You want what? For me to write three thousand words on exactly how what you said Cheney said differs from the facts? Fuck that. Go check the videotape.
How old are you? Seriously, I'm asking. Because you've got this whole "I'm a junior-high-school student, spoon-feed me knowledge" thing going on.
[Because] IF we make the wrong choice [vote for Kerry] THEN the danger is we will be hit again AND we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.
That's not what he said. That's simply not what he said. You're starting with something he did not say and then misinterpreting it.
And, you're missing at least one typeball from your "complete" list, the APL typeball. I used an APL typeball plenty of times in the 1970s.
You might have used a third-party, after-market type ball in the late 1970's. According to IBM, third-party type balls were first available in 1976.
These memos are dated 1972 and 73.
And they couldn't have been produced on a Selectric anyway, because the Selectric could not do proportional-spaced type. Just like the IBM Executive couldn't do Times New Roman or the superscript "th."
So it is clear that the 'th' glyph was present on at least some of the manual typewriters on the base.
Sigh. There's never been a manual typewriter that did proportional letterspacing.
You're just in complete flail mode now, aren't you?
Your statement from 'IBM' is unsourced
Wakey wakey, Zein. I told you that I got that info from IBM's press relations office. Hellooo?
why would someone working for the IBM computer company in 2004 have any expertise in what options the IBM typewriter division was delivering in Texas in the 1960s?
Because they have the catalog of what IBM manufactured.
The IBM executive had been made for over thirty years by the time the memo was written and the model used could have been any one of them.
Right. But none of them had a "th" glyph on it.
Again, if the memos were fake then the WH would not have re-released the CBS documents
The White House didn't re-release anything. They merely passed the memos along to other reporters, as has been White House policy for years. Any time a reporter hands the press secretary a piece of documentation, the White House faxes or emails copies out to everybody in the pool. That's how they do things.
Bush would have said 'I was never ordered to take the medical'
Zein, you're a mouth-breathing pederast. You haven't denied it, therefore it must be true!
Seriously, your grip on reality is tenuous at best.
And what should be done to the Bush administration for taking us to war partly based on the forged Niger documents ?
Where've you been? The Niger documents were not forged. To the contrary, it was Joe Wilson who played fast and loose with the truth in his article for the Times, "What I Didn't Find in Africa."
Niger document: not forged. Joe Wilson: liar. You: Woefully out of touch with the news. Kay?
I'm not going to continue point by point refutation since you just ignore my arguments and say "that's not true! this was covered in hundreds of places!" and you don't bother to cite them.
Poor baby. Forced to go out and read for himself. That's gotta be against the Geneva Convention or something, right?
having read quite a bit about the swift boat charges, I am quite convinced that they were lying
Here's a suggestion. Why don't you read reputable accounts instead of Salon-magazine hatchet jobs?
If you have a source that is convincing I'd like to see it
Go to Google. Swing a dead cat. Voila!
But don't claim that the "connections" I mentioned above are not legitimate without addressing them specifically. They are not "6 degrees of separation."
Um. Yeah, they are. You're talking about people who worked with other people. Not a connection. No evidence at all of cooperation or coordination. And if you don't require such evidence to be convinced, then look at the DNC. Lots of "connections" between the DNC and the Kerry campaign and Move On, ACT and other 527 groups.
As for the memos, maybe they are fake, maybe they're not.
No maybe about it. They're fake as a four-dollar bill.
Both CBS and ABC Nightline covered the charges that they were phony tonight.
No, CBS did not. Nightline did, albeit briefly. The Post has a lengthy story on the front page of tomorrow's paper.
It's interesting to me that they haven't either pulled out the original memos or invited more experts to check them out
CBS News does not have the originals. What you see on their site is what they purport to have received from this unnamed source.
About the Cheney quote - I don't see what is different about what you said and what I assumed it meant.
Sigh.
The point is the same -- he thinks (or claims to think) that a vote for Kerry will lead to more terrorist attacks
No he fucking does not, you ignorant fuckwit. Use your FUCKING BRAIN for TWO FUCKING SECONDS.
1. We elect Kerry. 2. There's an attack, a possibility that has nothing to do with Kerry. 3. The attack is worse because we've reverted to the pre-9/11 law-enforcement paradigm and abandoned the overwhelming-response paradigm.
Christ! You are the densest motherfucker in the world, do you know that? Jesus!
There is no evidence Kerry will treat terrorism as a "crime" and not a "war"
April 18th, Meet the Press: "I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort." Fucking dipshit. If you're not going to fucking PAY ATTENTION, why the FUCK do you feel like it's okay for you to go running off at the mouth?
"There is no evidence, la la la." HE SAID IT ON NATIONAL FUCKING TELEVISION. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
For the love of all that's holy, DON'T FUCKING VOTE, okay? STAY THE FUCK HOME.
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.
IBM's electric typewriters had proportional fonts as far back as 1945. Even if the base had a typewriter that was nearly 30 years old, it would still be capable of creating proportional fonts.
That is not correct. IBM made a line of typewriters that used proportional spacing: the IBM Executives. IBM also made a line that had interchangeable type balls that could take different typefaces: the Selectrics.
The Executives could not produce Times New Roman type, or, indeed, any variety of Times. The Selectrics could in theory have produced Times if there had been a Times type ball (there wasn't), but the Selectrics were incapable of doing proportional letterspacing.
In order to produce this memo, the typewriter would have had to do both of those things at once. No typewriter has ever existed that could do both.
Doubters should also remember that today's most popular proportional fonts have been used in typesetting (and on selectrics) since well before TrueType.
Yes, on typesetting machines like the Linotype hot-lead typesetters and the IBM Composer line-setting system. Neither of these would have been found in an office, for both cost tens of thousands of dollars and required special training to use.
Furthermore, Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, mentioned in the memos and involved in the back-and-forth, has confirmed that Killian expressed to him the same sentiments contained in the memos.
Yes, that's what CBS says. Nobody else has been able to talk to him because he's stopped answering his phone. (Understandably.) Furthermore, CBS acknowledges that MG Hodges never actually saw these memos. They were read aloud to him over the phone. So he has no input into the authenticity of the documents at all either way.
