Posted on 09/09/2004 6:42:06 AM PDT by Sue Bob
The Globe story is itself based on last night's 60 Minutes report: "New questions on Bush Guard duty." The online version of the 60 Minutes story has links to the memos. Killian died in 1984; CBS states that it "consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic." Reader Tom Mortensen writes:
Every single one of the memos to file regarding Bush's failure to attend a physical and meet other requirements is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing (especially in the military), and typewriters used mono-spaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction high-end word processing systems from Xerox and Wang, and later of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's.
Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang and other systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used mono-spaced fonts. I doubt the TANG had typesetting or high-end 1st generation word processing systems.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
"maybe it was weird to me"
If the memo was going anywhere else, it certainly would have been, not only weird, but a big no-no.
It is just that the memo was designed to go nowhere.
See how logical that is? ;)
The IBM Executive typewriter....Only somebody with a PhD in secretarial skills could operate it. It was a proportional spacing machine: an 'm' was five spaces wide, an 'i' was two. There were two separate space bars (two and three spaces respectively). To correct a mistake, you had to know the width of all the characters involved so that you could backspace the appropriate amount (backspace was the only single-space key on the machine). There was an arcane procedure for producing justified type which involved typing a page a first time (while using a special guide to measure where the lines ended), noting the extra spaces that needed to be added, marking the copy to show where two-width spaces would be replaced with three-width spaces (or, in the worst case, two two-width spaces), and typing the page a second time.
To believe that an ANG unit went to this trouble to proportional-space a memorandum in 1972 requires a Dali-like view of reality.
Totally beyond the bounds of believability. In the same way that it's "possible" that someone could make 18 consecutive holes-in-one, blindfolded.
We COULD find out this was created on a "typewriter," but one that did not exist in 1972.
The electronic wheelwriter machines (essentially a word rpocessor in a typewriter) could do very pretty spacing, superscripts, etc. But those are from the 80's
My experience was with a small med detachment at CRC, Korea. About 1977 we got a load of brand new IBM Selectrics (non-proportional). The 3 star general's secretary from I Corps came and took one, leaving her older IBM (non-proportional) in it's place. We neglected to give her the extra film ribbons for it and she brought it back. At the time we couldn't get the ribbons through normal supply. We had unit people pick them up in Hawaii on leave!
We're talking some Guard Colonel having his memos typed out on a proportional type machine. I don't buy it, not at brigade or battalion level.
But if it can easily and conclusively be shown that the CBS memos are forgeries, it DESTROYS the last shred of Rather and CBS's credibility.
And that is a VERY GOOD thing.
AMEN!
Even if the equipment existed in 1972, on some random Guard officer's desk, we are looking at an exercise in anal-retentive pretty-printing. OR we are looking at something hoked-up on a PC, and the forger didn't catch that the th got automatically superscripted.
See 142. I agree.
Don't you get it?.........it doesn't matter, because they no longer control the flow of information in this country. Old media is SO over.
Occam's Razor says the odds are 99.999999999% favoring the second conclusion.
Of course, Mineral Man will say that's not the same as proof.
We can certainly agree on that.
I'll just add that at the very least CBS completely misrepresented the content and implications of these documents.
You have to keep your eye on what is easily represented in the media (both new and old).
Debates over the meaning of a memo can be slanted 99% in CBS and the old media's favor, and we have no recourse in the old media.
But the simple factoid: "CBS used clumsy forgeries, and didn't even check them" is damning.
Joe Sixpack will "get" that in a way he will never "get" the true meaning of the memoranda.
In 1980, I was doing troff previewers for hand-crafted graphics systems on PDP-11s and VAXes. That was bleeding edge stuff for an office document creation system.
In 1972, I was in grade school, and IBM Courier on a mimeo master was "desktop publishing."
This document smells.
Read from about 140 to here. We have a new "smoking gun" for HH.
Self note: IMPORTANT.
That jumped out at me too. I don't recall that expression being used back in the 70's.
Smells like week old fish feces.
Thank God, I'm not alone.
Where are we seeing the actual memo?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210946/posts?page=100#100
In the above post I provide the link to CBS's story which in turn contains links to the memos.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.