I’ve avoided the gory details of the Swift Vets/TNG charges for the reasons I’ve explained below; I simply assume that Bush gamed the system both to get an assignment he wanted, and when he was done with it, to get out of doing what he didn’t want to do, and that Kerry gamed the system – possibly to get some of his medals, certainly to shorten his stay in Vietnam and to shorten his active duty so he could run for office.
But the latest batch of documents about Bush’s service – and the charges being made that they were forged – piqued my interest, because the controversy that immediately circulated around them was just so Hollywood. The documents, according to certain commentators, show the characteristics of having been done with a word processor, not a typewriter. How could the press not catch something so obvious? I was loving it as just something out of a bad thriller, so I had to go check them out myself.My cynicism about the whole thing was very strong, until I saw the August 18th memo, and the superscript ‘th‘ on the 147th.
I used a Selectric for a long time, and can’t remember that key. Maybe someone else can?
But somehow, some of the accounts are suggesting that the White House itself released these documents?
Is anyone else as puzzled about this as I am? I’m getting some popcorn, it’s going to be an interesting day.
Drudge is running with this story. He has a link to PowerLine on it. PowerLine appears to be swamped. 😉
The Corner says that the memos came to the White House via CBS then released back to CBS. Where CBS got them I don’t know. Go see Jonas’ post on it, “here.”:http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_09_05_corner-archive.asp#039480
And the one directly above that. They refer back to Drum and Marshall.
You may want to see LGF’s experiment on the domuments. Allah has some information too. AND of course PowerLine.
Read Drum’s latest update. What the WH released were copies of the documents CBS faxed to the WH the day before the 60 Minutes piece.
Read Drum’s latest update. What the WH released were copies of the documents CBS faxed to the WH the day before the 60 Minutes piece.
[Sorry for the double comment — it looked like my browser didn’t submit the form the first time]
If they are forged…
On top of Kitty Kelley’s one true “source” saying Kelley’s a liar …
and the “Clinton was booed and Bush did nothing to stop it” fiasco …
That would add up to a pretty crappy week for the media. Not that the media would admit it or take steps to correct its general behavior. They’ll continue to blame bloggers for their ills.
The version released by the White House appears to be the exact same version CBS send them for comment.
I wonder if the WH knew they were forgeries when they re-released them?
You’d think Bush’s political team would scramble in response to that fax.
Check out http://www.selectric.org/selectric/index.html for scans of selectric elements and fonts. There is nothing there about a special superscripted th.
More damning to me is the comparison between the signatures on the documents. Look at the new memos with Killian’s signature: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust1.pdf.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay4.pdf
Now check out a letter that Killian actually did sign one year later http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/Doc20.gif
The differences between the signatures are quite large, even to someone like myself who has no experience in handwriting analysis. Especially look at the major difference in how the letter “K” was written for the beginning of his last name.
Check out http://www.selectric.org/selectric/index.html for scans of selectric elements and fonts. There is nothing there about a special superscripted th.
More damning to me is the comparison between the signatures on the documents. Look at the new memos with Killian’s signature: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust1.pdf.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay4.pdf
Now check out a letter that Killian actually did sign one year later http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/Doc20.gif
The differences between the signatures are quite large, even to someone like myself who has no experience in handwriting analysis. Especially look at the major difference in how the letter “K” was written for the beginning of his last name.
Selectrics – monospaced
bq. “Even so, all Selectrics were monospaced — each and every character was the same width. Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine, the IBM Executive, with proportional spacing, no proportionally-spaced Selectric office typewriter was ever introduced. There was, however, a much more expensive proportionally-spaced machine called the Selectric Composer which was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter.”
That eliminates the Selectric as a candidate. The IBM Executive did proportional spacing but was limited, I believe, to a single font. Anybody know what that font was?
Mark my words, this is the Stalingrad moment for the dinosaur mainstream media. They stumbled arrogantly and without due caution into a hornets nest one too many times. This is classic, combining the 3 elements the old school cant resist.
1.Laziness. This story was ducks in a barrel (unless you bother to do rudimentary fact checking of course, but thats out of the question)
2.Storyline. It fell in line with the story the media wanted to tell, leaving no nasty details that didnt jibe to deal with. Cuz we all know real life works like that so often…
3.Bias. Overblown somewhat, but only because it always takes a backseat to the first two. However when they all line up, you can count on the bias every time.
I had extensive experience with military correspondence during the ’70’s, in ROTC, as an active and reserve officer, and as a full-time property book officer in a reserve division HQ, and these documents look fishy to me.
I do not remember any proportional-spacing typewriters during this period, not to mention superscript “th” stuff. The typewriters on my property book were mostly manual Olivettis of a commonly-procured type — only a couple of Selectrics at most and those in the CG’s office. This in 1978. And the Army at least used the Selectric’s Letter Gothic font as its standard, official font.