Regarding the superscripted 'th' argument, this document from Bush's official records also contains a superscripted 'th':
And there ends the similarities between that document and these. That document damns more than it forgives, friend. Compare the typography.
The White House even admits the authenticity of the documents, so why is this even an issue?
No, the White House declined to say anything about them at all. They received them from CBS News, looked 'em over, declined to comment, then emailed them out to other reporters this morning.
Because people don't want to realize that Bush disobeyed a DIRECT ORDER from his superior officers.
Um. There is no evidence that any such order was given apart from this memo, and the authenticity of this memo is... well, I was going to say it's in doubt, but after all we've seen today it really isn't, is it? This memo is not authentic. It may be a reproduction of an actual memo, like somebody sat down in front of a PC and re-typed it or something, but it's not the real deal.
People don't want to believe an extraordinary claim unless there's extraordinary proof. And in this case, not only is there no extraordinary proof, but the proof that was offered is itself false! It has negative truth value, if you will. The fact that this memo is a forgery (along with the other three) sucks credibility away from the claim.
Because people don't want to think that the plane Bush flew continued to be used regularly through 1975, despite Bush and Bartlett's claims that it was "being phased out"
Um. You're not paying attention. When Bush moved to Alabama, there were no open slots on the flight-line. Because Bush's plane was being phased out -- no need for scare-quotes, you see -- and he was in his last year of service, the Air National Guard opted not to re-train him. He let his flight OK lapse because he had no reason not to. This was not unusual at all.
He didn't disobey a direct order because there was no such order. Okay?
The best line I've heard lately, courtesy of Kevin Drum
Sigh. If you've taken to quoting Kevin Drum, there's little hope for you left.
You have a doctor claiming to have treated Kerry's wounds whose name appears nowhere on the records.
Um. That's not accurate at all. Lt. Cmdr. Letson is mentioned in all the records. He was indeed a medical officer serving in Kerry's unit. He was there when Kerry was there, was deployed to the same areas Kerry was deployed to. His signature is not on Kerry's citation because he refused to sign it saying that the wound did not merit it. Which is exactly what he testified to in his affidavit and which is what the Vets said in their commercial.
You have someone claiming the opposite of what he claimed after the war.
What? That didn't even make sense.
Snopes did a fine job summarizing the lies
Are you completely deranged? The Snopes hatchet-job has been thoroughly discredited, was thoroughly discredited weeks ago. This is old news!
Also, that was quite subtle how you shifted from claiming there's no link between the swift boats and bush to claiming that the swift boat ads are true. Where do you stand exactly?
Funny, I thought those were two different questions. One: there is no improper relationship between SBVFT and the Bush campaign, the GOP or the White House. Two: the claims that the Vets have made -- under oath, mind you -- have never been demonstrated to be anything other than God's own truth.
No; he did not specifically denounce the SBVFT ads for being false
How the hell would he know? The President wasn't there. He has no more reason to say that the ads were false than...well, than you do. What he said was that he denounced them: they're bad for the process, as are all soft-money issue ads.
In other words, he evaded the real issue.
"He evaded the real issue" = "he didn't take my side." Okay, dude. Whatever.
I cited, with links to evidence, three separate connections apart from Ginsburg, which you never refuted or even addressed.
Those are not "connections!" I mean, if you want to play "six degrees of separation," I'm sure we can have ourselves a fine time. John Smith knows Jane Doe who knows Albert Johnson who knows Robert Thompson. But that proves nothing, other than it's a small world.
There is no "connection," in the sense that there was no influence of one group upon the other, and no cooperation between them. None whatsoever.
That would be 1972.
Um. You've got to be kidding me, right? That article is a tissue of errors and misstatements, and it also dates back to February, for Chrissakes. I can't swear to it, but I think I myself wrote one of the hundreds of point-by-point refutations.
Long story short: the president did not "drop out" of anything. His aircraft was being phased out and the Guard declined to train him on a new one. He let his flight status lapse because he knew he wouldn't be flying any more and because a physical examination is not a fun thing to do with your day. He requested a leave to work on the senatorial campaign and was granted that leave. During 1972 he accumulated more than the required 50 points; I think the precise number was 54.
You're so completely out of touch with the facts, and yet you think you've got a monopoly on truth. That's really sad, ya know?
Watch the Republican Convention again; I'm sure you videotaped the whole thing.
Actually I was busy covering it, so I didn't catch much of the TV broadcasts.
That's practically all these people could talk about, what a strong leader Bush will be compared to that french-looking wimp Kerry.
Hmm. We're off-topic again. You said the campaign cast aspersions on Kerry's war record. That did not happen during the convention, or at any other time.
Now, the campaign has cast a shitload of aspersions on Kerry's Senate record, and rightly so. But that's
That would be the cretin you want to get elected to the Whitehouse.
It's two words: White House.
Several people are claiming that they used Selectric golfballs with proportional pitch.
Impossible. The pitch on a Selectric isn't controlled by the type ball. It's controlled by the motor drive. The type ball just rotates and elevates to strike a letter on the paper. There's nothing about it that controls how far the type head advances on each letter strike.
but I certainly don't see how you claim to know the exact capabilities of every typewriter owned by the US military.
I've had sixteen hours now to work on this story.;-) How many people from IBM have you talked to today?
IBM sold selectric golfballs with the th superscript at the time.
Yes. They were custom items that were machined to order and that cost a fortune. And they also could not produce variable-pitch type, nor could they produce Times New Roman type.
There is no reason why they could not have offered their IBM Executive series machines with a similar option.
Yes, there is: the Executive machines didn't use interchangeable type balls. They used a lever-arm mechanism. Either all Executive typewriters would have had the "th" glyph or none of them would have. None did. IBM never made one with that glyph.
And no, the typeface is not MICROSOFT anything, Microsoft has never designed a typeface ever. The Microsoft fonts are from Monospace corp.
LOL. You mean "Monotype?" Heh. When TrueType came along in the early 1990s (or was it late 1980s?) Microsoft licensed the name and the letter forms from Monotype, now Agfa Monotype. Microsoft implemented the font, which means they determined the letterspacing, kerning pairs and so on.
