tried to defraud the American public and skew a presidential election with phony documents moralizes about “right-wing hatred:” Dan Rather on pro-Bush hate. "I think the "vitriol" is coming from the fact that most sane people are "laughing" at the far left and Dan Rather. And the left can't stand it. "


175 posted on 08/03/2006 3:56:21 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, Ridin' the Trakball into the Dawn of Information)
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To: All
In the Stark, Starin' Bonkers Dept:

Rather On King: Incoherent

Dan Rather appeared on Larry King Live tonight, and the most charitable description one can give Rather is incoherent. He could barely complete a sentence, and when he could, he sputtered about grand conspiracies among "Big Corporations" to undermine independent journalism. Declaring that "this is the right fight at the right time," he couldn't explain why he told Larry King that he and CBS made a mistake in running the story, only eight months after the collapse of the CBS story.

It's almost breathtaking in its excruciating wonder. He says that he's the only man who bring out the truth about what happened at CBS, when he could stammer out a coherent thought at all. Bear in mind that the truth-seeking Rather still thinks that his source (Bill Burkett) has never been impeached, that the type-set memos still haven't been proven impossible to produce on the Texas Air National Guard's typewriters of the day, that Rather ignores that Burkett now no longer claims that he delivered the originals to CBS but retyped copies from a mysterious Lucy Ramirez, and that the memos themselves had numerous context and formatting errors. If the truth bit Dan Rather on any of his extremities, he still wouldn't recognize it.

Of course, Rather tried to steer the conversation away from the documents whenever he could. He now claims that the documents are little more than red herrings, even though CBS proclaimed them as the proof of their story at the time. Instead of acknowledging the fraud of the memos, he accused Dick Thornburgh of participating in a fraud in the internal CBS investigation. He insists that the network forced him to deliver a fraudulent apology -- well, more or less forced, as he continually backed away from it. When that didn't work, he kept bringing up Abu Ghraib, as if that story -- which CBS reported months earlier -- had anything to do with the TANG story.

The one word that describes Rather outside of incoherent is paranoid. He keeps blaming Big Corporations and Big Government for his downfall, and thinks people like Sumner Redstone and Les Moonves are in on the conspiracy, along with the Bush administration. He held himself up as the epitome of the objective, idealistic journalist, the only one willing to tell Truth to Power. However, when King played a clip from Mike Wallace in 2006 saying that Rather should have resigned when CBS fired the team that produced the TANG story, Rather got rather defensive about having all of his previously-declared integrity challenged.

King, by the way, barely kept his skepticism hidden. He wasn't buying it, and neither would anyone who watched this pathetic collapse of Rather.

UPDATE: Our friend Bernie Goldberg also called Rather "paranoid" -- and that was before Rather's appearance on Larry King. Goldberg says CBS shouldn't and won't settle. The most delicious part of this lawsuit will be CBS arguing that the memos were fraudulent, because that's the only way they can defend against Rather's suit.

UPDATE II: A couple of minor grammatical corrections, as well as mistakenly putting Abu Ghraib after the TANG story instead of before it. That begs the question -- if CBS wanted to curry favor with the Bush administration, why would Les Moonves have allowed the Abu Ghraib story to remain at the top of the CBS play list for so long?

Posted by Ed Morrissey on September 20, 2007 10:02 PM | Comments (28)

"Charles Johnson, at Little Green Footballs, live blogged this. It seems Dan Rather made a statement about "Little Green Flame." ... Not that he knows anything about the Internet, mind you.

For those who don't remember? Charles Johnson put up the pulsing "overlays." Taking the C-BS "memo" used by Rather, as "proof" that Bush avoided his National Guard Service.

And, that's where you could see the Microsoft program; in Courier; doing the proportional spacing that was UNAVAILABLE in the 1970's.

Proving that what Dan Rather was saying was FAKE. Not even forged. SInce real documents never existed.

Lucy Ramirez never existed.

And, Bush did not lose his re-election bid in 2004.

Left a lot of the mainstream media, reporting election night, as if someone in the family had died. They were glum.

Now? Dan Rather's just crazy."

