Posted on 09/11/2004 3:52:47 PM PDT by rocklobster11
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.
Dan will never admit that these are forgeries, and he beleives that proof of forgery lies on the viewer rather than CBS having the burden of proof of authenticity
So, for Dan's sake, let's assume that these memos are real. Dan has some Big Questions that he wants answered and he's too lazy to do the work himself, so I'll give him a hand.
Here are the Big Questions he asked last night on the CBS news, and here are the easily available answers:
Rather Lead In: There were attacks today on the CBS News "60 Minutes" report this week raising new questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era time in the Texas Air National Guard. The questions raised by our report include:
--Did a wealthy Texas oilman-friend of the Bush family use his influence with the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives .. to get George W. Bush a coveted slot in the National Guard .. keeping him out of the draft and any probable service IN Vietnam?
Answer: Ben Barnes, Democratic partisan and Kerry fundraiser, has made these claims many times over the years, and his story has not been consisitent. Under Oath, he had to admit that neither George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush asked him to do them any favors. He says it was a Bush friend who asked him to make a call. The person he supposedly called has denied that anyone did any favors to get Bush into the Guard. Ben Barnes daughter has disputed his accounts almost to the point of calling him a liar.
--Did Lieutenant Bush refuse a direct order from his commanding officer?
Answer: Ignoring the fact that there are no official documents reprimanding Bush for refusing a direct order, if we assume that the May 4 memo ordering Bush to get a physical by May 14 is legit, then we also have to assume that the May 19 memo is legit. In it, Killian acknowledges that he and Bush have discussed the physical and that Bush will take his physical in Alabama IF he continues his flight status. There is nothing in this memo about Bush disobeying a direct order, not is there in any other document official or unofficial. While the May 19 memo shows that Killian may be a little concerned about the investment that they have made in training Bush, Bush did serve 5+ years of a 6 year (not a lifetime of indentured servitude) commitment.
--Was Lieutenant. Bush suspended for failure to perform up to standards?
He was not suspended from the Guard, if that's what Dan meant to imply. He was suspended from flying status for missing his physical. He had obviously discussed dropping his flying status with Killian as evidenced in the first sentence of paragraph 2 of the May 19 memo. There were no negative performance evaluations in the official documents. The official May 1972 review was a glowing review with nothing negative to say, including praise of the fact that Bush was working on a political campaign and was a good representative of the Guard in the business community. The official May 1973 review just states that they could not review him because he had been off the base for the time period doing equivalent duty in Alabama. Despite the wording of the August 1, 1972 memo stating: On this date I ordered that 1st Lt Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered, there is nothing in the records to indicate that Bush did anything other than miss a physical, which was common for pilots who were not planning to continue flying. If Dan Rather has proof, it's up to him to produce it, rather than ask silly questions.
--Did Lieutenant Bush ever take a physical he was required and ordered to take? If not, why not?
Obviously he did not take the physical, and Bush has never said that he took the physical. His flight status was dropped due to missing the physical, so this is not a point of dispute. The May 19 memo does help to show that Bush had discussed dropping his flight status with his supervisor and that his supervisor was ok (if not exactly jumping for joy) about it.
--And did Lieutenant Bush, in fact, complete his commitment to the Guard?
He got an honorable discharge. That should be proof enough, but if you think he didn't it would be good to produce some evidence instead of just asking questions. Since you have no evidence, I can only imagine that you will bring up the disingenuous info from the Boston Globe story last week about Bush not completing his duty to seek alternate training after moving to Boston to go to Harvard Business School. Of course, you'd have to ignore the fact that he did not need to seek alternate training becuase he had asked for and was granted an early release from the Guard 6 months early (which is exactly the same thing John Kerry did in getting out 6 months early). Here is is request for discharge and recommendation for approval in September, 1973. Why would he report elsewhere after being discharged?
These questions grew out of new witnesses and new evidence -- including documents written by Lieutenant Bush's squadron commander.
Answer: Doesn't look like any new evidence to me Dan. Perhaps we would have new evidence if you demanded that John Kerry would fill out the Form 180 to release all his military records, as Bush did.
If I'm wrong I will stand corrected, but I understand that flight medicals (not physicals) were required to be undergone by the end of the pilot's birth month. In Lt Bush's case that would be July, not May. Would a CO issue an order for a medical prior to the regularly scheduled exam?
I think they were typically scheduled in the month of enlistment (May) but that you had 12 weeks leeway (July) for scheduling purposes. There is no doubt that he was not past-due on his physical until July 31, as evidenced by the initiation of the process to remove him from flight status in the August 1 memo.
Having spent over 20 years in the computer software industry I wanted to convince myself that in fact one could easily reproduce one of the CBS-posted documents in MS-Word as it has been stated numerously in this forum.
After having done a simple exercise, described below, it’s not entirely clear to me that the documents presented by CBS can be accurately re-created using MS-Word in Times New Roman font. For example, I randomly chose a line from one of the documents and tried to reproduce it in MS-Word.
The first line in the graphic below was extracted from one of the PDF files posted on the CBS website (specifically the Aug 1, 1972 memo http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust1.pdf)
The second line comes from an MS-Word document I typed using Times New Roman font (8pt) then converted it to PDF
Three key observations:
I’m a Bush supported but I'm not sure that these documents can be accurately reproduced in the ways suggested…
Go forge yourself Dan, and ride out on that donkey you rode in on!
Try doing it in Times New Roman size 12...
I tried the same thing in Word, and not all of the memos map easily in Word. But the CYA memo does map almost exactly in Word, as seen in this animation:
I verified the CYA memo by typing it in Word as well. I had less success on the august 1 memo.
Bump
I always thought they were scheduled on the month of ones birthday. In the case of President Bush, it would be July. Bush's calendar year for racking up annual flight tiem would've begun in the month of May, the month of enlisting.
Odd that dozens of people have been able to do this.
Where's that "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" guy when you need him?
You are also ignoring the effect that a copier making a copy of a copy can have. The misalignment looks more like degeneration of quality rather than a difference in font and / or how it was created.
Great! Sorta makes Baghdad Bob the Pillar of Truthfulness and makes Gilligans Island look like a well run Nation.
Thats because the 1 (one) is really an l (letter L). Very close examination of the CBS forgery reveals the height difference between the letter l (about 5% shorter)and the number 1. This in addition to the spacing variation of st following letter l vs number 1.
MS Word uses proportional font AND kerning with the Times New Roman font. MS Word kerning relies on algorithms regarding adjacent letters, and is apparently not applied to letters adjoining numbers. It may just be that the writer of CBS' document used the letter l in place of the number 1 to avoid the automatic superscript of st following the number 1. This idea is supported by the additional observation that in several other CBS documents, 9921st and 147th have spaces inserted, i.e. 9921 st and 147 th. This appears to be an attempt to avoid MS Word's automatic superscript.
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