In my experience, military memoranda and letters had certain characteristics I’m not seeing in these reproduced Bush documents:
– no letterhead (on the originals). Air Force was same as Army in having the Department crest on the upper left — and the HQ address in the center. On the original letterhead, not on the carbon copies! Memos had a standard “field memo” printed form.
– no office code. Army code usually on upper L on all letters and memos, typed. (My HQ might have, say AFCD-CA-PB, which would show it was “A” for Army, F for 6th Army, say, and the rest down to the suboffice level). The Air Force may have used something like this and, being typed, would’ve appeared on all carbon copies.
– we tended to use snap-form, unmarked flimsies in various colors mixed with carbon paper. This was so standard that I suspect that DLA or GSA provided the same to all military HQs, DoD wide, and I’m seeing little of the graininess I would have expected in a carbon copy.
Looks fishy.
To Mark, I suspect it’s more laziness than anything, beat the deadline, don’t bother cross-checking and don’t give a sXXX about work quality.
The best coverage out there is “Power Line Blog’s”:http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php – wow.
They also have “more information about AP’s fake story”:http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007763.php that a Bush crowd booed when Bush wished Clinton a speedy recovery. Looks like a very partisan reporter was involved, and not the guy whose byline was attached to the story.
One is tempted to go beyond the mocking “liberal media – what liberal media?” and begin asking “professional media – what professional media?”
From this post
My favorite electric typewriter was the IBM Executive, of which I have owned two in my lifetime. The first had a proportional font called “Mid Century” that looked like 12 point Futura Medium, and the characters were anywhere from 1 unit wide (lower case i) to 5 units or more (cap M). It produced beautiful letters long before there was any such thing as word processing, and corrections were a real bitch cause I had to remember how wide each character was when I was backspacing.
When it finally died, I shed a tear and went out and got another one, this one of 1960s vintage instead of the ultra-futuristic last-of-the-art-deco-era 1940s. It had a font that looked a bit like a cross between Bank Gothic and ITC Quorum, don’t recall the name of that one. It saw me most of the way through college and, like its predecessor, died and was buried at sea.
I just remember the output looked great and most of the secretaries who could use them well were smarter than their bosses.
I wonder of AJL or VT will show up in this thread?
Even if they were forged, retyped, or whatever, how do you explain “Barnes’ testimony”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60319-2004Sep3.html that he helped Bush get into the Texas ANG?
(Perhaps he is not the real Ben Barnes?)
And when are you going to cite some evidence to support your self-admitted assumption that Kerry “gamed” the “system” to gain some kind of priviledges?
(Perhaps he had a secret deal with the NVA to shoot over his head while he pulled “Jim Rassmann”:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460 out of the river, to make it look more heroic?)
Anyway, keep up the “good work.”:http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/old_conspiracy.html
Yeah, I’m here.
As I posted at Tacitus, although you could special-order a th-superscript key for a Selectric (likewise an n-tilde, etc.), the comparison at LGF satisfies me that the posted documents were written recently with MS Word. Actually, I believe that all Selectrics (and I’m old enough to have used one) were monospaced, but the IBM Executive, which would be a likely machine for an office then, had three (another blogger says 4) different character widths.
Given that I can’t believe even the stupidest document expert would miss this, I’m wondering if these are cleaned-up transcriptions of originals.
I’m also, and I admit few on WoC would agree, wondering if pro-Bush forces decided to distract attention from true allegations (I think it’s pretty obvious Bush blew off the end of his guard service, and I bet lots of other people who weren’t stupid enough to deny it later did too) with false allegations, or with false evidence undermining true allegations. So maybe Rovian operatives are the source of the inauthentic memos.
Perhaps Bush did his best to keep from paticipating in an “illegal” war and servring with admitted war criminals like Kerry.
But, none of this really matters. No one really, cares about what anyone did or didn’t do 35 years ago in Vietnam. This issue is a loser for Kerry, he and you should just drop the whole Vietnam thing.
Given that I can’t believe even the stupidest document expert would miss this, I’m wondering if these are cleaned-up transcriptions of originals.
With signatures?
VT –
Um, by the apparent fact that a) I assume that Bush ‘gamed’ his way into the Guard – what did you think that looked like? and b) that Barnes isn’t exactly a neutral source, and has no corroborating evidence – so it’s “he said/she said” and both of the parties have a huge stake in the outcome – which makes me tend to discount each.
And as to ‘gamed’, I’ll suggest that a) no one has challenged the claim that Kerry applied for his Purple Hearts (regardless of the issue of whether they were merited); b) or that he – once he had three – took actions that were, AFAIK, rarely taken, in order to leve combat by using the rules and his knowledge of them – I believe the Navy term is ‘sea-lawyering’; c) or that once back in Washington, he applied for and was granted early discharge so that he could run for Congress.
