[spacefreak]

Originally posted by KarlG:
CBS Stands By Bush-Guard Memos

Unfortunately, they used a handwriting analyst. What's needed is a typewriting analyst.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Sock Puppet Theater:
I find it interesting that the moment a document appears that may go contrary to what Bush and company say happened, it is dismissed as a forgery. Not only that, but all the right wingers in here automatically assume that it is fake. No waiting for further investigation, no skepticism, just a lot of "the Kerry campaign is so desperate that they're making up documents now!"
So, if it turns out that these are real, will all of you eat crow?
Or will you switch to "Oh, well it doesn't matter anyway. It's ancient history." ??

I don't know if the documents are real or not. I'm going to let the facts unfold, rather than agree with the first "expert" that says what I want to hear.

btw, where HAVE your hands been?

[OldManMac]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Unfortunately, they used a handwriting analyst. What's needed is a typewriting analyst.

"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts.."

Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real. But he is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced. And the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with.

Critics claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 1970s. But some models did. In fact, other Bush military records already released by the White House itself show the same superscript � including one from 1968.

Some analysts outside CBS say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman, which they claim was not available in the 1970s.

But the owner of the company that distributes this typing style says it has been available since 1931.



Missed those, huh? That's okay. I can wait for the truth, whatever it is.

[zigzag]

My theory is that they put some monkeys in a room with some typewriters and after 10 years of frantic typing these letters emerged.

[For those who don't know, there's this theory about how long it would take a roomful of monkeys to randomly type the collected works of Shakespeare . . .]

We already know that Bush was a slacker at the end, so I don't think it matters all that much either way, although some people are going to be very embarrassed if the documents are fake. But this certainly adds spice to the campaign, and we get to play Sherlock Holmes for a while.

Whether the documents are authentic or not, it only serves to help Bush because no one's going to change their vote over them and it continues to distract everyone from real issues.

[AKcrab]

I think this is a new wrinkle...

Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Bush's service, was dated Aug. 18, 1973.


That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special favors and did not fulfill his service.


Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among a packet of documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.


A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting that Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless over remaining officials.

[OldManMac]

This is getting interesting. Where are these news organizations suddenly getting these documents from. The thot plickens.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by KarlG:
Missed those, huh? That's okay. I can wait for the truth, whatever it is.

Where was the typewriting analyst? You stated handwriting, forensic (to check the fingerprints on the photocopy, I presume), and some guy saying that Times New Roman was available.

They also state that superscript had been used in the past, while igonoring the fact that it is the superscript AND the proportional spacing AND the font AND the unusual Killian signature all together that is odd.

Again, get an expert typewriting anlalyst. Heck, maybe even that guy I saw on the news with the IBM typewriter going through the pain-in-the-ass 6 steps to do the superscript for each instance when a simple "th" like the one that's used in the header would have done just fine.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by KarlG:
This is getting interesting. Where are these news organizations suddenly getting these documents from. The thot plickens.

If you read the article, you would have noticed this bit near the top of the article:

His discharge paper was among a packet of documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by ebuddy:
I think it should be noted that by the end of the day, this CBS deal killed Kerry's bid for President. This is the kind of desparate attempts we see every day. Meanwhile, Bush just keeps spreading away from Kerry in the polls. It's not over, we're watching as the Kerry candidacy implodes. It's fun to watch and it's only getting better.

I watched a Fox News interview conducted by Tony Snow in which he made the Democratic campaign strategist Jen something or other look like a complete idiot.

Snow; Is Kerry opposed to our action in Iraq?

Jen; uh no, but when we found out we'd been duped into the war by the WMD issue...

Snow; But wasn't Kerry working in the Intelligence community at the time?

Jen; yeah, but...

Snow; but...

Jen; but he wasn't the Commander in Chief.

These folks are plain hog-tied by stupidity and oversight. They don't have a leg to stand on and it's becoming increasingly apparent this campaign is being run by a bunch of amateurs. I wait in great anticipation for the debates.

ebuddy,

The President IS privvy to intelligence information even Senate committee members aren't. Used to be we could TRUST the President and assume he was above the kind of "LIDS"
(Lies-Incompetence-Deception-Secrecy) we've come to see from President Dubya.

Kerry erred by trusting his President, who said he had EVIDENCE of WMD's. Kerry supported the war on that basis.

There's a legal term for this but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe, "fraud by deception?"

In fact, many Americans STILL haven't come to grips with the fact that George W. Bush hood-winked all of us.

