Could 60 Minutes documents on Bush be faked?

[bsnyder]

Powerline has a great roundup on all the questions about these documents:



http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php

The most intriguing, to me, is Update #11, concerning CBS's statements about a the documents:

UPDATE 11: CBS is sticking to its story. It's not entirely clear which story, however. Initially, CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said:

As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on '60 Minutes' was thoroughly investigated by independent experts, and we are convinced of their authenticity.
Later, however, Ms. Edwards sent out an email that appeared to revise the nature of the "authentication" process:

CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written.
So what CBS is now saying is not that the documents are authentic, but that the opinions they express are authentic, based on the hearsay reports of anonymous persons alleged to be close associates of Col. Killian, who recall his views of thirty-two years ago. This is what passes for "authentication" in the mainstream media.

 

[Geoff_M]

It seems worth noting that the White House accepted the documents as genuine and even began releasing them to other journalists yesterday evening -- though it's not clear to me whether they were releasing their own copies or simply passing on what CBS had given them.

It appears that they were copies given to them by CBS for comment. As for the WH "accepting" them, unless they had proof otherwise in hand at the time (which it looks like they do now), it would have been foolish to immediately denouce them as fakes only to find them out to be the real thing after putting their foot in their mouths.

 

[Olaf]

Whoever did this is incredibly stupid. Now the story won't be about Bush and the Guard, it will be about these faked documents.

 

[kbeverina]

Where are the actual documents located? I think we need to send in Joe Wilson to investigate.

 

[Olaf]

Matt Drudge is now reporting that CBS is doing their own internal investigation. I'm almost starting to feel sorry for John Kerry.

Nah.

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by Geoff_M
It appears that they were copies given to them by CBS for comment. As for the WH "accepting" them, unless they had proof otherwise in hand at the time (which it looks like they do now), it would have been foolish to immediately denouce them as fakes only to find them out to be the real thing after putting their foot in their mouths.

Or it would have been very politically savvy just to release the copies and not say a word, and let the facts speak for themselves.

Precisely what Bush has done with most of the other intensely partisan nonsense that's been flung his way for the last 4 years.

What a contrast to John Kerry/John Edward's constantly whining:

"MAKE THEM STOP!"

 

[Geoff_M]

I love it... CBS is about to be hoisted by its own petard!

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by disney4us2002
If hundreds of bloggers and readers are questioning (determining) the authenticity of these memos in just a few hours, why wasn't CBS equally able? Did they in fact even try to authenticate?

These are rhetorical questions, right?

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by disney4us2002
Additionally, the general mentioned in the memo from 1973 had retired in 1972 according to a report in the LA Times from Feb 2004.

I've read tons on this and it seems most are giving CBS the benefit of the doubt and saying stuff like "CBS was duped" or "CBS is the victim of a hoax". I'm not so sure that CBS should be let off the hook so readily. If hundreds of bloggers and readers are questioning (determining) the authenticity of these memos in just a few hours, why wasn't CBS equally able? Did they in fact even try to authenticate? The evidence is mounting and CBS won't be able to ignore this forever.

Of course they shouldn't be let off the hook, and believe me, they won't be. But they've gotten away with stuff like this for years. Now, thanks to the power of the internet, they no longer can.

Here's a part of a great piece in Powerline recently that explains it so well!

As the election campaign heats up, and mainstream media outlets run interference for John Kerry, the blogosphere has suddenly come of age and is starting to fulfill the predictions of the last year or two. Suddenly, the blogosphere is front and center, driving the news cycle, along with other "new media" outlets--talk radio and, to a lesser extent, cable news. The traditional media's monopoly has been broken, and they have lost their ability to control the news cycle and dictate the information that Americans receive--and don't receive. They aren't taking their decline very well, as we noted earlier today in reference to this morning's sour grapes in the New York Times....



We're just getting started, but it isn't hard to see where all of this is heading. What powers the blogosphere is what powers talk radio--the bloggers, sure, but far more important, a core of readers and listeners that is engaged, passionate, and above all, well-informed. It's the dialogue, the quick response, the almost instantaneous supplementation of information and the quick correction of errors, and the freewheeling search for information and truth that puts the blogosphere head and shoulders above conventional journalism.

