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New Bush Guard Records Released
rwiedower writes "Over the past 24 hours, several new stories have emerged surrounding President Bush's service in the National Guard. Memos from his commanding officer seem to indicate he was unhappy with Bush's desire to leave Texas, and that he felt Bush was going 'over his head' to get out of service. In true slashdot/military/government fashion, Killian even titled one memo 'CYA'. (The memos, in pdf format, are available here.)"
Kerry LIED about some things related to his service some 30 years ago.
BOTH were honorably discharged from the military.
Bush has said Kerry's service was "honorable". Both "sides" have gone at one another with 527 ads. Persons from BOTH campaigns have been proven to have ties with 527s in some way or another. Texans for Truth is now doing the EXACT same thing Swiftboat Veterans for Truth did. Neither side is better or worse here; sorry to anyone who thinks their "side" is.
What I want to know is:
How does someone's experience as a junior officer over three decades ago have any bearing on their ability to be President of the United States?
And before you answer about things like "character" or truthfulness, in defense of either side, be careful, as both side has lied plenty. (Yes, [insert Bush or Kerry here]-supporters, he's lied a LOT about things related to his service, both during and after.)
Why is "over his head" in quotes? That phrase doesn't appear in the PDFs. It may be the submitter's interpretation of the sentiment expressed by the author of the memos, but the author didn't use those words.
Putting it in quotes is disingenuous and misleading.
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That will affect the future of the country for the next 4 years?
What I want to know is... are either of them Eagle Scouts?
More info
From and post from Freerepublic:
Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.
In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.
This should be pursued aggressively.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Look at the part of the memo that reads "the 187th group". Notice anything about the "th"?
Typewriters don't automagically superscript such things like Word does.
These are obvious forgeries done with Word and run through a copier 50 times to make them look old.
The scary part is how the press did nothing to verify the authenticity of these documents. You'd think they'd check their sources.
RTFA
from the article:
Anchorman Dan Rather reported that the White House did not dispute the authenticity of the documents and said the network had used document authorities to verify their authenticity.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211076/p osts#20
Because voters need to weigh the amount of lying done by both sides. To say both sides lie, and then imply equivalency between the two sides, is disingenuous.
There are lies that hide assumptions or omit extenuating circumstances. Then there are lies that are directly contradicted by documented evidence. They're not the same.
1941 1973.
7 &l ocation=http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/y ear_1941.html
http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=111615
ipso fatso.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
IBM started selling proportional typewriters in 1941. Link here to IBM's history site.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Link to IBM's history site
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
That particular typewriter was electric powered, and was based on a design developed by Remington, and purchased by IBM. Marketers targeted government offices primarily, because of their common practice of using thick pads of carbon copies. The electric power could strike the paper harder than a manual typewriter.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
Proportional-spaced IBM Selectric typewriters (and perhaps other brands) existed in the early 70's, and probably long before. My mom used one, and I played with it trying to make pictures on the paper (the spacing offered the chance to make much fancier graphics, but the machine she was using lacked any way to advance by 1 unit, which limited the ability to place things where wanted.) The machine looked exactly like the fixed-spacing machine she had at home, but I don't believe one could be altered to the other, the character widths were hard-coded.
Since Bush made his military records available, and Kerry has not, you can search his documents yourself and determine whether he deserved to be discharged honorably or not.
A reporter called Byron York has written a tremendously accurate article on Bush's service. I suggest you read it.
http://www.thehill.com/york/090904.aspx
Notice this particular quote:
"In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots," [retired Col. William] Campenni says. "The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In '72 or '73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem."
Now go read the other side of the story, the side that actually reads the whole story, and make a decision.
Remember, President Bush has asked all the 527s to stop the mudslinging, including the SBVFT. He has also said that he thinks Kerry has served honorable, to which Republican audiences have cheered audibly. The Republicans officially do *NOT* question John Kerry's service.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
CYA -- Everyone in the military knows "CYA" this means "Cover Your Ass". The term is used because of the culture of the military. Most people in the military have very little social sophistication, as you might expect of people whose business is solving problems by killing other people. When something is wrong, it is dealt with by attacking, rather than inquiring and fixing.
