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| 7/9 |
| 2004/9/20 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:33635 Activity:kinda low |
9/20 CBS recants. http://csua.org/u/94g I hope all the defenders of the authenticity of the Killian memo have the intellectual integrity to admit they were misled. I can understand the impulse to defend all things anti-W. But when the subject is unworthy, the defense ultimately hurts more than it helps. \_ What, I've been saying all along that at least one was probably a fake or transcribed. You must be talking about those sodans posting the http://dailykos.com links, right? Anyway, for those who STILL think they're authentic copies, here's a side-by-side comparison of real vs. fake. -liberal http://csua.org/u/94h (Post) \_ I wish the defenders of the memo would be at least honest enough to admit their faith in their authenticity was unjustified. I'm a Salon reader, and they defended the memos when they came out. I don't think they've mentioned CBS's apology except in passing. \_ I never said they were real, I just said that they were not produced with MS Word. I still stand by that. -real liberal \_ you sound like how dubya wants to portray kerry. -"fake" liberal \_ I guess I don't follow. \_ yer dodging the substantive question and trying to have it both ways. \_ Which is what this whole debacle is anyway. I like how the secretary saying "I didn't type that memo, but I typed others with the same sentiment" quickly was shortened to "I didn't type that memo." \_ Are you the "That is correct" guy in the following motd posts? Quoting... \_ Are you saying that the specific memo talked about in the URL is not fake? \_ That is correct. If you create a document using a font with a typewriter and then reproduce it 30 years later using a computer, they should look very much alike. That is the whole point of having a font. And then later in the same thread, (more quoting) \_ Look, I just proved that it was not produced with a computer. What else could have created it? \_ In response to: "At least one of the memos is MS Word generated." Admit it, you were wrong about the MS Word bit. That was all I was contending, which is obvious if you read the whole thing: http://csua.org/u/94j \_ It looks like you started arguing against MS Word generation and then broadened your claim when you said "That is correct" to the question "Are you saying that the specific memo...is not fake?". How else would you interpret "That is correct" to "is not fake"? \_ I do wish people would be honest enough to admit they backed the wrong horse. - !pp \_ If you misinterpreted it, then I am sorry. I should have been more clear. But if I had intended to proclaim them genuine I would have done so in the start. I just knew that the LGF claims were bogus. \_ "Are you saying that the specific memo... is not fake?" "That is correct." \_ I was the liberal who wrote "At least one ... MS Word generated". Later on I wrote that I read the dailykos stuff (completely) and this created reasonable doubt on MS Word. Later on, I wrote that, even with reasonable doubt, the preponderance of evidence was still at least one or more memos were transcribed or fake. (especially with the Post finding that all verified memos didn't use proportional font, see the URL nearby topic header for example) \_ Ah, the "raised 'e'" nonsense. The scans in the .pdf are so bad that it looks like an aliasing problem. They were scanned-in faxes stored at low resolution. The raised 'e's look sharper than the surrounding text which would suggest imaging problems rather than a typewriter. \_ I never cared either way but I had a problem with faulty logic being applied to "prove" they were fake. \_ What are some of the examples of faulty logic? Were the defenders of the memo logically more correct? \_ CBS has more credibility to lose than freepers. \_ Why doesn't someone (CBS?) just find a reputable lab and run forensics on the original document, and see whether the ink on the document is laser toner, inkjet ink, or typewriter ribbon ink. Or just see if the paper itself is today's paper or 1972 GI paper. \_ CBS never had access to the original documents. \_ CBS is airing an interview tonight with Burkett, who passed the documents to CBS. Burkett will say he misled CBS. Don't know where Burkett will say he got them from. \_ 'So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." ' \_ This is incredibly lame, even for soda motd. \_ But hey, Gibson made Pilate out to be the good guy, misled by the eeeeeeevil Jews! If Mad Max says it, it must be true! \_ Um, no, that's not what he did. \_ Yep. Rather and CBS is blameless in all this. Crucify Burkett. \_ Between blameless and the crucifixion quote, the truth is found somewhere in the middle. \_ "There are some people who will argue whether the flames are blue or green when the real issue is that their arse is on fire." The memo was a fake. The facts outlined in the memo were not. \_ As much as Rather would like the only fire to be Bush-related, an equally legitimate fire is the memos probably being fake. \_ In fact, it looks like controversy over the memos will make it difficult to talk legitimately about Bush's National Guard non-service. \_ If the memos were false, how do you know their claims are true? The 30-year memories of an addled 86-yr. old? The claims of a partisan Democrat? \_ Yes, but she's a spry 86-year old. \_ Why won't Bush simply sign his Form 180 and put this controversy to rest? |
