TANG Typewriter Follies VI: Conclusion. Maybe.

We have the tentative beginnings of an endgame on the TANG memo "forgery" discussion.  From the New York Times

CBS News said today that a former Texas National Guard officer had "deliberately misled" the network in its inquiry into President Bush's National Guard service by providing "a false account" of the origins of documents used to reinforce questions raised about Mr. Bush's activities three decades ago.

"Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report," the president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, said in a statement issued by the network. "We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."

The network said the former Army National Guard officer, Bill Burkett, had "acknowledged that he provided the now disputed documents" and that he "admits he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

"Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman," the CBS statement said. "Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point."

...

Mr. Burkett, 55, whom colleagues call a stickler for rules, fell out with senior commanders in the late 1990's and ended up suing the Guard and its leaders. He also became disillusioned with Mr. Bush, who he said was not supporting needed reforms in the Guard.

The bitterness, he later said, moved him to go public with what he said he witnessed one night in Austin in 1997, while Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas. Mr. Burkett said that commanders, who were in touch with Mr. Bush's political advisers, had left documents in the trash while sanitizing the governor's service records.

An officer who served with Mr. Burkett, Dennis Adams, recently said that Mr. Burkett had told him of the incident "and that some of the things in the trash were pulled out."

"He never did say by whom," Mr. Adams added. "I don't have the foggiest idea what documents of any kind he ever had."

So it was indeed Burkett that provided these documents to CBS, and in all probability USA Today as well.  From here, the mystery will continue to unravel.  Where did Burkett get the documents?  Did he, as he said, obtain them from another Guardsman?  Did he pull them from the trash himself?  Are they entirely forged, and, if so, where did Burkett get the information contained in them, such that Killian's own secretary could verify that, although she did not type the memos, their contents were indeed genuine?

Hopefully, all these questions will be answered.  At this point, they must be answered; these four documents, while an ancillary part of the overall picture of Bush's Guard service, are now a story in and of themselves, and will be testimony, good or bad, to how modern journalism operates.  It is in CBS's interests to determine exactly what Burkett's source is, obviously; it is in everyone else's interests to beat CBS to the story, and report it before they do.

Nevertheless, is time for another summation, of sorts, because we have no idea how or when the rest of the story will eventually unfold.

First off, I have been asked in multiple places whether I still believe these memos are "genuine". I will answer here, for the record, again: I have no idea. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of these four (or six) memos; I can simply vouch for the quality, or lack thereof, of individual arguments that they are forged.  (Note that CBS itself is not arguing that they are "forgeries"; they are stating that they cannot vouch for the origin of the documents, and don't know either way.  That's a responsible position to take, and probably one they should have taken all along.)

As I have said before, this "Typewriter" series was founded on one simple premise.  The right-wing are liars.  They have been liars.  They will continue to be liars.  It is part and parcel of modern "movement" conservatism.  And, indeed, they were lying in this case as well, and continue to do so, and will probably continue until the day the Rapture, space aliens, or tainted Big Macs finally come to take them away.

The original "forgery!" cry was posted within hours of the original CBS airing of the documents in question, by a FreeRepublic poster called Buckhead.  The Los Angeles Times tracked him down:

It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service -- a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

 But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

...

Reached by telephone today, MacDougald, 46, confirmed that he is Buckhead, but declined to answer questions about his political background or how he knew so much about the CBS documents so fast.

"You can ask the questions but I'm not going to answer them," he told The Times. "I'm just going to stick to doing no interviews."

...

 "Freepers collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS," he wrote in an e-mail, using the slang term for users of the freerepublic site.

...

And MacDougald assisted in the group's legal challenge to the campaign finance law sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). The challenge, ultimately presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, was funded largely by the Southeastern Legal Foundation in conjunction with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the law's chief critic, and handled by former Clinton investigator Kenneth W. Starr.

Imagine that.  Rather than a swelling of blog power, the original "forgery" charges came, within four hours of the broadcast, from a conservative lawyer who had previously helped draft Arkansas Supreme Court petition to disbar Clinton and is involved in the legal challenges to McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.

Connected much, you think?

And, by the way, God help us all if this is what passes for the future of journalism -- what some conservative, anti-Clinton, anti-McCain-Feingold lawyer posts anonymously on a far-right website.

As we have shown in (God help us all, again) five separate posts, the argument for "forgery" advanced by Harry W. MacDougald was, even in the beginning, complete hokum.  From the original charges of proportionally spaced fonts came a raft of similar, completely ignorant charges.  Let's pause for a minute to examine, however, the stunning ignorance of MacDougald's statement:

Operating as "Buckhead," which is also the name of an upscale Atlanta neighborhood, MacDougald wrote that the memos that CBS' "60 Minutes" presented on Sept. 8 as being written in the early 1970s by the late Lt. Col Jerry B. Killian were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman."

"The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers," MacDougald wrote on the freerepublic website. "They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts."

This is the fount of genius we've been arguing against?  These few sentences of complete and utter crap, easily disproven after five minutes of online research?

Yes, actually.  From that ersatz conservative wisdom, and a subsequent post on LittleGreenFootballs showing that you could almost, but not quite, match the document in Microsoft Word, we were treated to a deluge of claims that, from the quality of the arguments, could only have come from people too new to this world to actually have been around before the advent of Microsoft Word.

From the FreeRepublic post, the theme was immediately jumped on by Powerline, another hard-right blog, which was helpfully tipped off by reader Liz MacDougald, citing the original FreeRepublic post by Harry MacDougald.  (What are the odds of that, you ask?)

From there, it went to Charles Johnson, host of the unapologetically racist and eliminationist LittleGreenFootballs site, who cleverly deduced that if you use a nearly identical font, of a nearly identical size, and with identical (standard) page margins, you will, lo and behold, get nearly-but-not-quite identical results.  Especially if you shrink it down small enough that the differences become difficult to see!

(As an aside, LittleGreenFootballs is the site that celebrated the death of American citizen and activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed when run over by an Israeli bulldozer while attempting to block the bulldozer from destroying Palestinian houses, by creating an award called "Idiotarian of the Year".  Read the comments to that thread for the hilarity of comparing said dead American ("St. IHOP", etc.) to a pancake in dozens of (repetitive) ways, as well as various suggestions on ways to celebrate, including sending a certificate to her family, whose address was listed in the comments.  Rather than a passing fancy, the celebration of the death of Rachel Corrie is a bit of an ongoing obsession at the site; a Google search of the site will direct you to a number of other posts on the subject.)

So, from Harry and Liz MacDougald and the brain trust of LittleGreenFootballs came a "forgery" argument that instantly passed the Drudge test of newsworthiness, in spite of being based entirely on fabricated information.  And by "fabricated", we mean provably false with only the minimal of required skills.

Did proportional type exist back in the dark ages of 1972?  Yes.

Did "Times New Roman" and similar fonts exist?  Yes.

Did superscript "th" characters exist?  Yes.

Could "centering" be accurately achieved on a typewriter?  Sigh.  Yes.

Could typists correctly determine where to wrap words so that they would not run over the margins of the page?  (What, are you stupid?)  Yes.

And so on, and so on, as each argument was shot down, and new ones arose to assert themselves.  That's it.  That was the crux of the argument.  Then we went from typeface to signatures, to what slang terms were or were not common during the Vietnam era, etc. etc.  And still, they were shot down.

After all of this, we are now left exactly where we were before.  Maybe the documents are real.  Maybe they are forged.  We know the circumstances they document did indeed happen, and we know, from sources that were around at the time, that Killian did have memos with these facts written down, for his own benefit.  The contribution from the far-right websites has been exactly nothing.  Lots of noise; no actual facts.