Even if you take the most favorible to Kerry view of the Bronze Star and Silver Star (and I don’t know or care to challenge either), he ‘gamed’ the system to get what he wanted.
Am I missing something?
A.L.
How did the evil Rovians get CBS to run with them without the minimum verification? Was some kind of evil Manchurian brain washing used?
Seriously, why would CBS run with evidence that can be so easily refuted – by amateurs yet? Don’t they do any vetting before then make serious charges like this?
I haven’t been one to jump on the “that liberal media” bandwagon, but I’m with Joe for sure, this can’t be called profession by any stretch of the imagination.
“Even if they were forged, retyped, or whatever, how do you explain Barnes’ testimony that he helped Bush get into the Texas ANG?”
Maybe the fact that Barnes is a scumbag and a proven liar. Oh and he works for the Kerry campaign and has raised a ton of money for him.
“In 1998, Barnes Was Accused Of Funneling $500,000 To Former Sales Manager Of Corporation Running Texas Lottery. “The former national sales manager for Gtech Holdings Corp., which operates the Texas lottery, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison Thursday for stealing from the company. …His sentencing two years after his conviction was delayed by a controversy over information released by prosecutors linking him and former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes to a similar kickback scheme. In a sentencing memo in the Smith case, New Jersey prosecutors alleged that Mr. Barnes, then Gtech’s chief Texas lobbyist, funneled $500,000 to Mr. Smith. The memo containing the allegations was posted on the Internet. Mr. Barnes denied that he had done anything wrong, and Judge Politan ordered prosecutors to apologize. In August, they acknowledged that they had disclosed secret information. Mr. Barnes said at the time that the money he gave Mr. Smith was for work not connected to the lottery. Mr. Barnes has never been charged with wrongdoing in connection with the allegation. Gtech bought out Mr. Barnes’ contract for $23 million after Texas lottery commissioners questioned Gtech business practices.” (George Kuempel, “Ex-Official For Gtech Sentenced,” The Dallas Morning News, 10/9/98)”http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4625
And Kerry takes swipes at the Swift Boaters who were busy fighting and bleeding in Vietnam while Kerry badmouthed them back home, meanwhile his cronies are drumming up stories and possibly forging documents against Bush. Cant wait to see what happens when the Dems stop being so darned nice.
bq. “Even if they were forged, retyped, or whatever, how do you explain Barnes’ testimony that he helped Bush get into the Texas ANG?”
Easy, he didn’t, Barnes discredits himself.
bq. “I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas, and I’m not necessarily proud of that, but I did it,”
A quick check finds Ben Barnes was lieutenant governor from 1969 to 1973. Bush was already in the NG (1968). So Barnes either has a time machine or he is a liar. Should we talk about Barns connection to the Kerry campaign?
Well, it seems to me that at this point the main issue is neither Bush’s nor Kerry’s service in the armed forces, but the mainstream media’s willingness to be taken in by anti-Bush stories while downplaying the anti-Kerry ones. That should run on the first page of the NY Times and Washington Post tomorrow, rather than burried in the middle of a correction on page A20. There should also be a “news analysis” piece examining the media bias that caused the establishment media to push this propaganda (or take the bait, as Andrew Lazarus apparently prefers). Finally, Okrent should maybe resign in protest to express his outrage. Not keeping my fingers crossed…
This 1966 memo is both in proportional font and contains the ° symbol. We must therefore conclude that John F. Kennedy is still alive.
bq. I used a Selectric for a long time, and can’t remember that key. Maybe someone else can?
Not only do typewriters not have a superscript “th” key, they lack the accompanying “st”, “nd”, and “rd” keys to deal with the other ordinals.
People might (understandably) forget _one_ key, but all four?
Seems forged documents aren’t exactly the newest game in town. Anyone remember something about yellowcake from Niger?
AJL wrote, “I can’t believe even the stupidest document expert would miss this.” Yeah, seems 60 minutes will be wiping egg off faces for a bit–good thing they’re shameless! But assume that the “60 Minutes” staff really was that gullible, for the 3 reasons Mark Buehner listed above.
AJL also wrote: “I’m also…wondering if pro-Bush forces decided to distract attention from true allegations (I think it’s pretty obvious Bush blew off the end of his guard service.)”
Yeah, let’s anticipate tomorrow’s interesting question: who forged ’em?
–Per AJL, could be Rove-bots anticipating blowback.
–Or, could be Bush-haters.
But either possibility seems doubtful.
1. These forgeries are so phony that no degree of thought or conscientiousness went into them. Anyone could have used a monospace font and modeled the memo after a pdf of an authentic one, for Chrissake.
2. CBS will turn on their former friends if they can, and unmasking would do more harm to the Cause than the memos would have helped.
