Typewriter Expert can't duplicate Guard memos using IBM Composer

When I first heard back from Gerry, I felt a little bad for having bothered him. He'd been fielding calls and letters all day, he told me, including an inquiry from CNN. But he was a trouper, willing — enthusiastic even — to help out.

I asked Gerry, in a fit of hubris, if he wouldn't mind trying to reproduce a sample from one of the CBS memos on his Selectric Composer. Just over an hour later, he emailed me back a sample, typed up on his Composer using the 11-point Press Roman type ball and scanned into his computer.

At first glance, the sample Gerry provided looks pretty darned close. The type is proportionally spaced, just like the type in the CBS memos. Gerry was also able to reproduce the now-infamous superscripted "th," though he had a disclaimer about that.

The most obvious discrepancy was that the line-spacing — what typographers call leading (rhymes with "shredding") — was off. I e-mailed Gerry about this, and he replied: "Yes, if I had really tried, I could have matched the spacing (leading). The leading on the composer can be finely adjusted. Don't know if it is down to the single point level, but it probably is since you can set the leading according to the font, and the leading dial goes from something like 6pt up to 14pt."

Much better … and pretty darned close to the original. But not close enough.

This may be tin-foil territory, but it has been bothering me...it is obvious to me that CBS was duped, and, being so blinded by hatred of the president, didn't do their homework. But is the source who gave them these memos covering two bases here?

Whoever sent these to CBS had to know they would be headline news, and they get to pummel Bush with fraudulent information that becomes part of the national dialog...Dems benefit. But, they are so amateurish that it leads me to believe the memo's forger also wanted to cause a stir about fraud.

The thing that bothers me is that it has been hinted around FR that the Swift Vets might actually have Kerry's records...that he might have already signed his 180 for his biographer. That has NOT been confirmed, just speculated.

There has even been speculation that the title of the book Unfit for Command might reference something written on his records.

With that in mind, is it even possible that the dustup over forged docs serves to neutralize Kerry's records before they are released? Since the Bush documents are forgeries, will their argument be that we can't trust anything that might be released about Kerry's?

Whether this is intentional or not, I'm betting that will be the left's argument if Kerry's records leak. Just a thought.

The other thing I was thinking...wouldn't there be something obvious, some smearing or something with whiteout? Most men didn't type back then in the early 70s, normally they'd have secretaries do so. And if they did, why would you have a secretary type such a thing?

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