Let's be clear about this.  Racist sites like LGF, or extremist sites like FreeRepublic, will never constitute "fact-checkers" for journalism.  This is for one simple reason; what LGF or FreeRepublic does is not fact-based.  They seek to create facts, not discover them.  They start from a conclusion -- that our Dear Leader could never, ever have done anything wrong thirty years ago in the National Guard -- and then make up assertions to fit those conclusions.  And, because reporting hand-fed assertions is much easier then Looking It Up Your Fucking Self, they find ready enablers in the now downsized and still cost-cutting media.

We -- and by we, I mean not only we denizens of the Internet, but the "real media" -- at this point know the facts behind Bush's National Guard service.  For an extended period of time, while other young men were dying in Ira-- I mean, Vietnam -- he didn't show up.  He disobeyed orders, he sat on his Future Presidential Ass, and simply ignored his obligations.  While Kerry, by way of counterexample, has had his closest fellow veterans coming out of the woodwork to support his election efforts, and a phalanx of tangentially connected veterans currently mobilized to critize him, Bush can't even name anyone he served with in Alabama, much less produce anyone to similarly vouch for his character.  Hardly "Band of Brothers" material, that.  Apparently, for Bush, serving in the military during a time of war was essentially a home-study course.

As I said before, I have been asked multiple times whether I still am willing to "defend" the memos.  As I always have answered: yes and no.  What is important to me is to simply make sure my arguments are as clear and precise as I can make them, and let the facts come as they come.  Yes, I am willing to defend them, based on the absurd assertions the other side has set out.  It is true, however, that the memos may at some point prove to be complete hoaxes.  I simply do not know if the memos are genuine; at this point, nobody does.  But I do know that the rationalizations for the attacks against them are utterly baseless.  Whether the memos are forged or real has nothing to do with whether a collection of right-wing liars and blowhards simply declares them to be forged.

Some people have criticized other bloggers for their reaction to this story.  I certainly understand the hesitancy to stand between the whiny, insufferable force of a Freeper attack and the immovable object of mainstream media, and so I can understand not wanting to be involved.  But I also would have hoped that long before this story broke, we would have all been clear about the one truism when dealing with FreeRepublic, LittleGreenFootballs, and other far-far-right websites.  In short:

Don't.  Believe.  Freepers.

If you are going to cite facts touted by extremist websites, or their conduit, Matt Drudge, you at minimum should spend ten minutes of your time to determine whether those "facts" stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever before begrudgingly conceding your point to them.  I am a bit angry, yes; I am angry that, from our side, my critique of the forgery claims was nearly alone in the ranks of "first-tier" bloggers.  Kos deserves enormous credit for front-paging it -- but was my research and rebuttal really something that none of the other sites out there could have done?  And why was my rebuttal even necessary?  What the hell in the history of FreeRepublic or LGF made anyone think they should give their claims any credibility whatsoever?

I hope, then, that my motivation in fact-checking the far right allegations is not difficult to understand.  I cannot vouch for the ultimate authenticity of the memos; I can only vouch for the fact that the attacks on their veracity have continually come from fundamentally dishonest arguments, from predictably dishonest sources.

If this story has proven anything, it is that the mechanism of transmission of far-right rhetoric is stronger and faster than ever.  We have watched, repeatedly, over the last week as various right-wing sources have tried to dredge up various notions of how Kerry could be tied to the attacks on the President; this will no doubt continue, fueled by the same sources as the original "forgery" claims, and propped up with similar quantities of fabricated "evidence".  We shall see if they are met with more skepticism this time around.

Elsewhere in the news, however, the main story that CBS, the Boston Globe, USA Today, and other sources are reporting will likely continue to grow.  Bush has now been positively determined, by documents his own campaign has released, to have not been deserving of the honorary discharge he allegedly obtained.  The large and conspicuous gaps in Bush's records, and the not-terribly-coincidental 1997 sanitizing of those records by the Bush campaign and TANG officials, is very much back in the news, and serious questions are finally being asked about it.  A comprehensive review of Bush's records by a retired colonel includes charges that those records have in fact been tampered with.

More on these events later, perhaps; for now, this post, and this series, is long enough.

Previous entries in this series:
TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
TANG Typewriter Follies II
TANG Typewriter Follies III: Is it the Composer?
TANG Typewriter Follies IV
Tang Typewriter V: What CBS Knows

And you can see the single funniest comeback, from the right, to any of these posts here.

•  I hope

  ... that I've explained my reasoning adequately.  If not, at this point, it won't be for lack of trying.

  Please recommend, for people who have been following this series.  And please use these comments to put other TANG-memo links and happenings, so that we have an archive of current developments.
  

  by Hunter on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:14:09 PM PDT

  •  Well done...

    The documents have STILL not been proven to be forgeries.

    They have been shown to come from a suspect source.

    They have been shown to differ in significant detail from other period documents.

    But those two facts do NOT automatically make them forgeries.

    In order to answer these questions we need some answers:

    1. Who typed those documents?

    2. When?

    3. Where, and on what?

    4. Why?

    In short, either Burkett needs to come forward and reveal his source (or confess that HE is the source), or the MSM needs to actually get to work and find that source.

    They need the ORIGINAL documents to analyze the paper, the ink, to check for impact marks (typewriter) or toner (printer), to check for evidence of forgery (cutting and pasting signatures, for example)...

    ONLY after forensic specialists see the ORIGINAL documents and compare them to CORRELATIVE documents can forgery be proven.

    So, we need the original documents and the original source for those documents.

    If Burkett is a serious Dem Partisan who received those documents from a contact, he needs to reveal that contact's name. If he tried to help by forging those documents, he needs to confess.

    by RedDan on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:23:12 PM PDT

    •  But WaPo did put this up today

      linked text

      There are still plenty of questions.

      by JollyBuddah on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:27:50 PM PDT

      •  You apparently did not read my words as written

        
        The documents have STILL not been proven to be forgeries.

        They have been shown to differ in significant detail from other period documents.

        Do the CBS docs differ from other period documents?

        Yes, they do.

        Does that make them forgeries?

        No, it does not.

        Is there anything about those documents that makes it impossible for them to have been typed on a period typewriter?

        No.

        Is there anything about those documents that makes it impossible for Killian to have typed them himself?

        No.

        Does it remain possible that Killian re-typed them at a later date, and that his inexpertise as a typist is responsible for the differences between those docs and official TANG docs?

        Certainly.

        Listen very closely:

        Until the original documents are analysed by a forensic expert (paper and ink chemistry, paper condition, presence or absence of distinctive evidence for or against the use of a typewriter, etc), it will remain impossible to demonstrate that these are forgeries.

        As I said, there are significant differences between the CBS docs and the official TANG docs.

        Until the originals are analysed, and the source of those documents is revealed, it will remain impossible to determine their provenance and/or reliability.

        by RedDan on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:48:12 PM PDT

      •  Ugh

        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

        •  Again,

          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

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

        •  That came out a bit too harsh...

          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

        •  Kerning on a typewriter

          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

          •  Format errors

            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.

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

  •  Excellent summary !

    Why don't you now take on the issue of what the media should be writing about Bush's military service ?  

    Interest is waning here at Kos on the whole TXANG topic, and your perspective might well spark some new thinking.

    Thanks for your great series of posts on a truly unglamorous topic.

     

    by ftm on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:41:02 PM PDT

  •  best quote of the whole thing

    The last line of this mini-rant is the most perfectly wonderful and accurate thing I've read in any account of the mishmash.