I vote for high-school-level pranksters. Or disgruntled bloggers wanting to score points against the pontificating Old-Media types who’ve been weighing in against the new-fangled media.
Other guesses?
To AJL, I don’t remember any special-character ball for the Selectric, and I worked in a number of different military and civilian offices that used them. And I rarely saw any type ball other than Letter Gothic or Prestige Elite. And in any event they were all non-proportional; that was a mechanical aspect of the typewriter, not the ball.
I don’t remember ever seeing the Executive; around 1980 the dot-matrix printer started making its appearance (i.e., sooner or later using proportional spacing) along with various word-processors, not to mention the various smaller computers.
There’s just one thing wrong with the time-machine theory above. You’d think they’d use better verisimilitude. I vote for the high-schooler theory, on the basis that they might not have the physical memories of carbon paper and Letter Gothic balls and rotary-dial telephones.
For that matter, someone should re-acquaint the press with a hot-type linotype. Real eye-opener for them.
Moorlock,
The degree key was available on Selectric
type balls. (see: http://www.selectric.org/selectric/index.html)
I would bet it was available on the Executive typewriter. Still no ^th.
I agree with A.L. Pull up the chair, get out the popcorn, and watch people make judgements about a subject they have no expertise in.
A question. There are 4 documents we are talking about here. Are all the documents in play, or just the August 18th?
The “Suspension of Flight Status” while not as damning, sure isn’t good. “failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards” isn’t something to brag about…
And if he was ordered to show up for the physical, and it looks like he disobeyed (May 72, August 1, 72), I believe that counts as a military crime, right?
See Mark Kleinman
Another reasonable comment from BobVB over at “The Talent Show”:
“I think everyone has to take a step back and just wait and see. 1. the IBM executive did proportional fonts and the military had expensive typewriters for working with massive carbons.
2) I know the typewriter I used in the Army in 73 had several superscript characters, so that isn’t a smoking gun.
3) Photostats of the era deteriorate with time – I know mine have, in fact these look damn good.
4) Wait for siganture comparisons there obviously should be hundreds – we need more than the discharge one since often orderly room clerks filled in for the commanders on such documents. If the memo signatures are phony it will rapidly become obvious.
Lechliter’s analysis released yesterday reaches pretty much the same conclusions and it doesn’t depend on the memos at all.
If the memos are a fraud it will come out, but anyone rushing to ‘the decision’ either way is just indulging in self-indulgent chest pounding. Some reasonable questions have been raised, they will be answered one way or the other.”
These documents are obvious forgeries. Charles Johnson’s superimposition demonstrates this conclusively (and there is an abundance of additional evidence now available to show this). I’ve got the popcorn out, but at this point it’s only to see how deep the capacity for self-deception on the left (and in the mainstream media) runs…
Moorlock,
Didn’t you see Bubba Ho-tep? Kennedy is alive! Or was, until the mummy got him…
Man, 2004 is shaping up to be even funnier to watch than your last American election. I’m past disgusted and into full laughter mode, and there’s still 6 weeks to go.
As the the degree symbol, mentioned above, I remember THAT on my old Selectric fontball, but I DON’T remember and tiny th.
Lunacy
Wasn’t the tiny th on the ball for PL/1?
A.L.;
Yes, you might be missing something:
” … Barnes isn’t exactly a neutral source.
Does this negate a truth?
Has the White House denied the veracity of Barnes’ claims?
Gabriel;
“Well, it seems to me that at this point the main issue is neither Bush’s nor Kerry’s service in the armed forces, but the mainstream media’s willingness to be taken in by anti-Bush stories while downplaying the anti-Kerry ones.
Lucky for you. It seems you completely missed the entire Swift Boat Veterans for Truth brouhaha over the course of the last month.
Sometimes I wish I could be so ignorant of the news as well, I really do.
Charles at Little Green Footballs nails this down; it is a forgery of a Word doc, exactly. “Read this post”:http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526_Bush_Guard_Documents-_Forged, and note the fact that he superimposed his Word doc, typed using all defaults, over the alleged forgery and they match EXACTLY.
I blame Karl Rove.
VT – don’t be more of a jerk than you have to be:
“Sometimes I wish I could be so ignorant of the news as well, I really do.” is a winning argument, I’ll tell you…you and Teresa Kerry seem to share a viewpoint about those who disagree with you.
Does it negate the ‘veracity’ of his claims? I don’t know; did the history of Kobe’s accuser effect your view of hers?
A.L.
Duh – of course that first sentence should read “forgery done via a Word doc” … bad fingers!
A.L.;
Cool your jets, AL…don’t start swinging at the women.
Can’t say I followed the Kobe thing, sorry, so your question is wasted on me.
Let me put it another way: If Barnes says something that is true, but will benefit Kerry, and he is a supporter of Kerry’s, does that make his statement “untrue” simply because he is a partisan?