| 7/9 |
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| csua.org/u/94g -> www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml CBS News claimed a source had misled the network on the documents' origins. The network pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken." a statement, CBS said former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that 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." The network did not say the memoranda purportedly written by one of Mr Bush's National Guard commanders were forgeries. But the network did say it could not authenticate the documents and that it should not have reported them. "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," said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting," Heyward continued. "We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush had seen the CBS statement. but there are serious questions still to be answered,'' McClellan told CBS News' Jeff Goldblum. Additional reporting on the documents will air on Monday's CBS Evening News, including the interview of Burkett by Rather. CBS News pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken." In a separate statement, Rather said that "after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. "I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers," he said. "We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," Rather added. The authenticity of the documents four memoranda attributed to Guard commander Lt. Jerry Killian has been under fire since they were described in the Sept. CBS had not previously revealed who provided the documents or how they were obtained. Burkett has previously alleged that in 1997 he witnessed allies of then-Gov. Bush discussing the destruction of Guard files that might embarrass Mr Bush, who was considering a run for the presidency. In the statement, CBS said: "Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. 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." Questions about the president's National Guard service have lingered for years. Some critics question how Mr Bush got into the Guard when there were waiting lists of young men hoping to join it to escape the draft and possible service in Vietnam. Ben Barnes a Democrat claimed that, at the behest of a friend of the Bush family, he pulled strings to get young George W Bush into the Guard. scant records of any service by Mr Bush during the latter part of 1972, a period during which he transferred to an Alabama guard unit so he could work on a campaign there. The CBS documents suggested that Mr Bush had disobeyed a direct order to attend the physical, and that there were other lapses in his performance. One memo also indicated that powerful allies of the Bush family were pressuring the guard to "sugar coat" any investigation of Lt. immediately seized on the typing in the memos, which included a superscripted "th" not found on all 1970s-era typewriters. As the controversy raged, CBS broadcast interviews with experts who said that some typewriters from that period could have produced the markings in question. Other critics saw factual errors in the documents, stylistic differences with other writing by Killian and incorrect military lingo. former secretary said the sentiments regarding Mr Bush's failures as an officer were genuine, but the documents were not. Some document experts whom CBS consulted for the story told newspapers they had raised doubts before the broadcast and were ignored. CBS disputed their accounts, pointing to the main document expert the network consulted, Marcel Matley. Matley insisted he had vouched for the authenticity of the signatures on the memos, but had not determined whether the documents themselves were genuine. stood by its reporting while vowing to continue working the story. The network acknowledged there were questions about the documents and pledged to try to answer them. Mr Bush maintains that he did not get special treatment in getting into the Guard, and that he fulfilled all duties. On Saturday, a White House official said Mr Bush has reviewed the disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972, and did not recall having seen them previously. The Bush campaign has alleged that their Democratic rivals were somehow involved in the story. In an email revealed last week, Burkett said he had contacted the Kerry campaign but received no response. find and make public by next week any unreleased files about Mr Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press. The White House and Defense Department have on several occasions claimed that they had released all the documents only to make additional records available later on. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS News and anchorman Dan Rather now say that the authenticity of documents used in a "60 Minutes" story on George W Bush's National Guard service can't be confirmed. Despite kidnappings, mounting casualties, and attacks from John Kerry, the Iraq war does not seem to be hurting President Bush in voter polls, John Roberts reports. Congressional Republicans claimed revelations about Lt George Bush, which aired on "60 Minutes," were based on fake documents and demanded a retraction, Wyatt Andrews reports. Dan Rather sat down with WCBS reporter Marcia Kramer to talk about those who are questioning the 60 Minutes memos and why he stands by his report on Bushs service. CBS News continued to stand behind documents it obtained that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, citing handwriting and type experts, Dan Rather reports. |
