[Stoner]

Most of the forum knows my views on GW Bush.
I think there is a wealth if negative information on Bush that is worthy of discussion.

PaveFE and I were in a conversation yesterday about sources and facts.
I believe a respected professional news gathering endevor can be used as reference to provide factual information in arguements.

But that trust is always a fragile commodity.
CBS 60 minutes last Wednesday produced an hour show on TV that also presented 'lost' memos on Bush's military performance.
However, as PaveFE pointed out, there is a contraversy over the strong possibility the memos were faked. I did a little searching on the font issue, and it does look like the memos are frauds.

I guess it should be no surprise to see the above. I've watched news outlets front the 'Swiftboat' people and repeatedly claim their testimony as truth.
Moore fronts his film as a documentary.

I don't wish to imply that discussion should be restricted, I still think reputable news outlets can be used for authority, at least till proven otherwise.

Here's just two articles that popped up this morning:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect...ws-bush10.html

Critical memos on Bush's Guard service faked?


September 10, 2004

BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB





A day after CBS News presented documents questioning President Bush's National Guard service, the veracity of those papers is coming into question.

The development comes in a campaign in which charges continue to fly about the authenticity of Bush's time in the Guard and Sen. John Kerry's Web site listing of medals and Naval service.

On "60 Minutes II" on Wednesday night, CBS' Dan Rather introduced four documents he claimed were written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, 1st Lt. George W. Bush's superior, establishing that Bush failed to meet the standards required by the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s.

These appeared to support charges by Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Kerry that Bush had been "AWOL" and had failed to meet his Guard commitments.

The documents were presented by CBS as coming from Killian's secret personal files. In them Killian appears to complain that he was being pressured by his superior officers to "sugar coat" Bush's substandard performance in his official records and described how Bush had asked him "how he could get out of coming to drill," among other things.

Forgery experts take a look



The morning after the "60 Minutes II" airing, the Internet was buzzing with claims that the documents were forged.

Powerlineblog first aired speculation that there was persuasive evidence from the typefaces and spacing that the documents supposedly prepared in the age of typewriters in the early 1970s showed the unmistakable characteristics of computer printing.

Another blogger, Bill Ardolino at INDC Journal, who had read Powerline, said, "I decided to find a top typeface expert and ran his analysis on my Web site."

Ardolino's expert, Philip D. Bouffard, is a nationally recognized forensic authority in typewriter and electronic typefaces.

Bouffard has the largest collection of full letter impact typewriter specimens in a private collection today. More than 3,000 of them are commonly used in forensic work. Having worked at NCR and a forensic laboratory for more than 30 years, Bouffard still works with entities such as the state of Ohio on Medicare fraud cases.

Times Roman on a computer?



Bouffard said the CBS documents appear to have been copied about 10 times in the state he saw them. Nevertheless, he states, "All the documents have been created on the same printer. And the proportional spacing and the common characteristics of numbers like 4 and 7 and letters like lower case c and upper case G are beyond the capabilities of any of the typewriter impact specimens I have in my collection. The centering of headings is also beyond the capabilities of any typewriter I know of."

His conclusion: "It is remotely possible that there is some typewriter that has the capability to do all this that I have never seen, but it is more likely that these documents were commonly generated in the common Times Roman font and printed out on a computer printer that did not exist at the time they were supposedly created."

Bouffard is a registered Democrat and says he is planning to vote for John Kerry.

CBS stands by its story



In a related story, the Associated Press has reported that the son of Killian, Gary Killian, has questioned the authenticity of the documents as well and said they didn't come from his family.

CBS says it stands by its story and claims that the handwriting and document experts it consulted believe the documents are genuine.

The White House released these documents after obtaining them from CBS and did not question their accuracy, according to the Associated Press.


Thomas Lipscomb is chairman of the Center for the Digital Future in New York

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/28331.htm

GUARD-MEMO 'HOAX'

A storm erupted last night over whether CBS anchor Dan Rather fell for a hoax or had authentic documents when he challenged President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

The wife and son of the late officer who purportedly wrote the memos questioning Bush's performance challenged their authenticity — as did another officer who served with him, and several document experts.

"The wording in these documents is very suspect to me," said Marjorie Connell, widow of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

In an interview with ABC radio, she said her late husband didn't type and was a big fan of the young Bush, whom he regarded as "an excellent aviator."

Killian's son Gary said one of the memos signed by his dad looks legitimate but questioned the legitimacy of another unsigned memo titled "CYA" that speaks of pressure to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance in August 1973.

"It just wouldn't happen. The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things . . . No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that," said Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his dad and retired as a captain in 1991.

Rather claimed Wednesday on "60 Minutes II" that CBS was told the memos suggesting Bush ignored orders to take a physical came from Jerry Killian's personal files but Gary Killian said his dad didn't regularly bring work home.

