Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

At least W's wounds weren't superficial!!

W didn't have to follow orders. Let me type slowly so you can understand:

W. Is. God's. Vessel.
Answers. To. Higher. Authority.

[Don't miss the drug connection:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/8/222151/0664 ]

I don't know that this is a winning issue for Kerry or a losing issue for Bush. It is another distraction from the "Why are there 1000+ dead Americans in Iraq?" question and the "Why are there fewer jobs today than in 2001?" question.

I thought the White House got their copies as a courtesy from CBS -- only a day before the rest of us got a peek.

I'm still trying to run the experiment of typing up a "forgery" then scanning it in for Adobe to convert to PDF -- see what happens to a "th" ...

Y'know the silly part?

I can't find a stupid typewriter!

Forgeries! Yikes. The aluminum hat brigade is taking over. Beep beep.

It gives me some comfort to hear (according to Sullivan) that Bushie blogs are crying forgery, because it suggests that they think the memos might actually make a difference. But anyone following the story would find nothing surprising here except that the memos exist and are finally coming out. The chronology of Bush's absence has been worked out indirectly. It matches all available evidence, and no one has ever stepped forth to contradict it.

My working assumption has been that likely Bush voters know all this but don't hold it against him. His evangelical supporters in particular would have to discount anything he did before he was "born again." The only real liability is the fact that he didn't come clean much earlier, but it's probably easy to rationalize that away too ("he's fighting a war" or "it's time to move on" etc.).

> It was “created on a word processor with proportional spacing and the th in the 111th is a SUPERSCRIPT.

Wow, talk about grasping.

"Proportional spacing, as developed by IBM, was the last major advance in electric typebar typewriters. Interestingly, the proportional (or variable or differential) spacing concept was not new when IBM introduced its product in 1941."
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/255/ibmrd2505ZH.pdf

The "th" subscript looks exactly like what you'd expect from a fancy typewriter. IBM selectrics had those nifty golfballs you could swap, and someone who types "111th" a lot would probably want it to look nice. It shouldn't be hard to find someone who can give the exact model of typewriter used by Killian.

I'm going to guess it was typed on an IBM Executive, which is fondly remembered all over the web as a typewriter with proportional spacing. However, it appears that this did not use the Selectric golfball as I suggested above, and that the Selectric actually did not do proportional spacing.

"The IBM Executive with proportional spacing was able to produce acceptable but unjustified camera-ready copy. Some publishers were able to "set" acceptable copy using these devices" http://www.consultmoseley.com/maicentury.htm

It is interesting that the "th" in the letterhead is full sized but superscripted in the body of the exact same memo. So the guy who presumably cared enough to type the very best switched in the middle of the document.

1953 IBM Executive ad. See bottom center. It's a fuzzy but discernable demonstration of proportional spacing on l, a, w, and m.

http://www.etypewriters.com/1953-a-exec-2.JPG

> The fact that proportional spacing typewriters existed in 1972 no more proves that these documents were typed on one of them ...

Agreed. But Adrian's claim was that proportional spacing "proves" that the letters were typed on a "word processor". This is easily refuted.

Obviously this is insufficient to address the issue of forgery, but it's funny that the White House isn't claiming this.

So do Bushies think the 1970s were part of prehistory? The other dubious claim occurred several months ago when we were supposed to believe that a 25 year old roll of microfilm "crumbled" (quote) in an attempt to read it in 1997. I was skeptical and have since satisfied myself (after asking librarians) that you'd really have to mistreat a role of even non-archival microfilm for it to "crumble" after 25 years, though it could be worn in places. Eventually those financial records showed up anyway, so the point was ultimately moot.

My working assumption has been that likely Bush voters know all this but don't hold it against him. His evangelical supporters in particular would have to discount anything he did before he was "born again." The only real liability is the fact that he didn't come clean much earlier, but it's probably easy to rationalize that away too ("he's fighting a war" or "it's time to move on" etc.).
Posted by Paul Callahan at September 9, 2004 12:26 PM //

except based on the latest doc. Bush might have violated his agreement to finish his duty in mass.

Can he just walk away without paying?

"It is interesting that the "th" in the letterhead is full sized but superscripted in the body of the exact same memo. So the guy who presumably cared enough to type the very best switched in the middle of the document."

Actually is was common practice to have a stock of letterhead already printed. Since that info rarely changed it wouldn't make much sense to reprint it each time. If it wasn't printed in advance, It would likely be pre programmed into the memory of the typewritter (like the sig block of the commander usually was). Either way, the letter typer was not necessarily the letterhead typer.

In fact letterhead today is pre printed in many cases.

One last comment on the typography.

(a) The IBM Composer introduced in 1966, was a golf-ball style typewriter with proportional spacing. It had a font called Press Roman that was a knock-off of Times Roman (I did some inquiries). You can read about it here: http://www.ibmcomposer.org/

(b) The superscript "th" sure does seem fancy for a military memo, but it also does not match the results in Microsoft Word Times or Times New Roman. Type "187th" and hit space in Word. You will see the horizontal line on the superscript "t" flush with the lower part of the top line of the "7". Now zoom in on 187th in the document. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust18.pdf You will see that "th" is up higher. The top line of 7 almost bisects it vertically.