The person who wrote the memo wanted something in the files that would show he was not part of the corruption. Without the letter, it would be assumed he agreed to the corruption. The lowest ranking person would be punished, and that might be him. The letter "covered" his "ass" from attack.
The handling of these kinds of matters back then is no different than the way the military is handling the torturing of Iraqis now. The people who did the torturing were there to KILL Iraqis. Anything less than killing them may have been thought of as gentle. There is little analysis of anything among those whose business it is to resolve problems by killing others. The leaders only think about escaping responsibility and laying blame on someone of lower rank. So, problems are almost never fixed. Anyone with a sense of idealism finds the military culture very bleak.
Credibility of the man interviewed on the CBS show, "60 Minutes II" -- Someone being interviewed told 60 Minutes last night that he found the letters completely credible: Bush really would have received preferential treatment. I found the man completely credible. That's just the way things were done back then, just as he said. If you had power, you could arrange preferential treatment. If you objected, you would either be ignored or attacked.
Typeface and font used in the letters. -- Much is being made of the proportional font used in the letters. However, I've often had the experience of walking into a military office and being shocked by the office equipment there. There are numerous ways that people in the military get things that they don't really need. For example, a general may requisition something and then discover that his secretary doesn't want to learn how to use it. So, then it is available to an office of lower rank.
The fonts are consistent with those sold with a kind of upscale IBM Selectric typewriter that was actually a low-cost typesetting machine. (Typesetting was what it was called before everyone could do it on a personal computer.) These machines had a use-once carbon ribbon. The impression of each character was clearer than the clearest laser printer.
I'm a bit confused about the model numbers of the typewriter. It could have been called a Selectric costing then about $2,500, I believe. I seem to remember that they had another name for the more upscale, true typesetting machines. (I wrote computer manuals which I typed on a Selectric and were prepared on those machines.)
There were usually some odd symbols and characters like "th" on the type balls used by the Selectric family of typesetting machines. That's because of the design of the balls. Whereever there was room, there were characters, partly to assure that the balls would be balanced, I suppose, and partly just because there was room.
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Bush's education improvements were fraud
Well, I'm basically going to paste the whole article. I'm sorry if this isn't good enough for you to understand; if it isn't, I'm afraid I can't help. If you're looking for a sound-bite type answer, I guess the best I can do is this:
Kerry claimed he threw away his ribbons and/or medals.
Kerry claimed he DID NOT throw away his own ribbons and/or medals, but that they were actually the medals of another veteran.
One of those statements is not true. Which one? Who knows; Kerry's changed his story so many times that I can't tell (and really don't care).
Can you really not see how many times he's changed his story on this one thing? From "No", to "Yes", to "Partly", and everything in between? It's not the medals themselves, or whether he threw them away, but I hope you can see the problem here.
If, on the other hand, you want to believe that the liberal/left/Democrat side is always perfect, benevolent, and saintly, and the conservative/right/Republican side is pure evil, greed, and lies, that's your right. Go for it.
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Not one voter in 100 would vote against Kerry for trashing his Vietnam War medals when he was 27 years old. What he did with his combat decorations in 1971 has no bearing on whether he is fit to be president today. That long-ago episode is an issue today only because Kerry's versions of it have changed so many times and because it so perfectly typifies his lifelong habit of saying one thing today and something else tomorrow -- and then denying having done so.
So what does Kerry say he did with those medals? As with so many of his shifts and flip-flops, it's all on the record.
Take 1:
Q. Did Kerry throw his combat decorations away in an antiwar protest 33 years ago?
A. Yes. As The Boston Globe reported on April 24, 1971, "John Kerry . . . said before he threw his medals over the fence: `I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try to make this country wake up once and for all.' "
Take 2:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Yes. In a Nov. 6, 1971, interview with WRC-TV, he recalled that the protesters had decided to "renounce the symbols which this country gives . . . the medals themselves." When the interviewer asked, "How many did you give back, John?" he answered: "I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine." The interviewer noted that Kerry had won the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts. Kerry: "Well, and above that, I gave back my others."
