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

Just cause it's fake doesn't mean it's false ????

[waynegoode]

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.

I find it hard to believe I just read that. Technically that is true, but it sounds like "if it turns out the documents are forged, let's still give them the benefit of the doubt that the documents really existed." By the same reasoning, if a reporter makes up a quote and is found out, that still doesn't mean the person didn't say it, so don't reject the quote!

In any investigation, if the documents are fake there is no reason to assume real ones existed.

all the sources stem from the freeper article

[bandy]

Well, thus endeth the accusations that politics.slashdot is left-wing only.

Re:Try this

[bonkedproducer]

Having plenty of documentation available from my own military records - allow me to point out that the standard appearance of "TH" is not superscript even in today's word processor age, but capitals - if this were "real" it should have been typed "187TH" something I used to hate dealing with before I learned my way around Word's autocorrect features.

And another thing while I'm on it, gettting out some of the older paperwork while previewing my post - I notice that rarely is "TH" added, I do see it in a few memoranda I have still, but it is always capitalized, or assumed.

For instance I served in the 35th Maintenance Squadron, 35th Logistics Group, 35th Fighter Wing, MIsawa, Airbase, Japan - almost every document from there is formally typed:

35 MXS, 35 LG, 35 FW, MISAWA, AB, JAPAN.

Looks fishy as hell to me considering it's a lot easier to tack on "th" in a Word Processor compared to an old gov't issue Typewriter.

Forget proportional spacing. Kerning is the proof.

[mc6809e]

A lot has been made of the fact that the text is proportionally spaced. Some have pointed out that a few typewriters has this ability.

Fine.

But what about kerning?

"In typography, kerning refers to adjusting the space between characters, especially by placing two characters closer together than normal. Kerning makes certain combinations of letters, such as WA, MW, TA, and VA, look better. "

There is kerning in the memo with SUBJECT: CYA. It happens between the 'f' and 'e' characters of "interference" and "feedback".

The trouble is that kerning requires remembering the previous character.

As advanced as typewriters might have been in 1973, I doubt any had memory.