Try thinking of John Kerry as a Jimmy Stewart kind of guy who represents the best of America's ideals...

A guy who is serious, smart, strong, hard-working, earnest and honest, who loves his country, believes in playing fair and taking a man at his word, who stands up for what he believes is right, refuses to hit a man when he's down, refuses to shirk his duty, who lives up to his commitments. A guy who is slow to anger but is a man of action and shouldn't be messed with.

Someone who loves his God but doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve, try to 'trade on it' or force his beliefs on others.

A man who takes the Constitution seriously and as a combat veteran who experienced FIRST HAND the dangers of fighting a war without an exit strategy, understands that you go to war in only the last resort, but when you do you plan it the RIGHT way then you follow that plan.

A guy who is secure enough in himself to change his assessment of a situation when it's prudent to do so.

Think of him in those terms and you gotta like a guy like John Kerry.

If he has a problem in this campaign, it MIGHT be that it's hard for him to think and act as low-down and dirty as the President's team. And that his team isn't as well practiced in the art of "LIDS."

To that I say, GOOD FOR HIM AND GOOD FOR AMERICA!

We should consider ourselves LUCKY he is willing to go through this crap to lead us out of the mess created by the current administration!

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
ebuddy,

The President IS privvy to intelligence information even Senate committee members aren't....Kerry erred by trusting his President, who said he had EVIDENCE of WMD's. Kerry supported the war on that basis.

I'll play with you on this, even though Kerry had access to the same information.

Take your pick:

(a) Kerry had the same intelligence as Bush and is being a partisan hack now
(b) Kerry does not have the same intelligence, and is therefore unqualified to disagree with the President's actions because he does not have all the information.

Your choice. Your spin fails either way.

[OldManMac]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If you read the article, you would have noticed this bit near the top of the article:

Got me there.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
I'll play with you on this, even though Kerry had access to the same information.

Take your pick:

(a) Kerry had the same intelligence as Bush and is being a partisan hack now
(b) Kerry does not have the same intelligence, and is therefore unqualified to disagree with the President's actions because he does not have all the information.

Your choice. Your spin fails either way.

How about:

(c) Kerry did not have the same access to intelligence information as the President (Senators never have as much access to real-time, hard intelligence info as the POTUS) and had to believe the President when GWB said he had 'the goods' on Saddam's WMD's.

But now, as more information has been revealed, Kerry quite rightly says he supports defending America and our vital interests and nabbing those responsible for 9/11 but questions whether the Iraq invasion was in our best interests.

Osama is still out there. 1,000 American service members lives later (and counting) and $132 Billion later (and counting) we have what?

And to think, it all could have been SOOOO much different, so much better, if GWB had done almost ANYTHING differently.

If GWB had put off going into Iraq until later, if necessary.

If GWB had waited a tad longer for the inspections, if, for no other reason but to get the rest of the world on board (to help bear the financial AND manpower burdens).

If GWB had put even HALF as much effort into Afghanistan as he did Iraq.

If GWB had followed the plans which had ALREADY BEEN CREATED for such a contingency as a terrorist attack on the U.S. instead of coming up with his own hastily developed 'plan.'

If GWB had insisted on an exit strategy before going into Iraq.

If GWB had taken a lesson from Israel's 56 year war on terrorism.

If GWB had well considered the advice by Colin Powell, James Baker and other military & other leaders who KNEW this kind of invasion would not be as quick and easy as GWB insisted it would be.

If GWB had committed a larger force to the Iraqi invasion.

(And if he actually DID decieve us about the WMD's...)

If GWB had just ignored the urgings of the Project For The New American Century neo-conservatives to invade Iraq!

(One member of that group, Paul Wolfowitz, is now Deputy Secretary of Defense. But at GWB's first cabinet meeting Wolfowitz didn't even know who Osama bin Laden was!!!! And GWB is following that guys' advice???)

Yeah spacefreak, I'd go with (c).

[Spliffdaddy]

But Kerry DID have the same access to intelligence information as the president.

And the entire planet was in agreement that Saddam had WMD.

Were you born in 2003?

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
But Kerry DID have the same access to intelligence information as the president.

And the entire planet was in agreement that Saddam had WMD.

Were you born in 2003?

hahaha lololol

That's pretty good spacefreak!

Check your facts. Every morning a senior military officer or intelligence analyst PERSONALLY delivers the Daily Threat Assessment to the President.

The President's first task of the day is to be made aware of what's going on in terms of our security.

The President gets the latest, freshest, most sensitive, real time info available.