Take 3:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. No. In 1984, running for the Senate against a World War II Air Force veteran, he claimed he had refused to do so. "After showing a reporter his medals and ribbons on display in his Back Bay apartment," The Boston Globe reported on Oct. 15, 1984, Kerry "said he had disagreed with other protest leaders on throwing away medals." The medals he was seen tossing, Kerry added, were those of a "veteran from Lincoln [Mass.], at his request."
Take 4:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Medals, no; ribbons, yes. During his 1996 reelection campaign, he told the Globe that he only threw the ribbons pinned to his uniform. "Asked why he didn't bring his own medals to throw since it was planned weeks in advance," the Globe reported on Oct. 6, 1996, "Kerry said it was because he didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them." The medals he was seen tossing, he claimed, belonged to two other veterans -- the one from Lincoln and one from New York. "Kerry says he can't remember their names."
The variations don't end there. For example, his explanation that he "didn't have time to go home and get" the medals -- i.e., he would have trashed them if he could have -- is sharply at odds with his earlier "explanation" to the Boston Herald: "They're my medals. I can do goddam what I want with them."
On Monday's TV show, after being shown the tape
Word is this...whereas the memo is...
Little Green Footballs here
"I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft's Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date "18 August 1973," then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian...The spacing is not just similar--it is identical in every respect. Notice that the date lines up perfectly, all the line breaks are in the same places, all letters line up with the same letters above and below, and the kerning is exactly the same...There is absolutely no way that this document was typed on any machine that was available in 1973.
PowerLine here.
Pacetown here.
Since you are unable to clearly specify WHAT LIE HE TOLD, all you are doing is repeating your mantra.
You are like so many others. You are unable to think for yourself. You recite the proper phrases to others to confirm that you believe what they believe, but you cannot provide any FACTS for what you believe.
Even when you have a complete article by a fellow true believer, you cannot sort through it to find a single example to support what you believe.
There's a funny self-consistency in my guess about the machine used to prepare the memos. Back then anyone writing and publishing computer user manuals really struggled with the publishing. Whenever something needed to look professional, we had it typeset. To do that, we did what is called "spec type". On one occasion I spent 11 hours specifying typesetting values for one particularly complicated page.
After you have spent many, many hours worrying about the look of type, you begin to be extremely sensitive to everything about it. (Either that, or you wouldn't be successful.)
Looking at the letters discussing preferential treatment for George W. Bush brings back strong memories. The Selectric was an unbelievably complicated machine that needed frequent service because it depended on everything being adjusted to extremely fine tolerances.
Anyone familiar with this can see something funny about the letters immediately. It's obvious to me. Whoever had the typing machine did not have the maintenance contract. It's easy to know this because the letters are not all level with the baseline. That's what would happen when the Selectric or other typing machine from the same family was not adjusted.
The funny self-consistency is this. It's easy to guess that they got the machine from the general's office after some civilian secretary there decided that the new machine was too complicated to learn. But, since an office of lower rank was not allowed to have such a machine, they did not have the maintenance contract. That could be why the baseline of the type is so messy.
Someone said that the letters were forgeries because they were obviously done with Microsoft Word. It is impossible to simulate the variation of baseline with Microsoft Word; Word is too basic a tool, it is not able to do many of the functions of real typesetting. People who are sensitive to the beauty of type certainly don't use MS Word.
I use Ventura Publisher. It is possible to vary the baseline in Ventura or in Quark Express. I've never had experience with Quark, but I've talked extensively with professional typesetters who do use it.
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24 wars since WW2: Creating fear so rich people can profit.