I think Bush and his supporters (and I’m counting you amongst this group) are a bit challenged when it comes to differentiating what is “truth” and what is “politics”, at this point.
The evidence: you’re preference for jumping on Kerry for his “handling” of the Swifty’s charges rather than taking issue with the near-complete falsity of the claims themselves.
VT –
Well, let’s go through some of it…if Barnes says something harmful to Bush – and he is (as he is) a stong partisan for Kerry – that doesn’t make what he says untrue. But without some evidence, it moves the charges to the “he said/she said” category – and while you may be willing to grant his word primacy over Bush’s (because you’re convinced Bush is a liar), those of us who don’t see a clear case on either side don’t.
Add to that the fact that your news is already priced into the market – I’ve said, and most people believe that Bush gamed the system to get into the TNG.
And it’s interesting to me that you absolutely dismiss the Swifites charges when at least one of them – the nature of the wound that got Kerry his first Purple Heart – was confirmed by the Kerry camp.
But I don’t place a lot of credence in 35-year old memories, particularly when those doing the remembering have an axe to grind – as I think the Swifties do because of Kerry’s VVAW history.
Sol on one hand, I discount Barnes, and on the other, I discount the Swifties – for exactly the same reason – OTOH, you not only discount, you dismiss, the Swifties (on what I believe is thin documentary evidence) while waving Barnes as the revealed truth.
Do you see what I’m talking about? And if not, does it worry you that lots of other people do?
A.L.
AL,
You are falsely stating that I am “waving Barnes as the revealed truth.” Nowhere in my comments do I indicate my position on his testimony. I am merely interested in probing more deeply into your, and the Right Wings, reflexive efforts to Richard-Clarke him so quickly.
Another example:
“… it’s interesting to me that you absolutely dismiss the Swifites charges when at least one of them – the nature of the wound that got Kerry his first Purple Heart – was confirmed by the Kerry camp.
You may have noticed I said “near-complete falsity”, which does not constitute an “absolute dismissal” to me.
“Do you see what I’m talking about? And if not, does it worry you that lots of other people do?”
Right back at ya, chief.
And as far as being “convinced” that “Bush is a Liar”:http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=165, once again you seem to be trying to negate any arguments or issues I might have with our esteemed leader, even when they might be entirely true, because I am a “partisan”. But in fact, there are many well-documented examples of “Bush’s Lies”:http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/022604.aspx (just enter the term in Google, crack open a beer and start reading links. See you in a week).
The Whitehouse admits their validty. Really kind of leaves you out on a limb.
Barnes is the kind of witness no lawyer would dream of putting on the stand. He was run out of politics for being hip deep in a bribery scandal, as well as in a multimillion dollar state lottery fraud scandal. His story has utterly reversed from what he has testified to _under oath_ in the past. And he has a huge motive to impinge Bush considering the amount of money he has donated and raised as a John Kerry campaign vice-chair. Oh and he may have a book coming out. Those are nontrivial objections to the man’s credibility.
“The Whitehouse admits their validty. Really kind of leaves you out on a limb.”
The do? Where? When? Link? They released the CBS documents faxed to them, that isnt a commentary on their veracity.
Looks like some in the MSM are considering the long term consequences loosing objectivity.
WaPo Disputes Authenticity
bq. Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.
bq. In a telephone interview from her Texas home, Killian’s widow, Marjorie Connell, described the records as “a farce,” saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not “keep files.” She said her husband considered Bush “an excellent pilot.”
VT –
This is getting dull. ‘I’m not taking a position, I’m just testing yours’ isn’t a position worth engaging; and while you seem to claim it in your last post, I’ll suggest you look to your earlier posts:
bq. “Let me put it another way: If Barnes says something that is true, but will benefit Kerry, and he is a supporter of Kerry’s, does that make his statement “untrue” simply because he is a partisan?
bq. I think Bush and his supporters (and I’m counting you amongst this group) are a bit challenged when it comes to differentiating what is “truth” and what is “politics”, at this point.”
There’s a pretty clear message in there, or so it seems to my naive eye. But perhaps you’d like to take a shot at taking a position and defending it?
A.L.
Just posted this on the 36 Hours section, but thought you might be interested as well.
*Ben Barnes daughter says he lied on 60-minute*
In a phone call to WBAP’s Mark Davis radio show in Dallas, Texas, Ms. Barnes told guest host Monica Crowley that her father was an “opportunist” who had lied about Bush’s Guard record during a “60 Minutes II” broadcast Tuesday night.
BARNES: I love my father very much but he’s doing this for purely political reasons. He is a big Kerry fundraiser and he is writing a book also. And [the Bush story] is what he’s leading the book off with . . . He denied this to me in 2000 that he did get Bush out [of Vietnam service]. Now he’s saying he did.