The CTO of Agfa Monotype, incidentally, is on the record saying that it was highly unusual for anyone to use proportional-pitch type in the 1970's. The technology just wasn't there.
The 'expert' you refer to is not regarded as such outside the US republican party.
Sorry, but that's simply not true. He's so influential in the industry of forensic document analysis that other researchers write papers about him.
There is only one google hit for Bouffard and typewriter that relates to a forensic case and that is a crank case involving UFOs.
The problem with the SBVFT ads are that they are airing blatant lies
Nope. Not one statement made by SBVFT has been shown to be false. And lord knows folks have tried.
Also the president explicitly did NOT denounce the ad
What do you want him to do? Say "I renounce thee" three times? Say that the Swift Vets ads are bad but everybody else's is okay? He said he denounces these ads and all other soft-money issue ads. Deal.
Most importantly, the Bush connection is not just Ben Ginsburg but also Kenneth Cordier, Merrie Spaeth, and, less directly, Karl Rove.
You're ignoring the point. If Ben Ginsburg is a "connection" then Neil Reiff is a "connection."
There is absolutely no connection between SBVFT and the GOP, the White House or the Bush campaign. None whatsoever. The most motivated journalists in America have dug and dug and dug and found nothing, because there's nothing to be found.
Finally, you keep claiming that Bush "denied, debunked, and dismissed" these claims in 2000, yet NOBODY has stepped forward to tell anyone what Bush was actually doing during his missing year.
What "missing year?" There was no missing year? We have records of the President's National Guard service from 1968 to 1973, all five years of his service.
Which really wouldn't bother me so much if he and Cheney were not painting him as some kind of freaking war hero
Find me one statement that anybody in the administration or the campaign has made to that effect. Just one.
You're confusing your candidates again.
All the while supporting the aspersions cast on Kerry's war record.
Sigh. Nobody from the administration or the campaign has ever said anything negative about Kerry's war record. The people casting aspersions are (1) the vets who served with him, and (2) the vets who got pissed off at the things he said when he came home. (These two groups overlap significantly.)
By the way, Cheney's comment that voting for Kerry will lead to terrorism in the US
Not what he said. Please stop getting your news from the Daily Kos.
The text of the quote: "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us."
If you're not bright enough to understand that, then maybe you ought to just bow out of this whole thing and leave the politics to us grown-ups.
The "nuh-uh" argument? Typewriters that could do proportional letterspacing were very rare in 1972. The ones that were available were not equipped with Microsoft Times New Roman, a font that did not exist at that time.
Times Roman *did* exist at the time
Microsoft Times New Roman did not.
and that kind of kerning is *not* impossible
It is completely impossible for a mechanical typewriter. Why? Because kerning involves applying variable letterspacing (sometimes negative) depending on what letter you just typed. If you type a T, the o following it has to be offset to the left. No mechanical typewriter ever constructed has ever done that.
in my professional opinion as a typesetter, the kerning on the document exhibits attributes that one would expect from a proportional typewriter and not from Word.
Well, your professional opinion isn't worth much. Set the type in Word using the default settings. Compare and contrast. The letter spacing is identical. Not close, not similar. Identical, point for point.
And I've read that the IBM Executive was quite common in military office usage.
It was indeed. But it didn't produce output in the same font as that used in these memos, Microsoft Times New Roman, and it couldn't produce the miniature superscript "th" seen in these memos. So these memos were not typed on an IBM Executive.
First proportional fonts did not exist at all. [oops wrong]
Okay, enough with the bullshit. All right?
Two typewriters: IBM Executive, IBM Selectric. Both were widely available in 1972/73. The Executive did proportional letterspacing but did not have interchangeable type balls, so it could not have produced these memos. The Selectric had interchangeable type balls but it did not have proportional spacing, so it could not have produced these memos.
It's really not that hard a concept, you know. You're either the biggest dumbass I've encountered all day -- and that is saying something -- or you're just fucking around.
In fact you had to go to a 3rd party to get the golfball with proportional spacing, at least at first.
Pardon me while I wipe up the spittle from the sudden and uncontrollable laughter. I don't care what kind of type ball you put in an IBM Selectric I or Selectric II, it could not do proportional spacing. The motor drive on a Selectric I/II was fixed at either 10 or 12 letters per inch; there was a lever to select which you wanted to use. But you couldn't use any other spacing, and you couldn't do proportional spacing. Period.
The idea that a Lt. Col. could not afford a fancy font for his typewriter is ridiculous.
The machine that could produce something similar to these memos cost $20,000. It was called an IBM Composer. It was not used for memos because it required special training to use and took forever to produce a finished page. And it still could not do Microsoft Times New Roman, because that font had not been invented yet.
This is pure denial from the right
Oops. Little typo there. You meant to say, "this is pure denial from ME."
Well, that's technically correct now that that guy resigned.
You wanna drag Ben Ginsberg into this? Fine. Then explain Neil Reiff. Reiff is the chief counsel for Move On and the deputy general counsel for the DNC. So if Ben Ginsberg did something wrong by advising both the Bush administration and SBVFT, then Neil Reiff and the DNC are culpable too.
Sauce for the goose, right?
But the White House, despite calls from McCain to do so, has never denounced the Swift Boat ads.
Um. No, that's not true. On August 23, the president denounced the SBVFT ads as well as all soft-money advertising.
Kerry isn't going to say he respects Bush's service, because he doesn't. Who the fuck would?
Ah. And there we see the difference, don't we?
Even if he didn't pull connections, if he didn't go AWOL, (he can't find anyone willing to go on record and deny either of those)
They were all denied during the 2000 campaign. Denied, debunked and dismissed. How short your memory is.
It wasn't even the principled wuss road of simple desertion or civil disobediance--he went along with the system, but didn't stick his neck out to defend it.
So you'd rather the president desert his post than opt for homeland service instead of service overseas? Okay. That tells me everything I need to know about you.
And I did see people typing business letters with them.