Says who? When you realize that lowercase 'L' was used for the digit 1 on most typewriters and that the top row was longer than the standard 101-key keyboard we're used to, and the symbol set was different [cents key, for example]... So, find one of these typewriters, take a photo of its keyboard, put it on the net. I googled about for a good photo of an Executive typewriter but all I could find were low-quality scans.
The point of having a proportionally-spacing typewriter was that you could add things like a "th" superscript key and make it look good [not squished] in order to produce camera-ready copy... or to be a status symbol ["Executive"] for muckety-mucks such as unit commanders.
The White House says they're authentic. Why do you resist?
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Iraqbodycount is only a) only counting cilivilian deaths and b) only counting deaths which have been /reported/ twice in the media. Actual civilian deaths are likely to be significantly higher. One Iraqi group estimated 35k.
Even if we assume that only 12-14k civilians were killed, the number of military casualties were much higher; the Guardian estimates up to 45k.
60k is probably a reasonable estimate for total deaths.
See also the Wikipedia article.
Also, you just made my foes list for calling someone a troll without justification.
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CP olitics%5Carchive%5C200409%5CPOL20040909d.html
They cite and directly quote three typography experts, all hitting the same basic points as noted below: proportional type, the superscript 'th', the lack of a letterhead.
And one other -- it looks like the 01 Aug 72 signature may have been cut and pasted (the old fashioined way, actual cutting and pasting) because of the cutoff of the top loop.
An IBM Executive typewriter wasn't typesetting equipment, but it was designed to produce camera-ready copy in short order. If my mother wasn't having surgery today, I'd ask her if [a] she still had her typewriter and [b] type up a copy of the memo and scan it in.
... and most interestingly, the 'b' hangs below - it's a less round 'b' than the one Word uses. Also note that in Word, the letters ['p', 'g', 's'] have sharp tips on them, but in the memo they're blunted. See for yourself. Grab a copy of Word and go for it.
It wasn't insanely expensive, it was a model that had been produced by IBM since 1941, and cheap enough after the introduction of the Selectric that a low-level IBMer such as my mom could afford one.
It's a lot like a Word document because the folks who made WYSIWYG editor programs in the '70s and '80s copied the look and feel of the output of a typesetter, same as IBM did when they designed the typewriter back in the early half of the previous century. It's called "good engineering".
What you need to look for are indications of "produced on a typewriter" versus "produced on a computer". The most obvious one is flying letters from being too fast or slow on the shift key. I don't see any indications of that which could be due to a careful typist or perhaps an interlock mechanism on what was IBM's premier typewriter.
As to "it looks the same in Word", no it does not. I just typed in the 8/18 memo, and while the spacing is the "same" [line breaks in the same places], the fonts are different. In the memo, notice that the serifs on the letters hang below the baseline
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
He LIED, specifically, about whether or not he threw away his medals/ribbons.
I do not know WHICH is the lie, because he has said, alternatively, that he has NOT thrown away any; that he has thrown them ALL away; that he has thrown SOME away; or that he threw none of his OWN, but some of another veteran at that veteran's request.
I, personally, do not know WHICH is the lie, because I physically, myself, do not know whether or not Kerry did actually throw away all, some, or none of his own medals. However, HE HIMSELF has said he has thrown away all, some, or none of his own ribbons and/or medals.
ONE OF THOSE THINGS IS A LIE, and I'm not sure why you can't understand that. There is NO WAY for me to tell you WHICH is a lie, because I wasn't physically there. But when you have the following two scenarios, as presented by KERRY HIMSELF:
Kerry DID throw away his medals/ribbons
Kerry DID NOT throw away his medals/ribbons
ONE OF THEM IS A LIE, period, and you cannot refute that. What's worse is not even the lie itself or the subject, but how many times he's changed his story, and the degree of creativity to which he has done so, for this one utterly insignificant event.
I literally cannot believe I just had to explain that.