Conclusion: contrary to some claims, this is definitely not the result of MS Word with Times New Roman. It does not match. That doesn't prove it's not a forgery, but it shoots down one theory.

The IBM Composer was used in its day for a primitive kind of desktop publishing. Yes, it seems a bit extravagant for a TexANG officer to be writing memos like this and switching golfballs to get fancy effects. But it was probably done by a secretary, not by the Lt. Colonel himself. I'll keep an open mind until a real typewriter expert can fill me in.

Just to return to Bakho's comments, i'm not sure that it's an issue that moves anyone.

The bush enablers have already discounted much worse stuff than this (and i especially agree about the mindset of the evangelicals).

The independents have not been holding their breath waiting for more infor about bush and the national guard.

The dems are already voting against bush.

It almost certainly would have made more difference in 2000 had the media done its job then, but by now, people know where they stand about bush.

The only possibility that this might make a difference is if it can be demonstrated that the white house has been sitting on documents, but since that doesn't appear to have been the case today....

VERY worrisone new evidence:

(1) Kevin Drum has now corrected himself -- the copies of those two Killian memos the White House released were just photocopies of the copies that CBS sent to the White House ( http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004663.php ).

(2) Over at http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php , note particularly Update 8 (on the apparent difference between the Killian signature on the memo and what is supposedly an authentic Killian signature -- which originally comes, by the way, from an anti-Bush website at http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc27.gif ) and Update 12 (on the fact that Staudt -- according to the LA Times -- retired the year BEFORE the last CBS memo claims he was "pressuring" Hodges, although it's still possible that Staudt could be pressuring Hodges after his official retirement).

This VERY badly needs to be looked into more, although I still find it very interesting that the White House itself has not questioned the authenticity of the memos and that Staudt is still refusing to talk to the press.

As NBC and Andrew Sullivan point out, the strongest piece of evidence that they are NOT forgeries comes from the fact that the White House itself is not denying their authenticity. One would think that, if they knew that they were fake, they would have raised screaming hell by now -- but so far, not a peep.

Also, NBC says (without going into any detail) that Staudt WAS still commander of the Air National Guard in 1973 -- but it also repeatedly and seriously misspells his name... Obviously time for me to go Google-hunting on this point.

I don't agree, Bruce. Better to let outsiders tear this story to shreds.

Anyone here who is now very convinced it's a forgery would do well to browse the IBM Composer Operations Manual
http://www.ibmcomposer.org/docs/Selectric%20Composer%20Operations%20Manual.pdf
which claims to be typeset on the very same.

After typing some paragraphs from it into MS Word, I am now convinced it is really a forgery done on a "modern" word processor. The right margins line up with MS Word. It has right and left quotes, and it has variable font sizes.

It doesn't have superscripts for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. but it tells how to get them. You would have to switch golfballs.

Actually, the part I find most jarring about the memo is the date style "18 August 1973" not "August 18, 1973." That looks a little too modern to me, but what do I know?

I'd have to say the balance of the evidence suggests pretty strongly that these are forgeries.

But... As I strap on my own foil hat...

I'snt it a bit odd how quickly certain average citizens were able to line up forensic experts to pick this thing apart? I wonder who knew what and when?

paul, i hate to be slow, but i can't figure out what you are saying in your first three paragraphs - you do or do not believe that the memoes are forgeries?

Meanwhile, though, 18 august 1973 is not a modern affectation....

Paul,
The docs could be forgeries but the date thing won't work as clue to a forgery. I was in the Army Reserves in 1959, Ft Ord CA. That is where I picked up the military way to date things and have kept that style ever since. The other thing was the wearing of boxer shorts, like em, and wearing my hair long - hated the buzz cut they gave the recruits.
If these docs are forgeries we will know soon from the usual suspects.

michael, i take no position one way or the other (other than to note that the ocam's razor position is that the documents are real, but that doesn't prove anything), but let's not get carried away.

There's no "evidence" at all yet: there's a bunch of people scurrying around becoming typographic experts and experts on the history of IBM typewriters and so on and so forth. CBS hasn't presented any "evidence" and neither have the "doubters;" CBS has asserted, and the doubters have questioned.

Since not the least of the issues is that certain IBM machines were used as the input device for computers, i'm not sure exactly what will constitute evidence (perhaps a furniture inventory of the guy's office?), fascinating as the work of the many searching for the writing on the head of a pin is?

The freepers have no honor, they defend the Swift boat liars and refuse to admit that maybe Bush wanted a pass on the service, so what. Read the Economist and see what Bush's policies are doing today. Go out and smell the almost fresh air because if Bush is elected it's not going to get any better. Think about your children pollution is already harming their lungs. For once at least think about somebody else.

Paul Callahan: "Actually, the part I find most jarring about the memo is the date style '18 August 1973' not 'August 18, 1973.' That looks a little too modern to me, but what do I know?"

- Althought I believe the docs probably are forgeries, the date format doesn't seem problematic to me. I know from personal experience that the USMC (and presumably the other services) used the Day-Month-Year format *at least* as far back as the early 1980s.