Senators don't have the same level of access to such info in the same kind of time frame because they don't need it. The POTUS gets it fresh, hard, all inclusive and timely because HE'S the one who needs to make decisions on these matters, right now.

I'd say there were five different schools of thought on the issue:


1) Many people in the world (especially the american people) were convinced by the President's assertions that Saddam had WMD's and was one step away from using them.

2) Others were willing to GIVE PRESIDENT BUSH THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

3) Some wanted more proof.

4) The ones who KNEW whether the WMD's existed or not. (these would be the Iraqi's themselves and President Bush, if my assertion is correct, that he lied to us)

5) Those who believed Saddam and hate the "Great Satan," no matter what.

But, another thought just came to me...

Maybe W wasn't sure one way or the other and wanted to be safe rather than sorry...

OR, he was looking for any excuse to invade Iraq anyway (THIS I'M SURE IS TRUE!) and figured, "what the hell, we'll just go in there and if there ARE WMD's then we'll have done the right thing. If not, well, the American people will buy into it once it's a done deal. We'll just sort it all out after the fact."

Can't you just hear him saying something like that?

[zigzag]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
I'll play with you on this, even though Kerry had access to the same information.

Take your pick:

(a) Kerry had the same intelligence as Bush and is being a partisan hack now
(b) Kerry does not have the same intelligence, and is therefore unqualified to disagree with the President's actions because he does not have all the information.

Your choice. Your spin fails either way.

It cuts both ways. Let's assume that Kerry had the same information (which I don't believe is the case, but let's assume). For better or worse, he probably would've acted on it differently. Dubya has even made this a theme of his campaign: "If Kerry had been President, Saddam would still be in power" (he said it again today). So the mere fact that they had the same information isn't determinative. It's how they act, or would have acted, on the information. Hell, a year earlier, Powell and Rice said that Saddam was being contained, based on more or less the same information. Nothing had changed on the ground in Iraq, but after 9/11 Bush was able to create a WMD frenzy.

I can see the argument that it's hypocritical of Kerry to authorize the war and then criticize it, but life isn't always an either/or proposition. Everybody wanted to appear supportive of the CIC - if you weren't, you were branded a traitor.

I think your second choice is a false one - it presupposes that the administration could be trusted with the information it had.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
But Kerry DID have the same access to intelligence information as the president.

And the entire planet was in agreement that Saddam had WMD.

Were you born in 2003?

OOOOOPS!!!!

I didn't even look at your name. I thought you were spacefreak!

Spliffdaddy, YOU get all the credit for cracking me up with the born in 2003 crack. Very, very funny.

Thanks.

[PacHead]

My guess is CBS will not release the originals, because there aren't any originals.

Here's what a Professor/Typograph/Word Processing expert says. The CBS documents could NOT have been made on any machine available at that time. Not a chance, he says.

Hi Hugh,

I am a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University who has
followed the evolution of word processing technology over the past 30
years. A cursory glance at the "Killian documents" shows that they are
forgeries, the product of a modern word processing system. Even the
most powerful word processing systems available in the early 70's were
not designed to produce propotionally spaced documents. Moreover,
no mechanical typewriter, even with variable letter widths like the
IBM Executive typewriter, could produce precise propotional spacing
comparable to a modern word processor. Precise proportional
type-setting is a very demanding computational problem. Since modern PC's
are more powerful than supercomputers from the 70's, we take this form
of computation for granted.

Let me take a moment to recount the state-of-the-art in
word-processing in the 1970's. I used a state-of-the-art word
processing system to write my undergraduate thesis at Harvard in the
spring of 1971. I was one of a handful of Harvard students who were
given access to a PDP-10 time-sharing system to conduct my thesis
research. I used the same machine to prepare my thesis using a word
processing program called "runoff". The output device for "runoff" on
the Harvard PDP-10 was a flexowriter, a typewriter-like device driven
by punched paper tape. I had to write in the superscripts and
subscripts by hand because the flexowriter could not perform
fractional line spacing much less proportional font spacing. The
runoff program did not support any output devices with proportional
spacing. Neither did any other word processing of that era to my
knowledge. In the late 1970's, researchers at Bell Laboratories
developed a new version of runoff, called troff, to support
proportional typesetting on a photo-typesetter; troff is still
available today on standard Unix distributions.