| csua.org/u/94h -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/guard_091404.html Information Other Washington Post Co. |
| csua.org/u/94j -> csua.com/?entry=33505 org/u/90r (blog, and downloadable Word doc) You will find the Word doc was created using all the default settings, with word wrapping occurring precisely where they do in the CBS News documents. com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603 At least one of them could not have been generated by a computer, with the funny "e"s moving up and down the middle of various words. For example, in the original document, lowercase 'e' is very frequently -- but not always -- above the baseline. Granted, if you are comparing a lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high with another lowercase 'e' that is only 10 or 12 pixels high, you're not going to see such subtleties. it just proves you're an idiot, for making them each 12 pixels high and then saying "see, they almost match!" If you create a document using a font with a typewriter and then reproduce it 30 years later using a computer, they should look very much alike. Please provide URL when you find evidence of this, and exactly this. entry=12554_Another_Document_Experime nt-_19_May_1972 february 2001 support lgf You don't have to pay to read LGF. But if you enjoy what we're doing here and you'd like to show your appreciation, you can use the Amazon or PayPal links below to drop some change in our tip jar and help us buy some groceries. Please help keep Little Green Footballs bouncing by donating whatever you can! We do this without pay, so the more donations, the more time we can afford to devote to LGF. Thanks for your support, and for helping make LGF a success. next entry: CBS Docs: Bush Working on Nonexistent Campaign? Several readers mentioned the "19 May 1972" document as a particularly striking example; so I typed this document into Microsoft Word as well, again with default margins and tab stops... and once again, the character spacing, line spacing, line breaks (and remember, any 1972 typewriter would have had a manual or manually triggered carriage return), and letter forms in my MS Word document exactly match the CBS News "original." There are so many points of correspondence between these two versions that anyone arguing the CBS "original" could have been created with anything but MS Word is either: 1) dishonest, or 2) ignorant. It's very telling that the automatically word-wrapped MS Word version exactly matches the line breaks in the CBS "original" for 11 lines, with not a single discrepancy. If you look closely at the CBS "original" you can see that there's quite a bit of distortion and shearing, probably caused by whatever technique was used to artificially "age" the document. So the overlay technique is not as effective with this one; but if you overlay them and nudge one of them by single pixels from side to side, words and lines come into exact focus in different parts of the image. email this article replies: 114 comments Comments are open and unmoderated, although obscene or abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Little Green Footballs. Free Speech Is Only For ber-Libs 9/11/2004 06:58PM PST Never mind that you can just imagine the little Bush hating fascist sitting there, in front of his computer, making this crap up. I also hope Mr Streisand gets the nod for his performance as Reagan: it was inspiring. Not since his acting in Amityville Horror has he been so "on". Granted, the flies stole the show (and to be fair, they were just phoning it in), but still... Now, as the crack wears off, I think this drags out a couple weeks and Dan retires amidst cries of censorship and vast right wing - the word escapes me. Please Don Vito - make these men pay for what they have done. Elcid 9/11/2004 06:59PM PST Ummmm, people it's wonderful to win a BATTLE, but the war goes on. Slow-Motion Train Wreck We noted earlier that the Boston Globe cited Dr. Philip Bouffard as its prime source for the claim that the forged CBS documents were created on a typewriter, but that Dr. Bouffard has now complained that the Boston Globe misquoted him and that in fact, "There are all kinds of things that say that this is not a typewriter." "Now, unbelievably, CBS News is relying on the Globe's misquotation of Dr. Bouffard to shore up their own untenable claims of the documents' authenticity! I guess I'm beyond being shocked by anything CBS News does, but they must have known that Bouffard has complained about the Globe's misuse of his name." "This is, of course, a sign of CBS's desperation, but it is revealing in this respect: CBS claims to have thoroughly investigated and validated the documents before they ran their story. Bobby Hodges, has said that he was lied to by CBS News and that in fact, he things the documents are forgeries. Notwithstanding their supposed investigation, CBS is so hard up for ammunition to support their position that they have to repeat an already-exposed lie by the Globe." At least three Pentagon sources believe the documents about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard are fakes. I'm not as optimistic as many bloggers that just because we won the argument, we'll win the war. This story is one more thing that will damage President Bush unless