No, you didn't. An IBM Composer had no memory in it, which means the entire document had to be typed twice: First the machine calculated letter spacing, then the operation set a manual spacing wheel and re-typed the line to actually put words on the page. The machine required special training and took forever to generate even a single page of type. It was only used for camera-ready copy for reproduction.
No, there's not. But when you generate a copy of the text using Microsoft Word and do a side-by-side comparison, you find that the lines are set in exactly the same way, with no visible difference. Which would not be the case if these were different fonts, or even different versions of Times New Roman from different foundries.
These memos were set with a font that did not exist when the person who allegedly signed them died.
Just, you know, to keep our eyes on the big picture here.
Asked and answered elsewhere. We're talking about Microsoft Times New Roman, a very specific version of Times New Roman with specific letter-spacing. I should have been more specific.
The old proportional spacing IBM Selectric typewriters
There were no proportional-spacing IBM Selectric typewriters. The IBM Executive was a proportional-letterspacing typewriter, but the type that came out of it looked nothing like Times New Roman of any variety, much less Microsoft's.
The biggest reason to doubt the bouffard claims is that the gif image that has been posted is of such a miserable resolution that it is impossible to see what is going on at all.
What? GIF image? What the hell are you talking about? The documents CBS released are PDFs containing 108-dpi (appx) scans of the memos.
I do not even agree that the font is definitely Times Roman
Well, since you're not a recognized expert in the field of the forensic analysis of typewriting, you'll excuse me if I can't be bothered to give a shit.
Having a key for superscript th was certainly not uncommon
It was EXTREMELY uncommon. The superscript "th" type ball was only available from IBM by a custom order. It was machined to order and sold for an outlandish price.
And the typewriter it fit into could not do proportional letterspacing.
having a proportional printing typewriter was not uncommon either
It was very uncommon; you mean to say that it was not unheard-of. But the typewriters that could do proportional letterspacing did not have removable type balls and therefore could neither have typed the superscript "th" character nor have produced a memo in Times New Roman.
Setting aside the fact that no typewriter on Earth could have produced a memo written in Microsoft Times New Roman.
I would not expect a fancy typewriter in the typing pool, but in a senior officer's private office, hell yes.
A $20,000 desktop typesetter like the IBM Composer? Not a chance. Aside from the fact that these devices required special training, they took much longer to use because everything had to be typed twice. They were used for camera-ready copy for reproduction, not for memos.
The signature looks exactly like what you get when you do that.
Except it doesn't look like any of the other memos that we have that were signed by Lt. Col. Killian in 1972 or 1973.
It is an established fact that Bush did not show up for his medical, nobody disputes this.
That's not the point of these memos. The point is the memo titled "CYA," the one that purports to provide evidence for Ben Barnes' as-yet-unsupported story of influence peddling in the TANG.
Ordering Bush to take the medical is exactly what you would expect his commanding officer to do.
Yes, you would order a junior officer to attend to his medical, but you would do it with an order, you know, a letter, not with an interoffice memo. And you would do it in the month that the junior officer's medical was scheduled (his birth month, in other words), not two months earlier.
You're going to have to back up your claim about Barnes in 1999 -- I don't see anything on this as I'm researching it.
May I suggest that you try that new-fangled research tool, the Internet? I know it seems kind of like a fad, but trust me; there's some good stuff on there.
Actually the only reference I've seen to his claims in 1999 are almost the opposite -- apparently he said then that the Bush family did not ask him for help!
His story shifted in the early days from "the Bush family asked me" to "the Bush family used its influence." When pressed, he said that he was actually asked by a Bush family friend, since deceased, whose name now escapes me.
Actually, the legitimate news sources -- sorry, but "Free Republic" and other crackpot right wing conspiracy sites don't count for me -- seem to be treating the confession itself as major news, and certainly CBS did.
Um. Hello, my name is circular reasoning. I'm new in town, and I was wondering if you'd be my friend.
You said, "The media is taking this seriously, especially CBS." Everybody else on planet earth said, "CBS released forged documents." You said, "They can't be forged. The media is taking them seriously, especially CBS."
Duh.
but also the Repubs, who started this crap with the claims that Kerry didn't serve well enough in the Vietnam War
Nobody from either the Bush campaign or the GOP has ever made such an allegation. To the contrary, the campaign and the GOP have repeatedly said that the respect Sen. Kerry's service and thank him for it.
Others not directly affiliated with the campaign or the GOP have made accusations. If you want to attribute those accusations to the campaign or the GOP, then every vulgar, profane, offensive sign ever carried by a disaffected college student becomes the problem of the Democratic Party. Which doesn't help anybody.
The Republicans made this an issue
You haven't been paying attention. The Kerry campaign made it an issue. For six months, it was the issue. Despite having been admonished by high-ranking Democrats to change the fucking subject, Senator Kerry is still making his service an issue.
So, yeah, I do think it's a distraction, but I am happy to see the republicans hoisted on their own petard here.
I'm sorry, but producing forged documents to further a false accusation is hardly being "hoisted on their own petard."
I've already taken credit for not being sufficiently specific. I should have said Microsoft Times New Roman, which is the specific typeface used in these four memos.
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:
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.
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You want what? For me to write three thousand words on exactly how what you said Cheney said differs from the facts? Fuck that. Go check the videotape.
How old are you? Seriously, I'm asking. Because you've got this whole "I'm a junior-high-school student, spoon-feed me knowledge" thing going on.
[Because] IF we make the wrong choice [vote for Kerry] THEN the danger is we will be hit again AND we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.
That's not what he said. That's simply not what he said. You're starting with something he did not say and then misinterpreting it.
Cut it out.
We're not talking Selectric.
Um. Yeah, we are. What?
And, you're missing at least one typeball from your "complete" list, the APL typeball. I used an APL typeball plenty of times in the 1970s.
You might have used a third-party, after-market type ball in the late 1970's. According to IBM, third-party type balls were first available in 1976.
These memos are dated 1972 and 73.
And they couldn't have been produced on a Selectric anyway, because the Selectric could not do proportional-spaced type. Just like the IBM Executive couldn't do Times New Roman or the superscript "th."