Mapes' Mother-of-all-Rants--Mapes's meltdown-in-the-guise-of-a-column appeared in yesterday's Huffington Post. Excerpts from the metaphor-gone-wild "Courage for Dan Rather"  No basis in fact? I challenge Mapes to debunk this "Little Green Footballs" item of September 10, 2004. The author overlays the infamous "CYA" Memogate document on a Word document he created. It's not just a good fit. Not merely a close fit. It is an absolutely perfect, down to the last jot-and-tittle fit. Mapes has no basis in reality.

Mary Mapes: Still Lying, Even More Bitter

Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 4:43:14 pm PDT

In a borderline psychotic screed at Arianna Huffington’s hate site, Mary Mapes peddles lies to the left-wing sheep, who all believe her: Mary Mapes: Courage for Dan Rather. 292 comments

Rather Sues CBS for Damaging His Reputation

Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 12:41:41 pm PDT

Dan Rather, who was the stooge in a plot to tilt a presidential election with phony documents, is suing CBS for $70 million, and still insisting the documents weren’t proven to be fake.

Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005.

He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.” As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its chief executive, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.

It wasn’t the investigation that damaged Rather’s reputation. It was his own actions ... and this:

UPDATE at 9/19/07 1:23:28 pm:

Bummerdietz looks forward to discovery.


176 posted on 09/21/2007 4:48:42 AM PDT by backhoe (Just a Merry-Hearted Keyboard PirateBoy, plunderin’ his way across the WWW…)
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Rather’s Ruin and the Rise of the Pajamahadeen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938403/posts

This is Chapter 13 of the new book To Set the Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry,.... It tells the story of how Freepers ([at Free Republic.com]) exposed Dan Rather’s fraudulent National Guard documents story during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Excerpt:

[..................]

The carefully orchestrated efforts of CBS News, the Kerry campaign and the DNC began to unravel while “For the Record” was still on the air. At 7:39 P.M. Eastern, twenty minutes before 60 Minutes Wednesday began, FreeRepublic.com poster “Howlin” started a “live thread” to track the program as it aired. On that thread, presciently titled, “Ben Barnes and CBS Attempt Another Bush Smear (60 Minutes),” the Freepers posted sardonic commentary (“I just sent another donation to the Swiftees” and “CBS should have to register as a Democrat 527”) as the segment unfolded. Minutes into the segment, close-ups of the documents were briefly shown. At 8:19 P.M., Paul Boley, an active duty Air Force officer in Alabama, posted as “TankerKC”:

WE NEED TO SEE THOSE MEMOS AGAIN!

They are not in the style that we used when I came in to [sic] the USAF. They looked like the style and format we started using about 12 years ago (1992). Our signature blocks were left justified, now they are right of center . . . like the ones they just showed.

Can we get a copy of those memos?

60 Minutes ended its report and went off the air, but on FreeRepublic.com the discussion and analysis carried on far into the night. At 9:44 P.M., “jhouston” posted:

I was in the AF Reserve in [19]72 stationed at Ellington AFB (same as Bush). I was a personal clerk and was responsible for cutting numerous orders (mostly TDA, short term activations and reassignments).

I cannot speak for procedures at the TANG, but I assume they followed the same procedures that we did.

All of the memos showed a centered TYPED heading instead of being typed on letterhead (yes we used letterhead or standardized forms back then).

ALL order [sic] were typed on a standardized form. . . .

One minute later, “BamaDi” replied to “TankerKC’s earlier post”:

i didn’t watch 60 minutes but you’re exactly right about the signature blocks . . . goodness, i should know, i was a secretary for the DAF from 1969 to 1991 when i left the pentagon to work for the navy and the signature block was ALWAYS on the left hand margin. . . .

At 11:11 P.M., “Pikamax” started a second discussion thread for the New York Times’ front-page article for Thursday’s paper: “Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard.” At 11:18, Howlin linked to the newly posted memos at CBSNews.com. Now, those tracking the thread could assess the documents for themselves.

Then, at 11:59:53, Harry MacDougald, a conservative 46-year-old Atlanta attorney posting at FreeRepublic.com as “Buckhead,” fired the shot heard ’round the Web:

Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.

The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90’s. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn’t used for personal memos to file.

Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80’s used monospaced fonts.

I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.

This should be pursued aggressively.

At 12:10 A.M., MacDougald added:

This is going to be hilarious, because every major news organization is running with this bogus story like it’s a new toy on Christmas morning.

