I think at this point just the fact that an MS Word version perfectly aligns with the CBS docs pretty much proves the fact that these docs are false.

I wonder if any math whiz could calculate the odds of a typewriter perfectly matching the horizontal and vertical spacing, the perfect centering, and other characteristics in MS Word.

Even using a different word processor program than Word produces slightly different results.

Right now the story has broken through somewhat into the MSM, but the battle it to have it crash through, with it becoming accepted knowledge that the CBS docs and the entire story was a fraud.

I agree with what "Another Thought" just wrote, but I'd like to add that the information I read on a CLOWNPOSSE thread earlier this morning -- http://www.clownposse.org/forum/news.asp?news_id=203 -- is really, really interesting. To the effect that the wording in the alleged "memo" from the alleged Lt. Col. Killian literally mirrors the accusations that are published on the Kerry website from a while ago, about Bush's military record.

Certainly indicates that there's a group or at least a commisserating "knowledge" sharing -- so what is it, across time and space, if we are to believe CBS and apologists. More likely, is that the DNC/someone closely related/Kerry/general pool of contributors created the false Lt. Col. Killian "document" and then managed to get CBS to participate in their charade. Or, if CBS is blameless, they're certainly foolishly inept. I don't know which is worse, where CBS is concerned, but I do know that this is very, very nasty stuff from the Democrats.

I think they're now in a position where they're going to have to prove the copy on the Kerry website in relationship to the CBS Rathergate "memo." Among other things. No one at this point will even begin to accept some "synchronicity" claim.

So far, all of the MSM stories I've read have been along the lines of "Yeah, we know the memos 'might' be fake, but we still think they're true because they tell us what we want to hear".

"I wonder if any math whiz could calculate the odds of a typewriter perfectly matching the horizontal and vertical spacing, the perfect centering, and other characteristics in MS Word."

To a math whiz, "perfectly matching" would mean precisely that. 99.9% isn't perfect. In this case the main problem is that the fonts don't look quite like Times New Roman - compare Baskerville for example. The "M" looks too crude to be computer-generated, the "Y" is too wide at the top; and the characters hop up and down in a way modern type doesn't.

Really, you need to see the best copy available (even CBS hasn't seen the originals)and, more importantly, you need to know the provenance of the documents to form a judgement. It is quite likely they were forged, but very unlikely that the forger was silly enough to try pawning off a laser-printed MS Word document. Some of the details (eg TANG procedures) were obviously researched, so you can be pretty sure the technology was.

Keep an open mind.

Here's an expert in the field that has weighed in unequivicably.

His bona fides are, to borrow a term from CBS, unimpeachable.

His analysis totally destroys Rather:

eh... here's the link: http://www.flounder.com/bush.htm

Oh, by the way, I found that by way of Beldar @ http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/

Another Thought, mathematically, the probability is 0.0000001% or so.

Normal people call that zero.
It isn't calculable without knowing a whole lot of things that we no one has tracked down quite yet.

1) Total number of monospaced typewriters produced before 1973.
2) Total number of proportional typewriters produced before 1973.
3) Number of each purchased by the US government (TXANG inventory lists would be better).

There's a statement by someone from the TXANG who reports there was no fancy typewriter 'We had a manual'.

There's a statement by his wife to the effect that he didn't use a typewriter, let alone own a personal one.

You combine those statements and you end up at 'zero'. The only other feasible ways (not plausible, _feasible_) would be if it were professionally printed, or if a group of monks hand painted it. (The pre-Gutenburg method.)

Most of the memos at unit level don't even look _that_ good.

And this was typed on a monospacing typewriter with conventional typewriter quotation marks and 11-point or so line spacing (13-point in Word).

Mathematical likelihood? Zero, or a number exquisitely close to it. You see, even within variants of nominally the same typeface, the precise metrics differ. Linotype and Monotype versions of Times New Roman are subtly different, but the difference is enough to detect with the CBS forgeries. The overlay approach of comparing the documents is dispositive. Microsoft's TrueType version of TNR was specially commissioned by them in 1991. Monotype delivered it in 1992. It was a specially tweaked version intended to render very well on computer displays, and had (slightly, but significantly) different metrics from pre-existing versions. In other words, not only are the CBS memos impossible plausibly to replicate with 1970's technology, you couldn't even produce them in Microsoft Word itself prior to 1992. The mere existence of Times New Roman in 1972 (or 1932, for that matter) is utterly irrelevant.

09/13/2004
1245 hrs

This issue has been slammed around like a tennis ball in a grudge match between the Williams sisters and the Russian babes. The effects are absolutely dizzying. The issue of being forged is in and of itself a serious one, and remembering the lack of compelling necessity of the events leading to Watergate, certainly felonious (in its own right) as well.