Michael Carroll: "But... As I strap on my own foil hat... I'snt it a bit odd how quickly certain average citizens were able to line up forensic experts to pick this thing apart? I wonder who knew what and when?"

- Which "average citizens"? Several of the conservative bloggers pursuing this story are attorneys who probably have forensic document examiners in their rolodexes.

> paul, i hate to be slow, but i can't figure out what you are saying in your first three paragraphs

My fault. I segued from sarcasm to a serious comment. My point is that they could be forgeries, but there is no obvious reason to think so. If the date format is also not unusual, then my only reservation is now gone.

The is nothing about these documents inconsistent with what you could do with an IBM Composer typewriter. The comment (on "little green footballs") that the text pitch matches MS Word is just silly. IBM Composer came with a font called Press Roman that came close to Times New Roman. Look at the IBM Composer manual. Type some of its paragraphs into MS Word. You will find that margins usually line up. If they lined up in 1972 and the pitch has not changed, they will line up in 2004 as well. Amazing, no?

I also demonstrated that "187th" does not appear the same in the document as in MS Word. MS Word New Times Roman puts the "th" subscript a little too low. Please try this out.

Part of the problem is that the references to the LGF page got purged, so I am continuing to rebut an argument that no longer appears on this discussion board.

The thing that gets me is not the question of whether the documents are forgeries, but why everyone seems to think that ragged right proportional fonts, true quotes, and superscripts were unusual in 1972. Yeah, you had to buy a fancy typewriter, and you had to switch golfballs to do the superscripts. But this was nothing beyond the capacity of a well-equipped office with a competent secretary.

If you really get anal you can move the heigth of subscripts and superscripts in just about any word processor. Of course if someone did this in TeX they can get anything they want.

Strikes me Paul Callahan has the right idea. Wait

Patrick: "Sorry Charlies (you guys have always reminded me of fish, and now I have proof):

"http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2004/09/boy-am-i-glad-im-not-dan-rather-today.html

"I hope you feel as stupid as you've looked all these years."

Well, let's look at that blogsite's arguments:

(1) "Then there is the little matter of the discrepancy in content between Bush's fitness report, signed by both Major Wm. Harris and Lt. Col. Killian on May 26, 1972. Which is only 5 days after the memo of May 19th, in which Killian is being mildly put out by Bush's plans to move to Alabama. I can't resist typing some of the comments describing Lt. Bush in the fitness report:

" 'Lt Bush is an exceptional fighter interceptor pilot and officer. He eagerly participates in scheduled unit activities.....He makes a welcome addition to any group or team effort....Lt Bush is very active in civic affairs in the community and manifests a deep interest in the operation of our government. He has recently accepted the position as campaign manager for a candidate for United States Senate. He is a good representative of the military and Air National Guard in the business world. His abilities and anticipated future assignments make him a valuable asset.'

"What a difference a few days make. And, Bush's overall rating was 'exceptionally fine'. So why would Killian be ordering Bush to take an annual physical in May when it normally wouldn't be due until July (the month of Bush's birth)?"

Well, sir, the fact that Killian gave a rave review to Bush in that May 26 memo (actually SEVEN days after the May 19th one, but that's trivial) hardly proves that he wasn't pressured into it -- especially since the May 19 memo says flat-out that Bush WAS pressuring him by "talking to someone upstairs". As for the physical: please. The May 19 memo quotes Killian as saying that "We talked about him getting his flight physical situation fixed before his date. Says he will do that in Alabama if he stays in flight status." Which means, does it not, that Killian wanted him to do it BEFORE leaving for Alabama, which Killian thought would occur before "his date" (presumably his birthday in July, on which he would normally have gotten his physical)?

(2) "I'm doubly glad I'm not Brad DeLong today . Nor any of his merry band of commenters, because the Killian memo of August 1, 1972 can't be legitimate. It says:

" '3. I recommended transfer of this officer to the 9921 st Air Reserve Squadron in May and forwarded his AF Form 1288 to 147th Ftr Intrcp Gp headquarters. The transfer was not allowed.'

"The forger can thank-- among others, no doubt--Dave Niewert for this blunder. Contrary to what Niewert claimed on February 14th of this year, the transfer was not 'promptly disallowed' --which would allow Killian to be talking of something that happened early enough for Bush to have done something about it. It was only disallowed on July 31st.

"That's right, only the day before this bogus memo was supposedly written. Niewert (and the hapless DeLong) mistook the date of the request for transfer in May, for the date Denver headquarters disallowed it. Killian wouldn't have known about it on August 1st, and neither would George W. Bush (because they sent him a copy of the order at the 9921st in Alabama)."

Beg pardon? Why wouldn't Killian have known about it on Aug. 1? And what in the supposed August 1 Killian memo implies that Bush "knew about" the disallowal by then, let alone that he had tried to "do something about it"?

{STOP PRESS: David Corn's 2-19-04 "Nation" piece says that Denver disallowed it on July 21st, not 31st: "In any event, two months later, on July 21, 1972, the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver nixed the reassignment, noting that Bush, 'an obligated Reservist', could only be 'assigned to a specific Ready Reserve Position.' Bush, the ARPC said, ' is ineligible for assignment to an Air Reserve Squadron.' "

If true, this leaves plenty of time by any standards for the whole seqeunce of events. Something else that needs to be checked on.]

