Bush documents faked?

Originally Posted by wolf

in re: Clinton ...

Bosnia and Somalia spring immediately to mind.

Edited to add:

Looks like the Brookings Institute already did the math for me, at least in part.

There you go. I had completely forgotten about Bosnia. Still I don't think either Bosnia or Somalia were of quite the same magnitude as the Gulf. Will check out your Brookings Institute link. Thanks.

Just now checked the figures and what I found was 0 Bosnia, 43 Somalia. These figures do not come from some leftie web site, but one that claims to be Republican/ Libertarian:
http://www.insultsunpunished.com/arc...lties-in-iraq/

I think you're compairing apples with oranges, Wolf. In my humble opinion.

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by marichiko

There you go. I had completely forgotten about Bosnia. Still I don't think either Bosnia or Somalia were of quite the same magnitude as the Gulf. Will check out your Brookings Institute link. Thanks.

clinton liked to send "peace keeping forces" all over the world so that nobody realized we were shooting at people. if it ended up in the news and didn't poll well he pulled us out. a lot of haitians and skinnies ended up dead in our "non combat" operations.

[Undertoad]

The forgery story continues and it's fascinating. I am now utterly 100% convinced of the fakery.

This explanation from a pioneer in desktop publishing goes into great detail about fonts and pseudo-kerning to explain why the memos were definitely (and obviously, to the expert eye) produced on a Windows-based computer. And then he points out Occam's razor and how deadly it is in this case...

So we have the following two hypotheses contending for describing the memos

* Attempts to recreate the memos using Microsoft Word and Times New Roman produce images so close that even taking into account the fact that the image we were able to download from the CBS site has been copied, scanned, downloaded, and reprinted, the errors between the "authentic" document and a file created by anyone using Microsoft word are virtually indistinguishable.
* The font existed in 1972; there were technologies in 1972 that could, with elaborate effort, reproduce these memos, and these technologies and the skills to use them were used by someone who, by testimony of his own family, never typed anything, in an office that for all its other documents appears to have used ordinary monospaced typewriters, and therefore this unlikely juxtaposition of technologies and location coincided just long enough to produce these four memos on 04-May-1972, 18-May-1972, 01-August-1972, and 18-August-1973.

Which one do you think is true? Which one would a 13th-century philosopher think made sense? How many totally unlikely other juxtapositions are expected to be true? How could anyone believe these memos are other than incompetent forgeries?

The hoax itself says nothing about the politics involved, nothing about Bush, Kerry or either of their campaigns. It says a TON about CBS News, Dan Rather, and the nature of the collective wisdom of the Internet. CBS claimed the documents to be honest from day one, and faced with evidence they were bogus, a CBS News exec attacked the bloggers.

Mr. Klein dismissed the bloggers who are raising questions about the authenticity of the memos: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at '60 Minutes'] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

The top people at CBS News do not even understand the process. 10,000 guys in pajamas are far smarter than '60 Minutes'. It's not the bloggers themselves that have the ability to fact-check things; it's the collective wisdom of the Internet, in which if you bring together a community and let them communicate well, you will find a tremendous amount of expertise.

So today James Lileks uses this image to open his daily Bleat. And I think, but I'm not sure, that the typeface he uses is an IBM Selectric Composer's proportional font, perhaps even the one closest to, but not exactly, Times New Roman.

[iamthewalrus109]

In reference to this controversy, ie. the 60 minutes II debacle, the talk of forgery only helps the Bush camp legitimize his service even more. With the prospect of these documents being fakes, it takes away from the fact that he skipped service in Vietnam. Now it makes him look almost vindicated if these documents turn out to be forgeries. No matter that the Maj. General in charge of the unit at the time said he at least filled the minimum of his duties at the time in question, that in and of itself is an indictment of his service. He was given a cushy assignment during a standing draft, and still did the least he could do, and we're not even sure of that. The point stands, his daddy got him in someplace that would keep him out of harm's way, and an honorable discharge means nothing, if the possiblity exisits that patronage, and favortism played a part in the writing of these reports. Concocting, poorly created forgeries is a foolish move, if in fact they are forgeries, it's a point for Bush, if not two. I regret to say that with only a small number of weeks remaning in this election, the major issues, barring fear, have been left to the wayside, and we as voters, bloggers, and Americans are also to blame.
Let us fight to discuss that which ails this great land.

-Walrus

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus109

and an honorable discharge means nothing, if the possiblity exisits that patronage, and favortism played a part in the writing of these reports.

If an honorable discharge can be questionned, than so can medals. Either both are allowed, or neither.

Let us fight to discuss that which ails this great land.

We're correcting one of its main ails, the mainstream media as arbiters of what is news and not and what is forgery and not.

[iamthewalrus109]

An honorable discharge from the Air national guard based upon administrative reports is a little different than a collection of reports in issuance of a medal. Conflicting accounts of combat are a little different than evaluation reports and summaries filed by a handful of military desk jockeys, but your right, you can call some of Kerry's medals into question, undobutely, at least it's a question of his valour in combat as oppossed to his attendence to flight trainings and logging air time.