the administration moves aggressively to counter it, and demonstrate to the majority of Americans--not just the news junkies--that CBS News has perpetrated a fraud of astonishing proportions in an effort to influence the election. But USA today had 2 new memos out and one of them had the centered text but this time with the superscript th. as shape of days pointed out, on a typewriter with proportionally spaced fonts, centering text is exceptionally hard but the precious memos were all dead on perfectly centered. THe left avoided that argument by saying it was possible that they ordered that letterhead previously and were just using it for all of them or that Killian may have taken the time to center it perfectly then just xeroxed a bunch of copies to use over and over. But on the new june 24th memo the heading is different because of that superscript th. Any chance we could get you to do a new overlay using that new header on the June 24th memo? We just need to tackle these lefty talking points one at a time. Because the SBVT came out with it attacks on Kerry's combat record, and it was hurting Kerry badly. Clinton gave Kerry good advice on dropping his Nam service record. My guess is someone in one of the 527's came up with the forgeries and then gave them to the DNC or Kerry. It might be that at the highest levels of the DNC or Kerry's campaign are clueless about the document. CBS groupthink mentality refused to properly vet the document, so now we have obviously forged documents that CBS cannot release the source because of the connection to the DNC or Kerry. After the savage investigation against the SBVT, this forgery is the smoking gun of active collusion between the Democrats and CBS. They have shot themselves in the foot, and are now in denial. The military used the date format: DD MMM YY when I worked with them up to the 90's. That was something that caught my eye in CBS's docs: they spelled out August in one place and they put a comma after the month in another. RadioMattM 9/11/2004 07:11PM PST #9 killbuckner IIRC, copy machines in 1972-73 used thermal paper. Plain paper copiers were not common until the late '70's. In other words, I find it unlikely that the CO would have typed up a perfectly-centered leterhead, then copied it. Not only would it have looked like hell at the time, it would look even worse now. I'll have to research to see what I can find ojn the subject. Lysander 9/11/2004 07:12PM PST I wonder how many people from Can't Believe Sh*t have their resumes out there now, because they know it's going down like a hulled ship? What are the odds, statisticly, that a random memo typed by a random typist on a typewriter will be word-wrapped exactly like the default automatic word-wrapping function of Microsoft Word? I wonder if expert is statistics can quantify the odds and maybe demonstate that the posibility of these memos not originating from MS Word is very improbable. Belize042 9/11/2004 07:15PM PST #13 Lewis Actually, I'd probably open the trusty Yellow Pages ... |
| dailykos.com true wingnuttery: For Coburn, the imminent danger facing America is apparently not terrorism but the "gay agenda." His thumping about this menace within contributed to the pressure that led to Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage. At a Republican meeting this spring, Coburn warned: "The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power ... That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? But that sort of thing doesn't do anything but help him in Oklahoma, were gays are scapegoated for all of society's ills (or something like that). What might hurt him, hopefully, is his big mouth (last week he caused an uproar when he called state lawmakers in Oklahoma City "crapheads"), and his record as a doctor. Not only did the rabidly anti-abortion Republican perform abortions in the past, but this story casts a further pall on his record as a doctor. According to records obtained by Salon, Coburn filed an apparently fraudulent Medicaid claim in 1990, which he admitted in his own testimony in a civil malpractice suit brought against him 14 years ago by a former female patient. The suit alleged that Coburn had sterilized her without her consent. It eventually was dismissed after the plaintiff failed to appear for the trial. In his sworn testimony, Coburn admitted he sterilized the then 20-year-old woman without securing her written consent as required by law. He blamed the omission on a clerical error, but maintained that he had her oral consent for the procedure. While the story has broken in the decidedly liberal, decidedly non-Oklahoman Salon Mag, it will make the jump to the local press probably tomorrow in a feature in the Daily Oklahoman. Whether it has legs beyond that, or whether the Carson campaign will make an issue of it, all remains to be seen. They are obviously not pushing undecideds hard, so the numbers are measuring stronger support than polls with small undecideds. Regardless, the trend is nice, and confirms the numbers seen by the Carson campaign. One last poll result so that people can get a good sense of what Oklahoma looks like: If you were to label yourself, would you say you are a Liberal, a Moderate, or a Conservative? Liberal 4 Somewhat liberal 9 Moderate 32 Somewhat conservative 26 Conservative 20 Given those numbers, and given Bush's ridiculous lead in the state, it's nothing short of a miracle that we have a competitive Democrat