So it is clear that the 'th' glyph was present on at least some of the manual typewriters on the base.
Sigh. There's never been a manual typewriter that did proportional letterspacing.
You're just in complete flail mode now, aren't you?
Your statement from 'IBM' is unsourced
Wakey wakey, Zein. I told you that I got that info from IBM's press relations office. Hellooo?
why would someone working for the IBM computer company in 2004 have any expertise in what options the IBM typewriter division was delivering in Texas in the 1960s?
Because they have the catalog of what IBM manufactured.
The IBM executive had been made for over thirty years by the time the memo was written and the model used could have been any one of them.
Right. But none of them had a "th" glyph on it.
Again, if the memos were fake then the WH would not have re-released the CBS documents
The White House didn't re-release anything. They merely passed the memos along to other reporters, as has been White House policy for years. Any time a reporter hands the press secretary a piece of documentation, the White House faxes or emails copies out to everybody in the pool. That's how they do things.
Bush would have said 'I was never ordered to take the medical'
Zein, you're a mouth-breathing pederast. You haven't denied it, therefore it must be true!
Seriously, your grip on reality is tenuous at best.
IBM made many, many different versions of their typewriters.
Um, no. There were not "many, many." According to IBM, there were about a dozen. None of them had the superscript "th" glyph on them.
The versions sold in France had accent characters, the version sold in the UK had the pound sign and a modified layout.
Right. Which has nothing at all to do with these memos, because no version of the IBM Executive had a superscript "th" glyph on it.
You know how Kennedy assassination nuts talk about the "magic bullet?" You're fixated on the "magic typewriter."
You are caught in a lie sir, a lie.
Nope.
Besides there have been superscript th glyphs found in the other documents already released by the WH
Sigh. Those documents were not typed on an IBM Executive typewriter, because those documents are in a fixed-pitch, not proportional-pitch, typeface.
Man. You know, this stuff really isn't that hard. It really isn't that complicated. Do you need me to generate a Powerpoint for you?
Tou are caught in a lie sir.
Tou [sic] are caught in a typo, sir.
Spaz.
And what should be done to the Bush administration for taking us to war partly based on the forged Niger documents ?
Where've you been? The Niger documents were not forged. To the contrary, it was Joe Wilson who played fast and loose with the truth in his article for the Times, "What I Didn't Find in Africa."
Niger document: not forged. Joe Wilson: liar. You: Woefully out of touch with the news. Kay?
I'm not going to continue point by point refutation since you just ignore my arguments and say "that's not true! this was covered in hundreds of places!" and you don't bother to cite them.
Poor baby. Forced to go out and read for himself. That's gotta be against the Geneva Convention or something, right?
having read quite a bit about the swift boat charges, I am quite convinced that they were lying
Here's a suggestion. Why don't you read reputable accounts instead of Salon-magazine hatchet jobs?
If you have a source that is convincing I'd like to see it
Go to Google. Swing a dead cat. Voila!
But don't claim that the "connections" I mentioned above are not legitimate without addressing them specifically. They are not "6 degrees of separation."
Um. Yeah, they are. You're talking about people who worked with other people. Not a connection. No evidence at all of cooperation or coordination. And if you don't require such evidence to be convinced, then look at the DNC. Lots of "connections" between the DNC and the Kerry campaign and Move On, ACT and other 527 groups.
As for the memos, maybe they are fake, maybe they're not.
No maybe about it. They're fake as a four-dollar bill.
Both CBS and ABC Nightline covered the charges that they were phony tonight.
No, CBS did not. Nightline did, albeit briefly. The Post has a lengthy story on the front page of tomorrow's paper.
It's interesting to me that they haven't either pulled out the original memos or invited more experts to check them out
CBS News does not have the originals. What you see on their site is what they purport to have received from this unnamed source.
About the Cheney quote - I don't see what is different about what you said and what I assumed it meant.
Sigh.
The point is the same -- he thinks (or claims to think) that a vote for Kerry will lead to more terrorist attacks
No he fucking does not, you ignorant fuckwit. Use your FUCKING BRAIN for TWO FUCKING SECONDS.
1. We elect Kerry.
2. There's an attack, a possibility that has nothing to do with Kerry.
3. The attack is worse because we've reverted to the pre-9/11 law-enforcement paradigm and abandoned the overwhelming-response paradigm.
Christ! You are the densest motherfucker in the world, do you know that? Jesus!
There is no evidence Kerry will treat terrorism as a "crime" and not a "war"
April 18th, Meet the Press: "I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort." Fucking dipshit. If you're not going to fucking PAY ATTENTION, why the FUCK do you feel like it's okay for you to go running off at the mouth?
"There is no evidence, la la la." HE SAID IT ON NATIONAL FUCKING TELEVISION. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
For the love of all that's holy, DON'T FUCKING VOTE, okay? STAY THE FUCK HOME.
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.
...
...or by forging them. Not sure we'll ever know which it was.
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
IBM's electric typewriters had proportional fonts as far back as 1945. Even if the base had a typewriter that was nearly 30 years old, it would still be capable of creating proportional fonts.
... well, I was going to say it's in doubt, but after all we've seen today it really isn't, is it? This memo is not authentic. It may be a reproduction of an actual memo, like somebody sat down in front of a PC and re-typed it or something, but it's not the real deal.
That is not correct. IBM made a line of typewriters that used proportional spacing: the IBM Executives. IBM also made a line that had interchangeable type balls that could take different typefaces: the Selectrics.
The Executives could not produce Times New Roman type, or, indeed, any variety of Times. The Selectrics could in theory have produced Times if there had been a Times type ball (there wasn't), but the Selectrics were incapable of doing proportional letterspacing.
In order to produce this memo, the typewriter would have had to do both of those things at once. No typewriter has ever existed that could do both.
Doubters should also remember that today's most popular proportional fonts have been used in typesetting (and on selectrics) since well before TrueType.
Yes, on typesetting machines like the Linotype hot-lead typesetters and the IBM Composer line-setting system. Neither of these would have been found in an office, for both cost tens of thousands of dollars and required special training to use.
