I disagree. From what I understand, there were typewriters that could do that, but would an Air National Guard unit have them handy? When I was in the Marine Corps, active duty, in the late 70's, early 80's, it wasn't until 1981 that I was with a unit that had a typewriter that could do that. How would a National Guard unit get something more advanced than an active unit?Originally posted by peachgirl
Everything I've read today says the fake document claim won't hold up. There were typewriters that had this particular feature. The documents have been very carefully scrutinized. I doubt the right is going to be able to claim forgery.
Originally posted by WillyJ
Gosh Bet, I guess you'd have to go all the way to lower part of that same page you copied part of my post from to see one example. . . you know, that part where you (ironically) took a statement of mine out of contrext and called it" offensive and disgusting" and "beneath me"?
Pershaps you see that as "Civil and diplomatic" but I don't. . . of course you or anyone else can post anyway you like as far as I'm concerned; I can debate civilly or get down in the gutter equally well depending on what I feel the situation calls for. .
No hard feelings on my part. . politics is a dirty game and everyone here is playing to win and I have no problem with that. . but when people throw perjorative terms like "baby killer" around and refer to a triple amputee that put his life on the line for our country as a "professional victim" then I don't feel obligated to be any more civil then I need to be to stay within th guidellines if I don't feel like it. . .
Willy, I honestly did read it that way....that's why I reacted so strongly to the statement, and said it was beneath you.
I'm glad to know that's not what you meant and I also apologize for misunderstanding your meaning.
Originally posted by dmadman43
That strange. Why would you support Dean? He didn't "serve". He got a medical deferrment in '71, then immediately went skiing.
Kuchinich didn't "serve" either.
So, why are you making service an issue?
I disagree. From what I understand, there were typewriters that could do that, but would an Air National Guard unit have them handy? When I was in the Marine Corps, active duty, in the late 70's, early 80's, it wasn't until 1981 that I was with a unit that had a typewriter that could do that. How would a National Guard unit get something more advanced than an active unit?
Everyone is getting too excited and prize-happy when they find a machine that can do ONE of the irregularities in the document, but no one has found a machine that can do MOST or ALL of the irregularities in the document. It would be like if I held a contest asking if someone could name a movie that starred the following actors: Greg Kinnear, William Shatner, and Kirsten Dunst. "Ah ha," an email would go, "the movie Auto Focus starred Greg Kinnear, so I win." "Yes," I'd reply, "but it didn't star William Shatner." "Oh yeah, well, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan starred Willian Shatner, so give me my money!" You see where I'm going with this.
http://defeatjohnjohn.com/pageone.htm
Originally posted by ThAnswr
Please, no open fires. Too much straw floating around.
Anda one, anda two:
~~~I could while away the hours
Conferrin with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin
If I only had a brain ~~~
Originally posted by Rokkitsci
First = let me state that for me, a person's service record in the 70's is not an important item in this election. I believe that both Kerry and Bush served honorably. All that matters to me is what they have done since, especially in the past decade.
Second = I believe that if GW Bush had been named Bubba Williams, he would not have gotten that spot in the ANG at that time. This does not mean that anything illegal, or even unethical took place. It does mean that the realities of the time were such that many well-to-do young men had opportunities that those not so fortunate did not have. As a matter of fact, had John Forbes Kerry been named Bubba Williams, he would not have been in a position to go from HIS reserve status into an officer billet in the Navy. Arguing over these matters is a waste of time.
What is NOT a waste of time is arguing over what people and organizations do TODAY. A person's actions now reveal their character. A person's actions over the past decade or so are a good predictive tool for what they may do tomorrow.
Third = the question of one's military service was firmly relegated to an inconsequential basis during the '88, '92, and '96 elections. The public at large, as led by the media who parroted the Democrat positions at the time, finally decided that military service had no place at all in a presidential election. For these same Democrats, who effectively eliminated the military service aspect of a person's resume from consideration, to now claim that there is ANY importance to one person's four month service in 70s, or another person's attendance documents from the 70s strikes me as not only laughable, but hypocritical beyond belief.
