Forge National Documents using word!

[tomduo]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/10/...d.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Questions are being raised about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos which asserted that George W. Bush ignored an order from a superior officer in the Texas Air National Guard and lost his status as a pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.

...

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software.

Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript -- a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" -- as evidence indicating forgery.

Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.

"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Arizona

She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.

   

[Chopper Face 69]

Their memos usually aren't made on a computer?  So what are made on, a typewritter?  If that's the difference they were looking for you don't need a raised th to tell you something was done on a computer.

[tomduo]

The only typewriter that could have duplicated it, wouldn't center the text (That requires planning what you type) and to super script you would have to reposition the paper. Also, the text is spaced differently, something typewriters dont do (A w is given more space than an l.)

And the signature might be forged, since it doesn't look like other signatures made by the officer.

[MegatronYES]

Well, that settles it.  I'm now voting for injustice.

[Rumble]

Further scrutiny lessens doubts on Bush memos
Some skeptics now say IBM typewriter could have been used

Francie Latour, Michael Rezendes, Boston Globe
  Saturday, September 11, 2004


After CBS News trumpeted newly discovered documents Wednesday that referred to a 1973 effort to "sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the memos were forgeries with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time.

But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believed the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

Analysts who have examined the documents focus on several facets of their typography, among them the use of a curved apostrophe, a raised, or superscript, "th," and the proportional spacing between the characters -- spacing that varies with the width of the letters. In older typewriters, each letter was allotted the same space.

Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised "th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record the White House made public this year.

Meanwhile, "CBS Evening News" Friday night explained how it had sought to authenticate the documents, focusing primarily on its examiner's conclusion that two of the records were signed by Bush's guard commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. CBS also said other sources -- among Killian's friends and colleagues -- verified that the content of the documents reflected Killian's views at the time.

One of them, Robert Strong, a Guard colleague, said the language in the documents was "compatible with the way business was done at that time. They are compatible with the man I remember Jerry Killian being."

But William Flynn, a Phoenix document examiner cited in a Washington Post report Friday, said he had not changed his mind because he did not believe that the proportional spacing between characters, and between lines, in the documents obtained by CBS was possible on typewriters used by the military at the time.

Flynn said his doubts were also based on his belief that the curved apostrophe was not available on electric typewriters at the time, although documents from the period reviewed by the Globe show it was. He acknowledged that the quality of the copies of the documents he examined was poor.

The controversy over the authenticity of the documents has all but blocked out discussion of their content. They say Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's record, and Bush refused a direct order to take a required medical examination and discussed how he could skip drills.

Bouffard, the Ohio document specialist, said that he had first dismissed the Bush documents because the letters and formatting of the memos did not match any of the 4,000 samples in his database. But Friday, Bouffard said that he had not considered the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the memos to Selectric Composer samples, Bouffard said, his view shifted.

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Friday he provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

As for the raised "th" that appears in the Bush memos, Bouffard said that custom characters on the Composer's metal typehead ball were available in the 1970s.

"You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer," Bouffard said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...MNGO68NEKR1.DTL

   

[tomduo]

*shrugs* Since alot have made copies using word that look the same, save the signature... I am not convinced some typewriter, which probably wasn't used by the Air Guard would have been used in this rare case, when all other documents from the time used other means.

Plus the sigs look off. Lookit comparisons on the News. CBS is just being pansies, cuz they don't wanna be labeled liberal traitors like CNN.

[Fiero]

I just don't pay attention to anything anymore.  Fuck 'em all, I'm buying myself a small deserted island and having sex the rest of my life.

[Bernie AKA]

If they *were* forged, I wouldn't put it past the Bush camp to have done it.  Amazing how they came out just as former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes fessed up to pulling strings to get him in the National Guard Champagne Unit.

[B E C K]

Am I reading that wrong or was Bernie's dog involved here?    

[tomduo]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/15/...emos/index.html

good thing the news... CHECKS IT'S FACTS!!!

Three document experts who were asked by CBS News to examine memos alleging that President Bush received special treatment during his service in the Texas Air National Guard told CNN Tuesday that they did not authenticate the documents -- and one said the network "ignored" her reservations about them before a "60 Minutes" broadcast last week.

Emily Will, a document examiner in North Carolina who said she examined two of the documents for CBS News prior to the broadcast, said she "had serious questions" about their authenticity, although she did not reach a definitive conclusion about whether they were fabrications.

Will told CNN she had concerns about signatures on the documents, as well as the type of the text and the content. She told ABC News that she questioned whether the memos could have been produced by a typewriter and found "five significant differences" in the questioned handwriting.

[Bernie AKA]

Am I reading that wrong or was Bernie's dog involved here?

No, that would be the Killian unit.  Different inebriant.  

It is funny, though, how a still-living respected political figure like Ben Barnes "can't be believed",  but all the Swift Boat guys who never served with John Kerry are "finally getting the truth out".   Sorry, I'll trust the word of the guy he went back for & pulled out of the water.

And the hamster.   Hamsters are honest.  

 

[Merla]

My vote this November is for the hamster.    

[ChelseySuzie]

Hamsters for Kerry!!!


I thought of a new political group today:

Potheads for Bush!
We'll forget to vote!  Wait.. what?

[Bernie AKA]

Wish I'd thought of this!

The blog is very long and funny, but not what I'm sending the link for. Scroll down to comment #4 after the end, blogger name madmravyn, and watch the signature graphic.

 

[tomduo]

Bush people lieeeeeeeee

[B E C K]

Time for Kerry Hamster dance.

http://faithiepoo.com/hamster/

[Bitch]

I am scared of that link. It looks kind of tom-ish to me.  

[B E C K]

It has nothing to do with "poo", it's just hamsters and hamsters with Kerry faces dancing.

[Max Con]

His face on a horse would be more appropriate.


Oh, wait.