You couldn't do this with, say, neurosurgery. A bunch of amateurs, no matter how smart and enthusiastic, could never outperform professional neurosurgeons, because they lack the specialized training and experience necessary for that field. But what qualifications, exactly, does it take to be a journalist? What can they do that we can't? Nothing. Generally speaking, they don't know any more about primary data and raw sources of information than we do--often less. Their general knowledge is often inadequate. Their superior resources should allow them to carry out investigations far beyond what we amateurs can do. But the reality is that the mainstream media rarely use those resources. Too many journalists are bored, biased and lazy. And we bloggers are not dependent on our own resources or those of a few amateurs. We can get information from tens of thousands of individuals, many of whom have exactly the knowledge that journalists could (but usually don't) expend great effort to track down--to take just one recent example, the passability of the Mekong River at the Vietnam/Cambodian border during the late 1960s.

 

[disney4us2002]

GeoffM, I just happened to notice that our countdowns are exactly the same, lol. I guess we're both crazy for going at Christmas!! We'll be there 12/19-27 at the Poly.

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by disney4us2002
GeoffM, I just happened to notice that our countdowns are exactly the same, lol. I guess we're both crazy for going at Christmas!! We'll be there 12/19-27 at the Poly.

That's wierd. Maybe you can say hi at the airport!

 

[Elwood Blues]

Just in case anyone was wondering....


http://oldtype.8m.com/font4.htm


Seems you can get WP fonts that look like old typewriter fonts.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by kbeverina
It must be the same people who faked the Niger documents.

http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001832.html

(2004-09-09) -- CBS reporter Dan Rather today released the text of a recently discovered email from then-Lt. George W. Bush's Air National Guard commanding officer which casts more doubt upon the military service of the man who would become the 43rd President of the United States.

The revelation of the email comes just hours after questions were raised about the authenticity of typewritten memos from the same officer, shown yesterday by Mr. Rather on 60 Minutes.

According to the previously unseen email message sent in May 1972 by squadron commander Jerry Killian, Lt. Bush phoned Col. Killian because "his internet connection was on the fritz and he couldn't IM me."

Lt. Bush apparently wanted to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

According to Col. Killian's email, the young Bush wanted to go to Alabama to work as webmaster for a Republican candidate's website.

Mr. Rather said the authenticity of the 32-year-old email has been confirmed by several Nigerian officials who specialize in electronic funds transfer by email.

 

[Geoff_M]

Elwood,

Geez, it looks like the forgers weren't even smart enough to use those!

Here's some more insight from someone with good credentials:

A comment on the Bush Memo ( http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay4.pdf ) being a possible forgery. I went to high school in Berkeley, California between 1967-1969. In 1969, I took a journalism class and we used an IBM with a golf ball to set the school paper. It was a proportional typewriter. So the machines were around at the time.

However, the typewriter had a characteristic that the Bush memo doesn't have. The letters were identical - that is - if you typed a 'u' you always got *exactly* the same shape. Look at the 'u's or the 'm's in the document. Look carefully at the vertical stems. If you're using a Windows computer, use the screen magnifier (programs/accessories/accessibility/magnifier.) The same letters appear differently depending on where they are on the page. For example, look at the 'n's side by side in "annual." Notice that the inside stems are thick and the outside stems are thin. Elsewhere in the document, the stems on the 'n' are identical within the letter. That's a characteristic of computer typesetting, not IBM Selectric golf balls typesetting.

More Detail.
It's a consequence of the font in the document not having what are called hints. Hints tell the font software how to handle round off problems that arise as the letter is laid onto the page. The roundoff problem arose when the Adobe founders invented postscript. To get around the problem, they added hinting to tell the font rendering software what to do when rendering stems. Whatever font was used in this document doesn't have hints (or if it does, they're poor quality hints) so the stem widths for the various incarnations of the 'm's, 'n's and 'u's vary slightly.

The variation in the stem widths says to me that the document is a forgery. Postscript, and its associated hinting problem, didn't exist until the early 80's.

How do I know this font stuff? I owned a software firm, Casady & Greene, that sold postscript and truetype fonts to PC and Mac owners in the late 80's.

Michael Greene

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004658.php

Elsewhere... On Drudge:

The source, who asked not to be named, described CBSNEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES correspondent Dan Rather as being privately "shell-shocked" by the increasingly likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent.

Rather, who anchored the segment presenting new information on the president's military service, will personally correct the record on-air, if need be, the source explained from New York.

Oh, please, please, please!!! Can you imagine the money CBS could make if they put that on pay-per-view!

disney4us2002, Cool. We'll be at (where else!) VWL!

 

[kbeverina]

Originally posted by dmadman43
http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001832.html
Mr. Rather said the authenticity of the 32-year-old email has been confirmed by several Nigerian officials who specialize in electronic funds transfer by email.