(3) The signatures on the supposed Killian memos -- which are the firmest piece of evidence I can see that they may indeed be forgeries. The capital "J"s in the signatures (as Roland Patrick says) are similar enough that they may not be fake, but the "K" in Killian's ssignature in that separate 9-5-73 memo (from the earlier anti-Bush blogsite) definitely looks different from the two on the CBS memos (which look similar to each other).

Against this, we do have the fact that the White House is STILL refusing to say that the CBS memos are forgeries -- one would think that if they knew them to be such, they would have been raising screaming hell by now. We also have the fact that Staudt himself is apparently still refusing to talk to any reporters, which again is odd if the Killian memo describing him as trying to get Bush illegitimately off the hook is a fake. So: I'm still in a holding pattern on this. Obviously we need to see more provable Killian signatures.

Also, despite frantic Google searching, I'm still trying to find any other confirmation than those contradictory LA Times and NBC articles on just when Staudt did retire as Commander of the Texas Air National Guard, and who replaced him. (I do know that it wasn't Hodges, who remained commander of the 147th until 1975.) As I said earlier, Staudt might very well ahve been pressuring Hodeges even if Staudt was a FORMER commander of the Guard by then, but again all this needs to be looked into, so I've just E-mailed the historical office of the TANG to find out.

The will to believe is quite strong among the Left, I see. Unfortunately, it's looking like these documents really are fakes:

"Experts interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html

I wish I thought that Bush's critics were rational enough to let this red herring go, but I'm instead afraid they're going to keep trying to magically "validate" this -- and make themselves into fool's zanies.

I'm starting to believe these are forgeries based on incidental details rather than typography. P. O. Box 34567? For the address of the Interceptor Squadron?

But the proportional spacing argument just doesn't fly. Here is a "memorandum for record" from 1950 with proportional spacing and even true left-right quote marks on the 2nd page.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/korea/large/sec3/mac_5_1.htm

Here are two other old examples of proportional spacing in typewritten letters:

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/modern/smith-water-1.html
http://www.genetunney.com/letterx19.html

The argument that "th" superscript would be an awful lot of trouble for a routine memo is more plausible, but it could certainly be done at the time.

In fairness, a google image search on letter 1971, 1972 etc. turns up many more fixed-pitch than variable pitch letters.

If someone wanted to forge a document from a military unit circa 1973, they would use a bog- standard IBM Selectric and nobody would be the wiser. Forging a document with a word processor would be idiotic, as a laser printer doesn't indent the paper like a mechanical typewriter. (You might also have an interesting time making the laser printer take 8" x 10.5" paper, which was standard for the military in 1973.) Also, it may be an artifact of scanning, but the docs look like carbons to me. *Really* hard to do on a laser printer ...

Given that I don't think that CBS is either totally stupid or a complete tool of Karl Rove, I vote for authentic.

No luck on trying to confirm when Denver turned down Bush's request for a transfer. Roland Patrick and the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40964-2004Feb13¬Found=true ) both say July 31; David Corn says July 21 ( http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1264 ); George Magazine, in its article "The Real Military Record of George W. Bush", says May 31 http://web.archive.org/web/20001202233300/http://www2.georgemag.com/bush.html ); and if you can find any readable date on the actual memo ( http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc5.gif ), you have sharper eyes than I do.

So let's assume that the two Patricks and the Post are right, and that Denver did disallow Bush's transfer to Alabama as late as July 31. Well, as I said, doesn't this still leave us with no particular reason to think that Killian didn't know about Denver's disallowal the next day?

If you concentrate REALLY hard, and imagine yourself floating, floating, floating, you really can levitate using your mind!

. . .

Back on the real world, these are the most stunningly incompetent forgeries ever, and anyone who thinks these are real has drunk DEEP of the cool-aid. Just ONE point -- how many circa 1972 typewriters had KERNING support?

Brad, you swallowing the hook on this one couldn't happen to a nicer guy! Personally I think the new Clinton hires in the Kerry campaign shot this torpedo off, and I think they fully intended that it would circle around and hit the SS purple heart broadside. Clearing the decks for Hillary '08.

One more time...

Starting in 1949, IBM made both standard (fixed-pitch) and "Executive" (variable-pitch) typewriters; Executives were an office standard. You can get the exact date of their commercial introduction from IBM's corporate history at http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/pdf/1885-1969.pdf
--pay attention to 1949, 1954, 1959, and 1967. (Which the Washington Post article gets *wrong*. Could it be that their "experts" aren't experts in historical document authentication? Oh, say it ain't so...)

The Times Roman font dates to 1931, vide
http://www.linotype.com/13450/timesroman-font.html
It was based on earlier models, so there are many similar fonts.

Goodness gracious, Patrick. How slow of me not to notice your messge above declaring that you ARE Roland Patrick. Which means I can be spared the burden of separately E-mailing him the points I mention above.

