WP: Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush

[dennis4868]

Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.

The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to drill."

The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who saw them "at the time they were written."

more.....http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9967-2004Sep9?language=printer

all these fucking experts jumping on the Bush bandwagon....SO IS THE TANG STORY DEAD because all these experts are now coming forward questioning the authenticity of the docs? Hope not...

[maine_raptor]

1. This is another one of those

"Some People Say" thingmies.

Experts consulted, etc.

What ever happened to people willing to be quoted?

[lazarus]

2. "all these fucking experts..."

Two, actually.

As Krugman said, we're veering closer and closer to the headline: "Shape of Earth; Views Differ".

[althecat]

3. Interesting WP is now an official outlet for Freeper Nut Job theories

[dennis4868]

5. they have done more investigative reporting on the possible forgery....

than they did in 2 years of Bush's lies leading up to the war....crazy!

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Given the reputation of 60 minutes

I doubt they would jeopordize it without first thoroughly analyzing the documents. I agree that it's a "some people say". Too bad WP is taking the bait.

[dennis4868]

6. plus you can get experts....

to say what you want if you pay the price...

[Norquist Nemesis]

9. That's a pretty big price they'll pay

if that's what you're insinuating...that 60 minuts paid experts to say the docs are on the up and up. This was too big of a story for them to risk their reputation on paying experts to back up lies, IMO.

[dennis4868]

10. no no.....

i am talking about the wash. post paying an expert to say what they want to hear so they can have a story....

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Gotcha!

You may be right about that. They might have also gotten the info for free on a reference from one their 'un-named sources' at the WH. :)

[Guaranteed]

7. Yeah...WE GET IT.

One problem:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9967-2004Sep9.html

< snip >

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said that a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine in Texas.

[renotyme]

12. regardless if he actually wrote it... he THOUGHT it!!!

yes, this is the proof we were looking for.
dumbya's goose is cooked now.

[aquart]

8. Depends on how pissed off CBS is and at whom.

CBS should have nailed down the machines used to type the damn things.
Putting the documents online to be scrutinized MEANT they would be scrutinized...and Bush people would have been idiots if they DID NOT jump on the superscript.

IBM can answer this. Have they been asked?

[lazarus]

13. Yeah, no way this existed back then

[shraby]

14. I have one of those typewriters..electric

but it has no ball. It is a simple matter to roll the sheet a bit to put superscript in. Also if the originals have indentations where the letters are, that would preclude a wordprocessor or computer.

[SoCalDemocrat]

15. It's easier than that my friend

I learned to type on one of these. The IBM Selectric II has superscript capability. It was widely available by 1972. Don't let Drudge fool you.

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


The Selectric typewriter was first released in 1961 and is generally considered to be a design classic. After the Selectric II was introduced a few years later, the original design was designated the Selectric I. The Correcting Selectric II differed from the Selectric I in many respects:

The Selectric II was squarer at the corners, whereas the Selectric I was rounder.

The Selectric II had a Dual Pitch option to allow it to be switched (with a lever at the top left of the "carriage") between 10 and 12 characters per inch, whereas the Selectric I had one fixed "pitch".

The Selectric II had a lever (at the top left of the "carriage") that allowed characters to be shifted up to a half space to the left (for inserting a word one character longer or shorter in place of a deleted mistake), whereas the Selectric I did not.

The Selectric II had optional auto-correction (with the extra key at the bottom right of the keyboard), whereas the Selectric I did not. (The white correction tape was at the left of the typeball and its orange take-up spool at the right of the typeball.)

The Selectric II had a lever (above the right platen knob) that would allow the platen to be turned freely but return to the same vertical line (for inserting such symbols as subscripts and superscripts), whereas the Selectric I did not.

[Stephanie]

16. This came straight from Freeperville!

They came up with this story. There was a thread here about how they were examining the font and stuff.