    So it would appear that the "experts" quoted by the media are not only wrong, but astoundingly and easily provably wrong in their assertions.  I therefore have several questions which I would like to ask any media figures who wander this way.

    • What does it take to be considered a "document expert"?
      
    • How much does it pay?
      
    • Can you hire me to do it?
      
    • How 'bout reporter?  Do you have one of those yet?  'Cause fuck, it seems pretty easy.
      

    Exactly. I agree; for as much as I don't care about this "story" (and I really don't, believe me) it's pitiful that this set of diaries has been alone in sitting here proving major news organizations wrong and exposing the way they are using LGF as a crib sheet.

    Seriously, dude - you go after things that need destroying, and do a great job of it. Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, the typewriter follies... if you had a tip jar with real money I'd be tossing in tens.

    by drewthaler on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:47:31 PM PDT

  •  you're a bulldog, hunter

    keep it up.

    diary recommended.

    by x on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 03:19:09 AM PDT

  •  Hats off to Hunter

    For his peerless pertinacity in pursuit of the perfect paradigm.

    by CT Yankee on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 02:34:16 PM PDT

•  so essentially...

  the apology from CBS relates to method, rather than content?  But of course, questions about the method (whether valid or not) seem to reflect on the content?

  by billlaurelMD on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:24:42 PM PDT

  •  I'd say

    it doesn't have to be an "of course", but that such of courses provide opportunity to those who would like to discredit.

    It seems to me that the pile on of CBS is less an attempt for other journalists to "smear" their rivals (the pack mentality of journalism doesn't really lend itself to this kind of motivation) as much as a way for the rest of journalism to cover its butt for the status quo (see, this is why what we do really is "objective" or some such motivation).

    What this is, more than an attempt to smear the Kerry campaign (grasping at straws here, but attempting to recreate a parallel scenario to the SBVT smears and the Bush campaign in the minds of the electorate), is an attempt to chill the press toward deeper investigation of this issue.  If somebody set CBS up, they are doing so to send a message to the rest of the press.

    by a gilas girl on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 03:17:00 AM PDT

•  Thanks so much for your efforts, Hunter.

  It has been a fascinating saga from both the political perspective  and the perspective of books, papers and ephemera if your interested in that kind of thing.  (I am)  Absent any convincing evidence to the contrary, I continue to believe these papers are genuine..  

  I do wonder if there is a potential felony charge for the person who filched these papers, copied them, pulled them out of the trash or whatever.  Reason enhough to not come forward.  And I wonder if that was not Rove's calculation all along.

  Perhaps Dear Leader will provide a pardon so we can finally get to the bottom of this.  

  Thanks again.

  by NorCalJim on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:26:46 PM PDT

•  CBS

  I find it hard to believe that they didn't request to see the originals before running with it.  

  Excellent work.  I hope the focus of this story can finally shift from the docs to Bush's record.

  by eyeswideopen on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:32:30 PM PDT

•  Masterful

  One of the best efforts of investigative journalism that I have seen since Joe Conason and Gene Lyons were covering the Hunting of the President.  I, for one, appreciate your thoroughness and detail.

  by TarheelDem on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:33:08 PM PDT

•  One more point

  Everyone has been so busy examining these documents under a microscope, I don't believe anyone has really taken a step back and looked at the situation from afar. Here's what troubles me:

  Nobody has yet disputed the signature, which according to CBS's expert, is genuine. No one has accounted for the wavering baselines. Naturally, this kind of thing can be altered in Photoshop pretty easily, but only someone who understands typography would do so. So if this is a forgery, we can at least say that the forger went through a good deal of trouble to make this thing look perfec, by both reproducing the signature, and altering the baseline of the text. However, if someone was going to forge a document, and had the competence and ability to make it look as genuine as possible, why would he not just use a regular typewriter font like courier?

  When we start from the premise that these are forgeries, none of it adds up.

  by Zackpunk on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 08:56:33 PM PDT

  •  exactly

    That's the thing that's continually bothered me, and led me to think that the documents are indeed genuine. Now that CBS is unsure - note, they are not claiming they're forgeries at all, merely that they're not 100% confident in them any more - I find myself unsure too.

    But just like you, if I start with the premise that they're forged, I still find a lot of weird inconsistencies. Which again makes me feel that the simplest explanation (K.I.S.S.) is that they are real. I agree with your points. In fact, let's make them into a nice bulleted list:

    • The signatures appear genuine (there are two, actually one signature and one initial) and aren't a simple copy-and-paste from another document. At least, not in the documents I checked, and I'm sure some Freeper checked that out too. We sure as hell would've heard about it if it they tried and got a match.

    • The typeface seems too modern for anyone but a half-witted forger to use. Ironically, unlike the LGFers, this is what makes me think they're real... what kind of moron would actually use Word at default settings to create a fake memo from 1972?  Conversely, I know very well that Word tries pretty hard to be just like a typewriter on purpose, because people who used typewriters for a living have been a big and important market throughout most of Word's lifetime. (I don't know when the balance of the population shifted from typing to word processing, but my educated guess is at least 1994 or later, at which point Word had existed for a decade.) All of the concepts of word processing were lifted wholesale from typewriters - tab stops, line spacing, word wrap, etc. Yes, word wrap; it's something Word does automatically which typists always did manually from the sound of the ding.

    • There are lots of other ordinals which don't have superscripts. "1st" and "147th" and so on. In this document, one of the 111ths has a superscript, and one doesn't. If Word is in auto-superscripting mode, it would have done all of those unless manually overruled. So the hypothetical forger clearly was aware that the superscripts needed to be manually corrected, but just didn't bother to do every single one of them? That doesn't quite add up.

      A simpler explanation from typewriter days is that sometimes you remember to hit the 'th' superscript key, and sometimes you don't. If you've used typewriters without that key for years, I'm sure it's easy to skip when typing fast. A more modern example is typing two hyphens (--) instead of an em dash (—); unlike old DOS machines, your computer can almost certainly generate an em dash in a keystroke. If you're like me you may even know how to do it, and recognize that you should. But more than half the time I just don't do it out of force of habit.

    • The wandering baseline. The kind of forger who screws with the document to do that deliberately, whether in Photoshop or by photocopying the document over and over again, is not the kind of forger who would make a rookie mistake like the superscript or picking a clearly difficult to explain typeface.

      Wandering can be partly to completely explained by the generational copies and low resolution. It's definitely possible that all of it came from that, and the originals were crisp and clear with a flat baseline. But it's equally possible that it started out wandering and was simply exaggerated by the copies.

    • The lack of denial from Bush. Bush was the very last person on the forgery bandwagon, after even his wife, and in fact has never said they weren't true. Only two explanations make sense for this: (1) The documents were forged by one of his people for some purpose he approved of, eg to discredit Kerry, and he deliberately held back his denial to let it have the maximum effect. While pleasing to the conspiracy theorists, this really doesn't make strategic sense at all to me. Far better to let sleeping dogs lie and not bring it up yourself. (2) He knew they were real, or accurately described what happened, and didn't want to risk calling them fake only to have an unimpeachable source come out and catch him in a lie.

    I think this is just a case of the documents being "too real to be true". It's their very authenticity which is making people question them -- they were made on an IBM typewriter which had all the necessary features and was relatively state-of-the-art at the time. The past often surprises us like that... heck, I could show you graphics created by personal computers in 1985 that most people would never believe were real, because they were ahead of their time and the mainstream didn't catch up for a decade.

    by drewthaler on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:12:47 PM PDT

    •  And don't forget

      Numerous sources, including Killian's secretary confirmed the overall content of the memos as being generally reflective of his attitude at the time. It's almost as if the documents were "forged" by Killian himself. (There we go -- maybe these documents prove Killian is still alive!!)

      The way I feel about these memos is the way I feel about most conspiracy theories. Just as the laws of physics get awfully weird on a quantum level, when you put anything under an intense microscope, reality starts to break down. We start to see strange inconsistencies and weird coincidences. Reality is a weird thing.

      by Zackpunk on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:32:52 PM PDT

    •  or better yet

      Let's play "good forger" / "bad forger".

      The hypothetical forger was a good forger because he or she:
      

      • Forged two unique Killian signatures which passed scrutiny by an expert in handwriting analysis.
        
      • Avoided superscripts in 11 of the 13 instances where they could have been used, because they were pretty state-of-the-art and weren't common in 1972.
        
      • Knew that the baseline should wander, and made it happen: either by repeatedly copying it, or by loading it up into Photoshop and digitally modifying it.
        
      • Stayed close enough to the truth to make even President Bush and his wife wonder if they were real.

      The hypothetical forger was a bad forger because he or she:
      

      • Used Microsoft Word rather than a typewriter to create documents supposedly from 1972-3.
        
      • Didn't bother to switch to a fixed-width font and instead used Times New Roman.
        
      • Forgot to correct two superscripts inserted by Word's auto-superscripting feature, despite remembering to correct the other eleven.

      I mean, really, people... this is starting to read like one of those lists about the contradictory things you have to believe to be a Republican. Hmm. Actually, maybe that's why LGF is so ready to believe it! :-)

      by drewthaler on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:09:32 PM PDT

      •  It all makes sense

        When evaluated from the perspective of someone making a forgery that they want to pass as real initially, but to be revealed as a forgery after greater scrutiny (perhaps some of it directed by "neutral" blog trolls.

        by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:12:58 PM PDT

        •  as i said

          Strategically it just doesn't make a damn bit of sense. If you are a strategist for a candidate who has skeletons in the closet, do you say:

          • Let's dig up the muck about our candidate and and get it on the air big-time! and uh, then we'll then discredit it. or,

          • Let's just keep it quiet and slam anyone who tries to bring it up. If slamming doesn't work, just keep quiet and hope it dies.

          To be honest, the net effect is better in the second case, and that's been the GOP's strategy in other events in the campaign. You just don't want nasty stories about your past brought up regardless of whether they're true or not -- witness Kerry and the highly discredited Swift Boat lies which kept getting repeated anyway.

          That strategy has worked quite well for them; why get all risky and try something new in something as important as a Presidential election?

          I'm sorry, but the LGF romp was a lucky strike for Bush and Rove. You can see it in the way Bush reacted - they were clearly unsure and waiting to see how it would play out before saying anything. You can credit Rove with a lot of things, but not precognitive powers.

          by drewthaler on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:02:49 PM PDT

    •  by the way

      Word does a great job of emulating typewriters from the 1980s, which had all those features and more. I know -- I used to use a typewriter (no idea what kind, but the pictures of Selectrics look familiar) in my dad's office at the university, and it had proportional spacing, superscripts, type balls with different fonts, and so on. I thought all of those things were really cool at the time. Okay, so I was a nerdy kid and had too much time on my hands. :-)

      But the point is that I have no doubt whatsoever that you could use Word to reproduce down to the pixel level a document created on my dad's typewriter in 1984. And his typewriter was a direct descendant of the state-of-the-art Selectric from the early 1970s, and I feel pretty confident they could have typed them.

      In the spirit of my above post, here are the sticking points for the "not a forgery" premise.

      • Did the TANG have this fancy typewriter that we know existed? Someone's got to have a more definitive answer. If only there were more real investigative journalists and fewer stupid footballers. Hint: You could find out by interviewing people, and/or by looking at other verified documents produced at the base during that period.

      • How and when did it get typed if Ms. Knox didn't do it? Finding out where such typewriters were installed and when would go a long way toward finding this out.

      A lot of the other claims have been shown to not hold water: eg, the "perfect centering" and "exact duplication" of headers that was common at the time but seems unbelievable to the poor, deluded children of today. Approaching it honestly, these are the only two questions I've got left.

      So that's two versus five. Both of those are questions to which the answers can be found. So are there any real reporters out there? Or are you just going to wait until Hunter does your damn work and then write a story about that?

      by drewthaler on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:36:42 PM PDT

  •  Further proof of a Rovian smear

    Normally the creator of forged documents doesn't want the true nature of the documents to be discovered, but in the case of these TANG memos, the forger appears to have wanted these to be discovered as forgeries.  Anyone making these forgeries would obviously find a typewriter like the ones originally used by the TANG in '72.  The only reason not to use a genuine typewriter is if one wanted documents to be revealed as forgeries, or if one were incredibly stupid.  

    Then there's the way these docs were acquired from some dude at a Houston rodeo, and then the tip off to CBS, and then the charges of forgery by the republican operative posing as a Freeper, it's all so...Rovian.  

    At this point I'd bet my left nut that this whole forgery debacle is the work of Karl Rove.  

    by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 10:56:42 AM PDT

•  Thanks for the thread and the analysis

  I wonder what the media got out of this . . .

  "hmmmm.  Maybe I should run this story by the buckethead and the rest of the freepers before I take it to my editor."

  "I can't publish this theatrical review until I dig up the 1602 era quill that the Shakespeare purportedly wrote the play with."

  "memo to self -- the Whitehouse and Dan Bartlet in particular may not be a completely reliable source.  If I didn't know better I might think they were trying to use the press for political purposes without telling us."

  by smilodon on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 09:04:18 PM PDT

•  Ms Knox Rocks

  Hunter, Thank you for doing the work to evaluate these bogus Beavis and Buckhead forgery claims.  If you hadn't done it, the entire world would have thought that TANG memos in the 1970's had to be  carved with little pencils in wet clay.  You corrected huge innaccuracies that were seeping in to the whole history of typewriting technology.

  As to where I would like to see the story go now, I really, really hope that we will see Ms. Knox on more TV shows, but the SCLM haven't picked her up.

  She was superbly convincing about the attitude of Bush's fellow TANG members about the favoritism and his waffling out on his service.  I particularly was impressed by the way she said they snickered about him.

  Surely several of those 25 guys could be gotten to comment?  Some of them were Dallas Cowboys, and one was Lloyd Bentsen's son, so not all were protoRepublicans.  Has anyone looked up and interviewed Bush's band of brothers???

  If so, I haven't seen it.  Dan Rather, I hope you go there...

  by LIsoundview on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 09:58:47 PM PDT

  •  Ooooh.

    If you hadn't done it, the entire world would have thought that TANG memos in the 1970's had to be carved with little pencils in wet clay.

    You have just given me an idea for a brutal, brutal diary.  And if I write it, it will be all your fault.

    But let's hear it for Ms. Knox.  I am proud to be part of a crowd that, even when someone's testimony doesn't fit our preconceived world view, can applaud their simple factualness.  And how sad is that, that we feel the need to applaud it?
    

    by Hunter on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:47:44 PM PDT

    •  I agree

      with both you and the original post that commends your work and posting on this subject.

      Very well done, and professionally handled.

      Thank you.

      by a gilas girl on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 03:10:26 AM PDT

•  Killian's Notes?

  I still think that someone dug up Killian's notes from somewhere -- maybe somewhere he wasn't supposed to? -- and that's the source for the documents Burkett gave to CBS.  Maybe this other person typed them, or maybe Burkett typed them.  But the thing that furrows my brow is the balance between details (many) and inconsistencies (minor).  The apparent inconsistencies -- like the abbreviations seeming to be not quite right, or the word "billet" -- just seem to me like the kinds of errors that would appear while transcribing from something reliable, rather than the kinds that would appear while making up a story from whole cloth.  Or, put another way, if they're forgeries, they seem like forgeries that were worked up from close access to authentic documents.

  Did Knox say how the work flowed to her?  When Killian wanted a memo prepared, what did he give her?

  It also irritates me that the right-wing blogs are getting any kind of credit for the story, when it doesn't seem like any of the points they raised had any real basis.  I guess they can claim that their outcry prompted a second look.  But what CBS is apologizing for is not anything that the bloggers brought up.

  by FlipYrWhig on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:05:23 PM PDT

  •  Mrs. Knox said

    IIRC, she said Col. Killian would give her notes from which she would type his memos, letters, etc., and then she would destroy the notes. Especially those for his 'Cover My Back' file.
    

    by stellans on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 08:55:37 AM PDT

•  The Fact That

  They are not proven forgeries has been lost on the local news that gave the story 30 seconds tonight here in CO.

  The anchor explicitly referred to them as forgeries, and then played a clip of Rather apologizing, giving the impression that he was saying sorry for airing forged documents.

  I don't think they are fakes, but that really is no longer the story here.  Any story about forgers and Bush-TANG is dwarfed by the media story here.

  With zero evidence the extreme right wing got a story from a wingnut blog to the evening news in 24 hours.  They then managed to control/manipulate the press so well that these documents can be called forgeries with zero evidence on my evening news.

  That's scary people, and way bigger than the document story itself.  Fascist regimes are built of this kind of media control.  Shiver.

  Excellent work hunter.

  by teece on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:08:47 PM PDT

  •  same here in DC

    WTOP (our "news" station), owned by Bonneville (Mormon) broadcasting, used the word "debunked" to describe the memoranda.

    I'll see if I can call them on it in some way that can be known to their listenership.  LTE to the WaPo??

    by billlaurelMD on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:08:23 AM PDT

  •  I agree with this

    We can rant and rave over the complexities of the forgery argument, but we are not the target audience of the VRWC.  It's mom and pop that watch local news, and when the local news reporter simplifies the story to fit his 45 second window, all nuance is lost.  

    This is a god-send for the Bushies.  Now anything related to TANG documents has the taint of forgery to those people paying attention with one eye closed.  It is so good for the VRWC that you have to wonder in a diabolical Rove way whether they cooked it up themselves.

    I am not sure it is the end of the story though.  It could be, or CBS could strap on a pair and do some real reporting about the content of the documents.

    by 537 votes on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:16:04 AM PDT

•  Document distraction, forgery foibles

  When the TANG story reemerged in the mainstream media, somebody somewhere (at Daily Kos? at the TAP blog?) wondered how the coverage would compare to the coverage of the Swift Boat Liars.  Sadly, it appears to be quite similar:  ignore the facts, ignore the bulk of the documents, and focus on trivial details, accusations and scandal.  As many have pointed out here, the documents for which there is no question of authenticity clearly show that Bush did not fulfill his TANG commitments.  Will the mainstream media now start looking at those documents?   Not likely...

  by meander on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:17:12 PM PDT

  •  I don't know who said it either,

    But this:

    Sadly, it appears to be quite similar:  ignore the facts, ignore the bulk of the documents, and focus on trivial details, accusations and scandal.

    is incredibly observant.  The modern media is, by its nature, prone to the trivialities of every story.  He-said-she-said, opinion, analysis, anything instead of the real bread and butter work of journalism; investigative reporting, of the kind we still occasionally see on 60 Minutes and from other "old-school" sources.

    A large part of me believes we are seeing the results of the media downsizing of recent years, particularly in television newsrooms.  Investigative journalism is hard; talking heads, horserace stories, and news "analyses" are cheap and easy.  Don't have to pay the salary and expenses of a real journalist sitting in a distant city, poring over old documents and tracking down lost witnesses when you can phone up an almost-cost-free pundit like Ann Coulter, wire her up, and have her simply spew for twenty minutes on any topic you put in front of her.

    The problem is that we've got a number of news organizations now -- CNN, MSNBC, etc. -- that are going out of their way to avoid committing actual journalism, because they have convinced themselves that their bottom line won't support it.  We are left with shell organizations that are fully wired to talk about the news, if any comes their way, but not deep or committed enough to actually discover it.

    by Hunter on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:08:07 AM PDT

    •  First a sincere thanks, Hunter, for the hard work

      and diligence required to keep us informed on this story.

      I agree complete with your assessment of the problem related to news organizations. Discovery of news and in depth analysis seems left to book publishing and print media these days. Print has the luxury of time. Allowing for the development, research, source checking, and editing required in quality journalism. 24 hour cable reporting demands a pull, read, and churn format which eliminates the very structure which defines journalism.

      by maggiemae on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:45:13 AM PDT

    •  You've nailed the core problem

      Like a lot of Kosians, who hop-scotch from one Diary to the next on the Dailykos buffet, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks not only to you, but to my fellow Kosians who followed your Diary close enough to keep the rest of us on track.

      When I first discovered your Diary I went to Newcomer's site. Next I took the apparently ingenious next step (at least for a journalist) of going to the CBS site and looking at their documents. When I blew the Killian document that Newcomer used as an example up to 300% I could not see the proportional "overhang" on the "fr" example Newcomer used. How and why was Newcomer's inaccurate analysis blindly accepted by the SCLM?

      With the help of your professional analysis that was enough for me. Later when I went back to Newcomer's site it had been "updated" to account for the failure of the Killian memo to show the "fr" overhang. I was astounded at the gobbledygook that had been added to his original post. Somehow Newcomer had managed to turn whatever there is to the science of forensic fonts into quantum mechanics.

      Is there really such a thing as a PHD in typewriter fonts? You probably covered his credentials somewhere in your lengthy analysis. If so I apologize for missing it. The question though is why was the LGF/Newcomer analysis accepted without even a pretext of due diligence and will the SCLM looked into the rest of the story?

      Thanks again to Hunter and his Kosian "assistants" as well.

      by JollyBuddah on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:42:18 PM PDT

•  I'm grateful

  to finally see the chronology of events in all this.  Thank you for your diligence.

  Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I think at this point it has all been a "win".  In a way, it was an unwise move to drag such an intense spotlight onto the issue of "forgeries", because by default, the light is also cast on the piss-poor record for all to see.  It underlined it for the vague, put in an exclamation point for the heedless.

  For at least a few people out there, this screaming about forgeries has to bring to mind "thou dost protest too much". A quieter and less shrill questioning of the documentary validity would have been far more damaging.

  Trust me, these people hurt themselves more than we could ever do with similarly scummy, whiney, shrill tactics.

  I just feel for the casualties - Dan Rather needs our encouragement.

  by Gustogirl on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:23:32 PM PDT

•  It doesn't even matter...

  The documents aren't fucking forgeries but the news media has just swept them under the carpet.  CBS and Dan Rather suck for apologizing for this.  Now the news media sharks smell blood and are just going crazy trying to get at one of their rivals.  In all this the truth has gotten lost (although it's debatable whether the media ever had any intention to report it correctly, the stench of Republican bias in the modern news media is overwhelming).  

  I don't give a shit about whether people are 99% sure of the documents instead of 100% sure.  The media should have focused on the real issue not some bullshit about whether or not they were real.  What's next?  Every document presented for any purpose has to be proven not to be a forgery?   Another sad, sad day for our country's "news" media.  

  by Asak on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:29:12 PM PDT

  •  I also find this dispiriting.

    Somehow, when the story is Bush's AWOL-ness, it's not a story.  That is, the media are uninterested in the idea that our commander-in-chief might be something of a hypocrite on the subject of war.

    But when it comes to a fringe attack on Kerry's war heroism -- which I'm sure the Swifties barely hold in doubt -- it's front-page news for weeks.

    Scary, too, as an earlier poster said, that the story sprang from the cakehole of a freep mouthbreather to national media "scrutiny" virtually overnight.

    I'm not sure what the solution is.  Half the time, I think the entirety of dKos's attention should be on media misrepresentation (though I know other blogs do focus on this).  It's important enough in it of itself, and it's something this site is very good at. (Thanks, Hunter, for your diligence.)  It's not just an issue of Dem strategizing; it goes far beyond this, to the roots of free expression and freedom of the press.

    I know Rather hasn't always fought the good fight; his craven-ness in the leadup to the Iraqi invasion was nauseating.  But I feel genuinely sorry for him now.  He has led a long and distinguished career, and now faces the possibility of exiting the media world as a discredited hack -- all to serve the interests of a political campaign.  He may look like the target, but he's just collateral damage in the wingnuts mad rampage for power.

    by Dale on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 06:08:10 AM PDT

•  If nothing else...

  ...this whole episode blew the Swift Boat ads out of the water, and this should now focus the campaign on relevant issues. I hope.

  by MeanBoneII on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 10:58:05 PM PDT

•  Really Excellent Work!

  Not just this post, but the whole series.

  Makes me proud to be an Amurican, just to see someone actually use our precious freedoms this way.

  by Paul Rosenberg on Mon Sep 20, 2004 at 11:21:00 PM PDT

•  Lest We Forget...

  So, from Harry and Liz MacDougald and the brain trust of LittleGreenFootballs came a "forgery" argument that instantly passed the Drudge test of newsworthiness...

  Let's not forget the role the hand-wringing moderate capitulators played in giving the brownshirt's rantings some respectability - specifically, Josh "Just Wait'll My Next Story, It's Gonna Be a Big One, Really!" Marshall and Kevin "I'm Rolling Over and Playing Dead As Fast As I Can" Drum. It's always good for the VRWC to be able to point to a few chickenshit "liberals" when peddling their latest lies, and Marshall and Drum couldn't capitulate fast enough, despite the fact that, at the time they made their pronouncements of "forgery", they had absolutely nothing more to go on then the ludicrous arguments of the most paranoid, racist group on the internet (arguments which were proven false then, and are still false now).

  Drum deserves a special circle of hell, as barely a year ago (if that long), he actually interviewed Burkett and was trumpeting his coup, and Burkett's story, to the skies. I noticed today he's suddenly claimed he never believed anything Burkett said. What a fucking scumbag.

  by dave on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:01:43 AM PDT

  •  I have very mixed feelings.

    I admit, I was... disappointed, I suppose, that Josh Marshall in particular would give such apparent credibility to the initial Drudge-trumpeted claims.  He's been around long enough to know that, with the particular "sources" we're talking about here, you have to be very skeptical first, and work from there.

    On the other hand, I am loathe to chastise anyone for their own opinions.  Being right a hundred times, and wrong once, after all, would still be good odds.  Josh has done some very important work; if I disagree with his reactions to this one issue, does that invalidate anything else he has to say?  No, of course not.  (If it turns out that the documents are eventually proven forgeries, after all, I would hope that that wouldn't mean the dismissal of whatever skills I have brought to these and other posts; I've tried to delineate what I can and can't prove, and let the rest fall where it may.)

    So while I admit I feel some personal consternation here in how this all has played out, can I really blame individuals for not stepping up with the kind of rebuttals that I did?  I don't know.

    Hmm.  Not sure what I think, in other words.

    by Hunter on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:51:57 AM PDT

    •  The documents have not yet

      been proven to be forgeries.

      The fact that JMM and KD have already accepted that they ARE forgeries based on the lame-ass evidence now available is simply unconscionable.

      The proper position, at least as far as rationality and reason are concerned is:

      1. The available evidence remains extremely equivocal.

      2. The features of those documents are ALL possible to create using period technology

      3. There ARE significant differences between the CBS docs and the TANG docs, but those differences have not yet been explained in a way that undeniably refutes one hypothesis or the other regarding the CBS documents.

      4. Until there exists an open, expert forensic analysis of the ORIGINAL documents in question, and a thorough vetting and interview of the ORIGINAL source of those documents, there can be no final determination.

      by RedDan on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:06:35 AM PDT

    •  The Problem Isn't Their Opinions...

      ...it's what they did with them.

      The moment that these accusations of forgery began, the left of the blogosphere should have done two things.  First, what Hunter's been doing superbly:  refute the ridiculous claims from the right.  The second, which unfortunately nobody did clearly enough, was to repeat, over and over, that the authenticity of these documents just doesn't matter, because all the  other, indisputable evidence in this case points to the same conclusions.  

      This second task would have been the perfect thing for Drum, JMM, and others who, for whatever reason, were convinced by the initial round of Freeper nonsense abou the documents.  Instead of emphasizing that the authenticity of these documents was irrelevant, and keeping their eye on the prize of Bush's failure to fulfill his service and subsequent lying about that service, Drum, JMM and company spent their time not only confirming the right's accusations, but confirming that they were important.  That's what they did wrong.  They contributed mightily to the media's changing the subject from TANG to Documentgate.  They're the very definition of useful idiots.

      by GreenSooner on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:16:24 AM PDT

      •  Clarification...

        I meant to write, "...all the other, indisputable evidence in this case points to the same conclusions about Bush's National Guard service."

        by GreenSooner on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:18:28 AM PDT

    •  Josh

      I remember Josh saying "I'm not an expert but ...." I e-ed him and said, basically, no, you're not, so shut up. I can't believe that people who had never seen the documents that CBS had, in hand, were somehow speaking with such certainty on whether they were or were not forgeries.

      by Wendela on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:47:08 AM PDT

  •  OTOH,

    I do think one thing stands out here, though.  I was able to do this research, and Kos frontpaged it, and it reached a huge audience.  These diaries have been linked to by Salon, Slate, PC Magazine, ZDNet, heaven knows who else, and too many individual and group blogs to count, on both the left and right.

    To me, that says that the dynamics of our particular efforts here are working well.  Instead of one blogger, we have hundreds, each working on their own particularly important stories.  When one topic becomes important, we have a solid base of support to confront that topic, immediately, and with a depth and degree of professionalism not often found on other blogs.  That's enormously more significant than an individual blog, and I think a model with a lot of potential for the future.

    by Hunter on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:01:05 AM PDT

  •  Don't think I'd be as harsh as you

    as I don't grant nearly as much importance to somebody like Drum as you do, but I agree with the general sentiment.

    Marshall, it often seems to me, is not so much of an asset as we might like to think.  He appears to be building a professional career and is using his blog to do so. Hence his very tight tethering to the mushy middle. Pretty milquetoast to my mind. Important to keep in mind when reading the blog.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is different from the perspective of an amateur blogger (where I would put Drum).

    by a gilas girl on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 03:26:46 AM PDT

  •  Where does Kevin say

    he never believed anything Burkett said? Do you mean this?

    I really want to hear this story. I talked with Burkett at length back in February, and speaking as someone who believes his story about Bush's files being purged, I still wouldn't trust him for a second if he suddenly produced a bunch of never-before-seen memos out of nowhere.

    At any rate, Kevin's acceptance of the stupid WaPo graphic as "devastating" has definitely lowered my opinion of him.

    by Utah for Dean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 09:00:05 AM PDT

•  If only we could have

  provided what would look like the memo...

  I tried to re-create the CYA on my PC.  To date, I have not been terribly successful; somehow the second and third lines don't get nicely aligned as the CYA, unless I hit the [return/enter] key. (Do people still use that key?) This puzzles me.

  But, other than that, my product does look disturbingly close to the CYA, without any effort (like LGF made) to make them look similar. So, I would say at this point, the CYA is suspicious (unless, of course, the Word program is written in such a way to automatically mimic the IBM nicely). I cannot tell about the rest. Nor did anybody successfully reproduce other memos using Word.  

  A few mysteries in my mind.

  by msl on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:30:10 AM PDT

  •  um, did you read any of Hunter's stuff?

    There has been exhaustive reportage of the fact that MS Word was carefully engineered to mimic IBM typewriter output. This was because they were, at the beginning, not seen as superior to old-fashioned output. "Computer-generated" used to be slang for "yucky-looking" - I'm just old enough to remember what it looked like in the 70 - and when the first computerized printers came out, it was a hard sell to convince people that they were worth the money.

    They had to look just like what everyone was already familiar with - formatting and everything - or no business office would have ponied up the bucks for them.

    by bellatrys on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 02:37:57 AM PDT

    •  IBM wants to look like ....IBM...in the 1980's

      There is one point that gets lost at this remove, so for those, who having now remembered typing technology of the 60's and 70's, have lost track of computer history in the 1980's.

      The reason that IBM paid to have Times New Roman (and its other Selectric fonts) is because they were selling computers to their own customers to replace their old Selectrics.  Those computers had to produce documents that looked 'Selectric Executive' professional.

      IBM wanted a piece of the PC business of Apple and Commodore and Radio Shack, and to them, more important, were replacing the dumb mainframe terminals of the early 80's with PC's with a 'terminal emulator' program.

      IBM had a proto program, DOS, and they hired the young Bill Gates to spiff it up for the first IBM PC launch, resulting in MS-DOS.  The relationship continued, until Gates wanted to bring out Windows prior to the completion of 16 bit technology that was part of the OS2 specification.  Gates was still stuck with an embedded DOS, with an embedded 8088 architecture, but he said it would sell.  And it did!  Thus the future developed.

      Because of the Gates-IBM relationship, and IBM's strong position in the 1980's PC world, all MS word processor programs were catering to the taste of IBM's basic customer set, the big companies.

      And did any of you use Prancer early on for printing?  You could use it with Wordstar and get lovely proportional fonts, long before MS Word.

      by LIsoundview on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 05:09:22 AM PDT

      •  no

        IBM had a proto program, DOS, and they hired the young Bill Gates to spiff it up for the first IBM PC launch, resulting in MS-DOS.

        Gates promised an operating system to IBM for their PC, which he didn't even own (even less had developed) at the time.
        He then bought QDOS (quick & dirty disk operating system) from a guy for $50,000, souped it up a bit and sold licences to IBM, while retaining ownership of the software.

        Go watch Pirates of Silicon Valley or read Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer (not this).

        by Felix Deutsch on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 06:28:43 AM PDT

      •  History of Windows

        Any history of Windows is incomplete without mention of "Apple," "Macintosh," "Steve Jobs," and "John Scully."  

        Gates stole the idea for Windows from Apple, and Scully made it legally possible with his boneheaded deals with Micro$oft.  Jobs didn't invent the Mac GUI, but he deserves credit for recognizing it as the future of computering.  Actually Jobs first saw a GUI at Xerox R&D labs, but Xerox didn't want to pursue it so Apple picked up where they left off.

        by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:09:31 AM PDT

      •  Yep

        certainly the most laughable of all the freeper claims is taht they expected Word to be different from IBM.....as if bill Gates ever had any interest in innovating anything.  He stole DOS from IBM, Windows from Apple and Internet Explorer from Netscape.  And I'm sure he stole Word and the fonts and everthing else from someplace.

        Gates is not an innovater.  He is a mass marketer.  All of the big and great companies are essentially mass marketers.

        by NorCalJim on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 12:09:14 PM PDT

        •  no

          
          He didn't steal DOS from IBM, kid.

          Read my posting upthread.

          by Felix Deutsch on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:11:56 PM PDT

          •  I'll rephrase:

            He 'stole' DOS from IBM...

            Helluva catch.
            So, what are you, the self appointed hall monitor, a lawyer, or a computer nerd.  

            by NorCalJim on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:53:51 PM PDT

            •  computer nerd here

              
              Rephrasing it makes still no sense.

              So how did MS "steal" DOS from IBM, in your opinion, that could be desribed that way?

              by Felix Deutsch on Wed Sep 22, 2004 at 05:15:02 AM PDT

•  Call Bill Burkett yourself -- see what happens.

  Why don't you call Bill Burkett yourself?

  He once spoke extensively with Kevin Drum.

  My read from that interview was that he was a proud person who sometimes misjudged social conventions.

  He may speak with you since his character is being badly pummeled by almost everyone and you can point him to your diaries as reflecting some level of suspended judgment regarding him.  He may trust you as someone who can validate his position before it is too late.

  Given your knowledge of the details affecting claims to validity of the memos, something he says may unwittingly confirm for you the truth or untruth of those memos as authentic.  You would have to be prepared for anything from him.

  As you have said, there are still many unanswered questions regarding these memos?  Where did they come from?  Who else is involved?  Who has the earliest generation copy?  Are there other documents?  Can anybody or anything else validate his story?

  You are less likely to be misled by the answers he may give and some surprises might comeout.  No one else is probing this story.  Why don't you before the current explanation is fixed as the final version?

  One suggestion I would make is that you do not take possession of any documents.  You do not want to become a witness to foundation facts.  Let Burkett keep everything or have a library or science lab hold anything you find.  Do not become the sole witness to anything in the story that unfolds.

  This is too important not to try to get answers.
  

  by John Torjesen on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 02:35:47 AM PDT

  •  LOL

    When you suggested to call Burkette, my first thought was to call him and try setting up a meeting at the local mall to pass off some "secret documents".  Maybe I could get the media cover Bush's abortion story through Burkette!

    by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:12:19 AM PDT

•  the end, or just the beginning?

  I posted this on my own diary, but I thought I'd cross-post it here. I don't like this at all. This could very well become the opening Karl Rove needs to tie the forged documents to the Kerry campaign.

  CBS arranged for meeting with Lockhart

  
  WASHINGTON -- CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard.

  Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn't recall the producer's name. But CBS said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart.

  Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign.
  

  by CaptUnderpants on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 06:43:31 AM PDT

  •  If you think about it. . .

    That proves that the Kerry campaign did NOT have anything to do with the documents.  Burkett was enticing CBS with the documents and told them he was trying to talk to the Kerry campaign and no one would talk to him; if they would get Joe Lockhart to call him, he would hand over the documents.  They got Lockhart to call him, and he handed over the documents.

    If he was talking to the campaign, or if they would give him the time of day, why would he do that?

    by LowellR on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:15:38 AM PDT

    •  Contacts

      So Burkett offered the documents to the Kerry campaign -- which declined.

      And bin Laden proposed an alliance with Saddam -- who declined.

      It's past time for the pundits to understand the meaning of the words "contact" and "connection."

      by FlipYrWhig on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:22:56 AM PDT

•  My two comments

  1. You can't prove anything from a copy of a copy that was faxed and turned into a PDF.  Nothing.  You can't prove it's fake or prove it's real, so it is a collosal waste of time to even try. You just can't do it without the original.(btw, this is a critique of the media in general, not Hunter)

  2. Did not the White House release some, or all, of these documents immediately after 60 minutes?  Doesn't that give the documents some modicum of credibility?  The White House obviously believed they were true when they released them.  I've read this as a one line assertion buried in several articles.  something like the white house released the documents several hours after the 60 minutes episode aired  and that's about the extent of coverage that it's gotten. Mind boggling.  this whole thing is truely mind boggling.

  by bawbie on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 06:57:56 AM PDT

•  On the documents . . . .

  Any complaint or evidence of fallacy against W will be met with the same ferocious attack.  People like "Buckhead" will stare at a charge, think to themselves for an hour or two, and then devise the most complicated, intertwined, attack that there is.  

  The fact of the matter is that these are not the original documents that Killian wrote.  

  The freepers are exhulting at their "victory" and are pressing for an advantage off the documents (Dan Rather's head, CBS off the debate panel, etc).

  As usual, they over-reach, and there joy is misplaced.

  The documents served there purpose, they diverted attention from Bush's convention and destroyed his bounce.  They gave Kerry time to get his feet under himself after the well-crafted (albeit totally flase) swift boat attacks.  Given this time, Kerry took advantage and put Iraq fron and center in this campaign where it belongs.

  More attention to "defendeding" the documents is, in my view unwarrented.  If Kerry is asked about them his response should be along the lines of "I don't really care if Bush did or didn't show up for his stateside national guard physical in 1972, I am concerned about where he was and what he was thinking in 2002 when he systematically distorted intelligence and led our nation into an unnecesary war of choice.  The real issue here is our boys dying for no reason, the real issue here is the economy . . . bla bla bla"

  The more time the "Freepers" spend attacking the documents, the longer the story that Bush was a scofflaw draft dodger stays in the news.

  One Caveat:  The one story Kerry must immediately fight and combat, is the line that the documentshad somethign to do with his campaign.  He should categorically deny any involvement.  

  In any event it won't matter much either way.  Bush was highly involved with the Swift Boaters, and the influencable people plainly don't care.  

  People are ready to move on to the next issue, and by harping on CBS, the Right is weighing themselves down.

  by dbratl on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 06:59:41 AM PDT

•  I Disagree

  I contend that these memos have been proven a forgery.  There's still some minute probability that there was somebody on the grassy knoll, that the US government did destroy the pentagon with a missile instead of a hijacked plane flying into it, or that the moon landings were staged in a hollywood production set.  However the probability that these things actually happened is for all practical purposes 0.  Same with these documents.

  In virtually all statistical analyses, a 95% "confidence level" is all that is needed to prove a hypothesis.  Most people now accept that level of proof in in place.

  1>  Very unlikely to have been done in 1972.  There may be some type of typewriter somewhere that could replicate these memos.  However that has not been shown definitely.  Saying "I think some typewriter may have been able to do this in 1972" is not as convincing as actually doing it.

  2>  No originals available.  Good questions have been raised about these documents.  The burden of proof is now on those who say these memos are genuine to produce the originals.  Until then, it has to be assumed that they don't exist.

  3>  Chain of Custody.  Where have the documents been for the last 32 years?  Not in Killian's files.  Who kept them?  A year by year timeline needs to be in place before they're accepted as real.

  The big issue here is that CBS did a really poor job of authenticating these memos.  They didn't insist on getting the originals and made questionable use of document experts.  I was as glad as anybody when these documents came out.  However everybody has to know that some very really good questions have been raised.  Where once the bar was a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not, 51%) the sloppy original verification makes the current bar much higher -- beyond a reasonable doubt.  

  To get there now the 3 points above must be addressed.  Recreation on a 1972 typewriter, produce originals, and give a detailed chain of custody.  Until all of these points are in place my working assumption will be just what the wingnuts say they are -- rather crude forgeries.

  by Buckland on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:04:06 AM PDT

  •  Forging

    If you were going to forge a TANG document from '72, wouldn't you start by getting your hands on a typewriter like the one's used by the TANG back then?  It's the first, most obvious step in forging documents, and the fact that this wasn't done for these forgeries is highly suspicious.  It makes me think that someone wanted the forgeries to be discovered.

    by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:16:27 AM PDT

•  The story of the memos is dead.

  Here's a USAToday follow-up on Burkett. http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+CBS+backs+off+ Guard+story&expire=&urlID=11705426&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fp oliticselections%2Fnation%2Fpresident%2F2004-09-21-cover-guard_x.htm&partnerID=1660
  So, the trail ends there. There will be no revelation of a source unless Burkett is prosecuted, and I highly doubt he will be.

  If you ask me, the real source is Conn and now Burkett is covering up for him with this Lucy Ramirez story.

  by upstate NY on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:08:11 AM PDT

  •  Thank you

    for breaking the shit out of this page format with your long-ass URL.

    PLEASE USE THE FUCKING TAGS

    by cerebrocrat on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 09:12:28 AM PDT

    •  before this disappears

      deservedly, I might add ("fucking" was a bit much), let me both apologize for being a hothead, but still encourage people to use tags instead of pasting long URLs

      by cerebrocrat on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 10:29:54 AM PDT

•  Bumper Sticker Idea

  Sort of an inside joke. . .

  *I remember when TANG was a breakfast drink"

  In doing a little research on the product I found that Kraft doesn't really push Tang in the US much, but Canadians get to enjoy six flavors!

  by BigOkie on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:13:51 AM PDT

  •  OT: dude, not only that

    Canada gets about six flavors of Kit Kats (Vanilla, Orange, Strawberry, etc.) too, and their candy variety overall is to, uh, die for...
    or risk bypass surgery for...
    or, well, you know, to sample moderately for?

    by Ace Pumpkin on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 01:28:49 PM PDT

•  This AM's spin

  first of all, thanks to Hunter for your brilliant analysis.

  Sadly, it is all going for naught.. the spin now is the Mapes-Lockhart-Burkett loop.  The MSNBC OLeilly wanna be this AM just about called Lockhart a liar when Joe asserted that he had no conversation with Burkett about the memos, but only about general strategy. ("you expect us to believe"...)  Joe was strong, but you can just see where this is going.

  Unless the originals and the source turn up, the SCLM and the Rethugs will never let this story go back to Bush's lies, deceit and cowardice.

  It's so infuriating... someone HAS to ask these cable creeps when they're going to run the Navy investigator's report that Kerry's awards are proper to make up for spreading the Swiffer lies.

  by pitbullEmily on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:18:41 AM PDT

  •  This is the beginning

    In a week or two the story will have morphed into it's end stage:  Did the Kerry campaign forge the documents, and why did they think they could get away with it?  

    This could be Kerry's downfalll.  It's one of Rove's most brilliant smears yet, right up there with bugging his own office, and it's about to work beautifully.  If Rove succeeds in bringing Kerry down with this smear, I will fear for the future of America (and the world).
    

    by Subterranean on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 11:20:56 AM PDT

•  Dangerous territory

  While this has been a very interesting and thorough series the "confusionists" have ultimately accomplished their goal. This entire affair illustrates once again that right-wing political operatives are unencumbered by facts. Winning to them is not proving their case. If enough doubt can be created, if enough confusion can be stirred up to call it a draw, that's a win.

  Furthermore, look at how little energy the right had to expend to create this doubt compared to the amount of energy Hunter alone has spent trying to debunk it with facts.

  It's analogous to fighting terrorism. They only have to be successful at creating doubt once. We have to be right in the facts constantly and consistently (and even then they find ways to muddy the waters).

  This is dangerous territory for democracy. And with a mainstream media that seems to be a willing participant in creating doubt, suspicion and paranoia the truth has little meaning and the people are less informed than ever. Maybe that is the ultimate goal.

  by Rp on Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 07:19:28 AM PDT