Meanwhile:

Tom Maguire and Patrick (on his new pseudonymic blogsite), while chewing out Nick Kristof for trusting Robert Mintz too much, definitely should mention that Mintz isn't his only witness:

"Another particularly credible witness is Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base. 'I was there pretty much every day,' he said, adding: 'I never saw him, and I was there continually from July 1972 to July 1974.' Mr. Walls, who describes himself as nonpolitical, added, 'If he had been there more than once, I would have seen him.' "


Meanwhile, the Killian Memo Forgery Debate just gets cloudier. Several document experts brought in by the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html ) have very serious doubts, and Mrs. Killian is raising screaming hell:

"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.'

" 'I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person,' she said, adding that she was 'livid' at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records."

On the other hand: "A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that 'these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.'

" 'These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people,' the CBS News official said. 'Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles.' The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as 'the trump card' on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush."

However: "Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas." Which sounds ominously familiar.

So we're back for the moment to He Said/He Said. Will either Buck Staudt or Hodges actually talk to the press? If not, why not? Why hasn't the White House -- which has every conceivable reason to scream that the documents must be fake if it DOES know they're fake -- done so? And what about the fact that the capital "K" on Killian's signature on two of CBS documents unquestionably looks different from the "K" on at least one other document known to have been signed by Killian? Tune in for our next exciting, if somewhat surrealistic, chapter.

Meanwhile, Pat, feel free to name me explicitly as your "clueless commenter" who (along with Lukasiak) didn't remember that the draft had been ended by the time Bush applied to switch his Guard service to Massachusetts -- you're right on that, and I am, I hope, a big boy. Provided, that is, that you also mention your own willingness to repeatedly conjure up out of thin air the statement that Larry Thurlow got his Bronze Star in a different action than Kerry got his.

Yet another note: Apparently Eric Boehlert -- when citing Paul Lukasiak as saying that Bush was "eligible for the draft" in October 1973 -- really meant "eligible for active duty", which in fact is what Boehlert says in the next paragraph ( http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/index.html ). At any rate, Lukasiak himself always uses "active duty" rather than "draft" in his own lengthy entry on the subject ( http://www.glcq.com/discharge.htm ).

And still another note: Killian's son now says that he believes that the "sugar-coat" memo is fake, but that he thinks that at least one of the other CBS memos is authentic. Alas, the AP article doesn't tell us which one that is ( http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/09/09/memos/index.html ).

For what it's worth, these don't look like forgeries to me. They look just like letters typed on an early 1970's IBM Executive, (one of the forerunners to the Selectric "golf ball" typewriter). My wife used one in her work for several years and on art paper they produced a crisp, clean text that was adequate for catalogues, in-house magazines and the like.

In the admittedly poor reproductions it looks to me as if there are the impressions that these typewriters left in paper, particularly when more than one copy was required.

Why is it surprising that a senior officer in the TANG would have a sophisticated typewriter and somebody who knew how to use it?

I think I remember seeing typewriters of that period with a superscript "th" typebar and of course IBM Executives had been around for a long time. Probably the best way to settle this issue once and for all is to dig up some other documents from 187th Wing at about the same time & see what they looked like. I hope someone does it.

Paul Callahan: "I also demonstrated that '187th' does not appear the same in the document as in MS Word. MS Word New Times Roman puts the 'th' subscript a little too low. Please try this out."

- Charles Johnson at LGF says the "th" does appear identical when you *print out* the MS Word document.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526_Bush_Guard_Documents-_Forged

Where the hell did all these typewriter/font historians come from? I don't have a clue about typewriters, but I due have a clue about how the right wing spin machine can play the meida for fools when they really really want to... Do a little googling on the Post's document expert William Flynn and you'll soon find some interesting right-wing kooks who he's pawned his skills on. Maybe he really is an expert and maybe just does work for anti-semites on the side?... You should check out the Ukranian "free demjanjuk" nut and what all he has to say about Jews...

And yet another note ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/politics/campaign/10guard.html?pagewanted=print&position= ) -- regarding the superscript "th":

"CBS News executives also produced a document released earlier by the White House about Mr. Bush's service that was clearly from a typewriter and had a superscript 'th' in it. CBS said it proved that some typewriters did indeed have superscript keys."

Also, this article notes again and again (as Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall keep noting) the elephant in the room: if the White House itself knew that the memos were fakes -- even if it couldn't prove that fact to outside observers -- then why the hell wouldn't it be screaming bloody murder about that fact, as opposed to mumbling endlessly about how the memos' meaning may be "ambiguous"? Obvious answer: it has good reason, from its own inside knowledge of the whole affair, to think that they may be genuine and that this fact may ultimately be provable. We'll see, I guess, but this really seems to me to be by far the most important datum we have now on their authenticity.

For those wondering why, if these are forgeries (and I think they are), the White House has not denounced them, maybe it's because they're pulling a rope-a-dope on you. As long as the White House does not directly condemn them, many liberals will continue to insist they are real. The longer this goes on, the more said liberals will be discredited once the forgeries are acknowledged as such. The White House can issue its denial at its leisure, or let others prove the point for them. Liberals have to learn to think more deviously.

