Bush Service Memos Questioned 619
Twirlip of the Mists writes "Last night, CBS News released a set of memos dated 1972 and 1973 that are purported to raise questions about President Bush's National Guard service. Some are saying those memos might have been produced with a computer. Blogger Scott Johnson ran with the story first this morning, raising questions about the typography of the memos. Blogger Charles Johnson (no relation) went one step further, actually reproducing one of the memos in its entirety using Microsoft Word's default settings.
Matt Drudge is running the story now with a link to a CNS News article that includes quotes from typography experts at font foundries Afga Monotype and Bitstream.
There's a round-up of key facts about the story on this blogger's web site." The experts in the CNS News story and others could come to no conclusion, and even if the documents are not originals or photocopies of originals, that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't faithfully retyped copies of originals. CBS continues to assert the documents are authentic.
Re:What US Politics is all about (Score:1, Interesting)
Spoken like a true party sheep.
The relatives of 1,000 soldiers who died needlessly in Iraq disagree with you.
How do you know they died needlessly? Do you think Iraq was not planning their own terrorist attacks against the US? Do you think that Iraq wasn't providing safe haven and supporting terrorists?
Those of us who live near toxic waste sites that were slated for cleanup until Bush was appointed disagree with you.
Proof?
Minotities in Florida whose votes were not counted disagree with you.
Proof?
Women who value their right to choose abortion disagree with you.
You mean their right to choose murder? If women have a right to choose murder, why can't I do it also? The fact that feminist groups base their 'rights' on the ability to kill unborn children is sickening. Do you realize that 30 million children have been killed by abortion in America? Do you realize the western world which has embraced abortion and birth control is DYING? That is right, there is a 'baby bust' among most nations with a western culture while China, India, and the Islamic world continue to grow. We are killing ourselves and our culture and we have been too blinded by the insanity of killing the young and the family unit to realize it.
A women has a right to choose...to keep her legs closed or use birth control. Every time I have sex with a women I realize that it could be a life long commitment if I knock her up. I would never try to weasel my way out of it either, even if it's a meaningless fuck. Why don't other people have any sense of responsibility?
Even judges who value the constitution disagree with you.
According to the constitution, judges shouldn't be making law, yet they are.
Yeah, and (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never understood why this was an Issue democrats kept brining up. No undecided voter is going to care at all. If it could be shown that he'd lied about something (as these documents purport) then it would be an issue.
Kerry has really disappointed me as a democrat, and I'm worried we might be stuck with bush for another 4 years due to his idiocy. Wish we'd nominated Edwards.
The Hand of Karl (Score:1, Interesting)
His methods, dating back to Bush's election as Texas' Governor, are to get dirty deeds done in ways that can't possibly be traced back to him or his candidate. Things like the whisper campaign against Ann Richards here in Texas, the "McCain is crazy" rumors in the primaries, and the Steamboat Veterans (whatever) for Truth fiasco now.
What could be better than creating an obvious forgery about Bush's service, and slipping it into some CBS exec's inbox? It fits Rove's pattern perfectly: the president will have a chance to look persecuted, everyone will be angry at whoever was evil enough to try to set up Bush. There will be enough of us liberals who fall into the "we got him!" trap to keep Rove's fingerprints off the whole thing.
I also think Rove is behind the supposedly-unexpected appearance of demonstrators at Bush's appearances... listen to the Fresh Air interview with Slater, especially the part where he sets up a nearly identical disruption of his opponent's event in the early '70s.
Some IBM Selectrics had proportional spacing. (Score:3, Interesting)
See this analysis [slashdot.org]. There were IBM Selectrics that had proportional spacing.
Most people now know nothing of typesetting, because their computers do a better job than the $40,000 to $1,100,000 typesetters ever did. However, those who know about typesetting know that Microsoft Word and the old Selectrics are imitating the same font. Both are trying to look like typesetting.
Times Roman, for example, was designed for the London Times in the 1770s, for example.