CROWLEY: Did he tell you, Amy – and I’m glad I have you on the line with me – did your father tell you that he was prepared to do this on behalf of John Kerry – go after President Bush like this?
BARNES: He told me he was going to do it. In fact I talked to him a couple of months ago. He told me he was writing the book. He told me that he was going to be talking about this. And he knows that I – we have very diverse political opinions. He knows my opinions and we get into this debate every time I see him. But, you know, he said that he was going to be talking about it.
CROWLEY: Now you’re saying, Amy, that he has had two separate stories on President Bush’s Guard duty during the Vietnam era?
BARNES: Yes, yes. This came out in 2000 and I asked him then, at the time, if he [helped get Bush into the Guard]. He said, “No, absolutely not. I did not do that.”
CROWLEY: So, I hate to put you in this position but I will ask you, do you think your father, Ben Barnes – who was on “60 Minutes II” with Dan Rather last night – do you believe that he lied on the air to the American people last night about President Bush?
BARNES; Yes, I do. I absolutely do. And I think he’s doing he’s doing it for purely political, opportunistic reasons – trying to get John Kerry elected and trying to make Bush look like the bad person. . . . Like I said, he’s going to be trying to promote his book that he’s got coming out. [End of Excerpt]
Crowley’s colleague, WABC Radio’s Mark Levin, aired a tape of the exchange in New York after confirming that Barnes’ does indeed have a daughter named Amy.
SBD
At Tacitus I wondered if the docs were OCR’s into Word after being scanned, which would explain both the font and the signatures.
If CBS has the original, it would be pretty obvious if a typewriter was used, just by feel.
I’m going to wait a day to see what develops. I do expect that if the docs are forged, CBS will burn their source.
“I’m going to wait a day to see what develops. I do expect that if the docs are forged, CBS will burn their source.”
Not if he’s sitting in the hospital shortly after quadrupal-bypass surgery.
That part that’s amazing in all this is the number of people that don’t appear to have _any_ familiarity with typewriters. Keyboards, sure. Typewriters, no.
The Prowler is saying they got the docs from the Kerry Campaign. If that is the case there is no way CBS burns their source, at least not till post-election.
There’s a lengthy entry by someone who has researched the typewriter issue more thoroughly than I have. Bottom line, there certainly were proportional space typewriters (used the ones in my dad’s office all the time), there certainly were typewriters modified with th-keys (in many other uncontroverted Bush TxANG docs), and the author doesn’t think the typeface is Times New Roman. (The CBS memos were not produced on just one machine, so I’m not sure whether this applies to all or some.) That’s not the same thing as showing the docs are genuine, but some of the claims of why they are “forged” are overblown.
Now that major media outlets are on different sides of this story, I expect we’ll see some resolution soon for their own competitive reasons. No way CBS leaves this kind of clooud over their head for six weeks.
WRT to the font, I though the documents that CBS posted looked aged. How would an OCR process do this?
WRT to the signature, it seems an OCR process would render (if it could decipher script at all) the signature into the same font as the text. If the signature was scanned in as a bitmap, it should match the original signature (within the limits of the resolution used).
Nope. The probability that these documents are forgeries is approaching unity very fast.
AJL (6:19am), interesting possibility re: OCR of memo into Word.
If so, this is either incredible sloppiness for 60 Minutes not to so indicate, or a rope-a-dope ploy by CBS–and is that the sort of “gotcha” role a news organization is supposed to play?
But I think it’s unlikely. When you view the .pdf of the memo’s “original/CBS” form, it looks like an old, bad Xerox, or copy-of-a-copy. Text lines are a little wavy and the characters are somewhat unclear. Why would CBS make an OCR of an original look like that!
By the way, on Thursday’s 7pm EDT feed of All Things Considered, the 60 Minutes/Memo story was discussed without a whiff of doubt. 12+ hours into the Manchurian Font scandal on the web. No corrections on the part of today’s Morning Edition that I heard, either.
Embarassing, for them.
VT (various posts):
You seem to be painting A.L. as a rote Bush-booster. Maybe because, like him, I am a disaffected Democrat, I find the conflation of A.L. and Rush Limbaugh to be not particularly praiseworthy as a debating tactic. I have read enough of A.L.’s posts and comments to have a fair idea of his position on this issue, and it’s not what you represent it to be.
If I am wrong on this, please salt your comments liberally with hyperlinks to statements of his (“his” = A.L., not Rove or anyone else) that support your contentions. If convincing, I promise to then eat my hat, and I will invite fellow reluctant-Bush-supporting-Dems here to do the same.
OCR could leave the flecks and signatures as graphics, but for a more comprehensive view, click the link in my last entry. (Also, many comments including mine at Tacitus).