The personnel chief in Killian's unit in the 1970s, Rufus Martin, said he thinks Rather fell for a hoax — "They look like forgeries to me. I don't think Killian would do that and I knew him for 17 years."

CBS stood by its story but declined to specify who supplied the documents or name the experts who vetted their authenticity except to say they were "thoroughly investigated by independent experts."

The authenticity questions erupted on the Internet, starting with Powerlineblog.com, and several experts said the memos are dubious because they look like contemporary, computer documents:

* The type spacing is proportional — a wide letter like a "w" gets more space than an "i." That's typical of documents created with the Microsoft Word computer word-processing program but most 1970s typewriters gave the same space to each letter, the experts said.

* References to military units like the 187th have the "th" in a raised superscript. This is automatic on Microsoft Word documents.

Several experts questioned whether a typical 1970s typewriter would have superscripts. An IBM spokeswoman said the superscript may have been available on Selectrics in the early 1970s, but couldn't pinpoint a date.

* The apostrophe in words like "he's" look curly but most typewriters had blunt apostrophes with straight edges.

* The typeface looks identical to 11-point Times New Roman, a standard Microsoft Word typeface.

* Each line in the memos looks smooth, unlike hunt-and-peck typing where some letters are struck harder than others.

"I would have a lot of questions about it before I would want to accept it," said Emily Will, an expert in Raleigh, N.C.

Computer-document expert William Flynn told The Weekly Standard: "These sure look like forgeries." With Post Wire Services

CBS needs to explain this situation.

[700mb80min]

the argument from both sides as a whole is simply " trash talking " and actually makes them both look bad .......sure they both have military expierience , but to what degree , nobody can agree on ..........presently it`s all you here in the news and it`s getting to be quite irritating ....but alas i am canadian and really don`t give a rats a s s...! i know bandwidth will collaspe when the election is over !

[brushmaster1]

CBS's 60 Minutes has a long history of biased reporting... I take nothing they say at face value.

[Davey7549]

Jack
If you are described as anything it should be Honest!
Maybe the discovery of these memo's being faked will end this VN nonsense and get down to the real issues.

Dave

[linskyjack]

Yes it will end them with Bush scoring about 11 points due to the fact that he has a better propoganda machine then Kerry.

[angelize56]

Ah...now I see what you meant Smilin' Jack! What'd you start a new thread on the subject for...to me!

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by brushmaster1

CBS's 60 Minutes has a long history of biased reporting... I take nothing they say at face value.

Many news outlets put slants on their stories.
They pander to their audience for several reasons.
One would be their political position another might be the economics of displaying what the audience wants.

But this time, CBS is stuck with the issue of presenting what appears to be fraudulent documents.
CBS either needs to clean house and dispell from their ranks, those that created that fraud-----or explain how those documents are either legit(I doubt) or were presented to them as legit.

Either way, their reputation in my eyes is very poor right now.
To note, I haven't relied on CBS for much and seldom watch it on TV. But given a choice of source with online searches, CBS is now near the bottom of my list of references.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by angelize56

Ah...now I see what you meant Smilin' Jack! What'd you start a new thread on the subject for...to me!

I could never confuse you

I started this thread more on the issue of the strong possibility that CBS presents altered facts than the point of Bush and his military career......, although Bush is the focus of CBS's presentation.

[valley]

Morning jack

[Wino]

So, if the docs have been doctored, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would that rate against the "Niger Yellowcake" document, known false, and included in the State of the Union speech? Or for that matter, the SBVT 527's? Or the half truths by both sides in their political ads? It is the political season, so everything either side says, whether approved or not by the candidates, should be taken with a huge grain of salt. We have been lied to by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum for centuries - and that isn't going to change.

[Stoner]

Mornin' Val

[Stoner]

We have been lied to by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum for centuries - and that isn't going to change.

Too true, Wino.........too true

[LANMaster]

Jack,
Thanks for the intellectual honesty.
60 minutes once again has proven that they will do or say just about anything to throw this election toward the party which they support.

Isn't that considered treason? Seriously.

Wino, You try to excuse this blatant fraud because you hate Bush, and CBS supports your feeling that it doesn't matter how dirty the tricks are, as long as Bush doesn't win re-election.

However, the dirty tricks in politics are from both sides.
What a sad state of affairs when we can excuse the lack of ethics simply because they are on our own side.
Same with the Swifties.

[PaveFE]

Hey Jack, didn't you read in the other thread where Wet Noodle...eerrrr I mean Chicken has supposedly debunked that the memo's were fake? I'm wondering why there is an investigation since all they had to do was talk to WC.

Anyhow, on to real issues.....

So, if the documents are fake, my next question will be......how did they get them and from whom?

[Ciberblade]

Jack __

Now some questions...
If CBS is going down the tubes, why more than one tube? Seems to me that if it's one company, then they should get one tube. But a tube that big, someone would have seen it. They would have said "hey Charlie, look at the tube."