Furthermore, Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, mentioned in the memos and involved in the back-and-forth, has confirmed that Killian expressed to him the same sentiments contained in the memos.
Yes, that's what CBS says. Nobody else has been able to talk to him because he's stopped answering his phone. (Understandably.) Furthermore, CBS acknowledges that MG Hodges never actually saw these memos. They were read aloud to him over the phone. So he has no input into the authenticity of the documents at all either way.
Regarding the superscripted 'th' argument, this document from Bush's official records also contains a superscripted 'th':
And there ends the similarities between that document and these. That document damns more than it forgives, friend. Compare the typography.
The White House even admits the authenticity of the documents, so why is this even an issue?
No, the White House declined to say anything about them at all. They received them from CBS News, looked 'em over, declined to comment, then emailed them out to other reporters this morning.
Because people don't want to realize that Bush disobeyed a DIRECT ORDER from his superior officers.
Um. There is no evidence that any such order was given apart from this memo, and the authenticity of this memo is
People don't want to believe an extraordinary claim unless there's extraordinary proof. And in this case, not only is there no extraordinary proof, but the proof that was offered is itself false! It has negative truth value, if you will. The fact that this memo is a forgery (along with the other three) sucks credibility away from the claim.
Because people don't want to think that the plane Bush flew continued to be used regularly through 1975, despite Bush and Bartlett's claims that it was "being phased out"
Um. You're not paying attention. When Bush moved to Alabama, there were no open slots on the flight-line. Because Bush's plane was being phased out -- no need for scare-quotes, you see -- and he was in his last year of service, the Air National Guard opted not to re-train him. He let his flight OK lapse because he had no reason not to. This was not unusual at all.
He didn't disobey a direct order because there was no such order. Okay?
The best line I've heard lately, courtesy of Kevin Drum
Sigh. If you've taken to quoting Kevin Drum, there's little hope for you left.
They all have been shown to be false.
...well, than you do. What he said was that he denounced them: they're bad for the process, as are all soft-money issue ads.
Wrongo.
You have a doctor claiming to have treated Kerry's wounds whose name appears nowhere on the records.
Um. That's not accurate at all. Lt. Cmdr. Letson is mentioned in all the records. He was indeed a medical officer serving in Kerry's unit. He was there when Kerry was there, was deployed to the same areas Kerry was deployed to. His signature is not on Kerry's citation because he refused to sign it saying that the wound did not merit it. Which is exactly what he testified to in his affidavit and which is what the Vets said in their commercial.
You have someone claiming the opposite of what he claimed after the war.
What? That didn't even make sense.
Snopes did a fine job summarizing the lies
Are you completely deranged? The Snopes hatchet-job has been thoroughly discredited, was thoroughly discredited weeks ago. This is old news!
Also, that was quite subtle how you shifted from claiming there's no link between the swift boats and bush to claiming that the swift boat ads are true. Where do you stand exactly?
Funny, I thought those were two different questions. One: there is no improper relationship between SBVFT and the Bush campaign, the GOP or the White House. Two: the claims that the Vets have made -- under oath, mind you -- have never been demonstrated to be anything other than God's own truth.
No; he did not specifically denounce the SBVFT ads for being false
How the hell would he know? The President wasn't there. He has no more reason to say that the ads were false than
In other words, he evaded the real issue.
"He evaded the real issue" = "he didn't take my side." Okay, dude. Whatever.
I cited, with links to evidence, three separate connections apart from Ginsburg, which you never refuted or even addressed.
Those are not "connections!" I mean, if you want to play "six degrees of separation," I'm sure we can have ourselves a fine time. John Smith knows Jane Doe who knows Albert Johnson who knows Robert Thompson. But that proves nothing, other than it's a small world.
There is no "connection," in the sense that there was no influence of one group upon the other, and no cooperation between them. None whatsoever.
That would be 1972.
Um. You've got to be kidding me, right? That article is a tissue of errors and misstatements, and it also dates back to February, for Chrissakes. I can't swear to it, but I think I myself wrote one of the hundreds of point-by-point refutations.
Long story short: the president did not "drop out" of anything. His aircraft was being phased out and the Guard declined to train him on a new one. He let his flight status lapse because he knew he wouldn't be flying any more and because a physical examination is not a fun thing to do with your day. He requested a leave to work on the senatorial campaign and was granted that leave. During 1972 he accumulated more than the required 50 points; I think the precise number was 54.
You're so completely out of touch with the facts, and yet you think you've got a monopoly on truth. That's really sad, ya know?
Watch the Republican Convention again; I'm sure you videotaped the whole thing.
Actually I was busy covering it, so I didn't catch much of the TV broadcasts.
That's practically all these people could talk about, what a strong leader Bush will be compared to that french-looking wimp Kerry.
Hmm. We're off-topic again. You said the campaign cast aspersions on Kerry's war record. That did not happen during the convention, or at any other time.
Now, the campaign has cast a shitload of aspersions on Kerry's Senate record, and rightly so. But that's
That would be the cretin you want to get elected to the Whitehouse.
;-) How many people from IBM have you talked to today?
It's two words: White House.
Several people are claiming that they used Selectric golfballs with proportional pitch.
Impossible. The pitch on a Selectric isn't controlled by the type ball. It's controlled by the motor drive. The type ball just rotates and elevates to strike a letter on the paper. There's nothing about it that controls how far the type head advances on each letter strike.
but I certainly don't see how you claim to know the exact capabilities of every typewriter owned by the US military.
I've had sixteen hours now to work on this story.
IBM sold selectric golfballs with the th superscript at the time.
Yes. They were custom items that were machined to order and that cost a fortune. And they also could not produce variable-pitch type, nor could they produce Times New Roman type.
There is no reason why they could not have offered their IBM Executive series machines with a similar option.
Yes, there is: the Executive machines didn't use interchangeable type balls. They used a lever-arm mechanism. Either all Executive typewriters would have had the "th" glyph or none of them would have. None did. IBM never made one with that glyph.
And no, the typeface is not MICROSOFT anything, Microsoft has never designed a typeface ever. The Microsoft fonts are from Monospace corp.