AJL, I couldn’t find your link, but did get to “your Tacitus diary”:http://www.tacitus.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2004/9/9/204239/1027 via your comment #255 to “this more recent ‘Bird Dog’ post at Tacitus”:http://www.tacitus.org/story/2004/9/9/135329/7958
That ‘Bird Dog’ post and its links to Powerline and other places make me wince re: CBS use of OCR as an explanation. That theory was plausible if not strong when you posted it yesterday, but it hasn’t aged well overnight. Looks more like CBS got burned by some high school nerds (or whoever).
Anyway, thanks for the tip. Be interesting to see what the next few days bring.
“Looks more like CBS got burned by some high school nerds (or whoever).”
I dont buy the high school prank possibility. Whoever did this did some level of research into what an airforce memo would look like (if not enough research obviously). They likely assumed no-one with a military background would be taking a close look at it, and they were right as far as CBS goes! Hidden in plain sight works often enough with the MSM. The fact that these memos lend credence to _exactly_ what would hurt Bush the most and _exactly_ what Michael Moore and his ilk have been stipulating is telling. Somebody both put some amount of time into this research and had the idiology down pat as well. They also managed to get the docs into CBS’s hands in such a way that CBS felt confident in their origin. That isnt some 18 year old freshman at Berkley. This also rules out a prank that got out of hand. If it was a prank there are precious few ‘winks at the camera’, this is meant to be taken dead seriously and seem thoroughly genuine. Why spend time on detail work like finding correct dates and addresses for a prank?
Right now, the likely possibilities to my mind are either a true dirty trick pulled by someone connected to the DNC (without the DNCs knowledge i would assume, im thinking of someone like our good Mr Barnes here), or a dirty trick pulled by a younger campaign aide. The former seems more likely, somehow this thing got into CBSs hands with somebody’s seal of approval with some credentials.
bq. “At Tacitus I wondered if the docs were OCR’s into Word after being scanned, which would explain both the font and the signatures.”
This makes no sense at all. If the documents were OCR’ed the graphic image of the letters would have been replaced with true type font characters. The obvious poor quality of the letters is proof of that. When printed as a PDF document the document would be a mixture of characters and graphics, which it is not.
Mark B, what happened to “a trick done by a Rovian double agent to discredit all of the correct accusations against Bush”.
(As an example of the latter, it’s clear he ignored his written agreement to seek Guard service in Mass.)
Another technical defense of the memos here; see also links in the comments thereat.
Mark Buehner (5:58pm),
Would somebody connected to either the Kerry campaign/its 527 non-affiliated affiliates or the Bush campaign/its 527s be so stupid as to shop these forgeries to CBS? Heck, I’m no rocket scientist, but even I can see that:
–Acceptance of these poor forgeries by the intended marks (CBS) must have been very uncertain;
–If accepted, the odds that the forgeries would be revealed as such in a matter of days or weeks would be high;
–Once burned, CBS would be unlikely to be willing or able protect its sources;
–Tracing the fraud back to its originators would have much worse ‘blowback’ consequences than the gains to be had, were the forgeries accepted.
You will respond that such reasoning would elegantly explain why the Watergate break-in never happened…and you would be right.
So I guess we’ll just see.
Andrew, i’m sorry i can never tell if people are being sarcastic when they raise this point.. or if they are just raving lunatics.
I never mentioned the possibility of the document coming directly from John Kerry’s laptop either because that is also absurd.
All the technical rebuttals are incomplete and address only one issue at a time. No-one has been able to put it all together, and in fact I’ve heard someone is offering a 10,000$ reward for anyone able to reproduce this document on a typewriter of the era. None of that explains the mistakes in military protocol either.
These documents are fake unless somehow a very large, expensive IBM typewriter for some reason appeared in a Texas AF Reserve office of a Lt Col and was custom tricked out to type up a routine memo that would exactly mimics a word processing program that would appear 20 years in the future. That is insane. No-one can so much as explain why this memo would have been typed instead of handwritten, as was Killian’s custom according to his wife and son.
CBS is giving all of us, left and right and center, the finger right now. They are saying we dont deserve an explanation or even an investigation. That should send cold shivers up anyones spine. Ignore the experts, ignore the family, trust us?
“You will respond that such reasoning would elegantly explain why the Watergate break-in never happened…and you would be right.”
You also just proved that _nobody_ would be stupid enough to do this, which is obviously not the case. All the same points that make it madness for a Dem to attempt it make it doubly so for Karl Rove. Somebody did this, people do stupid things all the time. Especially when desperate.
People do stupid things when desperate… or when they’re just yanking someone’s chain. The whole thing almost looks like a prank to me.
We know that this happened, and that almost nothing about it makes sense at the moment. We do not yet know the who, or the why. Hopefully, at some point we will.