We don't even need Joe Wilson for that one. Only Al Gore could have been e-mailing 32 years ago.

 

[bsnyder]

More from Powerline:

Tomorrow morning, dinosaur media across the country will be headlining the 60 Minutes "scoop" as a blow to the Bush campaign. Before their newspapers are even printed, not only is the story obsolete, but CBS is in full retreat. As Stephen Hayes reported earlier today, Power Line "led the charge" against the 60 Minutes hoax today. But the credit really goes to the incredible power of the internet. We knew nothing; all of our information came from our readers. Many thousands of smart, well-informed people who only a few years ago would have had no recourse but perhaps to write a letter to their local newspaper, now can communicate and share their expertise in real time, through sites like this one. The power of the medium is incredible, as we've seen over the last fourteen hours.

www.powerlineblog.com

ABC and the Washington Post both have stories up about the authenticity of the documents.

Long live the blososphere!

 

[Teejay32]

Madman's back, the blogs have scooped the MSM, and Dan Rather is believed to have passed off forged documents...? I think I missed the festivities!

Definitely getting the Globe tomorrow.

 

[Mermaid02]

This should be very interesting- if (and it's likely they will be) these documents are forged I think the backlash toward Kerry among the "undecideds" will be BIG!

 

[captin fink]

byPeachgirl
This thread is about Bush's lack of service and you'd like to sidetrack it.

Actually this thread is about weather 60 minutes used fake documents in a story about Pres. Bush’s NG service.

As for Pres. Bush’s lack of service, I found this

http://www.hillnews.com/york/090904.aspx

The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.

That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.

Not two years of weekends. Two years.

After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.

According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).

Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot. Did you know that?

That brings the story to May 1972 — the time that has been the focus of so many news reports — when Bush “deserted” (according to anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore) or went “AWOL” (according to Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee).

Bush asked for permission to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. His superior officers said OK. Requests like that weren’t unusual, says retired Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush in 1970 and 1971.

“In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots,” Campenni says. “The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In ’72 or ’73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem.”

So Bush stopped flying. From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points — not much, but enough to meet his requirement.

Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.

In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.

Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.

 

[WillyJ]

Source of claims CBS documents faked runs Conservative Victory Committee

"Internet ‘journalist’ Matt Drudge has posted an claim which suggests that the new documents that indict President Bush’s failures in the National Guard are actually fakes.

The source of his story, Cybercast News Service, is a well-known conservative ‘news’ machine headed by L. Brent Bozell III, who also serves as the head of the Conservative Victory Committee. CNS News was founded in 1988 to combat the “[clear] liberal bias in many news outlets”.

Unlike Rupert Murdoch, whose empire includes the conservative television outlet Fox News, Bozell is not simply to be the leader of a conservative media company (the Media Research Center is also under his control); he has campaigned aggressively for conservative candidates, including Pat Buchanan. He is the nephew of conservative columnist William Buckley, and the son of Brent Bozell, Jr., who assisted Barry Goldwater with the writing of Conscience of a Conservative.

The Media Research Center, along with Bozell, took part in the drive to eradicate PBS. . .


Full Story


Questions Raised About Bush Guard Service

". . Yet, it was the White House — not Kerry's campaign — that distributed four memos from 1972 and 1973 from Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, now deceased, who was the commander of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston where Bush served. The White House obtained the memos from CBS News, which said it was convinced of their authenticity, and the White House did not question their accuracy. There was no explanation why the Pentagon was unable to find the documents on its own.


The key questions about Bush's service are whether or where he trained in late 1972 and early 1973, why he skipped the required medical exam, and whether he was investigated or punished for skipping the exam and six months' worth of training in 1972.


Bush has adamantly denied that any strings were pulled to get him into the guard. Yet, former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, a Democrat who now supports Kerry, has stepped forward to say he helped Bush and the sons of other wealthy families get into the guard so they could avoid serving in Vietnam. . ."

Full Story


Whille not impossible, I have a hard time believing that the Bush people would distrubiute the four memos without questioning thier accuracy if they had any doubts about them. . .

Of course, if they do prove to be fakes then CBS deserves any negative fallout they get. . .

But thus far Barnes' account of getting Bush into the Guard ahead of others has not been challenged and since this is the part bush has repeatedly denied it shows him to be a liar and the rest doesn't change that a bit. .

This is the start of a bad couple weeks for Boy George. . Graham's book and Kitty Kelley's book have much more damaging charges he's going to have to deal with. . .