- Walrus

PS: Questioning the mainstream media on the forgery issue is semantics. The issue should be acknowledged as parlor games, sumarily dismissed once a full review is done, and the dialouge needs to focus on briging these so called leaders, including the mainstream media, to task for today's real problems. Your right we should be questioning the media, but having a row about forgeries is doing nothing but shifting attention.

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus109

In reference to this controversy, ie. the 60 minutes II debacle, the talk of forgery only helps the Bush camp legitimize his service even more. With the prospect of these documents being fakes, it takes away from the fact that he skipped service in Vietnam. Now it makes him look almost vindicated if these documents turn out to be forgeries. No matter that the Maj. General in charge of the unit at the time said he at least filled the minimum of his duties at the time in question, that in and of itself is an indictment of his service. He was given a cushy assignment during a standing draft, and still did the least he could do, and we're not even sure of that. The point stands, his daddy got him in someplace that would keep him out of harm's way, and an honorable discharge means nothing, if the possiblity exisits that patronage, and favortism played a part in the writing of these reports. Concocting, poorly created forgeries is a foolish move, if in fact they are forgeries, it's a point for Bush, if not two. I regret to say that with only a small number of weeks remaning in this election, the major issues, barring fear, have been left to the wayside, and we as voters, bloggers, and Americans are also to blame.
Let us fight to discuss that which ails this great land.

-Walrus

Well said, Walrus, and I could not agree with you more. We have two facts: Kerry served in the active duty military and went to Vietnam. Bush took the rich boy's out and hid out in the National Guard for the duration. These are the two things we should be looking at when considering the character of the two men. Our nation faces many difficult issues. These are what we should be discussing, not some trivial details about type fonts.

[Undertoad]

The Washington Post says (reg. req'd) that CBS's lead expert did not authenticate the memos. Their other expert already weighed in and said they are fakes.

CBS News is stonewalling and now righties are speculating about why they would stonewall. This is the reasoning, they say, that this story should continue to have legs: if the memos are fake, CBS has no journalistic issue that prevents it from naming its source. In fact, at that point it actually may have a responsibility to talk about its source. If the source turns out to be interesting - say, the Kerry Campaign or the DNC or such - it has massive political implications, of course.

So they may be trying to figure out whether they can ride out the storm, or if they can't, whose heads have to take the damage or what approach leads to the least residual damage.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The Washington Post ... if the memos are fake, CBS has no journalistic issue that prevents it from naming its source. In fact, at that point it actually may have a responsibility to talk about its source. If the source turns out to be interesting - say, the Kerry Campaign or the DNC or such - it has massive political implications, of course.

If the CBS report is true, then the campaign has deflected another example of what George Jr is. His failure to complete his duty is consistent with his long carrer of accomplishing nothing, but getting rich in the process. He never once ran a successful company. But substancial money paid for his substancial drinking. This when a respectful man would have instead been learning how the world works.

This president does not make his own decisions. He just sat there in a FL classroom waiting for someone to tell him what to do while America was under attack. Secret Service finally lost patience and demanded Air Force One depart FL without a destination. Why? George Jr could not contact Cheney to be told where to go. George Jr even needed Cheney beside him to testify before the 9/11 Commission.

All Principal's meetings are preceded with a schedule that says who will speak, for how long, and what he will tell the president. Decisions already having been made by a political staff based upon ideology. When does George Jr first learn the facts; ask critically important questions; challenge conventional wisdom; do what any decent leader does? George Jr never asks questions. Kennedy did just that - ask questions - even of the powerful Curtis LeMay during a Cuban Missile crisis. Therefore we exist.

Blame CBS so we don't have to deal with one reality. George Jr is a neocon front man. He does not make decisions. He does not even read his own memos. He is told what to think. This being consistent with how he did military service - given special consideration - protected from the Vietnam War when his unit might have been deployed - free to not appear for duty in the Alabama National Guard. CBS is really secondary to the story. George Jr is not a leader. He is a front man for a group of very smart ideologues. Someone who even got out of possible deployment to Vietnam. All this is known even without those CBS memos.

[glatt]

two points:
1) I was not convinced these were fakes until I read the Washington Post this morning and saw two memos, side-by-side, from a few months apart. One was known to be real, and was obviously typewritten. It was a different font, and had normal spacing. The officer's signature looked different to even my untrained eye. The other looked like it came of a computer. I was keeping an open mind before, but there's no question in my mind now. These are obviously fakes.

2) It's really not all that relevant to who will make a better President. It's interesting, sure, but we need to keep our eye on the ball. The only question that matters is "will the future for America be better with Bush or Kerry as president?"

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ironic, not funny.

One of my favorate bumper stickers: "Deserters should not be allowed to start wars"

[flippant]

Sounds like most of you are growing weary of the ground zero ink blot test. Way to go!!Certainly a great way to run a propaganda machine. No way to run a country.