So in 1971, even the most powerful available computer systems were not
equipped to produce documents like the Killian documents. In Fall
1971, I entered graduate school in Computer Science at Stanford. I
soon gravitated to the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, which had
the most powerful time-sharing system (a PDP-10) on campus. In either
1972 or 1973, Xerox gave the Stanford Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory a prototype xerographic printer called a "Xerox Graphics
Printer (XGP)". Two similar prototypes were given to the MIT Computer
Science Department and the Carnegie-Mellon Computer Science
Department. The programming staff at the Stanford AI Laboratory was
thrilled with the gift because it was the first opportunity that
computer science research community had to develop software to support
printer quality type-setting. The three Computer Science Departments
cooperated in developing the word processing programs to support the
XGP. I wrote my first published research paper and my doctoral
disseration using the XGP in Spring 1976. It would take another
decade before comparable word processing systems were available to
most computer science researchers on minicomputers running Unix. It
would take nearly another decade before they were widely used on
personal computers.

Sincerely,

Robert "Corky" Cartwright
Professor of Computer Science
Rice University"

http://www.hughhewitt.com/#postid877

Dan Rather is finished maybe, and so is SeeBS, perhaps.

[stupendousman]

Here's my take:

CBS screwed the pooch. They were taken by desperate Democrat operatives, who didn't know what else to do after Kerry bragged and based his record on his Vietnam service, then was shown to have lied about it and caused him damage in the polls. Bush on the other hand has gone on record to state that others did more during the war and has never sought to elevate his service to much more than it was (as Kerry did).

YES...Times New Roman was designed back in the 30's, but unless you where working in custom "hot type", rub n' press letters, or later used high tech word processors/image setters, you used a Courier or Palatino type font and didn't happen across anything other than monospace typefaces. Unless you were dealing with Miltary documents set in their print shops, you weren't likely to find the type or styles (the superiors) used in the documents. It's POSSIBLE to have a document exhibit the traits shown in the Bush documents, but highly unlikely. It's a stretch to claim that a fairly low level national guard official would be using anything other than a general service electric typewriter at most. The preponderance of evidence as stated (font..superscript..proportional font..etc.) would lead any rational document examiner to believe that this was a rather sloppy forgery, IMO. Very embarassing for CBS...but they likely don't care, as they have an agenda to fullfill (as evidenced by their attention to this "new" forgery, and lack of attention to direct witnesses - the Swiftees - regarding Kerry).

BTW:...wasn't that "handwriting analyst" the same guy who claimed Vince Foster's signature was authentic, even though there was hardly anything to collaborate it (based on other samples) and the testimony of several other experts (both foriegn and domestic) that it was a forgery? He doesn't seem to have much a track record in regards to agreeing with other known experts.

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
How about:

(c) Kerry did not have the same access to intelligence information as the President (Senators never have as much access to real-time, hard intelligence info as the POTUS) and had to believe the President when GWB said he had 'the goods' on Saddam's WMD's.

He's already on record as saying that knowing what he knows NOW, he'd still elect to okay the war.

NEXT!

[PacHead]

Originally posted by stupendousman:
Here's my take:

CBS screwed the pooch. They were taken by desperate Democrat operatives,

According to Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges which CBS cites, he is saying that it was he who was mislead and duped by CBS.

Well, it apparently took CBS producers not very much to deceive Hodges, as he now claims. The former General told ABC News that he was misled by a CBS representative on the phone who told him the documents were "handwritten." After he was read the memos over the phone, Hodges told ABC News that he believed, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt." But now that he has discovered that they were typed documents, Hodges says he cannot attest to their truthfulness. But his personal belief is that they are "computer generated" and are a "fraud."

http://www.ratherbiased.com/

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by stupendousman:




He's already on record as saying that knowing what he knows NOW, he'd still elect to okay the war.

NEXT!

Oh, did he? Must have missed that.

Next?

Well how bout this?

Did he say he'd go in without an exit strategy?

Did he say he'd go in unilaterally without the financial and manpower help of a broad-based coalition?

Did he say he'd give up trying to win the war of ideas?

Did he say he'd go into Iraq with less manpower than was needed to get the job done right and with as little loss of life as possible?

Did he say he'd announce 'Mission Accomplished' when it wasn't yet accomplished at all?

Did he say he'd squander all the existing support and good-will of most of the rest of the world when he went into Iraq?

Did he say he would ignore existing contingency plans for conducting such a war?

Did he say he'd go into Iraq using a bogus excuse like they were linked to al Qaeda?

Did he say he'd go into Iraq but at the same time make America MORE vulnerable to attack than before 9/11?

Did he say he would go into Iraq and when it was time to start rebuilding the country he would give a billion dollar (+) no-bid reconstruction contract to his Vice President's former company?