AJL wrote:
bq. “There’s a lengthy entry by someone who has researched the typewriter issue…”
He better keep his day job cus his rebuttal is pretty lame. For example his claim that “some letters “float” above or below the baseline” and then uses the ‘e’s in the word ‘interference’ as an example. What he fails to note is the horizontal bar that distinguishes an ‘e’ from a ‘c’ lines up perfectly for the last three ‘e’s in that word (the first e’s bar is obscured). The bottoms of the 2nd and 3rd ‘e’s make them appear raised but that is an optical illusion due to an artifact of the aliasing.
Joe, the document itself might look like a prank. An elaborate one with a very specific political jab to make I might add. The conspiracy part comes with the way it has been presented. CBS seems to be either confident in their source or desperate to protect them. If this was just something somebody found in a trash bin CBS would just agree its a forgery, apologize, and stand on their other evidence. But they cant do that. For one, their other evidence is falling apart. Ben Barnes is predictably unravelling, Killian’s family is shocked and angry and utterly discount the story, and everything else is undisclosed sources. There is coordination here between these factors, and that has just occurred to The Dan and his minions. They have been played and now they are forced to either try to ride this out or admit how badly theyve been deceived, and worse by whom. Not John Kerry certainly. But I suggest we will start hearing quite a bit about the man who shared that episode of 60 Minutes II, vice-chair on Kerrys campaign, and noted scumbag Ben Barnes. My gut is screaming that this is too big of a coincidence that all of this slime is coallescing independantly by chance.
It’s amazing that Dan Rather risking what’s left of his reputation by continuing to vouch for these memo’s authenticity. He is going to go down hard.
CBS News gets good ratings tonight:
Statement From CBS News
NEW YORK, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Later today, CBS News will address on the air and in detail the issues surrounding the documents broadcast in the 60 MINUTES report on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. At this time, however, CBS News states with absolute certainty that the ability to produce the “th” superscript mentioned in reports about the documents did exist on typewriters as early as 1968, and in fact is in President Bush’s official military records released by the White House. This and other issues surrounding the authenticity of the documents and more on this developing story will be reported on tonight on THE CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER.
To JC, Thanks for the heads-up. One sidebar, the superscript “th” or the like may have appeared on Facit or Olympia manual typewriters in 1968 — I do remember those — along with the capability of accents, etc. Very nice typewriters but not necessarily what you’d find in a typical Reserve center.
And in any event these typewriters didn’t have proportional spacing, either.
They did exist in 1968. So did the Apollo program, but I don’t think that squadron had a Lunar Module in its reserve center either.
This is going to require some real explaining.
Bob,
Yeah, hey, I have no idea, myself. Just passing info on.
On a slight sidenote, I can’t help chuckling. Who could have ever believed that, in August 2004, the technically conversant political elite (technically conversant politically obsessive? technically conversant people with too much time on their hands?) would be learning SO MUCH about the mechanical and font minutiae of 1960-70 era Selectric typewriters?
I tell ya, this internet thing can be strange…
JC, Indeed. It also helps if you have people on this site who have a variety of travel experiences, technical skills, language skills, military background — and past life experiences, e.g., with carbon paper.
Who knows? Maybe we’ll be talking on this site whether George W. or John K. were traumatized by seeing “You Bet Your Life” while they were small children?
Yes I’ve heard all the arguments for and against the validity for the memos. The truth will eventually come out. What peaked my interest was this statement that no one seems to have answered yet.
bq. _”Has the White House denied the veracity of Barnes’ claims?”_
My follow on question is if you have them on the ropes already why deny it?
If the public let alone the news media is so tied up in a debate about the veracity of such documents things remain status quo. Certainly you will have some believers and non-believers but these are inconsequential to those that will just write it off simply because of not knowing what to believe.
What would the WH gain by denying the documents? All this would do is add fuel to the Bush lied rhetoric regardless of veracity of the documents. It certainly wouldn’t gain him any points in the MSM (not that he has any already). It certainly wouldn’t put the spot light on the MSM it would remove it. IMO it is better to remain silent and let things play themselves out. If anything the Bush campaign now has Kerry on the ropes as well as the MSM. People will consistently view the MSM as a level of distrust simply because this _*seed*_ has risen to the forefront. It reminds me of the past discussions of journalists gaming the system by playing detective. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the game isn’t so nice.
I’m still very unsure about the documents’ authenticity, but they seem to be holding up better today than yesterday. I’m not surprised by that, because some of the claims against them (e.g., the superscript) were wrong, I had a friend with a modified typewriter for that, and the pendulum swings. Whether there was any one machine that could put everything together—that’s the question. My typewriter sure couldn’t.
I must say, from the transcript Rather looked like a man willing to sink or swim on these docs.
Of course, soon it’s going to be accepted by all that Bush blew off the end of his Guard duty; his own press flack has retracted the longstanding bogus claim he looked for a Massachusetts unit.