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montanaguard Seaman Recruit
Joined: 27 Aug 2004 Posts: 11
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Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:02 pm Post subject: Autheniticity of Bush's National Guard Memos Questioned |
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Dear Admin:
Posted this on the other forum then saw the post about comments regarding forgeries to be listed here. So I have repeated the post here. Sorry for the duplication.
Copied from Yahoo News.
Authenticity of Bush Memos Scrutinized
17 minutes ago Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Questions are being raised about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos which asserted that George W. Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer in the Texas Air National Guard and lost his status as a pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.
CBS, which reported on the memos on its "60 Minutes" program, said its experts who examined the documents concluded that they were authentic. They ostensibly were written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush's commanders in 1972 and 1973.
But Killian's son, one of Killian's fellow officers and an independent document examiner questioned the memos. Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review.
"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday the White House, which distributed the memos after obtaining them from CBS, was not trying to verify their authenticity. "We don't know if the documents are fabricated or authentic," McClellan told reporters traveling with the president to West Virginia.
McClellan suggested the memos surfaced as part of "an orchestrated effort by Democrats and the Kerry campaign to tear down the president."
The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.
"They looked to me like forgeries," said Rufus Martin. "I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years." Killian died in 1984.
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" — as evidence indicating forgery.
Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.
"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.
The Defense Department released Bush's pilot logs this week under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press.
Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service became a focus of Democratic criticism this week amid a flurry of new reports about his activities. Democrats say Bush shirked his National Guard duties, a claim Bush denies.
Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, serving more than a year on active Air Force duty while being trained to fly F-102A jets. He was honorably discharged from the Guard in October 1973 and left the Air Force Reserves in May 1974.
The first four months of 1972 are at the beginning of a controversial period in Bush's Guard service. After taking his last flight in April 1972, Bush went for six months without showing up for any training drills. In September 1972 he received permission to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit so he could work on a political campaign there.
That May, Bush also skipped a required yearly medical examination. In response, his commanders grounded Bush on Aug. 1, 1972. |
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jwb7605 Rear Admiral
Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 690 Location: Colorado
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Today (16 Sep 2004) the Drudge report has a link to a Washington post article regarding a trace to "Kinko's".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html
Bush's records, as far as SBVFT is concerned, is a so-what, as they should be.
However, something sort of hit me wrong when I read the article, notably this paragraph:
Quote: | In news interviews earlier this year, Burkett said he overheard a telephone conversation in the spring of 1997 in which top Bush aides asked the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files as he was running for a second term as governor of Texas. Several days later, he said, he saw dozens of pages from Bush's military file dumped in a trash can at Camp Mabry, the Guard's headquarters. |
(a) records dumped in a trash can would not be U.S. Government originals ... they would be copies provided. For conspiracy theorists who think Carl Rove is responsible at the root: Rove being on the Guard base is unlikely, and the originals remaining at the Guard base is equally unlikely.
(b) how close to a trash can would you have to be to know the contents of the documents? Why was Burkett going through the trash? Did he remove some of the documents and assume they were legitimate? How does he know they were removed from Bush's file? Wouldn't you have to be in the room to know that they came from a particular file?
I just thought I'd put my two cents in for other people doing research here to think about. It goes to witness credibility. |
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Sandra2004 Seaman Recruit
Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Washington State
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zinfella Rear Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004 Posts: 708 Location: Mesa, Az
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2004 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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jwb7605 wrote: | Today (16 Sep 2004) the Drudge report has a link to a Washington post article regarding a trace to "Kinko's".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html
Bush's records, as far as SBVFT is concerned, is a so-what, as they should be.
However, something sort of hit me wrong when I read the article, notably this paragraph:
Quote: | In news interviews earlier this year, Burkett said he overheard a telephone conversation in the spring of 1997 in which top Bush aides asked the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files as he was running for a second term as governor of Texas. Several days later, he said, he saw dozens of pages from Bush's military file dumped in a trash can at Camp Mabry, the Guard's headquarters. |
(a) records dumped in a trash can would not be U.S. Government originals ... they would be copies provided. For conspiracy theorists who think Carl Rove is responsible at the root: Rove being on the Guard base is unlikely, and the originals remaining at the Guard base is equally unlikely.
(b) how close to a trash can would you have to be to know the contents of the documents? Why was Burkett going through the trash? Did he remove some of the documents and assume they were legitimate? How does he know they were removed from Bush's file? Wouldn't you have to be in the room to know that they came from a particular file?
I just thought I'd put my two cents in for other people doing research here to think about. It goes to witness credibility. |
To expand on this line of inquiry a bit further, and the most important question with regard to this whole story:
Why was a civilian employee going through military trash? How would he know what was being trashed, and when, in order to be there to retrieve it, or know that it was worth retrieving? What was the reason for this alledged activity? If he knew all of this info, and indeed had genuine documents to prove it, why did it take him so long to release them?
What CBS didn't reveal is that this guy Burkett (the civilian employee source) is a highly partisan Democrat, heavily invloved in party activities, and his law-ya is the head of the county Democratic party. Another fact that CBS failed to mention is that this character Barnes, who recently said that he pulled strings to help Dubya get in to the Guard, is from that same Democratic county group. Hello?????? _________________ No whiners! |
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fb274 Ensign
Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 53
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:47 am Post subject: Autheniticity of Bush's National Guard Memo's Questioned |
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I have found some sites after reading a posting with reference to MARTY HELDT--possible author of the CBS docs. Perhaps these sites may be helpful.
http://www.awolbush.com/kerry-vs-bush.asp -( Martin Heldt & Walter Robinson)
http://www.glcq.com/me.htm (Paul Lubasiak - Philadelphia---used same terminology as in CBS docs "OETR"
http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm (Calling Bush deserter- lots of copies of docs)
I have been reading the "swifties" site for sometime and applaude you in your efforts. My father and all of my brothers were enlisted service members--Air Force, Reg. Army and National Guard. |
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nschlange Seaman Recruit
Joined: 20 Aug 2004 Posts: 12 Location: california
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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Burkett has been completely discredited. He's a friend of Kerry's and he's a fund raiser for him. He has given interviews earlier in the year stating that he heard both sides of a telephone conversation, and the person he said he was with at the time he saw the documents and overheard the conversation say's he's wrong, it never happened. His story has changed many times over the past few years. Today, abc posted an interview with the man cbs said put pressure on the guard to help Bush. His name is Retired Col. Walter Staudt, it is an interview worth reading. He said there was no truth to it what so ever. |
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