Did Kerry say he would do any of those things that Bushy has done?

You know, I've been criticized for adding too much space between my sentences. Sorry, but this old veteran can't see as well as he once did, so adding white space helps me out quite a bit.

In fact, when I was trying to read your name at first I thought it said, "STUPIDHOUSEMAN."

I was wrong about that. Guess I need to get new glasses.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by zigzag:
Whether the documents are authentic or not, it only serves to help Bush because no one's going to change their vote over them and it continues to distract everyone from real issues.

I agree that the contents of these memos isn't particularly important either way. But I do think that forged documents are important. Whether done deliberately or not, manipulation of elections by powerful media outlets is too important an issue not to fully air.

[Cody Dawg]

CBS

Corrupt

Broadcasting

System

[ebuddy]

He's already on record as saying that knowing what he knows NOW, he'd still elect to okay the war.

NEXT!

Wrong. That was last month. This month he is opposed to our actions in Iraq altogether and is really jumping on the WMD "we were duped" bandwagon. I can't wait 'til they appear late next month. It'll be a landslide!

[ebuddy]

I agree that the contents of these memos isn't particularly important either way.

That's what kills me about all this. Right at the time Americans are at thier peak of being sick and tired of all the questioning of prior duty, Kerry's campaign comes up with this a day late and a dollar short as usual. If I were Kerry, I'd fire all my campaign managers working for Hillary's bid in 2008. If he can't see it, he's blind. DNC leadership does not want Kerry in office. It's more apparent to me now than ever before. if Kerry had just shut up he could've gotten some sympathy votes for having been "attacked" , but no he can't. Instead, he "digs up" (more like fabricates from thin air) information that's not even very damning and his campaign's name is all over it as opposed to the swift boats ads where Bush's name is nowhere to be found. I think Kerry should apologize to Bush for slander and to the American people for putting his bid for the White House ahead of the truth in condemning our Commander in Chief. Either that or Bush should sue for slander!

But I do think that forged documents are important. Whether done deliberately or not, manipulation of elections by powerful media outlets is too important an issue not to fully air.

I agree whole-heartedly. As if CBS news wasn't biased enough, I'd have to say this takes the cake. Only, this should lose a few folks their jobs. Rather will be a Fox News contributor by this time next year.

[ebuddy]

I wanna be an Aberdeen-writer...Ab-erdeen-writerrrrrrrrr. dodododo dodo dododoo

Did he say he'd go in without an exit strategy?

The exit strategy depends on the Iraqi people. Had they embraced freedom whole-heartedly and immediately, guess what? We'd be outta there by now. BTW, just how long do you think it takes to liberate a country and democratize it? 18 months? 2 years? You indeed need glasses.

Exit strategy; create interim government until such time as they can hold their own elections. In the meantime, arm, design, and train Iraqi militias to keep their own peace and enforce their own laws-US hands off. Well, that's already beginning to happen, but it certainly doesn't happen overnight. You've grown too accustomed to your gated-community world of fast food and microwaves.

Did he say he'd go in unilaterally without the financial and manpower help of a broad-based coalition?

Read the list of contributors to this effort Aberdeen, it's a broad-based coaltion. Just because we don't have the support of those that invested in Saddam's regime doesn't mean we don't have International support. The entire world agreed Saddam was an International threat. You keep forgetting that.

Did he say he'd give up trying to win the war of ideas?

His ideas keep changing Aberdeen. The only war of ideas I can see is the war of ideas going on in Kerry's bipolar head.

Did he say he'd go into Iraq with less manpower than was needed to get the job done right and with as little loss of life as possible?

depends on when you hit him with the question. You see, Bush probably should not have succom to the ideal that to go in with all guns blazing would've scared the Muslim community to a frenzy, but it was good advice.

Did he say he'd announce 'Mission Accomplished' when it wasn't yet accomplished at all?

This is partisan BS and you know it. 'Mission accomplished' was to the troops involved in removing Saddam. Hence, mission accomplished. Within the same speech went on to announce many years of hard work ahead.

Did he say he'd squander all the existing support and good-will of most of the rest of the world when he went into Iraq?

You mean those other than the nations in Saddam's pocket-book and others that simply like to watch America squirm? No thanks. When it comes to securing our nation's future, I'm confident in this administration. We take it to them or they will surely take it to us regardless of what the International Community believes.

Did he say he would ignore existing contingency plans for conducting such a war?

What existing contingency plans? You mean more resolutions saying; "no seriously, if you don't comply this time we'll pass MORE RESOLUTIONS buddy!"