Further, please note that I DO NOT CARE whether or not Kerry threw all, some, or none of his medals and/or ribbons away over three decades ago. Whether he did or not would not affect my own personal voting decision. What DOES concern me is that he has CLEARLY lied about it, and several times at that. Just because you don't know WHICH is the lie doesn't make them all the truth.
I gave you specific examples and you must remember that depending on your preferences here at /. you may or may not be seeing the entire discussion.
His poker chip example was excellent at showing that you cannot give differing answers to the same black or white questions without one of the answers being a lie. This is something you are not processing.
Process this Khasim - when Kerry has been asked "Did you throw away your medals?" he has given at least 4 differing answers to the question that could not be true if any of the others are true - that means that at least three of the responses are lies.
So what did he lie about? He lied about throwing away his medals. Did he throw them away or not - we will likely never know because of his choice to not be completely factual about this important moment for him.
Your original post I replied to stated:
"Since you are unable to clearly specify WHAT LIE HE TOLD,"
So I took the time to explain for you "WHAT LIE HE TOLD." He lied about the medals being thrown.
You continued with your claims of those in disagreement with your views are only capable of repeating a MANTRA:
"...you cannot provide any FACTS for what you believe."
Well, I provided the facts several times - either he told the truth in all four differing responses or he lied in three, since none of the responses can exist without making the other three false - he lied. This is called a Fact, sorry if you don't like its existance, but it is a Fact, not a point of discussion.
As for me not being able to process the DISCUSSION, I directly responded to YOUR comment - I pointed out exactly where the lie is - something you claim the Parent poster could not do even though he clearly had, and provided factual proof of its existance - logic dictates that two differing responses to the question could not both be true because they conflict with each other.
There is nothing to debate here, it has nothing to do with who I (or you for that matter) support in the election (trust me I won't be voting for Bush, Nader, or Kerry,) it has nothing to do with discussion, it is a statement of FACTS. Something you claimed were not being provided. I have processed the information for you, and did not repeat a mantra - rather I stated the logical fact that a yes and no answer to the this question cannot coexist meaning one of those answers is a lie. You are the one repeating a mantra and refusing to process the information being handed out freely.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society - M. Twain
Subject should have been CNS and not CBS. Oops.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
The Badnarik-Cobb debate, also called the "third-party" debate although I believe they also sent invitations to the two establishment parties, was aired on C-Span. It is still in their online archives for a limited time here (or just search c-span.org for "badnarik cobb").
Assuming the site isn't lying about the forensics expert.
They're not. I spoke to him about 2 hours ago.
Assuming you choose to ignore that Word's "th" is placed such that the bottom of "th" is colinear with the bottom of the top of the '7',
Not on my computer. On mine, the bar in the "th" is just under aligned with the bottom edge of the bar of the 7. But in any case, Word renders superscripts differently on paper than it does on screen. Print it out. Don't look at it on-screen. You will see a difference.
Not to mention that Word would have superscripted the "st" in "1st Lt. Bush" but the August 1 memo does not reflect that.
That's trivially easy to explain (type "1 st" and then remove the space, and then observe the instances of "1 st" with the space left in), but you're ignoring the overriding fact: IBM Selectric typewriters did not have the typeface that these four memos were set in. It absolutely was not available.
A complete list of type balls for the IBM Selectric follows:
10 Pitch Type Styles: Advocate, Bookface Academic 72, Delegate, Orator, Courier 72, Pica 72, Prestige Pica 72
12 Pitch Type Styles: Adjutant, Artisan 12, Courier 12 Italic, Scribe, Prestige Elite, Courier 12, Elite 72, Letter Gothic
Special Typing Applications: Light Italic, Script, Printing ANSI-OCR, Symbol 10, 108 OCR, Manifold 72, Symbol 12
None of those looks anything like Times New Roman. So superscripts aside, these memos could not have been produced on an IBM Selectric typewriter of any vintage, with any type ball.
These memos were not committed to paper in 1972 or 1973. Nor were they committed to paper before 1984, the last year that the purported author of these documents (and signer of two of them) was alive.
I write in my journal