I have assembled detailed instructions on how to recreate these documents (it don't take much), millimeter for millimeter on your own PC with Microsoft Word. I find this laughable that this is still an issue. The odds of words wrapping on four different memos written in 1972 with the same wrapping as found in Microsoft Word defies all odds. Take into account the centering, the line up of the date with the words above and below them and there can be no doubt these are forgeries.

http://ralphsgarage.motime.com/1094804035#337577

This isn't entirely related... I just want to repeat that you are, in fact, the man.

Econopundit (econopundit.com) has a comparison of the proportional selectric font and the questioned document font. They do not match.

Has anyone bothered to find out what was in that office's inventory as far as typewriters are concerned at that time?

If that office had a typewriter of that magnitude/expense, it should be listed in the inventory records.

Could the Composer produce the superscript "th"? I imagine the answer is probably yes, but I just wanted to ask.

I'm sure the NYT is asking questions designed to ellicit "hem-and-haw" responses.

"Don't you think it's possible that there was a ...." to which Bouffard would have to say, "well, yes, it's possible ..."

Classic "Law and Order" cross-examination techniques. Of course, the times will have a hard time explaining away Elliot's own son discounting the documents.

BTW, check out my poster for the CBS News documentary?

http://arguewithsigns.net/mt/archives/002182.html

I've heard dozens of people replicate this memo with MS Word... I don't know of anyone who has been able to replicate it using the Selectric IBM, what-ever-it-is typewriter from that era.

Doh! Elliot = Killian!

Do you have any idea how difficult it was to use the IBM Selectric Composer? There is no way it was used to draft brief memos like this.

Even more proof!--I've done some checking and have evidence that Dan Rather had forged reports from Alexander Hamilton Junior High. What was clearly an "F" was altered to look like an "A" I have a preliminary interview with Hamilton Middle School principal, Roger A. Bunnell who said, "An 'F' turns into a 'B' so easily, Rather just got greedy."

The IBM Composer was not a "Selectric" at all; it was one of the first "cold type" machines that replaced old-fashioned Linotype hot-lead machines.

It was certainly capable of making the superscripted 'th', along with anything else you've ever seen on a page.

It was also about as hard to use as a Linotype machine. If I recall correctly, it was a two or four-week training session to teach a skilled newspaper compositor to use the damned thing.

They also cost $20,000. My folks' house cost $21,000 in 1968.

The Texas ANG did not have an IBM Composer in the office of some squadron commander.

This is a repost. But this donnybrook is running faster than the bulls in Italy.

"You Idiots! ...Didn't you check this out before we aired it? Am I surrounded by brain dead Zombies, or what?"......

Maybe there's still a few Eskimo's in the Yukon that any longer believe this whole Liberal press driven stink bomb is anything more than a sloppy hit job by the DNC pundummies, but no one with a working brain cell is buying this crap. And some of the bloggers are right on correct that at this point the questions should be spear tip focused on the AH's that propagated this mess and why. That old fart Harkin is standing there up to his flabby ass braving the onslaught of truth in advertising with a continued stream of indefensible talking points and outright lying inflammatory statements.

My question is where is the non-liberal media on this one. FOX is limp wristedly covering it, but very very cautiously, almost timidly. Someone in the major media needs to make as big a deal out of this obvious attempt to manipulate a National election with outright fraud, as the DNC was going to try to make out of the fraudulent charges in the first place.

We bloggers need to just keep after this and hammer and hammer till the press deals with it. We also need to keep asking where the hell is that form 180 release from Kerry for his full set of journals and war records. His own biographer now says he thinks that Kerry should quit hiding behind his staff and face the music. The Kerry campaign attack dogs keep turning a cold shoulder to all attempts to get this done. If we don't pick at the scab it will slip through the cracks.

The WH for their part is loving it. From the very beginning the Kerry fun bunch used the worst possible basis for Kerry's run, and Rove and company have kept them immersed in the non-issue quagmire. A textbook case of how to not win an election against a sitting incumbent. "W"rong candidate, "W"rong platform, "W"rong strategy.

At this point the evidence is overwhelming. Can't wait to see Ann "GOP hit gal" Coulters take on all this. ... Apparently this time around ..."The devil is in the superscript...."

My watch says 12:47 Eastern time, and CBS News has yet to post the name of its expert(s) on its website. Their silence is damning.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Reported on FOx a few minutes ago....

UPDATE: [CBS has issued a statement that they stand by their original reports and that they are convinced the documents are legitimate]...

Screw Killians Wife and Son and a gaggle of people and document experts ...What the hell would they know... Love the smell of panicky Liberals in the morning....sounds of shuffling deck chairs on the Political Titanic..

"IBM also introduced the Selectric Composer machine, a machine offering proportional spaced fonts, automatic line justification, and adjustable letter and word spacing (but not pair kerning) in 1961."

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/profirst/t.htm

More general info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter

The only proportional spacing typewriter in relatively common use (and merely expensive, not the price of a house) was the IBM Executive. I used one in 1973, it was 10-15 years old then, so the technology was around. It did not have kerning, as experts have pointed out, and apparently the font has significant differences with that in the memo. I don't recall it having superscript "th" or a curved ' symbol. Even the quote marks were not the curved style you see in New Times Roman or composed books before computers. The Executive was also rather tricky to use for an experienced typists, it would have been a nightmare for a non-typist (as Killian's wife said he was): virtually impossible to have typed memos without errors, even with correcting tape.

The important point regarding "curve apostrophes, or quote marks" is that typewriter keyboards, and computer keyboards for that matter, only have ONE key for inserting apostrophes or quotes. Typists were, and "key-boarders" are, trained to always use the same key for inserting either a left or right curved quote or apostrophe --- the software takes care of deciding which to insert. One could, in theory, have another key assigned to type, say the "left hand"
single or double quote (since you'd probably retain the normal location of rhe right hand apostrophe), but it would be an expensive custom job, and you'd have to train your typist to use it.

There was also a device called a "typit" that allowed you to insert a special character mounted on a little "paddle like" handle into a special holder on the platen of your typewriter. I've still got mine and used it for typing various foreign language symbols, and engineering formula symbols, but unless you had such a need it was PIA to use. I believe that left and right curved apostrophes and quotes were part of the set of custom characters you could buy, BUT I don't know of anyone who actually used them. It's a REAL stretch to think that such a device would have been in use in a "normal office" in the TANG, and that, even if it were available, one would bother to use it in a normal memo when the standard keyboard straight apostrophe or quote would work just fine.

looks like a symbol to me.

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