Did he say he'd go into Iraq using a bogus excuse like they were linked to al Qaeda?

So Kerry, who worked in the intelligence community didn't know this either? He either knew they weren't involved or he didn't. Seems to me he believed they were connected and supported the action in Iraq. And don't say; he wasn't privy to this information because he's not the CIC. You're starting to make me wonder if Kerry was as actively involved in his intelligence work as he was 20 years in the Senate.

Did he say he'd go into Iraq but at the same time make America MORE vulnerable to attack than before 9/11?

We're more vulnerable? That's news to me.

Did he say he would go into Iraq and when it was time to start rebuilding the country he would give a billion dollar (+) no-bid reconstruction contract to his Vice President's former company?

At a time when no one else wanted anything to do with that region, I'd have to say call on favors, sure. Why is this an issue with you? How much has Cheney earned from the deal? You don't know? Well, then you should probably remain silent about that which you are ignorant.

Did Kerry say he would do any of those things that Bushy has done?

last month? Yeah. This month? no. I know this makes him look flip-floppy, but he really hasn't a choice since this is a hot-button topic for most voters, he has to try and separate regardless of how inseparable their ideas were at the time.

You know, I've been criticized for adding too much space between my sentences. Sorry, but this old veteran can't see as well as he once did, so adding white space helps me out quite a bit.

With all the time spent arguing your feeble points, I don't see how anyone can make time critiquing your writing style. I promise I'll stay focused on the issues. Afterall, in my eyes-they are your biggest weakness.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by PacHead:
According to Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges which CBS cites, he is saying that it was he who was mislead and duped by CBS.

Well, it apparently took CBS producers not very much to deceive Hodges, as he now claims. The former General told ABC News that he was misled by a CBS representative on the phone who told him the documents were "handwritten." After he was read the memos over the phone, Hodges told ABC News that he believed, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt." But now that he has discovered that they were typed documents, Hodges says he cannot attest to their truthfulness. But his personal belief is that they are "computer generated" and are a "fraud."

http://www.ratherbiased.com/

And CBS fell for it because they "Wanted to Believe�"

They will have to work twice as hard now to get their credibility back.

[CreepingDeth]

So how did a typewriter automatically kern and use superscript? I don't recall them being able to change size like that, but could raise them, and typewriters aren't aware of the letter before, so they can't adjust space like the letter.

[Busemann]

Seems rather odd to make fraud documents and use Times New Roman and kerning not available at the time the documents were supposed to have been written. If someone set out to make fraud, I bet they would write it on a typewriter and use Courier which is much more believable.

In any case, has this type of tactics ever made the opponent win? Kerry shouldn't have to do more than be clearer on what his issues are to win IMO.

[CreepingDeth]

Maybe they were stupid. Looks like they typed this thing on MS Word.
Typewriters print in blocks, so I don't see how those could be real.
Good thing Rather's gone soon, cuz this looks like the final nail in his coffin.

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
Did he say he'd go in without an exit strategy?

I don't know but what if he did? So what? Neither did Bush. The thing is, Bush's exit strategy has nothing to do with the short attention span of his critics. He has mapped out long-term goals for the Near East. A democratic Iraq was NEVER going to be accomplished overnight.

Did he say he'd give up trying to win the war of ideas?

You're bitching about exit strategies and you have the gall to talk about winning the war of ideas? Guess what! If we bug out of Iraq too soon, there will be no war of ideas in Iraq. The other side will win just like they did in Viet Nam.

Did he say he'd go into Iraq but at the same time make America MORE vulnerable to attack than before 9/11?

Do you have ANY proof for this claim? If we're MORE vulnerable, where's the attack?

[Busemann]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
I don't know but what if he did? So what? Neither did Bush. The thing is, Bush's exit strategy has nothing to do with the short attention span of his critics. He has mapped out long-term goals for the Near East. A democratic Iraq was NEVER going to be accomplished overnight.You're bitching about exit strategies and you have the gall to talk about winning the war of ideas? Guess what! If we bug out of Iraq too soon, there will be no war of ideas in Iraq. The other side will win just like they did in Viet Nam.Do you have ANY proof for this claim? If we're MORE vulnerable, where's the attack?

I think its pretty clear that al-qaeida is still as strong as it was before 9/11, 3 years on. If Bush had sent more troops into Afghanistan and the Tora Bora mountains where the terrorists are, and hold out on Iraq for a few more years, I think the world would be a safer place. Osama bin Laden and his close circle is a bigger threat to the US than Saddam Hussein.