Well, one could argue that Kerry was using the same reasoning when he delayed responding to the SBVT accusations as long as he did - and it cetainly didn't gain him anything, except a larger number of people who thought he was refusing to reply because he didn't HAVE any reply. If the White House really is playing rope-a-dope with the Killian memos by repeatedly refusing to say that they're wrong, I'm forced to conclude that the emphasis is on the "dope" part.

"Goodness gracious, Patrick. How slow of me not to notice..."

Fish, fish, fish...

But, I will give you credit for some sentience for conceding the signatures are clearly not Killians.

Btw, guys the IBM Selectric was fabulously expensive back then. No way was it GI. And other documents from Killian's office (Bush's 1972 fitness report, e.g.) were typed on a standard typewriter.

But keep it up, Let's Fly Under the Bridge needs the grist for its mill.

Let's try it again, Patrick: "CBS News executives also produced a document released earlier by the White House about Mr. Bush's service that was clearly from a typewriter and had a superscript 'th' in it. CBS said it proved that some typewriters did indeed have superscript keys."

And, once again, it's interesting that the White House is so much more reluctant than you to say that these are forgeries, at a time when their refusal to do so is hurting their image awful bad...

And, once again: if you do have convincing answers (or any answers) to my responses above to your "proofs" on your incognito blogsite, by all means let's see them somewhere. Otherwise, do have the minimal sense to shut up.

I am a little late here but remember when Bush 41 needed a PR boost, he duped Dan Rather into that interview and also had a runin with Leslie Stahl.

If someone in the Bush circle did create a forgery (my foil hat is strapped on), one would think CBS this time will drop the gloves and fight back.

Hopefully, this will be my final word. I'm now pretty certain that these are fakes. All the business about old typewriters aside, the fact is that I find very few examples of proportional spacing in old letters posted on the web (Google image search turns up a bunch). They are also inconsistent with every other memo produced purportedly from TexANG during that time period.

But for typewriter fans out there, please seen Boxer Gene Tunney's letters, in variable pitch since the 1950s http://www.genetunney.com/letters.html and this document written by Lucius Battle during the Truman administration. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/korea/large/sec3/mac_5_1.htm

Unless someone can show that proportional text occurs in any TexANG document besides these memos, or turns up an owners manual for an IBM Composer among Killian's belongings, I'd say the burden of proof is on those who claim these are not forgeries.

It surprises me that no news stories I saw mentioned the address "P. O. Box 34567" for the 111th in the Aug. 1, 1972 memo. A P. O. Box? And one that happens to be the numbers 3 through 7? This looks like a bad joke. In fact, submitting a variable pitch 1970s memo to CBS would itself seem like a bad joke unless it was real. I was willing to assume it was real because a competent forger would have made it look like a typical memo of its day. I feel like an idiot for pursuing the fancy typewriter theory for so long, but I was expecting CBS to be a little more discerning to begin with.

Finally, who writes memos to themselves that serve as little thought balloons? These are just too convenient. Killian might have kept a journal with his thoughts about various matters, but "memo to file" is a strange way to do it--more like a clumsy fictional device.

Bush's Guard service was never on my list of reasons not to vote for him anyway, but I'd like to admit now while there's time that I was almost certainly duped on this.

What a laff riot. The rightwingers are inspecting the letters with magnifying glasses, hoping to convince us they're forgeries.

The problem for them is, they're LIARS. On a daily basis they simply deny historical facts that are easy to confirm.

Sorry guys- you've made your bed, and I'm used to seeing you LIE in it.

Patrick: "And other documents from Killian's office (Bush's 1972 fitness report, e.g.) were typed on a standard typewriter."

OK, Patrick, this is your opening. As even some liberal bloggers agree (e.g., http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2004/09/cowering_before.html ): "The critical question is whether the Bush guard memos match the other documents in Killian's files, not whether Killian's used a common type of typewriter. We can't assess the overall balance of probabilities without the full spectrum of information that the CBS team was privy to." So, show us what you got.

Until you do:

(1) Matt Yglesias has found a line of IBM electric typewriters with proportional font going all the way back to 1941:

http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1941.html :
"1941 -- IBM announces the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter, featuring the revolutionary concept of proportional spacing. By assigning varied rather than uniform spacing to different sized characters, the Type 4 recreated the appearance of a printed page, an effect that was further enhanced by a typewriter ribbon innovation that produced clearer, sharper words on the page. The proportional spacing feature became a staple of the IBM Executive series typewriters."

http://www.etypewriters.com/1954-b-2.JPG : A 1954 magazine ad for the Executive series containing a sample of its font -- which looks remarkably like the font on the supposed Killian memos, right down to the curly apostrophes.

(2) http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html :

"The New York Daily News reports forensic scientist Sandra Ramsey Lines says the superscript in the Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's notes are evidence of forgery.

"CBS News sent reporters a previously validated document last night that does appear to contain a superscripted 'th,' which confounds some experts we spoke with, including Katherine Koppenhaver, who said she is 75 percent certain even still that the new documents are forgeries. [Note from Moomaw: No word yet on which document this is or where it came from.]