NOW = having said that - What IS the significance of these newly found documents? Well, here is my take.
1) Assume they are accurate - this would tarnish Bush's integrity. It would not destroy it, nor would it even be an important item in the larger scheme of things. What has happened in the recent past is more important. The only way it would be important would be if it supported allegations of a tendancy for such behaviour. I am sure that the Democrats will try to make this case. And I will watch for their assertions and evaluate them one at a time. But for me, it would be a weak arguement. I would hate for the documents to be proven true, but it would not be a disaster if they were.
2) Assume they are fake - Now that is a different matter. That would be proof of a current felony. It would indict CBS News and Dan Rather in particular as either being radical partisans themselves, or recklessly irresponsible. There is not a good way out for either of them if these documents are fake. They are intellectually toast to any thinking American.
PLUS - if it were to be shown that the Kerry campaign was in any way involved with the fraud, then Kerry would have to withdraw as a candidate. This would be HUGE news - no decent person could remain in the race unless he fired his entire staff and started over with clean personnel. I do NOT think this is the case - no campaign is that stupid. Are they?
What do we know about CBS ?
1) they are the most politically rabid major news network - their bias for the Democrat position is obvious to anyone who has open eyes.
2) they have spotlighted every bash-bush author that pops up.
3) they have ignored every anti-kerry author that ever existed.
4) Dan Rather is the most partisan anchor on the air.
5) they have used falsified documents in the past.
6) they had ample warning that these documents were suspect
7) they did none of the usual fact checking - the only people they asked were kerry supporters
It is my belief that these documents are fake. I do not believe that CBS actually manufactured them, but I do believe they threw caution to the wind in order to once more try to rescue a Democrat candidate from political oblivion.
I believe they WANTED to believe these documents so badly that they just refused to do the proper journalism required of Freshmen in the college of journalism.
WHY do I believe they are fake?
I will not belabor the obvious problem with the fonts - they have been very accurately described by many on this board. I just believe that unless someone can show HOW one of these expensive typesetting devices could have been in the possession of an ANG Lt Col who did not even know how to type, then the font issue is front and center.
BUT - here is my primary point - one that I have not seen addressed. IF these memos were actually written by Killian, then surely there are OTHER memos on OTHER topics also.
IF CBS can produce some OTHER memos from Killian - surely their anonomous source has access to some other instances - THEN I will believe they are genuine.
In the ABSENCE of some other memos bearing the same type, signed by Killian, it is pretty obvious that these memos are fake.
If I were Kerry - I would not have made so much out of Bush's middle initial = W.
I think that Kerry's middle initial = F has a lot more baggage associated with it if these documents are fake.
Either way - CBS is toast. They should be relegated to showing nothing but re-runs of "I love Lucy" until the election is over. They certainly should be barred from broadcasting anything they call "news."
But that is just my opinion.
September 10, 2004
A QUESTION FOR BOBBY HODGES....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.
UPDATE: From ABC News:
Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."
Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".
I don't know who's scamming who here, but this sure isn't good news for CBS.
Kevin Drum 6:49 PM
(September 10, 2004 -- 12:00 PM EDT // link // print)
I'm actually supposed to be on semi-vacation here at the ocean. But let me offer an update on this memo business. One of the guys who was in the mix in all of this at the time -- Hodges -- told CBS that these documents accurately reflected Killian's
thinking at the time. On top of that, the White House -- and thus the president -- made no effort to question the story the documents tell. That tells me that they know the underlying story -- or at least some rough approximation of it -- is true.
All that said, however, the questions raised about these documents seem very compelling. And though those points above are telling about the underlying story, I can't see where they tell us much meaningful about the authenticity of these documents.
Over the last twenty-four hours I've received literally hundreds of emails that point out that each specific criticism, on its own terms, doesn't quite hold up. Thus, for instance, there definitely were proportional type machines widely available at the time. There were ones that did superscripts. There were ones with Times Roman font, or something very near to it.