LOL. You mean "Monotype?" Heh. When TrueType came along in the early 1990s (or was it late 1980s?) Microsoft licensed the name and the letter forms from Monotype, now Agfa Monotype. Microsoft implemented the font, which means they determined the letterspacing, kerning pairs and so on.
The CTO of Agfa Monotype, incidentally, is on the record saying that it was highly unusual for anyone to use proportional-pitch type in the 1970's. The technology just wasn't there.
The 'expert' you refer to is not regarded as such outside the US republican party.
Sorry, but that's simply not true. He's so influential in the industry of forensic document analysis that other researchers write papers about him.
There is only one google hit for Bouffard and typewriter that relates to a forensic case and that is a crank case involving UFOs.
Your Google-fu is lacking.
what's your problem with the Move On ads?
Is this supposed to be a funny, funny joke?
The problem with the SBVFT ads are that they are airing blatant lies
Nope. Not one statement made by SBVFT has been shown to be false. And lord knows folks have tried.
Also the president explicitly did NOT denounce the ad
What do you want him to do? Say "I renounce thee" three times? Say that the Swift Vets ads are bad but everybody else's is okay? He said he denounces these ads and all other soft-money issue ads. Deal.
Most importantly, the Bush connection is not just Ben Ginsburg but also Kenneth Cordier, Merrie Spaeth, and, less directly, Karl Rove.
You're ignoring the point. If Ben Ginsburg is a "connection" then Neil Reiff is a "connection."
There is absolutely no connection between SBVFT and the GOP, the White House or the Bush campaign. None whatsoever. The most motivated journalists in America have dug and dug and dug and found nothing, because there's nothing to be found.
Finally, you keep claiming that Bush "denied, debunked, and dismissed" these claims in 2000, yet NOBODY has stepped forward to tell anyone what Bush was actually doing during his missing year.
What "missing year?" There was no missing year? We have records of the President's National Guard service from 1968 to 1973, all five years of his service.
Which really wouldn't bother me so much if he and Cheney were not painting him as some kind of freaking war hero
Find me one statement that anybody in the administration or the campaign has made to that effect. Just one.
You're confusing your candidates again.
All the while supporting the aspersions cast on Kerry's war record.
Sigh. Nobody from the administration or the campaign has ever said anything negative about Kerry's war record. The people casting aspersions are (1) the vets who served with him, and (2) the vets who got pissed off at the things he said when he came home. (These two groups overlap significantly.)
By the way, Cheney's comment that voting for Kerry will lead to terrorism in the US
Not what he said. Please stop getting your news from the Daily Kos.
The text of the quote: "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us."
If you're not bright enough to understand that, then maybe you ought to just bow out of this whole thing and leave the politics to us grown-ups.
Proportional letterspacing was not very rare
The "nuh-uh" argument? Typewriters that could do proportional letterspacing were very rare in 1972. The ones that were available were not equipped with Microsoft Times New Roman, a font that did not exist at that time.
Times Roman *did* exist at the time
Microsoft Times New Roman did not.
and that kind of kerning is *not* impossible
It is completely impossible for a mechanical typewriter. Why? Because kerning involves applying variable letterspacing (sometimes negative) depending on what letter you just typed. If you type a T, the o following it has to be offset to the left. No mechanical typewriter ever constructed has ever done that.
in my professional opinion as a typesetter, the kerning on the document exhibits attributes that one would expect from a proportional typewriter and not from Word.
Well, your professional opinion isn't worth much. Set the type in Word using the default settings. Compare and contrast. The letter spacing is identical. Not close, not similar. Identical, point for point.
And I've read that the IBM Executive was quite common in military office usage.
It was indeed. But it didn't produce output in the same font as that used in these memos, Microsoft Times New Roman, and it couldn't produce the miniature superscript "th" seen in these memos. So these memos were not typed on an IBM Executive.
First proportional fonts did not exist at all. [oops wrong]
Okay, enough with the bullshit. All right?
Two typewriters: IBM Executive, IBM Selectric. Both were widely available in 1972/73. The Executive did proportional letterspacing but did not have interchangeable type balls, so it could not have produced these memos. The Selectric had interchangeable type balls but it did not have proportional spacing, so it could not have produced these memos.
It's really not that hard a concept, you know. You're either the biggest dumbass I've encountered all day -- and that is saying something -- or you're just fucking around.
In fact you had to go to a 3rd party to get the golfball with proportional spacing, at least at first.
Pardon me while I wipe up the spittle from the sudden and uncontrollable laughter. I don't care what kind of type ball you put in an IBM Selectric I or Selectric II, it could not do proportional spacing. The motor drive on a Selectric I/II was fixed at either 10 or 12 letters per inch; there was a lever to select which you wanted to use. But you couldn't use any other spacing, and you couldn't do proportional spacing. Period.
The idea that a Lt. Col. could not afford a fancy font for his typewriter is ridiculous.
The machine that could produce something similar to these memos cost $20,000. It was called an IBM Composer. It was not used for memos because it required special training to use and took forever to produce a finished page. And it still could not do Microsoft Times New Roman, because that font had not been invented yet.
This is pure denial from the right
Oops. Little typo there. You meant to say, "this is pure denial from ME."
Well, that's technically correct now that that guy resigned.
You wanna drag Ben Ginsberg into this? Fine. Then explain Neil Reiff. Reiff is the chief counsel for Move On and the deputy general counsel for the DNC. So if Ben Ginsberg did something wrong by advising both the Bush administration and SBVFT, then Neil Reiff and the DNC are culpable too.
Sauce for the goose, right?
But the White House, despite calls from McCain to do so, has never denounced the Swift Boat ads.
Um. No, that's not true. On August 23, the president denounced the SBVFT ads as well as all soft-money advertising.
Kerry isn't going to say he respects Bush's service, because he doesn't. Who the fuck would?
Ah. And there we see the difference, don't we?
Even if he didn't pull connections, if he didn't go AWOL, (he can't find anyone willing to go on record and deny either of those)
They were all denied during the 2000 campaign. Denied, debunked and dismissed. How short your memory is.
