SwiftVets.com

[Steve Z]

The CNN poll on whether the Killian documents are authentic looks like Florida 2000. Yes leads No by 260 votes out of over 96,000.

If all the Swift Boat Veterans voted No, we would be within 6 votes of a tie!

But if CNN posted the PDF files of the actual documents, and let people compare them with Bush's other military records (from typewriters), I'm pretty sure the No would win a landslide!
_________________
The traitor will crater!

[grandforker]

I'm not going to pretend to be any sort of an expert on typewriters of the 70s, but I do think I can offer some perspective on the issue. Last night on Alan Colmes' radio show, he interviewed Col. Turnipseed (sp?) of the Texas Air National Guard. He told Colmes that he knew the documents on Bush were forgeries because they were produced on something better than a Selectric, and they didn't have any of those.

That got me to thinking. When I was attending high school and my goal was to become a journalist, I took typing. That would have been in 1971 or 1972. I don't remember what typewriters we used, but they were standard electric models with a Courier font permanently embedded on each hammer.

My first job at a newspaper was in the summer of 1973. I did not use anything remotely similar to a Seletric there. When I went off to journalism school to attend college, I had a brand new Smith-Corona electric portable typewriter. It was considered a very good portable and used the standard hammer technology.

I attended journalism school from 1973 to 1977. As I recall, there were a few Selectrics around and everybody wanted to use them. They were considered the Rolls Royce of typewriters. When I took my first full-time newspaper job in 1977, every reporter in the newsroom had a Selectric. I thought I was in heaven because I finally had a Selectric that I didn't have to share.

My point is that in the early 70s, IBM Selectrics were very expensive and many people continued to use the far more affordable conventional electric typewriters. The idea that the Texas ANG had some sort of fancy specialized typewriter on which to type memos seems extremely far-fetched to me.
_________________
Hard pounding, gentlemen. Let's see who pounds the longest. -- Wellington at Waterloo

[Sonar5]

drudge just put this up:

[Steve Z]

Putting all the very convincing evidence about proportional fonts and superscripts aside, the fact that CBS calls these documents "recently discovered" casts doubt on their authenticity.

After all, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian has been dead since 1984, and hasn't written anything since then. If he had really written those documents, people eager to smear George W. Bush could have used them in 1994 and 1998 when Bush ran for Governor of Texas, in the 2000 presidential campaign, and also in March 2004 when Terry McAuliffe accused Bush of being AWOL. How can all these people who had four occasions over 10 years to smear George W. Bush somehow missed these documents in Killian's files for 10 years, and suddenly "found" them two months before the 2004 election? Unless, of course, they didn't exist previously!!!
_________________
The traitor will crater!

[Absolut]

[Billman]

I hope they address it. I just wrote the following to CBS:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
As a long-time CBS News viewer, dating back to Eric Sevareid, I am embarrassed today.

I am embarrassed that you put on Ben Barnes (a legitimate story) but failed to disclose he is a Kerry campaign vice-chair and has raised over $500,000 for Democrats. I am embarrassed you failed to disclose he contradicted prior statements on this matter, including depositions made under oath.

I am embarrassed to see Dan Rather on CNN "standing by his story" and defensively claiming "no internal investigation" over obviously faked documents. He's in denial. The cover-up is always worse than the crime, gentlemen. You must now disclose where you obtained the documents and which experts vetted the typewriting.

I am embarrassed to see a once-fine news organization lose all sense of journalistic standards and work ethic. Amateur bloggers discovered in a few hours what your staff could not.

If Dan does not apologize on-air tonight, with no equivocation, whatever credibility CBS News retains will be irretrievably lost.
_________________
-- Bill in Seattle

[vietnamvet173]

[jimlarsen]

I have a couple more things that CBS needs to "clarify". Looking at the MEMO to Bush on 04 May 1972, the date at the top is indented a different amount than the signature block. The difference is less than half the width of a "3". Why would the typest have set the tab stop to one place for the date and another place for the signature block? Was it even possible for the medhanical tab stops on the Select typewriter to be set to such a fine degree. It's possible, I suppose, that the date had an inadvertant spece in front of it, but considering the distance from the tab key to the space bar compared to the distance from the tab key to the "3" key, it seems extremely unlikely.

Also, the date at the top has a one at the front. It's different from all the other "ones" which appear to actually be small ells ("l"). Few typwriters at that time had ones on them so everybody used the small ell instead. Again it seems unlikely that, if there was a "one" key, someone would us the "one" on the first date and not use the "one" in the rest of the memo.

[You GottaBeKidding]

There are two more documents in this batch (two we haven't seen plus the four we already know about):

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-09bushdocs.pdf

2 Feb 72 and 24 June 73 (may be wrong about the year of the second one and it hasn't printed it yet)

[BC]

I just watched the CBS evening news, just have to say they have lost any creditability they had left. One expert, one so called witness and an idiot who wrote a book. That’s what they are standing on? No where did they even talk about the son (who also served I believe in the TANG) and the wife or all the experts who over the couple of days have said they look fake.
_________________
Remember United Flight 93, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
Duty Honor Country

[Sonar5]

[The Ghost]

rather's voice sounded kind of hoarse and like he was kind of scared of what he was trying to prove

he is trying to talk/buffalo his way thru this

[vietnamvet173]

[mr_mechanical]

Outrageous!

What we take for granted today took years of software development and huge advances in computer technology to achieve.

Dan Rather claiming that there were typewriters that could produce the small 'th' at that time is pure rationalization. Those typesetting machines cost $20,000 at the time ($100K in today's money) and required extensive operator training. No f'in way a clerk typist or Killian himself had access or skills to pull off such a document.

Type the doc in Word and overlay it - it matches perfectly!

Rathergate in full swing!

[kmmpatriot]

The handwriting "expert" was VERY TELLING....when asked about if he thought people would be suspect of the signatures - instead of responding with a technical explanation of why a non expert might not and then explkain why that is wrong - he went on about how "they were trying to get at the truth and you have to "put yourself out there" - WHAT THE HECK? Did anyone else think that was totally strange way for an expert to talk?

then the TANG guy they had DID NOT ANSWER the "Do you have any doubt that these docs are real?" He TOTALLY dodged.

ARGH!!!!!!!
_________________
The Wise man draws more Advantage from his Enemies, than the Fool from his Friends. - from Poor Richard's Almanac...and a perfect commentary on the current state of this campaign!