"Philip Bouffard, a forensic document specialist from Ohio who created a commonly used database of at least 3,000 old type fonts, said he had suspicions as well. 'I found nothing like this in any of my typewriter specimens,' said Dr. Bouffard, a Democrat. He also said the fonts were 'certainly consistent with what I see in Times Roman,' the commonly used Microsoft Word font. However, Dr. Bouffard said, a colleague had called his attention to similarities between the font in the memos and that of the IBM Selectric Composer of the early 1970's. But he said it would be unusual for Mr. Bush's commanding officer to have had the IBM machine because of its large size."

So I repeat, Patrick: This is your opportunity. Start showing us what you've got from Killian's office.

well, that is the idea. They would much rather be arguing that these letters are forgeries than arguing the more salient issue regarding the veracity of the sentiments expressed in the letters and the implications about Bush's character.

Of course, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing the Bush circle counts on...that the media can be very easily derailed from talking about an important complex point to talking about an unimportant simple point.

More on the Mysteries of the Executive Electric both from Gary Farber (see Brad's new entry above), and a much more detailed and interesting account from http://hunter.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

And -- presumably needless to say (but I'm saying it) -- we also need to see some more authenticated Killian signatures.

"Well, one could argue that Kerry was using the same reasoning when he delayed responding to the SBVT accusations as long as he did - and it cetainly didn't gain him anything, except a larger number of people who thought he was refusing to reply because he didn't HAVE any reply."

There are two differences: 1) This is a binary question that should be possible to answer definitively. Swift Boats was a whole cloud of allegations, some of which invariably come down to who you believe. 2) The media is on Bush's side, overall, so he can get away with much more.

I would also point out that, according to this post at BOP (http://www.bopnews.com/archives/001500.html#1500 - hyperlinks don't seem to be working), the Bush-Cheney campaign sent emails out attacking the memos as forgeries before the blogosphere had even picked up the debate. So, they *are* stating directly that the memos are fake, just not using the official pulpit to do it.

Patrick? Patrick? Yoo-hoo!

Hey! Where'd he go?

Since his ridiculous little name-calling blogsite doesn't allow any responses ("I won't listen; you're all just picking on me!"), looks like I'll have to stick them in here. So far, nothing either there or here regarding those "other documents from Killian's office" he mentioned. Instead, what we now have is the statement that "Killian's son says the documents are fakes" (he said that he thinks at least one of them is genuine), a reference to one document being "stamped July 31, 1972" (the magazine articles on it to be found on Google date it variously as July 31, July 21 and May 31), and that, if it was really was dated July 31, Killian's August 1 memo grounding Bush must be a fake because "the Fax machine hadn't been invented yet" (although facsimile machines had been around for a long time, the telephone even longer, and the authenticated document at http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/grounded.gif mentions the frequent use of "verbal orders of the commander [to ground Guard fliers], exigencies of the Service having been such as to preclude the publication of competent written orders in advance."

In short, the ball's still in your court, Pat. One begins to suspect that it will stay there.

I should have added that the reasons Killian's son gives for thinking that one of the memos -- the famous "sugar-coat" one -- must be fake seem to me seriously shaky.

It's also appropriate, at this point, to stick in Kleiman's and Drum's latest comments. Kleiman:

"So it turns out that the purported Killian letters don't use kerning. And it turns out that the proportional spacing and the 'th' character were both available on not-very-expensive IBM typewriters of the relevant period. The fact that the line breaks in the document are the same as the line breaks produced by MS Word just shows that someone at Microsoft correctly reverse-engineered the algorithm used by typists to even out the margins; a skilled typist would have done so automatically.

"So, as a non-expert, I ask: What characteristic of the documents remains unexplained?

"That the documents could have been produced on contemporary equipment doesn't, of course, prove that they are genuine. And it does appear that CBS was less careful, or at least is now being less forthcoming, about their provenance than it might have been. I'm not wedded to the proposition that they're genuine.

"But the loud guffaws from the Right Blogosphere about 'obvious forgery' -- one of my dittohead readers compared accepting the documents to accepting a Shakespeare manuscript in ballpoint -- now seem unjustified. Obviously, Bush-lovers and Rather-haters are as eager to believe the memos are false as some Bush-haters are to believe they're genuine.

Drum:

"In the Killian memo dated August 18, 1973, Killian says this: 'Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush....Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bush's OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it.'

"Forget for a moment whether the memos are genuine or not and just ask this: did Walter Staudt pressure Bobby Hodges about Bush back in 1973? Both men are still alive, and when CBS read the memos to Hodges over the phone he agreed that 'these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.'

"But why ask Hodges about KILLIAN'S state of mind in 1973? Why not ask him instead if he himself got pressure from his superiors to go easy on Bush? It's a simple question, and Hodges ought to have a simple answer. If he values the integrity of the military, he should tell his story instead of hiding from reporters."

Ditto for Staudt, who is also still hiding. And to repeat: the continuing flat-out refusal of the White House to denounce these documents as fakes looks VERY peculiar unless you assume that the White House knows, from its own inside knowledge of Bush's activities, that the things they state are correct and that the memos therefore may well turn out to be authentic. As I've said before (and I'm hardly alone): this is the elephant in the room at the moment.

