SwiftVets.com

[Hondo]

air_vet:


Great catch; mea culpa.

Damn, it's still early out here in the desert. I need another cup of coffee . . . .

[Tony]

Kudos to those who were all over this!

What's worrisome about this is the way stories like this do damage regardless of how false they are. Think about it - we have huge headlines....60 minutes segments---the lead story on the nightly news....then when the fraudsters are called out - we have printed corrections - often buried in the back and little mention of the the fact that this is all just made up. Even worse - is when the Dems try to build a house of cards with a line of false logic that goes something like....well - okay - this was a false story - just like the ones made up about Kerry....

The moral of all this is that the dirty tricks are just beginning. Everyone needs to be out there helping the truth shine free in the light of day. This means talking to people, communicating with people and setting the record straight. We know Dan Rather will do no such thing.

It's also worth sending a note to CBS and letting them know what you think:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml

This is one network that is now banned in my house. It ought to be KBS...
_________________

http://tonyk.smugmug.com/photos/1822816-L-1.jpg
USN 1983-1992

[spudhorse]

From the CNN story:

[Rdtf]

This is the big time www.Washingtonpost.com front page

Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush

By Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01

Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.

The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to drill."

The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who saw them "at the time they were written."

CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. 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.

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. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas.

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.

If demonstrated to be authentic, the documents would contradict several long-standing claims by the White House about an episode in Bush's National Guard service in 1972, when he abruptly gave up flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to take part in a political campaign. The CBS documents purport to show that Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, was unhappy with Bush for his performance toward meeting his National Guard commitments and resisted pressure from his superiors to "sugarcoat" the record.

After their initial airing on the "CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes II" programs Wednesday night, the documents were picked up by other news organizations, including The Post. A front-page story in The Post yesterday noted that CBS declined to provide details about the source of the documents, the authenticity of which could not be independently confirmed.

On Wednesday evening, the White House e-mailed reporters copies of the documents, as supplied by CBS, as well as the transcript of a CBS interview with White House communications director Dan Bartlett rebutting allegations that Bush had shirked his military duties. While Bartlett described the emergence of the documents as "dirty politics," he did not dispute their authenticity. "

[OsanFAC]

Hondo,
I need a link to the documents, its getting hard to find them. Confirm we are looking for AFI 35-13?

You are correct about the signature block differing by service. However, te Air Force guide for military letters always places the signature block along the left margin.
_________________
OsanFAC

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke

[air_vet]

[Interested]

I'll repost this 'cause I think it got buried this AM and I'm still curious...

The quote from the 29 September 1972 memo which suspends Bush's flight status is this:
Quote:

[Rdtf]

[quote="OsanFAC"]Hondo,
I need a link to the documents, its getting hard to find them. Confirm we are looking for AFI 35-13?

The one first mentioned in this post still works-
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay19.pdf

[OsanFAC]

Okay folks,
What I did was a cross reference search on the Air force publication website. It cross references the new Regulations numbers against the old system. The only result for the search shows an AFR 35-13.
There is no cross reference for an AFI or AFM. I'm not a admin expert, but if I remember correctly you would not get an AFR, AFI, of AFM with the same number. They would give it a different number.

Here's a link to to AF search:

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubs/obsolete_search.asp?Keyword=35-13&Find=Search

Doe this help clear this up at all?
_________________
OsanFAC

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke

[Rdtf]

Check this thread out in Geedunk if you haven't seen it -
Warning to those that exposed TANG memo fraud
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8644

[Rdtf]

[air_vet]

[Hondo]

OsanFAC:

It's AFM 35-13. For a source of known authentic documents using this as a ref, check out the records released by the Bush campaign in 2000 and/or 2004. Multiple pages in several of these documents refer to AFM 35-13. Since these are from NPRC, they are known to be authentic. At a quick glance, they also appear to be consistent in their refs to AFM 35-13.

These docs can be seen at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-02-14-bush-docs.htm

For what it's worth, I'm convinced AFM 35-13 was legit at the time. It simply appears in too many places in too many known-authentic official documents of the era to be bogus. My guess is that it was at the time an AFM dealing with administrative procedures relating to flight status. Another possibility is that it was a finance reg (would deal with flight pay - a not insignificant consideration for many pilots).

Apparently the original forger did some homework (or at least looked at a few old, legit docs). Fortunately, he/she was both a poor typist and/or technologically illiterate.

[OsanFAC]

The AF Publications site gives absolutely no cross reference for an AFI 35-13 or a AFM 35-13 ONLY AFR 35-13 which translates to the current AFI 36-2605. AFI 36-2605 does not deal with Flight Operations of Flight Evaluations Boards.

For those who wish to search themselves:


http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubs/obsolete_search.asp?Keyword=35-13&Find=Search
_________________
OsanFAC

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke

[azpatriot]

This is being covered here in our local paper also, below is a link to the article.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_GUARD_QUESTIONS?SITE=AZPHG&SECTION=HOME
_________________
Proud to be an American! and member of the PAJAMAHADEEN
FedEx Kinko's: When it absolutely, positively has to be forged overnight