Coming back to the issue of the memo’s assertion is my concern. A nonserving civilian’s (and perhaps more than a few who HAVE served) mental, visual picture of the line “…disobeying a DIRECT order” is summoned from any number of Hollywood representations that are out there and they have seen. To them, it is a representation of fact as to what, perhaps they THINK military culture, and day to day interpersonal reactions within it are or should be.

Pick your own example, there are tons available. I will mention two, for no particular reason other than they jump out in my mind for entirely unrelated reasons, but its not hard to cut and paste any one of several scenes that civilians have seen to apply disparagingly (its their imagination and "THEY" are trying to justify a preconceived belief system) to GW. “An Officer and a Gentleman”—visualize one of the (several, I think) scenes where the Lou Gossett character is up in the face of that played by Richard Geer, with alla that loud testosterone laden, mine is bigger than yours subtext going on, or “Top Gun.”

I have argued in the past (unrelatedly) that these two movies, released as close together as they were after the Vietnam war, the Carter Presidency (Deset One/Iran) the Reagan Election were the cornerstones of making a career in the military fashionable, if not respectable again. Those “kewl” white uniforms and the ‘swoony’ music (repeated in the 90’s with “A Few Good Men”) coupled with the near doubling of pay and funding offered by Reagan after over a decade of abuse and neglect was followed by “Top Gun”, after which recruitment became a “buyer's market” for the military, to include EVEN the Marine Corps. I will leave the critique of their cinematic merits (if any) to others who believe themselves qualified. I thought then they were so much teen aged fluff, but then, that was their target demographic, wasn’t it?? It just happened to be the same one military recruitment has historically been after. I know this as a personal fact, as I was attempting to reenter the Active service as a “prior service” enlisted man after GI bill funded college as a commissioned officer. There is an institutional “prejudice” (or was at the time) in favor of the “young and naïve” and I could elaborate elsewheres on that if you were interested.

But I digress on a tangential tear. The point of fact is, this was an administrative directive, written in what the Army now calls a Memorandum for Record in a DF (Disposition Form) format. I got those same kind of “memos” handed out at “Guardmount” by my flight chief to advise/remind me of an upcoming dental appointment, etc., for crying out loud. Its not as if one could miss them with impunity, and yes, you COULD get slapped (administratively) relatively hard for missing just one, but it generally depended on whether or not, you were on someone’s shitlist in the S-1 or S-3 areas.

And I WAS in the USAF just after THAT time period. It was very common for the Hospital Squadron’s admin section to schedule routine “maintenance checks” in this fashion (I realize the format is being ragingly debated)—the letters would be generated, Xeroxed, a copy of those were batched, sent to the “supported” Squadron’s Admin area, which were distributed ultimately to the Flight Chief, who passed it out along with other “distribution” at the start of shift. I can’t honestly recall if a copy automatically ended up in my “201” file (I realize that’s an Army term, don’t recall the USAF one for a “personnel jacket”-- my only defense since 1980 has been, I made a wrong turn outside the gate of the Airbase, and you tend to get dumber as you get older…) BUT IF IT DID, it would have been pulled at your next “Records Review” which was performed at a CONSOLIDATED Base personnel Office (CBPO) at which you most likely threw these along with the sheaf you collected with them into the shred box at the clerk’s feet (because he wasn’t allowed to). You were notified of those records checks in the same fashion, and I think, they were twice a year, but perhaps they were annual.

Now look at the other items…the Guard and Reserve system in the 70’s (and up to the eve of Desert Storm in some cases) have operated off of the Active component’s obsolete equipment castoffs since before I was born. Not only in terms of weapons systems, but TYPEWRITERS as well. They have two days (Saturday and Sunday) a month to get things done over and above required “job” training and practice”. I defy ANYONE TODAY to walk into any hospital, military or otherwise and be successful in scheduling, let alone accomplishing a routine cleaning, xray or physical on a weekend. Given the context of the times, alluded to by others elsewheres throughout these blogs, missing (or no showing) a scheduled physical-- ESPECIALLY IN THE RESERVE SYSTEM-- is not only likely; I would submit that a high number of misses were expected AND PLANNED FOR. If you are on Active duty, and aspire to be a CSM or wear stars, something as minor and niggling as punctuality is a legitimate concern, I suppose, but in your 5th year of a 6 year commitment during a draw down cycle at the end of a major, unpopular conflict…..and yet they persist with the screaming headlines, like a DI standing nose to nose with their public, barking at us (with the same obvious regard that visual image conjures)

Help ease the pain of dying, kill the dinosaurs & hurry up, so their carcasses can rot and decompose sooner-- we need the oil.

And your little dog too, Dorothy….