Bush Service Memos Questioned

Twirlip of the Mists writes "Last night, CBS News released a set of memos dated 1972 and 1973 that are purported to raise questions about President Bush's National Guard service. Some are saying those memos might have been produced with a computer. Blogger Scott Johnson ran with the story first this morning, raising questions about the typography of the memos. Blogger Charles Johnson (no relation) went one step further, actually reproducing one of the memos in its entirety using Microsoft Word's default settings. Matt Drudge is running the story now with a link to a CNS News article that includes quotes from typography experts at font foundries Afga Monotype and Bitstream. There's a round-up of key facts about the story on this blogger's web site." The experts in the CNS News story and others could come to no conclusion, and even if the documents are not originals or photocopies of originals, that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't faithfully retyped copies of originals. CBS continues to assert the documents are authentic.

Comments

Re:Try this

[Twirlip of the Mists]

So wait a minute. You're suggesting that despite the fact that this memo allegedly written in 1972/73 includes proportional letterspacing (very rare at the time), a font that didn't exist at that time and kerning which was mechanically impossible for a typewriter or desktop typesetting system of that era, it's not forged because the superscript in the screen-shot is two points off of the superscript in the PDF?

Ain't just a river in Egypt, y'all.

The Philadelphia Project

[I_Love_Pocky!]

You are all overlooking the obvious possibility that the military has had access to modern computers since their time travel experiments in the 1940's. This was clearly typed back in the 60's using a then 20 year old copy of Word 2000. Simple questions call for simple answers.

Yeah right...

[NEOtaku17]

"that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't faithfully retyped copies of originals"

Yeah kind of like those symbols made in wheat fields...even though we know that people put them there that doesn't mean that they weren't just faithful copies of real alien works.

Re:The Hand of Karl

[SengirV]

Yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air, I listened to long-time Austin reporter Wayne Slater talk about his book (soon a movie) "Bush's Brain", about Karl Rove and the power behind the president. Rove is a master of dirty tricks, and damned proud of it. I see his hand at work.

WOW!!! you are grasping at straws there don't you think?

I also think Rove is behind the supposedly-unexpected appearance of demonstrators at Bush's appearances... listen to the Fresh Air interview with Slater, especially the part where he sets up a nearly identical disruption of his opponent's event in the early '70s.

Let me get this straight - The W cronies got that woman who was involved in Governer Moonbeams presidential run to disrupt W at the RNC to help Bush out? WOW!!! Do you let the FAR FAR FAR Left NPR do ALL your thinking for you?