Patrick Sullivan has all the credibility of Dick Cheney, and he attempts to treat us with the same disdain and contempt.

A good typist could easily learn to use the IBM Executive effectively. My wife still remembers the calculations you made and the various values of the letters: "i" was 3 units, "f" was 4 units, "a" and "e" were 5 units, "h" was 6, "m" was 8 and "w" was 9 . . . a normal space was 3 units, as was a period. All numbers were 6 units.

Those IBM typewriters were fabulous in their day and I sadly said goodbye to my Selectric and the selection of fonts I had collected. It should come as no surprise that MS Word can produce a similar result - that was Microsoft's intention!

This is just a distraction from the real issue. Bush avoided service in Vietnam because he could. He sends his fellow Americans to die in Iraq because he can.

It would be fairly easy to obtain a 1970s era typewriter. It would be somewhat more difficult to obtain paper from the 1970s. CBS should provide the original copies for independent analysis. If they refuse then their actions will reveal that they indeed know that they are fakes. Certainly, Killian's family are in the best position to speak concerning his so-called personal files. They claim he did not type and did not keep personal files. They also claim that he would not have used the wording that is used. There is no prior documentation of the existence of these records. They seemed to materialize out of thin air. Seeing that Bush's service has been a matter of contention since 1994, it is quite amazing that they surface right at the time Mr. Barnes contradicts his previous statements under oath that he played no part in helping Bush get into the Texas National Guard.

My college chemistry professor had worked for international paper company for many years. He had been instrumental in developing new patents for the processing of different paper. Over the last thirty years I would think that there have been many changes that could be detected. You can make paper look older, but you cannot change the chemical composition.

I have repeated Paul Callahan's experiment (as logged at September 9, 2004 03:42 PM) using Microsoft Word 2003 and Times New Roman 12 pt and cannot repeat his result.

It appears to me that the Microsoft Word 2003 rendition matches very nicely (given the limitations of not seeing the original...)

Bill

Yall think we cajuns are stupid! There are no stinkin originals cause we couldn't find any paper made in the 1970s. I told Paul to leave out the curlycues. We also didn't know bout no dang period following LT or the fact that the guy Killian always wrote out his first name in full.

Very dubious indeed if CBS cannot produce originals.The content of the memos are very strange. In all other documents Killian praises Bush. His wife and son state that he had a high regard for Bush. The memos seem to give the Dems everything they want..Bush received undue favor, disobeyed a direct order, showed lack of commitment, etc. etc. The timing of their appearance is a little too convenient. I was born with a good sense of smell and I smell some rats.The title "CYA" is a bit over the top. Where did these documents come from and how were they obtained. Finally, where have they been for the last thirty years. The one person that we know that has a lot of experience falsifying military reports is John Kerry. Rather needs to stop stonewalling. Finally, somewhere in the great eternal realm Richard Nixon must be laughing his a$$ off.

Powerline brings out the fact that the military formating protocols found in the so-called Killian memos were not the protocols used in the 1970s. The protocols used in the CBS memos were not adopted until many yearts later. The creator of the fake documents evidently could not obtain a manual from the time period or was too stupid to realize their mistake. Another interesting fact about Barnes interview with Rather is that he states he was LT. Governor of Texas when he helped Bush get in the Texas National Guard. Bush enlisted in 1968. Barnes did not become Lt. Governor until 1969.

For the best explanation on the technical arguments why the Killian memos are fake see http://www.hughhewitt.com/#postid877 by Professor Cartwright. He makes it clear that "No Typewriter" could produce the specific proportional spacing that is evident in the documents. Warning... his explanations may be too hard for liberals to comprehend.

For the best explanation on the technical arguments why the Killian memos are fake see http://www.hughhewitt.com/#postid877 by Professor Cartwright. He makes it clear that "No Typewriter" could produce the specific proportional spacing that is evident in the documents. Warning... his explanations may be too hard for liberals to comprehend.

"The one person that we know that has a lot of experience falsifying military reports is John Kerry" . . . what a cheap shot. You trolls are sounding more desperate by the minute.

Well Stevvo, the truth hurts doesn't it. A cheap shot was Kerry shooting a wounded Viet Cong in the back We'll give all you libs a purple heart after the election. The first purple heart that Kerry got was not submitted by his commander (he refused). The only other option is that Kerry submitted it himself probaly under his commander's name. Maybe this is why he will not sign the 180 release form. The after action report regarding the sampan incident fails to mention the killing of a child. Kerry refers to the child as a viet cong. Secretary Lehman says he does not remember signing any commendation for Kerry yet, Kerry has one on his website.

Was the forgery of Killian's memos a crime? I am not a lawyer so I would like the opinion of some who are. These memos are purported to be files created by Killian relating to the Texas National Guard. If they were given to another officer or were placed in official files then certainly they qualify as being "military files". I would presume that it is a federal crime to falsify military documents. Should not the FBI and the Justice Department begin an investigation of Dan Rather and CBS?

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

To counter Fox News' slogan of balanced and fair, CBS' new slogan is forged and biased. See superimposed forged doc of CBS upon MS word doc on Powerline..... a perfect match!

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