[Busemann]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
If we're MORE vulnerable, where's the attack?

If there will be a new attack, God forbid, it will definitely not come before the election.

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by Busemann:
I think its pretty clear that al-qaeida is still as strong as it was before 9/11, 3 years on. If Bush had sent more troops into Afghanistan and the Tora Bora mountains where the terrorists are, and hold out on Iraq for a few more years, I think the world would be a safer place. Osama bin Laden and his close circle is a bigger threat to the US than Saddam Hussein.

This is just noise. You don't even know if Bin Laden is alive. Again, if Al Qaeda is so strong, where is the attack? They seem to be able to hit soft targets far beyond our shores. But if they're still as strong as they were prior to 9/11, surely WE'D be hit as well. If they're so strong, why didn't they attack our athletes during the Olympics?

[zigzag]

.

[Spliffdaddy]

It'll be OK, zigzag.

In four more years Dubya will hit his term limit.

edited: well, 4 years and 4 months.

By then, most of the anti-Bush crowd will have graduated highschool and found jobs and turned into conservative Republicans.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Busemann:
I think its pretty clear that al-qaeida is still as strong as it was before 9/11, 3 years on.

I think you mean it's pretty clear to those who want it to be true. There is absolutely not backing to such claims. It's 100% baseless.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I agree that the contents of these memos isn't particularly important either way. But I do think that forged documents are important. Whether done deliberately or not, manipulation of elections by powerful media outlets is too important an issue not to fully air.

In my mind it seems almost too routine....

BG

[Zimphire]

Well then it's about time we bust up that routine if such a routine exists.

CBS will just be made an example of.

[BlackGriffen]

The only difference is that they normally don't go as far as forging documents.

The Boston Globe has an update on the controversy, in which at least one expert cited as claiming it was a forgery has come around:

[...]
But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe yesterday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.
[...]
Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised ''th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record that the White House made public earlier this year.

Meanwhile, ''CBS Evening News" last night explained how it sought to authenticate the documents, focusing primarily on its examiner's conclusion that two of the records were signed by Bush's guard commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. CBS also said it had other sources -- among Killian's friends and colleagues -- who verified that the content of the documents reflected Killian's views at the time.
[...]
But William Flynn, a Phoenix document examiner cited in a Washington Post report Thursday, said he had not changed his mind because he does not believe that the proportional spacing between characters, and between lines, in the documents obtained by CBS was possible on typewriters used by the military at the time.

Flynn told the Globe he believes it is ''highly unlikely" that the documents CBS has obtained could have been produced in 1972 or 1973.

lynn said his doubts were also based on his belief that the curved apostrophe was not available on electric typewriters at the time, although documents from the period reviewed by the Globe show it was. He acknowledged that the quality of the copies of the documents he examined was poor.`
[...]
Bouffard, the Ohio document specialist, said that he had dismissed the Bush documents in an interview with The New York Times because the letters and formatting of the Bush memos did not match any of the 4,000 samples in his database. But Bouffard yesterday said that he had not considered one of the machines whose type is not logged in his database: the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted.

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Bouffard yesterday provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 -- three years before the dates of the CBS memos -- the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

As for the raised ''th" that appears in the Bush memos -- to refer, for example, to units such as the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron -- Bouffard said that custom characters on the Composer's metal typehead ball were available in the 1970s, and that the military could have ordered such custom balls from IBM.

''You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer," Bouffard said.
[...]

And the WhiteHouse? Curiously silent on the forgery issue:

[...]
White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the president's service record, but offered no view on whether the CBS documents are authentic.

It looks like the mission has been accomplished, though - the "shock value" has been dampened by allegations of forgery to the point that, even if the documents are vindicated, by that time they'll be sufficiently old news that the electorate won't hear about it.

BlackGriffen

[zigzag]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
I don't know but what if he did? So what? Neither did Bush. The thing is, Bush's exit strategy has nothing to do with the short attention span of his critics. He has mapped out long-term goals for the Near East. A democratic Iraq was NEVER going to be accomplished overnight.

Of course not, but who was it that said we'd be greeted with flowers? Who was it that underestimated the difficulty of the venture? Who grossly miscalculated virtually every aspect of it? In light of the incompetence that it has demonstrated, why should I have confidence in this administration's ability to execute going forward?

The point is that whatever Bush's strategy is or was, it hasn't been effective. It's fine to talk about reshaping the Middle East, a goal that I support in principle, but it's no good if your strategy isn't effective.

