Posted on 09/11/2004 7:51:29 AM PDT by rocklobster11
Or should I say fo or fr or f anything? It seems that the character f in all the MemoGate documents overhangs the character following it, as shown in the document below:
Based on information I got from Hugh Hewitt's blog, provided to him from Rice University Computer Science professor Robert Cartwright, I decided to look at the memos for evidence of kerning. You can see from the image above, that the character combination "my" appears to be kerned in one document but not the other. However, I'm willing to write this off as being due to artifacts from the copying process. Also, the default Microsoft Word document that overlays perfectly with the memos does not use kerning.
Even without kerning, the Time New Roman (and other proportional fonts) on the computer has a negative offset with the letter f. That means that the top of the letter f will overhang the next character. This is not something that you would get from a normal typewriter in 1972, event with proportional fonts. The text below was written on an IBM Selectric with proportional fonts, and you can see that there is no overhang of the "f" chararacter on the character that follows
It seems that the only way these memos could have been written in 1972 would be on an IBM Selectric Composer, which was a desktop typesetting machine. There is an excellent analysis of the IBM Selectric Composer on http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html, that shows how close a document created on an IBM Selectric composer could match up to the memos in question. The image below shows the CBS memo overlaid with the output of the IBM Selectric Composer (overlay in red):
The line spacing is off, but if you read the site above, you will see that the line spacing could be adjusted, and you get a pretty good match to the CBS memos. However, this match is not as good as the one produced with Microsoft Word in default settings. To see this, you can look at this Flash animation showing an overlay of MS Word ontop of one of the memos. The animation takes about 30-45 seconds to run, so watch it all.
If you read the commentary at http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/09/the_ibm_selectr.html, you will see the difficulty of creating this document on an IBM Selectric Composer: (e.g. requiring the switching out of font balls to get the superscript or the purchase of a special font ball just to add this non standard character, and the perfect centering of the header which matches identically to the way MS Word centers the same text.
The Boston Globe has interviewed an expert who confirms that these memos could have been created on an IBM Selectric Composer and that the Air Force completed service testing of the IBM Selectric Composer in April 1969. However, using the Composer was not a simple task, and it seems possible but improbable that the Texas Air National Guard would have had one of these machines or that Killian would have typed memos for his personal file on one of these machines. I've heard but do not have any evidence that the Composer was an expensive machine, on the order of several thousand dollars (which would be like $15,000 in todays terms).
All of the other documents in Bush's officially released files were not written with a proportional font, so it's up to CBS to produce other documents written in 1972 by Killian that are comparable to the CBS memos. Certainly, Killian or someone else wrote more than these 4 memos on this complex, expensive typesetting device.
It is possible that Killian wrote these memo's on an IBM Selectric Composer even though:
It's also possible that the Moon Landing was staged in a film studio. It's also possible that there are Alien remains in Hanger 18 in Roswell, N.M. Anything is possible. If CBS were a news organization rather than a Democratic 527 organization, they might at least admit that while possible, the probability is that these are forgeries, and that there is greater probability of finding the Loch Ness Monster than that these memos were written by Killian in 1972.
Rather is an arrogant, biased clymer who needs to be put out to pasture. He looked awfully nervous reporting such lies. Address the fact that General Staudt retired in '72 a year before the letter was written in '73.
Nice job.
I'm thinking of printing this and faxing it out to CBS. Should I? Should ALL OF US? 
Looks like my original title (F U Dan Rather) was a little too suggestive, even though it was meant to point out the problems with the overhanging "F" character in the documents.
An EXCELLENT treatise bringing reality back to the forefront!
Dan Rather's stand
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
http://cnn.usnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Dan+Rather%27s+stand+-+Sep+10%2C+2004&expire=-1&urlID=11603991&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FUS%2F09%2F10%2Frather%2Findex.html&partnerID=2004
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This is not the first time Dan Rather has found himself in a serious dispute with a U.S. president.
There was this exchange in 1974 during the height of the Watergate scandal with then-President Richard Nixon:
Nixon: Are you running for something?
Rather: No sir, are you?
And there was this exchange with then-Vice President George Bush in 1988 over the Iran-Contra scandal.
Rather: I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. vice president.
Bush: You do, Dan.
Rather: No -- no, sir, I don't.
Bush: This is not a great night, because I want to talk about why I want to be president, why those 41 percent of the people are supporting me. And I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash of Iran. How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?
Now, the 72-year-old CBS News anchor finds himself in yet another confrontation with a Republican president.
"I want to emphasize: I stand by my president. We are in a time of war, and I stand behind my president. There is not joy in reporting such a story, but my job as a journalist is not to be afraid, and when we come with facts, and legitimate questions supported by witnesses and documents that we believe to be authentic, to raise those questions no matter how unpleasant they are," Rather said Friday.
At issue is his report on "60 Minutes" that aired Wednesday -- a report that included documents purporting to show that the current President Bush, while serving in the Texas Air National Guard, did not meet all his military obligations.
"They [the White House] have not answered the question of did or did the president not obey or obey an order? Was he or was he not suspended for failure to meet performance standards of the Air Force? If he didn't take the physical, why didn't he take the physical?" Rather said.
But now, there are questions about the authenticity of the documents released by "60 Minutes."
The Washington Post says the "60 Minutes" documents are not consistent with other documents released by Bush's Air National Guard unit in the early '70's.
"If you compare the documents that CBS produced with the documents that we know to be authentic, that did come from Bush's National Guard unit, none of those documents use proportionate spacing. And that's only one of the anomalies," says the Post's Michael Dobbs.
Experts contacted by CNN say there are some inconsistencies in the type style and formatting -- noting those styles then existed on typewriters but were not common. They also say only a review of the original documents -- not copies -- can completely resolve the matter.
Beyond that, surviving relatives of Bush's then commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the author of the purported documents, insist they are fake. They say Killian always believed Bush was an excellent pilot and that he never wrote these documents. Killian died in 1984.
"The story is true. The story is true," Rather said. "The questions raised in the story are serious and legitimate questions."
Rather denies there is any internal CBS News investigation under way -- a statement backed by the network.
Rather also said the possibility of issuing any kind of recant or apology was "not even discussed. Nor should it be."
I hgope he continues to stick to his guns until he looks SO RIDICULOUS that seeBS has to fire his sorry a$$
I hgope he continues to stick to his guns until he looks SO RIDICULOUS that seeBS has to fire his sorry a$$
Rather needs to be forced into retirement. Thank God for the cable news outlets. Rather is totally passe, a poser and working as a change agent for the left. Hope their inadequate, shoddy reporting comes back and bites them.
Oh, I don't know.....I kinda like "F U Dan Rather", LOL!
I applaud the techies amongst us.
Y'll done good,
I just don't see how this comes out well for CBS. It's just so bad, it cannot stand.
He kept saying that he "knew" the story was true, but one had to notice that he did not keep saying that the documents are authentic. I suppose we are to take it on faith that if it comes from the Grand Poobah Almighty Rather that it must be true, and we peons are out of place to ask questions.
Y'll = y'all.
Posted by Lady GOP to David Noles "In another challenge to CBS, Killian's boss, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, told ABC News that he regards the documents as a computer "fraud," never saw them in the 1970s and didn't validate them for CBS.
Am starting to wonder if they can be held libel for this.
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