Fox News to break forged document story

Fox News | 9/9/2004 | Fox News

[Semper Paratus]

Brit Hume announced story coming up now on National Guard docmunents

[cyncooper]

Just want to point out, that was not my theory. I was addressing someone else whose theory it was. I was saying they did not go that route.

[jimbo123]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/08/29/do2901.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/29/ixworld.html

Something tells me Bush holds all the aces

At the beginning of the year, Thomas Lifson, who was at Harvard Business School with George W Bush, made an interesting observation about the President. He notes that young George "was a very avid and skillful poker player" when he was a Business Administration student and that "one of the secrets of a successful poker player is to encourage your opponent to bet a lot of chips on a losing hand.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Lets look at that superscript TH again. If it was converted in scanning, it would always be converted in scanning & one of the docs has it both ways."

---

It's even simpler than that. The memos could not have been scanned (i.e., had a scanner convert the letters on the print document into letters on a computer document), they were PDFed as an image file. Only an image file could replicate the signature---merely scanning the document would have converted the signature into gibberish. Therefore, the "th" would not have been converted to a superscript when the document was PDFed; in fact, the PDF image file wouldn't even have been able to read the letters t and h, it merely would have viewed a picture of all of these lines that, to human eyes, form letters. If it is true that no typewriter of that era had a superscript key that reduced the size of the "th," then the memos are definitely forgeries.

[flaminco]

"When this breaks out into the MSM it will be a huge scandal, and can only play to Bush's benefit"

I hope you are right, but considering that the MSM wants Kerry to win, I wouldn't have much faith in them giving much air time to the forgery story. They will all probably mention it, but it takes repetition and a sense of outrage to make an impression on any but the politically involved.

I am afraid that most people won't even notice.

[MEG33]

Do you think a CO would use that to type a memo for a private file..not part of official records?

[Cboldt]

According to the man that wrote the book on typewriter fonts (catalogued over 4000, regarded as "the expert" on typewritten documents), this font (Times New Roman) didn't exist as a typewriter font.

He might be right, I don't know. But Times Roman is not a new font. See below:

Stanley Morison born 6. 5. 1889 in Wanstead, England, died 11. 10. 1967 in London, England typographer, type designer.

191314: works for "The Imprint". 191418: is sent to prison as a conscientious objector.

191921: works for Pelican Press and from 192123 for Cloister Press in Manchester. 192330: co-editor of "The Fleuron" magazine with Holbrook Jackson, Francis Meynell, B. H. Newdigate and Oliver Simon. 192367: typography consultant to the Monotype Corporation. From 1923 onwards: book artist. Designs covers for the Victor Gollancz publishing house. 192430: works for Cambridge University Press. 192960: typography consultant to "The Times" daily newspaper. On 3 October 1932 the first issue of "The Times(TM)" set in Morisons new typeface, Times New Roman(TM), is printed. 193551: published the history of "The Times(TM)" in four volumes. 194547: editor-in-chief of the "Times Literary Supplement". 1960: made a Royal Designer for Industry. Fonts: Times(TM) (1931), Times(TM) Ten (1931), Times(TM) Eighteen (1931), Times(TM) Central European (1931), Times New Roman(TM) (1932, with Victor Lardent). Publications include: "Four Centuries of fine print", London 1924; "The Alphabet of Damianus Moyllus", London 1927; "The calligraphy of Ludovico degli Arrighi", Paris 1929; "The English newspaper, 16221932", Cambridge 1932; "First Principles of Typography", Cambridge 1936; "A tally of types", Cambridge 1953; "Typographic design in relation to photographic composition", San Francisco 1959; James Moran "Stanley Morison", London 1971. * TYPOGRAPHY An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History by Friedrich Friedl, Nicolaus Ott (Editor), Bernard Stein, published by Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH.

Times is a trademark of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, which may be registered in certain jurisdictions, exclusively licensed through Linotype Library GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.

Times New Roman is a trademark of Monotype Typography.

Stanley Morison - Font Designer of Times, Times New Roman, Times Ten

[GOP_1900AD]

I would be particularly interested in knowing whether or not NISO was conducting an investigation of Kerry during his period of active duty and if so, what specific suspicions or reports led them to do so? Having access to such investigations, findings and anything related to them would be quite fascinating!

[Piranha]

this is starting to feel like the end of the soviet empire.

Yes!!

[AuH2ORepublican]

"There is the pesky fact that the paper composition of the "originals" can be checked to see if the composition matches the paper in use in the early 70's. OOOOPPPPPS"

---

I assume that, as stupid as the forgers were, they still thought to print it out on old 1970s letterhead.

[cyncooper]

After the break Hugh Hewitt will speak with John Podhoretz and get his take on this breaking story.

[Flashlight]

...They used double-spaces instead of single after sentences...

maybe you're too young to remember, but "double-spacing after the periods at the end of a sentence" was the accepted way to type in the olden days.

in the days of computers and word-processers, typists had to learn to only space once after sentences.

so, actually, if there were only *single* spaces after periods, *that* would be an indication of a forgery made in the present day.

(I haven't been following this whole thread, so maybe I'm making some wrong assumptions - please correct me if I've made a mistake here.)

[MEG33]

I believe IBM had a selectric ball that had to be exchanged with the normal ball to make that th and that would seem to be rather much for a memo not for official files(freeper thread fom last night was info source.)

[Cboldt]

The Executive still didn't have a way to make the "th" smaller, it would have been the same size, just rolled up using the paten.

On that point, I can't come up with evidence. But, I did find tha the Executive model was designed to have replaceable type-bars, and keys, so as to facilitate alternate languages, etc. There may have been a set of "ordinal" keys offered by IBM.

The following geocites weblinks have been getting hammered since I linked it here, but it might come up in a day or two. I'd love to get my hands on an old IBM catalog for these typewriters.

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

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.

[Cboldt]

I had several old Selectrics lying around ...

No sweat. If these documents were done on a typewriter, the typewriter was NOT a Slectric. If the documents were done on a typewriter, the typewriter was most likely an IBM "Executive" Model. There is a Selectric-Composer, but that is one weird cat, would not be found in an office, and came out, I think, after the date recited on the face of these documents.

Selectric - NOT proportional characters.

Executive - YES, proportional characters.

[CedarDave]

Been quite a day, hasn't it? Remember long ago this morning when we were still toying with the idea that this was just way too easy and the documents had come from the WH?!

[lavrenti]

I am too young to remember, and that is a good point you made.

[js1138]

Of course not.

[xkaydet65]

"Frankly, it is stunning that they did so LITTLE investigative work here"

It shouldn't be stunning/ They think we're all stupid. The spend their lives going to the same parties, summer homes, and plays that they think the rest of us are morons. Remember the film critic Pailine Kael, a really good critic and an intelligent woman. In the aftermath of Nixon's landslide in 1972 she said she couldn't believe Nixon won. She did not know a single person who voted for him. That's the arrogance of the gang at 60 Min. They knew! They felt the only people who'd discover the hoax were people like themselves.

[AMDG&BVMH]

"There's paperwork involved with being declared AWOL. I would like to know the percentage of DU'ers that have any working knowledge of the military?"

Exactly . . .

Besides the fact, that they aren't interested in Kerry's status after leaving active duty; or Clinton's efforts to avoid service, etc.

It's all about getting Bush -- and they seem to be coming to the battle unarmed with actual knowledge (about military status) and evidence (that Bush did not complete, honorably, his service; which he did, because it is in his file.)

And they think some commander's memos to himself are going to prove a military offense to contradict the official personnel file? Sheesh . . . ignorant wishful thinking . . .