But that only means that such a document could possibly have been produced at the time; not that it's likely. And taken all together, the criticisms raise big doubts in my mind about their authenticity. Adding even more doubt in my mind is that the author of this site was so easily able to use MS Word to produce a document that to my admittedly untrained eye looks identical to one of the memos in question. Identical.
That combined with the individual criticisms mentioned above seems very hard to get around.
Again, I've gotten a slew of emails. And I have to admit that I haven't plumbed the depths of every one of them because at a basic level I don't think there's much point. This isn't a subject I know anything about. So I'm not in much of a position to judge.
(Perhaps it's not a perfect analogy but it's sort of like my talking to various physicists about contending theories of the Big Bang and deciding which side is right.)
If a few qualified experts came forward and said, 'Well, those criticisms don't add up if you know the subject. And the bottom line is that there's nothing about these documents that raise any question about their being produced in the early seventies" that would be plenty for me -- because I don't have the expertise to evaluate the criticisms and the defenses in the face of such expert opinion.
But I'm not hearing anyone say anything like that. In fact, rather the contrary.
The ball is in the court of the publishers of these documents to authenticate them. And so far I'm not hearing any adequate defense.
-- Josh Marshall
Originally posted by snarfer1
Serious question, that no one has answered yet. What happens after the election, no new posts and threads, or do we just keep going on?
You and others state these things as if they've been factually proven. They haven't.Originally posted by faithinkarma
When the debate was about WMDs, these "stupid" posters argued there were none. We all know how that turned out. yet, even as the WH acknowledged there were none and that the validation lay in the fact that SH had "the intention", the DISers refused to back down, and insisted there were indeed WMDs, but they had been hidden.
Then the debate moved to the subject of Americans being greeted with flowers in Iraq. The "stupid" ones claimed Americans would be viewed as occupiers. Now the president has used the O word, and what do the DISers say....the soldiers are being well received, but the "liberal" press is hiding it.
And no one can forget the interminable debates about the connection between SH and OBL. Those "stupid" posters must have a crystal ball to have been able to predict what the 9/11 commission would eventually say.
So here you seem happy to explain that you're not a one-dimensional, issue-blind, extreme partisan, etc, etc, etc.Originally posted by WillyJ
D.madman. . Ivoted for Perot both times. . I voted for Reagan in 1980 (1st year I was eligible) because I don't believe in abortion and than realized it was a fund raising tool and not a "value" for the GOP, so I've voted 3rd Party ever since.
I registered as a Dem this winter to vote for Howard Dean but by the time the primaries were held here Dean was finished, so I voted for Kuchinich because if I was going to cast a symbolic vote anyway I decided to cast it for the one person running who actually stood up and had the guts to vote against the Iraqi invasion when it was a very unpopular thing to do.
And for the record I have in the past referred to Clinton as a "war criminal" and "The Hillbilly Caligula"- and if Kerry is elected and if he keeps us mired in the Iraq nightmare then I will be here hitting him just as hard as I'm hitting Bush now. . .
And hey, thanks for asking!
and
You're the one who needs them to be fakes to protect your boy King. .
Does that seem right to you?
So unless whatever Bush worshiper came up with those criteria had an original copy, they are worthless. . .
President Clinton said it. And his administration. And his Justice Department.Originally posted by Rokkitsci
3) - Connection between OBL and Saddam?? Did anyone ever say that?
While not always true, Occam's Razor has a pretty good track record. So, we have two explainations set forth so far:Occam's Razor (also Ockham's Razor or any of several other spellings), is a principle attributed to the 14th century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham that forms the basis of methodological reductionism.
In its simplest form, Occam's razor states that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. If a charred tree is on the ground, it could be because of a lightning strike or because of a secret government weapons program. The simplest explanation that is sufficient is the logical one, according to Occam's razor, and there was a lightning strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor