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  •  Ugh (4.00 / 3)

    Unfortunately, the author of that (Michael Dobbs, who is the same author as this piece attempting to make Burkett look like a complete nutcase, by among other things conveniently leaving out all the people who did corroborate Burkett's story) still persists in propagating some of the fundamental talking points we have repeatedly proven false.

    To wit:

    "Superscript: Difficult for 1972 typewriters.  No superscript in official documents."  Two sentences, both flatly wrong.

    "Kerning".  Ugh, this again?  Nothing about those documents shows "kerning," that's been proven repeatedly.  Where is this journalist getting his information?

    Some of his other points are just... odd.  "The CBS documents have a period after "Lt.", Texas Air National Guard documents do not."  Huh?  I have to say, from a relative who was in procurement in the military; blanket assertions that the military does or doesn't type things in a certain way are probably not likely to be your best arguments.  That's a level of mastery of the human mind that even our military can only aspire towards.

    I don't know Michael Dobbs' past work, but based on these two pieces rife with misinformation and LGF-colored talking points, color me unimpressed.

    by Hunter on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:09:51 PM PDT

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    •  Again, (none / 1)

      Until we see the original documents and an exhaustive forensic analysis of their provenance and defining characteristics - paper, watermarks, impact marks (or not) from a typewriter, ink composition, paper composition (acidity, bond, pulp, cotton, etc), scratch marks from a pen...

      We cannot say that these documents are or are not forgeries.

      We CAN say that they differ from some othe documents in Bush's file...but then again, several of the documents in Bush's file are different from the other docs...

      We CAN say that the source of these documents leaves a bit to be desired in terms of reliability, believability, and credibility.

      We CAN say that we do not know the ORIGINAL source of the documents, since Burkett refuses to release or reveal that name.

      I remain stubbornly attached to this point:

      Until the original documents and the primary source are in hand and scrutinized properly, there can be no final conclusion

      The only way to ensure a free press is to own one

      by RedDan on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:26:21 PM PDT

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    •  That came out a bit too harsh... (4.00 / 2)

      As I said, I don't know much of Michael Dobbs, but a quick Google search doesn't show anything that would immediately qualify him as dishonest.  On one hand, he cowrote a he-said she-said piece on the CBS memos with Howard Kurtz, which is not likely to gain you many credibility points.  (The piece in question was the one that brought the Freeper's current patron saint of vaguely-credible-sounding-gibberish, Dr. Joseph Newcomer, into the mainstream media, on the strength of a basketful of (still) patently wrong assertions.)

      On the other hand, Dobbs is actually in quite a bit of trouble with the Freepers for daring to probe the accuracy of the Swift Boat Vet claims.  They hate him.  (What does it take to be hated in Freeperville?  Not much.)

      So I don't know anything about him as a reporter, needless to say, and it would be silly of me to pass judgment on that, but in this particular case, his story is resting on some known false talking points, which he has repeated several times now.

      by Hunter on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:28:41 PM PDT

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    •  Kerning on a typewriter (none / 1)

      If you needed to kern on a selectric typewriter, you would manually push the ball back and hit the key.  Slipping an 'i' in 'significant' would have been very easy to do and saved re-typing the entire memo.

      It would make sense that if the regular secretary didn't type these memos, someone higher would have done it.  A higher secretary would have had proportional font typewriter, which were much harder to use but looked so much better.  She also would have been unaware of the styles used by production typists.

      You just have to see the originals to know.

      by 88kathy on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 02:28:35 AM PDT

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      •  Format errors (none / 0)

        I've always thought the formatting errors could have been a result of Killian typing the documents himself. It is clear he was a poor typist, but I don't think anyone has claimed he completely lacked the ability to type.

        I don't know if this accounts for all of the "mistakes" in the WaPo example, but it seems to be a possiblity that was prematurely discarded.

        Kudos to Hunter and Red Dan for sticking with a very determined assault by the Freepers and the SCLM on the truth.

        Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

        by JollyBuddah on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:01:39 AM PDT

        [ Parent ]

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