To which “NYCVirago” replied at 12:15 A.M.:

Exactly. It seems like that if CBS were concerned about journalistic integrity, instead of smearing Bush, they would have checked out the authenticity of these documents, something you figured out in a quick perusal of them.

MacDougald’s assessment was on the money: the memos were printed in Times New Roman, Microsoft Word’s default font. An explosion of research and analysis followed.

At 7:51 A.M., Scott Johnson featured MacDougald’s revelations at Power Line in an article titled, “The Sixty-First Minute.” More information poured in as the blog’s readers contrasted the characteristics of the memos with the capabilities of 1970’s-vintage typewriters. Perhaps the most damning observations came from Jon-Erik Prichard:

1. The type in the [August 18, 1973] document is KERNED. Kerning is the typ[e]setter’s art of spacing various letters in such a manner that they are ‘grouped’ for better readability. Word processors do this automatically. NO TYPEWRITER CAN PHYSICALLY DO THIS.

To explain: the letter “O” is curved on the outside. A letter such as “T” has indented space under its cross bar. On a typewriter if one types an “O” next to a “T” then both letters remain separated by their physical space. When you type the same letters on a computer next to each other the[y] are automatically “kerned” or “grouped” so that their individual spaces actually overlap. e. g., TO. As one can readily see the curvature of the “O” nestles neatly under the cross bar of the “T”. . . . A typewriter doesn’t “know” what particular letter is next to another and can’t make those types of aesthetic adjustments.

2. The kerning and proportional spacing in each of the lines of type track EXACTLY with 12 point Times Roman font on a six inch margin (left justified). . . .

3. The sentences have a wide variance in their AMOUNT of kerning and proportional spacing. . . . Even the characters themselves are squished in the first line (as a computer does automatically) and more spread out on the last line where there is more room.

There’s no way a typewriter could ‘set’ the type in this memo. . . .

Another Power Line reader noted that none of Killian’s previously released 1970s memos had used superscripting­the raised printing of suffixes in unit numbers such as “111th” and “147th”­but the 60 Minutes memos did. Superscripting, assuming it could be found at all on a 1970s-era typewriter, was an expensive, specialized feature, one unlikely to be found on the office machine of a Texas Air National Guard commander.

Power Line’s analysis concluded with eloquent simplicity: “60 Minutes is toast.”

During a Swift Vets phone conference on Thursday morning, the group’s chairman, Admiral Roy Hoffmann, asked the group whether the 60 Minutes story was likely to affect the group’s own efforts. The consensus was that it would. A CRC representative pointed out that all the major papers and networks were featuring the story and suggested it would likely overshadow the Swift Vets’ message for some time. Scott Swett had tracked the story overnight as the memos were systematically exposed by FreeRepublic.com and the blogs. Now, feeling like a man reporting back from a day or two in the future, Swett told the Swift Vet leaders that the documents were forgeries, the story was doomed, and the Kerry campaign’s counterattack was dead on arrival. CRC quickly contacted Cybercast News Service (CNS), which had three typographical experts examine the documents and started working on a story.

By Thursday afternoon, West coast bloggers were adding compelling new evidence to the case against CBS. Little Green Footballs host Charles Johnson provided a visual coup de grace at 10:24 A.M. Pacific [1:24 P.M. Eastern]:

9/9/2004: Bush Guard Documents: Forged

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft’s Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date “18 August 1973,” then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as “authentic.”

A screenshot of the “original” document as found at CBS: [snip]

Continue reading here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938403/posts


177 posted on 04/19/2009 11:25:43 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (The worst of the pirates are in D.C. We aren't safe.)
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To: All
Well, well, well...
( Grandmaw's last words, when she fell in it... )

Son offa Bee! It just won't stay dead:

MORE NEWS ON THE RATHERGATE SCANDAL: Mary Mapes knew before she put the story on the air that George W. Bush, the alleged slacker, had in fact volunteered to go to Vietnam.

178 posted on 08/26/2009 1:36:08 AM PDT by backhoe (All across America, the Lights are going out...)
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To: backhoe

Some stories should never die!


179 posted on 09/08/2009 3:22:30 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bomb-a administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: editor-surveyor
Some stories should never die!

Agreed- like the proverbial albatross.

Thanks for stopping by.

180 posted on 09/08/2009 4:02:21 PM PDT by backhoe (All across America, the Lights are going out...)
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