New Bush Guard Records Released 405
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.)"
Why the quotes? (Score:4, Informative)
Putting it in quotes is disingenuous and misleading.
Re:True Lies (Score:4, Informative)
Just because you're on one side of Vietnam in the morning doesn't mean you can't be on the other side later in the day -- it's a skinny country, and they called these things "swift boats" for a reason.
Anyhow, Navy records, first-hand accounts from credible sources, Snopes and FactCheck.org combine to put the lie to this bullshit pretty effectively. Just because you don't *like* the facts doesn't mean you get to ignore them. Even President Bush Jr. is going to find that out.
John Kerry's own comments on vietnam (Score:2, Informative)
Thursday, February 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
(Editor's note: Sen. Kerry delivered this speech on the Senate floor Feb. 27, 1992. The previous day, Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke in Atlanta, where he criticized fellow candidate Bill Clinton for his lack of military service during Vietnam.)
Mr. President, I also rise today--and I want to say that I rise reluctantly, but I rise feeling driven by personal reasons of necessity--to express my very deep disappointment over yesterday's turn of events in the Democratic primary in Georgia.
I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way. By that I mean that yesterday, during this presidential campaign, and even throughout recent times, Vietnam has been discussed and written about without an adequate statement of its full meaning.
What is ignored is the way in which our experience during that period reflected in part a positive affirmation of American values and history, not simply the more obvious negatives of loss and confusion.
What is missing is a recognition that there exists today a generation that has come into its own with powerful lessons learned, with a voice that has been grounded in experiences both of those who went to Vietnam and those who did not.
What is missing and what cries out to be said is that neither one group nor the other from that difficult period of time has cornered the market on virtue or rectitude or love of country.
What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be refighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary.
The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.
We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn against the will of their own aspirations?
Are we now to descend, like latter-day Spiro Agnews, and play, as he did, to the worst instincts of divisiveness and reaction that still haunt America? Are we now going to create a new scarlet letter in the context of Vietnam?
Certainly, those who went to Vietnam suffered greatly. I have argued for years, since I returned myself in 1969, that they do deserve special affection and gratitude for service. And, indeed, I think everything I have tried to do since then has been to fight for their rights and recognition.
But while those who served are owed special recognition, that recognition should not come at the expense of others; nor does it require that others be victimized or criticized or said to have settled for a lesser standard. To divide our party or our country over this issue today, in 1992, simply does not do justice to what all of us went through during that tragic and turbulent time.
I would like to make a simple and straightforward appeal, an appeal from my heart, as well as from my head. To all those currently pursuing the presidency in both parties, I would plead that they simply look at America. We are a nation crying out for leadersh
Re:True Lies (Score:4, Informative)
Neither is David Cobb, the Green Party [votecobb.org] candidate. Don't forget that Badnarik and Cobb have already faced off in the first Presidential debate -- probably the only debate this year that will honestly deal with the issues affecting America's future.
(Go ahead, mod me offtopic... I'm just doin' a little educatin'.)
Yes. IBM began selling them in 1941 (Score:3, Informative)
http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=111615
ipso fatso.
Re:They had superscripting typwriters in 1973? (Score:4, Informative)
Heh, typical Slashdot. A bona-fide Microsoft-bashing story comes out and they miss it in favor of superficial Bush-bashing.
IBM started making proportional typewriters in '41 (Score:5, Informative)
IBM started selling proportional typewriters in 41 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:look closer (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Little Green Footballs points to potential forg (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They had superscripting typwriters in 1973? (Score:5, Informative)
Selectric typewriters also had 1/2 and some other fractions, a copyright symbol, and some others. They did not have curly braces, less/greater, and many other ASCII symbols. You could also change the ball to a "symbol" ball that had greek (this may not have been possible on the proportional models?)
Facts on Bush's Service (Score:5, Informative)
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.
"CYA" and other military culture explained. (Score:4, Informative)
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 [cbsnews.com]
Re:The Documents might be forgeries (Score:4, Informative)
A forgery would almost certainly have been done in a courier typeface. The forging of documents, and the forensics of relating typewritten materials to the machine of their origin is a well-known topic. Freepers need a red-herring for this issue. The next claim they will make is that the Memos originate with Hillaty Clinton.
Re:True Lies (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They had superscripting typwriters in 1973? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, heck, where do you think Microsoft got the idea? From typewriters, of course. It didn't do it automagically, there was a key for it.
I don't even need to research to know that superscripts were around on typewriters for a long time, because I used an old manual one as a kid that had "th", "st", and others. (It was an Underwood, I think. Some heavy black mechanical beast.)
Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
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.
------
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
Thanks for making my point (Score:4, Informative)
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.
The uneven baseline is consistent with explanation (Score:3, Informative)
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 [hevanet.com] since WW2: Creating fear so rich [hevanet.com] people [hevanet.com] can profit.
Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Even if we assume that only 12-14k civilians were killed, the number of military casualties were much higher; the Guardian estimates [guardian.co.uk] up to 45k.
60k is probably a reasonable estimate for total deaths.
See also the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org].
Also, you just made my foes list for calling someone a troll without justification.
Re:True Lies (Score:3, Informative)
Please provide sources for your contention that Bush lied about his record.
Gladly. Not that it will matter to you, though, will it? Hell, evidence for conservatives is just an excuse to exercise their rhetorical skills.
Lie: CNN 2/13/04: [cnn.com] "We've released all of [the documents]. You should take our word for it and this is the evidence."
Fact: AP 9/9/04 [signonsandiego.com]: "After the [60 Minutes II] broadcast, the White House, without comment, released to the news media two of the memos, one ordering Bush to report for his physical exam and the other suspending him from flight status."
Lie: Bush, NBC 2/9/04 [msn.com]: "Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military."
Fact: Boston Globe, 9/8/2004 [boston.com]: "On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, 'It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months... ' Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.
"But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. 'I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview."
I could keep going all day with this crap, but it won't matter one slice of cheese to you. If there is one thing I have learned, it's that conservatives have abrogated all pretense of morality seeking the truth, and instead just seek myriad ways to twist the truth to their advantage.
CNS is now covering it (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Not so much. They made some... (Score:3, Informative)
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
Correction: CNS NEWS CONFIRMS, not CBS (Score:3, Informative)
Debate video (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IBM started making proportional typewriters in (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:True Lies (Score:3, Informative)
You must not be looking very hard.
Egypt: [sis.gov.eg]Ahmed Fathy Sorour, Speaker of People's Assembly denounced what he termed as a criminal act against the US people
Iran: [president.ir] Iran denounces massive attacks on U.S., expresses sympathy with victims Tehran, Sept 11, IRNA
Jordan [ctkelc.org] The people of Jordan join the people of the United States in our absolute condemnation of the terrorist aggression against your nation
Organization Of The Islamic Conference [oic-oci.org]Dr. Belkeziz said he was denouncing and condemning those criminal and brutal acts that ran counter to all covenants, humanitarian values and divine religions foremost among which was Islam
Turkey: [byegm.gov.tr]President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit conveyed their condolences to the US President Bush condemning the terrorist attacks and stating that Turkish nation felt the pain of the American people
Saudi Arabia: [saudinf.com]The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemned "the inhuman bombings and attacks" which took place today at the two-tower World Trade Centre in Manhattan, New York, and at the Pentagon, Washington D. C., the United States
What I haven't seen, is any Muslims taking credit for the attacks or celebrating them.