Posted on 09/11/2004 7:51:29 AM PDT by rocklobster11
Or should I say fo or fr or f anything? It seems that the character f in all the MemoGate documents overhangs the character following it, as shown in the document below:
Based on information I got from Hugh Hewitt's blog, provided to him from Rice University Computer Science professor Robert Cartwright, I decided to look at the memos for evidence of kerning. You can see from the image above, that the character combination "my" appears to be kerned in one document but not the other. However, I'm willing to write this off as being due to artifacts from the copying process. Also, the default Microsoft Word document that overlays perfectly with the memos does not use kerning.
Even without kerning, the Time New Roman (and other proportional fonts) on the computer has a negative offset with the letter f. That means that the top of the letter f will overhang the next character. This is not something that you would get from a normal typewriter in 1972, event with proportional fonts. The text below was written on an IBM Selectric with proportional fonts, and you can see that there is no overhang of the "f" chararacter on the character that follows
It seems that the only way these memos could have been written in 1972 would be on an IBM Selectric Composer, which was a desktop typesetting machine. There is an excellent analysis of the IBM Selectric Composer on http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html, that shows how close a document created on an IBM Selectric composer could match up to the memos in question. The image below shows the CBS memo overlaid with the output of the IBM Selectric Composer (overlay in red):
The line spacing is off, but if you read the site above, you will see that the line spacing could be adjusted, and you get a pretty good match to the CBS memos. However, this match is not as good as the one produced with Microsoft Word in default settings. To see this, you can look at this Flash animation showing an overlay of MS Word ontop of one of the memos. The animation takes about 30-45 seconds to run, so watch it all.
If you read the commentary at http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html, you will see the difficulty of creating this document on an IBM Selectric Composer: (e.g. requiring the switching out of font balls to get the superscript or the purchase of a special font ball just to add this non standard character, and the perfect centering of the header which matches identically to the way MS Word centers the same text.
The Boston Globe has interviewed an expert who confirms that these memos could have been created on an IBM Selectric Composer and that the Air Force completed service testing of the IBM Selectric Composer in April 1969. However, using the Composer was not a simple task, and it seems possible but improbable that the Texas Air National Guard would have had one of these machines or that Killian would have typed memos for his personal file on one of these machines. I've heard but do not have any evidence that the Composer was an expensive machine, on the order of several thousand dollars (which would be like $15,000 in todays terms).
All of the other documents in Bush's officially released files were not written with a proportional font, so it's up to CBS to produce other documents written in 1972 by Killian that are comparable to the CBS memos. Certainly, Killian or someone else wrote more than these 4 memos on this complex, expensive typesetting device.
It is possible that Killian wrote these memo's on an IBM Selectric Composer even though:
It's also possible that the Moon Landing was staged in a film studio. It's also possible that there are Alien remains in Hanger 18 in Roswell, N.M. Anything is possible. If CBS were a news organization rather than a Democratic 527 organization, they might at least admit that while possible, the probability is that these are forgeries, and that there is greater probability of finding the Loch Ness Monster than that these memos were written by Killian in 1972.
Outstanding. Thanks for the link.
By the way folks, did anyone notice on the news last night that General Staudt's nickname is "Buck".
A little odd that the famous post # 47 that firstly exposed this document farce by CBS the other day on FR was written by "Buckhead". Quite a coincidence.
Hmmmmmmmm, who is the famous "Buckhead"?
You're incredible!
LOL :)
Well that pretty much sums it up Rather, you clymer.
By damn, these accusations have gotten my pajamas in a knot, and I ain't goen take it anymore.
The whole problem with this will be the Sandy Berger Effect. The SBE means that a damning story erupts and simply gets ignored. That's what will happen here. It will be denied and soon ignored. Independent voters won't have a clue what went on, and all Rather has to say is that the challenges to his credibility are "partisan internet and talk radio" people, and the independent voter will understand that this is nothing.
So we must figure a way at FR not just to uncover this kind of thing, but to also carry it through to completion.
In addition, Killian's son has said that his father shared an office with another officer and one secretary, who had a manual typewriter, not even an electric typewriter, let alone a Selectric. That was the only typewriter in the office and Killian had no typewriter at home.
Did anybody listen to how Rathers voice sounded, Like he had been screaming all day
The only question I have is could the "copying" of the memos being blown up in any way cause an offset on the line up?
Any journalists or historians out there?
Has there been anything similar to this over the past 100 years?
LOL!
You are just a partisan political operative.
Isnt there an "F" in John Kerrys initials? Coincidence?
Thanks for your great work. The animation is so impressive. Just fantastic!
Not really. Watch the way ABC is on the case. ABC broke the news about Hodges saying CBS report was a fraud. The other networks are going to burn CBS. Isn't competition grand?
I don't think the rule of Sandypants applies here. The other networks and news agencies are in competition with each other more than they are biased against Bush. I think this might get more coverage than we think simply because they would rather smear their broadcast competitors more than they want to smear Bush. Or at least I'm hoping that's the case. The sad thing is that journalistic ethics won't be the motivating factor for this story, competition and ratings will.
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