It wasn't even the principled wuss road of simple desertion or civil disobediance--he went along with the system, but didn't stick his neck out to defend it.
So you'd rather the president desert his post than opt for homeland service instead of service overseas? Okay. That tells me everything I need to know about you.
These were, at one time, $5,500, as I remember.
I'm sure they were, at one time. But not in 1972.
And I did see people typing business letters with them.
No, you didn't. An IBM Composer had no memory in it, which means the entire document had to be typed twice: First the machine calculated letter spacing, then the operation set a manual spacing wheel and re-typed the line to actually put words on the page. The machine required special training and took forever to generate even a single page of type. It was only used for camera-ready copy for reproduction.
No, there's not. But when you generate a copy of the text using Microsoft Word and do a side-by-side comparison, you find that the lines are set in exactly the same way, with no visible difference. Which would not be the case if these were different fonts, or even different versions of Times New Roman from different foundries.
These memos were set with a font that did not exist when the person who allegedly signed them died.
Just, you know, to keep our eyes on the big picture here.
The Times New Roman typeface
Asked and answered elsewhere. We're talking about Microsoft Times New Roman, a very specific version of Times New Roman with specific letter-spacing. I should have been more specific.
The old proportional spacing IBM Selectric typewriters
There were no proportional-spacing IBM Selectric typewriters. The IBM Executive was a proportional-letterspacing typewriter, but the type that came out of it looked nothing like Times New Roman of any variety, much less Microsoft's.
I can only find one other case in which Dr Philip Bouffard has provided advice concerning a typewriter font on the net.
The significant contributions of Dr. Philip D. Bouffard to the examination and classification of typewriting, Mary W. Kelly, 2004 Meeting of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.
He's the recognized authority. Look harder.
The biggest reason to doubt the bouffard claims is that the gif image that has been posted is of such a miserable resolution that it is impossible to see what is going on at all.
What? GIF image? What the hell are you talking about? The documents CBS released are PDFs containing 108-dpi (appx) scans of the memos.
I do not even agree that the font is definitely Times Roman
Well, since you're not a recognized expert in the field of the forensic analysis of typewriting, you'll excuse me if I can't be bothered to give a shit.
Ignore all the evidence you want.
And when was the last time that Bush answered a non-carefully vetted question?
About five hours ago. He took questions briefly at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Next?
Having a key for superscript th was certainly not uncommon
It was EXTREMELY uncommon. The superscript "th" type ball was only available from IBM by a custom order. It was machined to order and sold for an outlandish price.
And the typewriter it fit into could not do proportional letterspacing.
having a proportional printing typewriter was not uncommon either
It was very uncommon; you mean to say that it was not unheard-of. But the typewriters that could do proportional letterspacing did not have removable type balls and therefore could neither have typed the superscript "th" character nor have produced a memo in Times New Roman.
Setting aside the fact that no typewriter on Earth could have produced a memo written in Microsoft Times New Roman.
I would not expect a fancy typewriter in the typing pool, but in a senior officer's private office, hell yes.
A $20,000 desktop typesetter like the IBM Composer? Not a chance. Aside from the fact that these devices required special training, they took much longer to use because everything had to be typed twice. They were used for camera-ready copy for reproduction, not for memos.
The signature looks exactly like what you get when you do that.
Except it doesn't look like any of the other memos that we have that were signed by Lt. Col. Killian in 1972 or 1973.
It is an established fact that Bush did not show up for his medical, nobody disputes this.
That's not the point of these memos. The point is the memo titled "CYA," the one that purports to provide evidence for Ben Barnes' as-yet-unsupported story of influence peddling in the TANG.
Ordering Bush to take the medical is exactly what you would expect his commanding officer to do.
Yes, you would order a junior officer to attend to his medical, but you would do it with an order, you know, a letter, not with an interoffice memo. And you would do it in the month that the junior officer's medical was scheduled (his birth month, in other words), not two months earlier.
You're going to have to back up your claim about Barnes in 1999 -- I don't see anything on this as I'm researching it.
May I suggest that you try that new-fangled research tool, the Internet? I know it seems kind of like a fad, but trust me; there's some good stuff on there.
Actually the only reference I've seen to his claims in 1999 are almost the opposite -- apparently he said then that the Bush family did not ask him for help!
His story shifted in the early days from "the Bush family asked me" to "the Bush family used its influence." When pressed, he said that he was actually asked by a Bush family friend, since deceased, whose name now escapes me.
Actually, the legitimate news sources -- sorry, but "Free Republic" and other crackpot right wing conspiracy sites don't count for me -- seem to be treating the confession itself as major news, and certainly CBS did.
Um. Hello, my name is circular reasoning. I'm new in town, and I was wondering if you'd be my friend.
You said, "The media is taking this seriously, especially CBS." Everybody else on planet earth said, "CBS released forged documents." You said, "They can't be forged. The media is taking them seriously, especially CBS."
Duh.
but also the Repubs, who started this crap with the claims that Kerry didn't serve well enough in the Vietnam War
Nobody from either the Bush campaign or the GOP has ever made such an allegation. To the contrary, the campaign and the GOP have repeatedly said that the respect Sen. Kerry's service and thank him for it.
Others not directly affiliated with the campaign or the GOP have made accusations. If you want to attribute those accusations to the campaign or the GOP, then every vulgar, profane, offensive sign ever carried by a disaffected college student becomes the problem of the Democratic Party. Which doesn't help anybody.
The Republicans made this an issue
You haven't been paying attention. The Kerry campaign made it an issue. For six months, it was the issue. Despite having been admonished by high-ranking Democrats to change the fucking subject, Senator Kerry is still making his service an issue.
So, yeah, I do think it's a distraction, but I am happy to see the republicans hoisted on their own petard here.
I'm sorry, but producing forged documents to further a false accusation is hardly being "hoisted on their own petard."
I've already taken credit for not being sufficiently specific. I should have said Microsoft Times New Roman, which is the specific typeface used in these four memos.
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.
Wow. You took a double-dose of your idiot pills this morning, didncha?