Posted on 09/09/2004 7:33:57 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Are these docs considered to be the property of the federal gov't? And if so, is it a federal crime to forge and/or tamper with a federal doc?
It most certainly is a crime and the DNC needs to be investigated.
Paging the FBI...
I just tried retyping the August 18 memo in Word, using Times New Roman 12 point, and it breaks exactly the same and looks exactly the same.
Exactly.
"According to IBM the Executive was introduced in the 1950's and used the traditional hammer style type . Hammer type cannot produce proportional "fonts".
"
Wrong again. Sheesh....just back up the thread and look at the ad for the 1953 Executive. Or go on Google and search for "IBM Executive Typewriter." IT TYPED USING PROPORTIONAL SPACING! These "Experts" are not experts if they don't know that.
Paging John Ashcroft. Go get Bagala and Carville and put them in shackles.
UPDATE: I now have copies of the memos the White House released, and they are just versions that CBS faxed to the White House the day before the 60 Minutes segment aired. There's no indication that the White House had its own copies of these memos and had been sitting on them.Apologies.
As a result, CedarDave is back on the side of these being forgeries after wavering for a couple of hours.
"I just tried retyping the August 18 memo in Word, using Times New Roman 12 point, and it breaks exactly the same and looks exactly the same.
Exactly."
Could well be. I'm not defending the memos, CBS, or anyone else. I'm just keeping the facts straight about proportional spacing typewriters.
I worked part of the way through college typing on an IBM Executive -- but I can't remember the model number and don't remember there being a "th" superscript key -- I rolled the carriage up when I needed to do it -- but that was 28 years ago and I could have just not realized the key was there, or maybe it wasn't there on all models. (Does this date me or what?)
What I do know is the first electronic fonts were based on common typefaces, like Times Roman and Courier. But the Executive type was/is actually a bit larger than the electronic software fonts. I think it's impossible to tell without seeing the original document what size the type actually is. I'm suspicious, though, of being able to get such an exact copy on MS Word --those things were a royal pain in the behind to use and I used to have to just freaking guess a lot of times when to stop -- you don't want to know how many little white out spots at the end of lines I used to have!!!
Anyway, like I said I think it is improbable but not impossible the document is real. I'd rather have an analysis of the ink and the paper -- the ink in particular I don't think you could fake.
Will someone please post a link to all the documents in question, and any examples of other Killian documents for comparison.
I expect it could be demonstrated that hyphenation was routinely used by Killian, and even possible to calculate what was the maximum space he would allow at the end of a line before hyphenating a word rather than starting a new line.
If his other documents are inconsistent in this regard, then it lends credibility to the documents. If he was, in fact, consistent in how he handled hyphenation, and these documents are the only ones that allow such long spaces at the end of a line without hyphenation, then it makes the case for forgeries stronger.
Anyone have access to the docs?
So memos 1 and 3 are certainly genuine, memos 2 and 4 the possible forgeries with the:
- proportional fonts
- 'th' superscripts
- non-standard nomenclature
since those were in his 'personal file', the forgery thesis can be most easily proved/disproved by simply comparing with other memos in that file, and determining *who* was the source of the memos, ie, did they really have access to the real files.
Drudge has just picked this up (Good morning, Matt!).
Well, if they're forgeries, then Rove did it. Or Hillary. Right? ;^)
These 'posters' aren't paying attention anymore, are failing to read previous posts for content, and are disregarding plainly stated fact while doing so; sign me back out inactive ...
"These 'posters' aren't paying attention anymore, are failing to read previous posts for content, and are disregarding plainly stated fact while doing so; sign me back out inactive ..."
Yup, I'm outa this thread.
Gee, wonder what Sandy Berger's been up to lately?
IAW = in accordance with (ie govt speak)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.