running for the seat. In Oklahoma, the battle is not necessarily between Democrat and Republican, it's between elitist and populist. Brad Henry won the governorship in 2002 because his opposition to a ballot initiative banning cockfighting was viewed as an elitist imposition by the Big City types in Oklahoma City. Kerry and his windsurfing ways could never compete against Bush's stage-crafted brush-clearing fiction, but the soft-spoken and hard-working Carson can fight the perception of national Dems as Big City elitists. Do you know Carson gave up an opportunity at Yale Law to go to law school at University of Oklahoma? And who wouldn't love that level of passion and commitment to their home state? kos Tue Sep 14th, 2004 at 04:23:28 GMT The White House's rebuttal to AWOL charges are simple: he got an honorable discharge, hence he fulfilled his duty. An old (February) TNR article is making the rounds which lays total bunk to the argument. exerpts the relevant passage: Far from being a mark of exemplar service, the honorable discharge is better thought of as a standard severance, something every soldier receives unless there's significant evidence of misconduct and a commanding officer eager to brave the paperwork, panels, and disciplinary hearings required to send the soldier home with anything less. Like any number of other officers, Bush could have ducked out of his service for months and still received an honorable discharge. Going missing from military service and then squeaking out with an honorable discharge has a rich history among politicians. Current US Representative Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois, served in the army through the mid-1960s, becoming progressively more involved with radical antiwar groups. In 1968, after Martin Luther King's assassination, he went AWOL from his unit to help found the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. In 1999, a Texas sheriff up for reelection saw his candidacy unravel after local newspapers reported that, despite a subsequent honorable discharge, he'd skipped out on Army service for several months in 1976 to "patch things up with his ex-wife." Louis Post-Dispatch ruminated on going AWOL from his unit routinely with a "case of beer" to drink himself "into oblivion." "I don't know how, but I did manage to get an honorable discharge." Perhaps more striking is how often serious questions of misconduct have been flat-out ignored. John Allen Muhammad, convicted last November for his participation in the DC sniper shootings, served in the Louisiana National Guard from 1978-1985, where he faced two summary courts-martial. In 1983, he was charged with striking an officer, stealing a tape measure, and going AWOL. Sentenced to seven days in the brig, he received an honorable discharge in 1985. So will that get empty vassals like Judy Woodruff to stop parroting BC04 talking points? WOODRUFF: How does that square, though, Walter Robinson, with the fact that he was discharged honorably, as the White House points out? ROBINSON: Well, as the White House points out, he was in fact discharged honorably by the Texas Air National Guard. It was the Texas Air National Guard and his own superiors who apparently looked the other way when he was not showing up for drills. The issue here is whether or not he performed his service obligation, and the records on that are now quite clear: He did not. WOODRUFF: And, uh, so, but -- but some people would say well, if he didn't perform his -- if he didn't fulfill his obligation, then how did the service end up giving him an honorable discharge I wouldn't count on it. Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida's elections chief told officials on Monday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state. The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move "blatant partisan maneuvering" by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, and vowed to fight it. "I'm in disbelief," said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. "This is blatant partisan maneuvering on the part of Jeb Bush to give his brother a leg up on election day." It's heart-warming how the Bush family looks out after its own. Zackpunk Mon Sep 13th, 2004 at 21:19:00 GMT (From the diaris -- kos) I was just listening to the Al Franken show, and he touched on a point, but didn't make an interesting connection. Colin Powell told president Bush, "if you break it, you own it." And now president Bush is going around talking about having an "ownership society." Mr President, if you want to talk about an ownership society, let's talk about what you own." kos Mon Sep 13th, 2004 at 21:13:57 GMT Midday open thread. Incidentally, we're playing server musical chairs today, so there may be some wierdness. The hackers claim it'll be a seamless transition, but whenever technology is involved, I always expect the worst. getting worse: It's not only that US casualty figures keep climbing. American counterinsurgency experts are noticing some disturbing trends in those statistics. The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on US forces in August--the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Preliminary analysis of the July and August numbers also suggests that US troops are being attacked across a wider area of Iraq than ever before. And the number of gunshot casualties apparently took a huge jump in August. Until then, explosive devices and shrapnel were the prima... |