Frankly, I don't know what Bush's strategy is. He doesn't talk about it - when was the last time he talked about the political situation in Iraq? The security situation? Was it even mentioned at the convention? All we hear are bromides about "fighting terrorism." As I predicted last year, scheduling a handover in June has basically allowed him to wash his hands of the matter in time for the convention and election.

[Zimphire]

CBS has identified no typography experts who have supported their claims that their "memos" are authentic.

The only expert Dan Rather cited on Friday's Evening News was a signature expert, and even he has now backed away from supporting CBS's claims. Dan Rather claimed he had other forensics experts who verified the documents, but didn't want to say who they were, and so far CBS has not provided a single expert who is willing to go on the record and verify the documents.

Of course, there is growing list of experts who are more than willing to go on the record and call the documents false.

Many journalists cited experts who did not want to be identified. Although they believed CBS's documents were frauds, we did not include them because we would be as shoddy as CBS News to include anonymous information.

RatherBiased.com lists some of these experts in the field:

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines, quoted on MSNBC.com, the Associated Press, and many other news organizations.

"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 �'11th 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."

She has added something else. According to the Associated Press, "Lines said that meant she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."

[zigzag]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
It'll be OK, zigzag.

roger left me speechless.

[stupendousman]

So let's see....

MOST experts believe that while it's POSSIBLE to have made documents like those shown in the very early 70's (with extremely high-end, specialized typewriters designed with components meant for typesetting, not normal document creation by low-end military officials), it's highly unlikely. Even pointing to documents which where professionally typeset in the 70's which were designed for the Military showing similar characteristics do not make it any more likely that a low-level state national guard official would be using such equipment.

His son says they are forged.

His wife says they are forged and he didn't type memos like that.

A friend who worked with him for years say they were forged and he didn't type memos like that.

A guy CBS News claims authenticated the content of the documents, who was Killian's supervisor says that they lied to him and told him the notes where handwritten, authenticated, and he in reply told them that if those where the circumstances, then the content surely reflected his feelings. A FAR CRY from what Dan Rather dishonestly reported.

The guy the memos claim was excerting pressure on Killian, who Bush first sought for Guard duty HAD RETIRED by the time the memo was dated, and had no power over Killian.

Barnes, the guy Rather interviewed, had told his daughter that he did NOTHING to help Bush, but since he was a Kerry supporter, he was going to do what he had to do. He's changed his story a handfull of times and admits that Bush nor his father made any attempt to get special treatment. He only mentions what he said to people who are dead, who can't rebut his claims.

CBS won't say who they got the memos from.

Dan ought to look in the mirror...and wipe the egg off his face. He hasn't let a situation involving the Bush's cause him so much embarassment since President Bush spanked him on national television for flaking out for 7 minutes during a live news broadcast. You would have thought he learned his lesson back then.

Too funny...seeing the desperate Democrats implode.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Zimphire:

I think you mean it's pretty clear to those who want it to be true. There is absolutely not backing to such claims. It's 100% baseless. [/B]

"The [Bush] administration has squandered the opportunity to eliminate alQaeda...A new al Queada has emerged and is growing stronger, in part because of our own actions and inactions. It is in many ways a tougher opponent than the original threat we faced before September 11, and we are not doing what is necessary to make America safe from that threat."

Richard Clarke, former Counterterrorism Czar for the Clinton and Bush Administrations

[Zimphire]

You just quoted Richard Clarke. One of the biggest Leftist shills of the past 3 years.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
It'll be OK, zigzag.

In four more years Dubya will hit his term limit.

edited: well, 4 years and 4 months.

By then, most of the anti-Bush crowd will have graduated highschool and found jobs and turned into conservative Republicans.

Maybe not as many as you'd think.

The Bush administration has very quietly planed a selective service draft in the next year or so.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
The Bush administration has very quietly planed a selective service draft in the next year or so.

Really? Got proof?

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
Maybe not as many as you'd think.

The Bush administration has very quietly planed a selective service draft in the next year or so.

Yeah. right. Care to Back that up�?

[CreepingDeth]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Really? Got proof?

Of course not. As Lerk would say, it's another prong in the attack.
A draft? Yeah, right. Art Bell say this?

[PacHead]

Actually, I remember that democrat Charles Rangel from NY calling for the draft !

Conclusion: Don't vote Dem !

The left always seems to shoot themself in the foot. They assert something ridiculous, then it turns out it is THEIR OWN SIDE, that is calling for the very things they are attempting to blame on others !