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.

[Bogey78O]

What Neil Armstrong really said on the moon.

http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/

Warning, salty language ahead. NSFW

[aft_lizard]

In the 2nd paragraph of the 04 May letter, 111th is shown with a superscripted th and it looks to me like the font is a slightly reduced size. Is that possible on a typewriter?>>


I really dont know. I wasnt even born when these documents were made, but what I have read, and the typewriters I have used in the military it simply isnt done with a typewriter.

[Robert A Cook PE]

To summarize:

No. It is "almost" possible, using a single, very expensive, very-difficult-to-use, very uncommon typewriter of the period.

But it is not reasonable to assume an Air Force fighter-pilot Lt Col is going to sit down and perfectly type such a "memo" to himself and use the colloquialism and superscripts that are evident on the letters.

It is impossible to assume that these are real, unless CBS can produce the originals in the original paper with the real fingerprints of the colonel on the paper.

[Orange1998]

Thanks for the ping. Something is rotten.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

The documents were found on microfiche and probably converted before the text was released.

[js1138]

The IBM Executive required a trained clerk to type the memo TWICE to get the proportional font...

This simply isn't true. Proportional is different from justified. The documents are not justified.

And the "th" is a non-issue.

[Howlin]

Documents obtained by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" shed new light on one of the most controversial episodes in Bush's military service, when he abruptly stopped flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to work on a political campaign. The documents include a memo from Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, ordering Bush "to be suspended from flight status for failure to perform" to U.S. Air Force and National Guard standards and failure to take his annual physical "as ordered."

The new documents surfaced as the Bush administration released for the first time the president's personal flight logs, which have been the focus of repeated archival searches and Freedom of Information Act requests dating to the 2000 presidential campaign. The logs show that Bush stopped flying in April 1972 after accumulating more than 570 hours of flight time between 1969 and 1972, much of it on an F-102 interceptor jet.

--snip--

A spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," Kelli Edwards, declined to say exactly how the new documents were obtained other than that CBS News understood they had been taken from Killian's "personal office file." In addition to the order to Bush to report for a physical, the documents include various memos from Killian describing his conversations with Bush and other National Guard officers about Bush's attempts to secure a transfer to Alabama. Killian died in 1984.

From the Wash Post this morning.

[Cboldt]

In addition to the "Selectric Composer," the IBM Executive Model typewriters used proportional spacing. These predate the Selectric, do not have "the ball," and have a moving carriage.

I am looking for keyboard layouts for the IBM Executive ...

On the Executive, you could optionally have removable type-bars. This is somewhat like later Smith-Corona portables which have removable type-slugs on the two outermost type-bars, with corresponding changeable keytop caps. In this case, though, it's the whole type-bar.

http://www.geocities.com/wbd641/TypeManuals2.html

I'm now looking for type-bar and key options. The whole set of relevant superscripts would be "st" "nd" "rd" and "th." Remember, this typewriter DOES provide proportional spacing.

[Seeking the truth]

I wonder if there is still a Mrs. Killian alive?

Perhaps she could shed some light on this "personal file" issue?

[Mockingbird For Short]

I've written ABC and MSNBC this morning.... I have to get ready for work now and don't have time to write CBS, so I hope an extra freeper will write them an email for me. It's important that we write them short, "pithy" emails to let them know we are on to them and their crummy, biased reporting. I also mention to them that I am watching more and more cable news (especially FOX) so that I can get a more balanced report.

[LaGrone]

I served in the Texas National Guard at Camp Mabry in Austin from 1969-1975. It was not uncommon for Guard personnel to miss regular drills from time to time. We had jobs or attended college. The standard procedure was to get the absence approved and schedule some type of make up time for the absence between regular scheduled drills.

It was also not uncommon for a Guardsman to transfer to another reserve unit. I did this myself, by finding a unit to accept me and then having that unit assist me with the paper work to satisfy my originating unit.

My point is that for President Bush to ask for transfer to an Alabama Unit for a certain time for an acceptable reason would not be out of the ordinary IMO. If memory serves, I believe you could miss a certain amount of time each year, and would have to make up the time to maintain your evaluations.

The rules and regs also provided for placing personnel on active duty if certain commitments were not completed. If you were being threatened by placement to active duty for non-compliance, a soldier would have certainly known to get it straigtened out with his unit immediately.

[js1138]

Did the IMB selectrics have perfect horizontal agreement, as computers do?

The better Selectrics looked like typsetting. Not perfect, but very good.

[MineralMan]

"A USAF officer, writing a supposed "memo" to himself, typing it BY himself (and typing it perfectly - I might add!) would NOT under any circumstances, go around REPLACING typewriter balls to "specially type in" TWO letters in HIS OWN UNIT ID designation for a memo that was NOT TO BE EVER PRINTED OR DISPLAYED AGAIN!
"

Who's talking about balls. The Selectric of 1972 did NOT have proportional spacing.

I'm talking about the IBM Executive Model D, which DID have proportional spacing. It WAS available with the superscript "th" as a character above one of the number keys.

I don't know if this is a forgery or not. I'm just saying that it's possible that it is not, and all this stuff about proportional spacing and a superscript "th" is not valid, since both did exist at the time.

Who is to say this was even done at the TANG base. Did Killian have another job? Maybe he dictated these things to a secretary there. I have no idea.

[steve-b]

Also, one of the documents had a spot on it which was analyzed to be low-carb salad dressing. However, the Atkins diet hadn't even been invented yet!

I am reminded of one of the bits of evidence offered by Erich von Daniken for his "ancient astronauts" hokum. He cited an accurate ancient depiction of a human skeleton, and noted the fact that X Rays were not discovered until 1895.

No, really.

[Dr.Syn]

“It is clear that this president will literally say anything, do anything...in order to get re-elected."

I think when Kerry said this he was talking about himself and the rest of the liberal slime.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Oh.

No wonder Bush never got the orders then!

They were mailed to the wrong address!

Simple explanation. 8<)

(By the way. If these were the real orders, then Bush must have been mailed (or even hand-delivered!) the original. If these are the original of the letter as an order (and the typing and the clarity indicate these are NOT carbon copies!), then Bush must have got the carbon copy of an official letter.

Which is odd. Usually the offices do not give you Xerox copies of the documents.

[RobFromGa]

My only question about these being forgeries is why didn't they make them incriminating?

I agree that these look like modern word processing documents and the fact that there are no mistakes makes it even more likely that they are fake.

There are people that do this for a living, I wonder how long it will take for an actual document expert to tell us whether these are the possible result of a 1972 typewriter.

Maybe there are other forged documents that they plan to release later? and they wanted to make sure they were going to get away with it on these innocuous documents first?

This is a mystery to me.

[SheLion]

In fact, I have yet to figure out just what my "function" on the computer/internet is.......LOL.

Ah don't be silly. :)

But there is a lot one can do today with images, animations and forgery. F O R G E R Y!

[MistyCA]

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the military was not real up to date with their office equipment. It would really surprise me to learn that they had any new typewriters, especially during war time. But I am really just guessing about that.

[Bryher1]

If they were converted, then why all the photocopy snow? They would be clean white if they were text-converted.