Posted on 09/10/2004 4:19:11 PM PDT by ambrose
I saw Rather's piece tonite. He put up a superscript from a typewriter of the time next to the superscript from the document. They didn't look even remotely similar. I can't believe that they would be so sloppy or arrogant as to put that up as proof! The superscript from the typewriter was at the bottom of the line rather than the top and was much larger.
The whole report was incredibly biased and one-sided. No one put on from the other side, no discussion of the numerous other problems with the documents. A handwriting expert who claimed the signature was Killian's when any fool knows that signatures can either be forged or photocopied onto a document! Rather admitted that CBS received photocopies of the documents and not originals. He also sounded hoarse, like he had been shouting all day.
If there's any shred of integrity left at CBS he'll be gone by this time next week.
I just remembered that. Isn't a challenge that anyone who saw Bush at the AL NG will get the money. If that's the case there was a guy on Fox the other day saying that he saw Bush. He wasn't friends w/Bush but remembered him. He called the campaign in 2000 but no-one ever got back to him and they still haven't. I think his name was Calhoun and he was from AK.
Does a forger of a forgery count?
Some typewriters used a couple keys, shifted and not, for "st", "nd", "rd", and "th", all superscripted. I think there may even be some balls for the Selectric III that do that. But the likelihood that a proportional spaced typewriter would have a "th" that would precisely match the width of Microsoft's seems pretty darned slim.
Yes, the apostrophes as well.
I've been following this whole affair with some interest. Having looked at the memo (over at Powerline), and having actually used two models of proportional-spacing typewriters back in the 1980s (the IBM models mentioned in addition to the Olivetti "pin-wheel" style typewriters) in a job I held at a publishing firm, I will offer the following observation to the collective wisdom here:
While it is true that there were proportional-spacing typewriters available from IBM (confirmed) and Olivetti (likely) - even with "th" superscript characters - in the early 1970s, the thing that strikes my eye about the memo is the presence of kerning, which is utterly impossible on any typewriter, whether monospaced or proportional spaced. Even a propotional-spaced typewriter requires a certain amount of spacing around each letter. It's different for each letter in that the width of the letter-character itself will change from letter to letter, while the margin of space around each charcter would be the same. (Monospaced characters allot the same width for each character, so that the margins around an "i" would be greater than those around an "m", for example.) Even if the ANG unit had proportional typewriters, the text presented would not look the way it does, as kerning was still impossible. The only way that this type of kerning could have been accomplished in the 1970s was through a Linotype typsetting machine (or similar device), which would require a couple of hours to set up - a laughably ridiculous premise as such typesetting was reserved for items that were to be printed on an actual press due to its considerable expense.
This, plus numerous other factors (Pwerline gives a good short list), really puts the weight of evidence on the side of those claiming the memos are fraudulent.
Someone with some good pen, some graph paper, and a pantograph might be able to manage. That and either a width table for Times New Roman or else a copy of the document in question.
The IBM Composer was a programable "typewriter" which allowed, through use of codes, a typist to justify right margins, change type and size for specific purpose and turn out a "print-ready" copy. It's price was justified in situations where the cost and use of an actual printer would be prohibitive.
Of course the docs in question are phony as hell.
bump
the link shows other documents typed by that same typewriter.
Good memory, my friend. Now let's talk about a manic/depressive wife and the sex they might or might not have on any given night.
I think there were also means of producing proportionally-spaced type for one-off items such as Kerry's second military citations. But the notion that someone would engrave a memo-to-file is absurd.
As someone who worked in the phototypesetting business I can affirm that it was damned difficult to make superscripts even on high-end systems. If the superscript wasn't included in the font set (and I never saw an "st" or "th" that was, throughout years of technology changes and font producers), you basically had to manufacture it with an elaborate series of codes. Bottom line is, that for anyone typing a simple memo ... especially someone who didn't type ... making a superscript would have been, if not impossible, so time-consuming and difficult as to be hardly worthwhile.
Oh, humblegunner you had me and my wife just splittin' sides on this one. Too freakin' hilarious.
If Killian really did use one of the high falutin' typewriters that did superscripting, centering, Times New Roman, etc., then it should be a relatively easy prospect to find other documents Killian typed using this high end machine. There ought to be hundreds, if not thousands of documents typed on this machine. After all, you wouldn't rate one of the most expensive typewriters on the market, then just have it sit on a desk collecting dust.
C'mon, Rather, since your research is so meticulous, show us some other documents Killian typed on this same top of the line machine.
A typewriter that had a th would also have had to have a st, nd, rd as well. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
Naturally.
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