IBM put some quirky symbols on the Selectric type balls because there was room for more than just the standard characters. I don't specifically remember which symbols, and there were many balls with many selections of characters.
The old one-use carbon ribbons used in the Selectrics made a more clean impression than a laser printer, and impression quite like letter press, which is still the standard in fine-looking type.
Re:But why from the WHouse? (Score:3, Interesting)
The significant contributions of Dr. Philip D. Bouffard to the examination and classification of typewriting [asqde.org], 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.
Re:But why from the WHouse? (Score:3, Interesting)
See the following:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote200
One of the key quotes from the Post article:
" William Flynn, a forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice, said the CBS documents raise suspicions because of their use of proportional spacing techniques. Documents generated by the kind of typewriters that were widely used in 1972 space letters evenly across the page, so that an "i" uses as much space as an "m." In the CBS documents, by contrast, each letter uses a different amount of space.
"While IBM had introduced an electric typewriter that used proportional spacing by the early 1970s, it was not widely used in government. In addition, Flynn said, the CBS documents appear to use proportional spacing both across and down the page, a relatively recent innovation. Other anomalies in the documents include the use of the superscripted letters "th" in phrases such as 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Bush's unit."
One of the key quotes from the ABC News article:
"The font used in the memos is Times Roman, which was in use for printing but not in typewriters. The Haas Atlas -- the bible of fonts -- does not list Times Roman as an available font for typewriters."
Re:The actual documents seem to be slashdotted (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:An analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what the original blogger gives us as proof that this was rare, courtesy of the ever-accurate freerepublic.com (where "Unfit for Command" co-author Jerry Corsi conflated islam, catholicism, and "boy buggery"):
That's absurd, and demonstrably false. You mentioned the selectrics. 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.
Doubters should also remember that today's most popular proportional fonts have been used in typesetting (and on selectrics) since well before TrueType.
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.
Regarding the superscripted 'th' argument, this document from Bush's official records also contains a superscripted 'th': http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/9-Miscellane ous.pdf [usatoday.com]. The superscripted th is on page three, in the second line of the log.
The White House even admits the authenticity of the documents, so why is this even an issue?
Because people don't want to realize that Bush disobeyed a DIRECT ORDER from his superior officers.
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" and that Bush didn't need to take the physical because the planes wouldn't be used.
The best line I've heard lately, courtesy of Kevin Drum:
regards, edRe:An analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll have to check it out, and post any corrections here, if she still has it lying around.
Re:Try this (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, and the guy who claims to have found this stuff, well, he has very little credibility so before you go bashing everyone - even a lot of people who want the memos to be real are saying it looks and smells fishy.
Re:Kerning can be built in (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sorry, Sir, We're out of tin foil today (Score:4, Interesting)
He didn't take his physical because this is when the Guard instituted drug testing as part of it. Its ridiculous to suggest he'd risk landing in Vietnam just because taking the physical was not fun.
Its no secret was a frequent cocaine user during this period. He would have been nailed for drug use if he hadn't so he refused. He did and he should have been remanded to regular service for the insubordination and would have if he didn't have connections.
You did know W. was busted in Texas for cocaine possession. Again thanks to family connections he got off with six months of community service at PUSH. I assure you he didn't do community service for poor black folks out of the goodness of his heart. If he'd been poor or black he would have gotten a felony conviction and it would have ended his political career. America and the world would be a better place too.
I imagine the new documents are forged. I wish they'd sneaked by. The problem we have here is the Bush family and their very skilled and ruthless operatives went around destroying all the evidence of his pathetic excuse for a life, including gaining unsupervised and illegal access to his guard file when they destroyed all the really embarrasing documents. As a result there is no proof that he isn't fit to be President, though he isn't, so he has the Teflon coating.
"George W. Bush was born on third base and he thinks he hit a triple" Ann Richards
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
George W. Bush, December 2000