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

Try this

[captnitro]

While I agree with the assertion that these could be retyped, CBS is claiming that's not what has happened, that these are originals.

I've made a superimposed image of Word vs. the documents. They have been lined up according to the period after the '1' in the first paragraph. The 'originals' are in red, the Word version in blue.

Re:An analysis

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The forgery camp has been making blanket statements that superscript "th" was utterly unavailable circa 1972. They have also said that proportional spacing was utterly unavailable circa 1972.

That's kind of an oversimplification. Okay, it's not really an oversimplification as much as it is out-and-out wrong. "They" have been saying since early Thursday morning that superscript type balls for the IBM Selectric were available, but only by custom order to IBM and at great cost. "They've" also been saying that the only typewriter that could produce the superscript "th" seen in the CBS memos could not have produced proportional letter-spacing.

I think it will be helpful for everyone to be very clear on exactly what is claimed to be anachronistic

The list is not a short one. Basically everything about these documents is wrong. The format is not correct. The typography is impossible with 1970's-era equipment. The signatures on the two signed memos do not match the signing officer's actual signature. One memo refers to an Air Force manual, AFM 35-13, that never existed; there was a regulation AFR 35-13, but it dealt with supplemental pay for soldiers who were proficient in a foreign language. And, of course, the contents of these memos is suspect because it doesn't jibe with any other account.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

I think the jury's still out on this.

Oh, technically it is. But we're not convicting a man of murder here. There's no reason to err on the side of caution -- either way. Do these documents appear to be forgeries? Yes, definitely. Is there anything about them that suggests they're not forgeries? Nope. Ergo ...

It is possible that some obscure custom typebar for the IBM Executive was in use

It is not possible, actually, according to representatives of IBM's media relations office. They have the records, and they say that no such custom-made Executives were ever produced.

Right now it looks to me like CBS screwed up bigtime.

Yes, either by passing off obviously forged documents ...or by forging them. Not sure we'll ever know which it was.