Marcel Matley is a 'Forensic Expert Witness' for hire.
http://www.forensic.org/experts/matley.html
Just trying to put some perspective on this.
Should Dan Rather and CBS News reveal the sources of the Bush memos?
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
Here's my personal report on Rather's performance:
Sounding hoarse, looking haggard, CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather just completed an on-air defense of his story about W and the National Guard.
What was striking is that Rather only minimally tried to defend the authenticity of the docs. Instead he focused on trying to show that the overall 'story' was accurate.
As to the docs themselves, the only technical point he attempted to refute related to the 'superscript.' He displayed another document from the same era, released by the WH, which had the same superscript. But there was no suggestion that such document came from the Texas National Guard base where the possibly faked document supposedly came from.
Rather also claimed that there is evidence that the New Times Roman font was available as early as the 1930s.
Rather introduced CBS' doc expert, a man named Marcel Matley. He seemed very nervous. He focused on his proof that the signature of Killian was authentic. But what could be easier to do than reproduce and authentic signature on a new doc.
Matley: "I knew going in that this was dynamite and potentially far more damaging to me professionally than helpful. But we seek the truth."
Robert Strong was then introduced, an admin officer who knew Killian and paperwork like the docs was his specialty. He stands by the genuine nature of docs. "Compatible with the way business was done at that time, and the man Jerry Killian I knew. Don't see anything discordant."
Then some historian claimed that at the time, "the culture in the Guard verged on outright corruption. Unconscionable."
Another writer claimed: "The White House hasn't tried to deny the authenticity of the docs. They probably know the docs are real. Instead they are relying on the 'blogosphere.'"
And that was really it. Rather concluded by saying that they stood by their report but would correct it if any new info came forward, "but so far it hasn't."
There was no attempt to refute the multitudinous attacks on the authenticity of the docs going beyond the superscript and the New Times Roman font. Again, the emphasis was more that the overall thrust of the story was accurate.
You can't present those documents as Exhibit A and then say that the important issue is the story, not the documents.
Rather's defense was lame. No explanation of where the docs came from or how they got them. The handwriting expert admits he did not even have the originals. I've been an attorney for 21 years, and I've used dozens of handwriting experts in court. No handwriting opinion is worth the paper it's written on unless you have the originals to look at, and even then its more like astrology than astronomy.
Where are the originals? They did not have photocopiers in 1971. If someone gave Rather a photocopy, then they must have the original.
One report earlier today (and I don't remember where I heard/saw it) said that Rather's first document expert (yesterday) reviewed the document 'over the telephone' and gave his opinion (favorable to Rather, of course) based on that.
bump
Have you seen this?
Dan Rather has admitted to using heroin in the past (strictly for experimentation purposes as a journalist). I hope he doesn't hit the hard stuff again when he finds himself out of work.
I conclude Dan believes his viewers will still accept what he says without question -- just like they did twenty years ago.
Nobody believes these documents are real except the extreme koolaid drinkers. It's over for Dan and CBS. The adults at Black Rock should have stepped in.
Why didn't Cap'n Dan show us an example of a "superscript" "th" with half of it above the numerals that preceeded it? Because it was impossible on a typewriter. Impossible.
The only example that he showed, had the top of the "th" at the same level as the top of the numerals preceeding it.
Case closed.
Can someone please locate the thread with info. on Strong????? It's here somewhere, I just know it. Rather's "document expert" has some questionable baggage which was raised her on FR earlier today or last night.....darn, I can't find it though!!!!!!!
It looks like CBS document wizard Marcel will need to be looking for a new career.
Mime?
See National Review's "Kerry Spot" for actual transcript.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
I just did some cursory checking and found several references. I did not see the interview, but how old was this Marcel Matley? His resume says he was born in 1933. This must be his son judging from the voice on radio.
http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/Foster/matley.html
Matley was also involved in the Foster case as a handwriting expert.
Dan's Docs are becoming like Kerry's Khrismas in Kambodia--no matter how he tries to spin and revise, a lie shows up.
Then the program turned to Marcel Matley, identified as a "handwriting examiner" with no further credentials given, who offered his opinion that the "suicide" note is genuine. Matley believes that the "deteriorated copy" of the note.... that is, it's been copied over too many times.... and the "stress" Foster was presumably under account for the differences in handwriting. He then went on to show how Foster used different styles of letters in the genuine samples, such as both cursive and block letter "s", for example, and how the same multiple styles appear in the note; and from this he concluded that the same person wrote both the note and the samples known to be genuine.
One problem with Matley's statements is that it is impossible to determine to what extent the copy of the "suicide" note used by the experts has deteriorated from the original.... because the government has yet to release any official copy of the original, much less a high-resolution one. I just don't see how Matley can point out examples of "deterioration" in copies of the note without having seen the original note.
Matley is exactly right in pointing out the multiple letter styles used by Foster; I can vouch for these, as I have picked off images of the documents from the Internet, printed them out and examined them, and I am familiar with them. But for me, these variations are an argument in favor of the forgery; for if the letters in the note were painstakingly copied as the other experts suggest, one would expect the forger to also copy the letter variations in an effort to lend an air of authenticity to the forged note. Matley did not refute any of the major points made by the other experts, notably the number of strokes making up the letters, and the "hesitation dots", in the note.
I suspect Matley was put on the show so its producers would not be accused of being biased on a highly-charged political issue, and so they wouldn't wind up on the Clintons' sh*t list. At any rate, it shouldn't take too long for those intrepid Internet sleuths who follow every twist and turn of the Foster story to ferret out Matley's credentials and to find out how much he was paid to appear on the program.
Stack concluded the segment with "Given the explosive political nature of the case, it is quite possible that we will never know the entire story behind the death of Vince Foster". That's for sure.
The only obvious bias I spotted in the segment, other than the Matley subterfuge, was the identification of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper as "conservative". One can only surmise that if reporter Chris Ruddy (who briefly appeared) worked instead for the Boston Globe, New York Times or Washington Post, would the newspaper be identified as "liberal"? At any rate, the show's producers apparently haven't yet gotten the message that "conservative" is no longer a dirty word among the American electorate
Yet the IBM Selectric Composer's own manual makes superscripting of the type seen in the CBS forgeries impossible. This section is taken from page 51 of the manual (page 56 of the .pdf):
As you can see, the super- and sub-scripting available to these typewriters only involved the raising or lowering of letters; it obviously couldn't make them any smaller, since the wheel was fixed-point.
To repeat: a typewriter could only raise or lower letters -- it couldn't make them smaller or larger because the wheel used fixed-size characters. The CBS forgeries contain Microsoft-style mini-font superscripts, which could not be done even on a typewriter with superscripting ability.
The only way a fixed-type machine could have made the Microsoftian-style superscripts is if there was a special key for "st" or "th" -- and, according to the IBM manual's page 167 (page 172 of the .pdf), there were no such special character unit values.
For CBS to say "but typewriters in the day could do superscripts" ignores the whole point of why the superscripting in the forged documents are so persuasive -- the letters on a fixed-size metal wheel can't just get smaller or larger. They must know this, and therefore their continued attempts to deceive the American public are even more sickening.