New Questions On Bush Guard Duty [CBS USES FORGERIES TO SMEAR THE PRESIDENT!!!!!]

CBS ^ | 9/10/04 | Staff

[TastyManatees]

New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

CBS) The military records of the two men running for president have become part of the political arsenal in this campaign – a tool for building up, or blowing up, each candidate’s credibility as America's next commander-in-chief.

While Sen. Kerry has been targeted for what he did in Vietnam, President Bush has been criticized for avoiding Vietnam by landing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard - and then failing to meet some of his obligations.

Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president’s military service – and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

...

But 60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file. Among them, a never-before-seen memorandum from May 1972, where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

Lt. Bush tells his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama…. and may not have time to take his physical." Killian adds that he thinks Lt. Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs."

Col. Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

[muawiyah]

Regarding your reference to: US Navy paper at the time was not 8 1/2 x 11. It was 8 x 10 1/2 the answer is that the entire United States government went from 10.5X8 to 8.5X11 over a period of time.

This happened BEFORE the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE was created to replace the POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT. That happened on August 12, 1970.

We were still using the old stuff as late as 1973.

The infamous "they" also abolished the use of yellow note pads somewhere along the line.

Odds are a Reserve unit in 'bama used whatever paper could be found in a file drawer.

[maica]

Re your comparison of type on post #101, do you have a comment on the evenness of the lines of type. Did the IMB selectrics have perfect horizontal agreement, as computers do? Or were their words 'wavy' with various letters not perfectly evenly hitting the paper like manual typewriters? Sorry, I cannot explain any better what I am asking.

[Tennessean4Bush]

Look, no one would go to the trouble and risk of forging these documents and then deliver -- nothing. I mean, what is the upshot of all this? These memos do not disagree in principle with what Bush ahs been saying all along.

[Right Wing Professor]

IMO the preponderance of evidence says these were forgeries. Yes, they could have been written on an IBM Executive (and they were certainly produced on a typewriter of some kind; look at the variation in the letter heights and the strike angles.). On the other hand, I've used a similar typewriter, and they are the most colossal pain in the rear except for a very skilled typist; if you type the wrong letter on a proportionately spaced typewriter, and discover it after you type the next letter, you're screwed. Maybe the particular, word-processor like font was available. Maybe the non-standard military abbreviations were used. Maybe Lt. Col. Killian was a hipster and used 'feedback' and 'run interference' in the very modern sense they're used in the Aug. 18 memo. Maybe he had superscripted fonts. But given all these unusual aspects of these memos, what would you say the preponderance of evidence suggests?

It's more a conncordance of small clues, not a smoking gun.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[archy]

Compare the suspect offering with another known TNG document of the same period:

*******************************************************************************************

[OESY]

There must be a typo. Where's the GOLD STAR WITH COMBAT "V" from Hanoi Jane?

[MistyCA]

Oh, that is good for ruining my lunch! Dang!

[cyncooper]

I just read that the Whitehouse just released their own copies of two of the documents we have been discussing and they are NOT disputing their authenticity!

That would make sense since two of the items were already public record:

The first memo ordering the physical

The third memo (on the CBS site) grounding him from flying

The second memo is Killian's personal notation of a phone conversation with GWB and the fourth memo is another personal memo to himself, neither of which would be expected to be filed in GWB's file.

[MistyCA]

My husband was in the AirForce and he made the same observation about the date.

[BlessedByLiberty]

Hmm, could this be why the Navy investigation is expanding? (Investigating who signed Secretary Lehman's with the auto-pen on Kerry's citation.) Perhaps someone else noted similarities as you have.

Great Freepin' work, everyone!

[TaxRelief]

The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction high-end word processing systems from Xerox and Wang, and later of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers.

The first proportionally spaced typewriter was released in 1941 by IBM.

From the IBM History page:

1941 - IBM announces the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter, featuring the revolutionary concept of proportional spacing. By assigning varied rather than uniform spacing to different sized characters, the Type 4 recreated the appearance of a printed page, an effect that was further enhanced by a typewriter ribbon innovation that produced clearer, sharper words on the page. The proportional spacing feature became a staple of the IBM Executive series typewriters.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040908-11.html

I haven't read through it yet...............

[MACVSOG68]

No pest. But we must keep the pressure on Kerry. I got this letter printed in a couple of papers. Here's a link to one:

http://augustachronicle.com/stories/090904/let_1959613.shtml

[MindyW]

Having worked for the USAF at the Pentagon for 10 years from 1977-1987, I have typed many a letter/memo for the record. One does not EVER put punctuation in rank abbreviation, as in Lt. Col - it is properly typed Lt Col or LTC. Also, we didn't have proportional spacing until early to mid 80s.

[4MORE-YEARS]

Thanks for clearing that up!

[MistyCA]

LMAO! I hope he makes a mistake on the ballot and votes for our guy! :)

[Tribune7]

You're right.

OTOH, if the docs are a forgeries, hit CBS as hard & as often as possible.

[talleyman]

I hope you're pinging Fox, Rush, et. al. - very interesting!

[Docbarleypop]

even in the mid to late 90s the military used typewriters for this sort of thing, half the memos in my service record are typed or handwritten.