[goldstategop]

Professor Cartwright has more credibility than Dan Rather and moreover can speak from experience to the nature of the difference between typewriters and modern word-processing systems. Too bad CBS NEWS didn't bother to run the memos by him BEFORE going public with the story. They wouldn't have gotten the black eye they've deservedly received.

[Southack]

1-- proportional spacing not generally available
2 -- superscripts not generally available
3 - small "th" single element not generally available (not common, but available. Highly unlikely the machines were available at TANG)
4 - Smart quotes. Curved apostrophes and quotation marks were not available
5-The blurriness of the copy indicates it was recopied dozens of times, tactic of forgers
6--Signature block. Typical authentic military signature block has name, then rank, then on the next line the person's position. This just has rank beneath the name.
7--Margins. These look like a computer's unjustified default, not the way a person typing would have done it.
8 -- Date usually with three letters, or in form as 110471.
9 - words run over consistent with word processor
10 - Times Roman has been available since 1931, but only in linotype printshops...until released with Apple MacIntosh in 1984 and Windows 3.1 in 1991.
11 - signature looks faked
12 - no errors and whiteout
13 - no letterhead
14 - exact match for Microsoft Word Processor
15 - Paper size problem, Air Force and Guard did not use 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper until the 1980s.
16 - Overlap analysis is an exact match
17 - absence of hyphens to split words between lines, c/w 1970's typewriter.
18 - 5000 Longmont #8 in Houston Tx. does not exist (actually does exist, but Mr. Bush had already moved TWICE from this address at the time the memo was written).
19 - Box 34567 is suspicious, at best. The current use of the po box 34567 is Ashland Chemical Company, A Division of Ashland Oil, Incorporated P. O. Box 34567 Houston (this has been confirmed by the Pentagon, per James Rosen on Fox News-However, many documents on John Kerry’s website show same)
20 - it would have been nearly impossible to center a letterhead with proportional spacing without a computer.
21 - Bush's grade would "normally" be abbreviated "1Lt" not "1st Lt"
22 - Subject matter bizarre
23 - Air Force did not use street addresses for their offices, rather HQ AFLC/CC, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433.
24 - kerning was not available
25 - In the August 18, 1973 memo, Jerry Killian purportedly writes: "Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job." but General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972.
26 - Language not generally used by military
27 - Not signed or initialed
28 - Not in any format that a military person would use, e.g. orders not given by Memo.
29 – Is the document original or a copy of an original? Why all the background noise such as black marks and a series of repeated dots (as if run through a Xerox).(Rather explained his document was a photocopy-brings up additional questions of how redacted black address was visible from a several generation copy)
31-The Killiam family rejected these documents as forgeries. Then where did the “personal files” come from if not the family?
32-Why no three hole punches evident at the top of the page?
33-Mr. Bush would have had automatic physical scheduled for his Birthday – in July! He would not have received correspondence.
34-Why is the redacted address of Longmont #8 visible beneath the black mark? This would have been impossible after one copy, but it would be visible if the document was scanned.
35-Why were these exact same documents available for sale on the Internet y Marty Heldt, of leftist web site Tom Paine, as early as January 2004? Is this where CBS obtained their copies?
36-Acronym should be ORT, not ORET.
37- Last line of document 4 "Austin will not be pleased with this" is not in the same font and has been added!
38-Handwriting experts are not document experts – apples and oranges.
39 - Lt Col Killian didn't type
40-The forged documents had no initials from a clerk
41-There was no CC list (needed for orders)
42-Subject line in memos was normally CAPITALIZED in the military
43-The forged documents used incorrect terminology ("physical examination" instead of "medical")
44-There was no "reciept confirmation box" (required for orders)
45-The superscript "th" in the forged documents was raised half-way above the typed line (consistent with MS Word, but inconsistent with military typewriters which kept everything in-line to avoid writing outside the pre-printed boxes of standard forms)
46-CBS admits that it does *not* have the originals, but only original documents can be proven to be real; copies can *never* be authenticated positively...repeat: only original documents can be proven real. CBS never had the originals, so CBS knew that it was publishing something that couldn't be assured of authenticity.
47-the manual cited in the first forged document on line 2 of the first point #1 of "AFM 35-13" doesn't exist. That line of text reads: "to conduct annual physical examination (flight)IAW AFM 35-13". "IAW" means "In Accordance With" and "AFM 35-13" would mean "Air Force Manual 35-13". There is no such Air Force Manual 35-13.

[Paleo Conservative]

. Precise proportional type-setting is a very demanding computational problem. Since modern PC's are more powerful than supercomputers from the 70's, we take this form of computation for granted.

[Prost1]

This reads an awful lot like an expert affidavit, something with which one could take to court and sue for damages.

Say $Billion$. How does one estimate damages from a fraud in a national general election effecting local, congressional, senate, governor and presidents?

Time to file suit! If not by Bush, then by the RNC!

[savedbygrace]

bump

[ckilmer]

analysis of the bush memo

http://img41.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img41&image=60minbusted.swf

[nsc68]

So the memos can't be real because the necessary proportional spacing technology didn't exist at the time they were allegedly written.

Fine, but try explaining that to Joe slackjaw or Jane mouth-breather.

[Eva]

bump

[faithincowboys]

Don't insult the man by starting off with "Professor Cartwright has more credibility than Dan Rather."

Doesn't it go without saying that everybody has more credibility than Gunga Dan?

[Casloy]

no mechanical typewriter, even with variable letter widths like the IBM Executive typewriter, could produce precise propotional spacing comparable to a modern word processor.

Ok, my layman two cents. I used a IBM executive to type memos almost every day in the late 80's. We had to use that typewriter because it was the only one that had Optical Character fonts. I recall on several occasions after typing a long memo and proofing it I would find a couple of typos. I would then reinsert the document, line it up and center it and use the white correcting tape in the selectric to erase the mistake. Erase is not the right word, since the tape actually lifted the ink off paper. You had to have the paper lined up 100 percent right or the letter would not get lifted correctly. If I had more than one mistake I could not line up the first one and then backspace to the next one. The second typo rarely lined up exactly. It was a perfect match vertically, but the horizontal would most always be off slightly and I would have to release the carriage and manually line it up. In other words, the spacing on this typewriter drifted. What I'd be interested in seeing is an old Selectric used to the same exact document twice and see if they overlay. I would be very surprised if they matched up.

[tang-soo]

I wonder if the professor from Stanford University Dr. Donald Knuth would consider weighing in on this? Dr. Knuth published the first three volumes of his anticipated ten volume set of text books on principals of computer science. He did this in the 1960s (maybe early 1970s). He was so dissappointed in the quality of the publication, he decided to spend a year to develop his own typesetting system. That year turned into 10 years (his time as well as time from his grad student).

THe result was TeX and its offspring LaTeX. The research and engineering world quickly adopted these publication systems during the early and mid 1980s to replace the runoff and troff systems mentioned in the above notes. When I worked in the aerospacee business, all our proposals, research papers and the like were written with these tools. By the way, this was also before postscript.

They were in heavy usage until modern publication systems on Mac and WinDoze systems came along.

Bottom line, Knuth probably knows more about publication technology than anyone alive. Not only that, but the underlying computer science and technology under the hood.

[AnimalLover]

Big Bump

[tuesday afternoon]

bump