Bush AWOL documents fake?

Interesting strategy, if true. I like it!

BLAH BLAH BLAH...

here. i'll try it again:

so what is bushy's plan to remove from iraq anyway?

how is taking jobs from americans and sending them overseas good for said americans? ordinary americans that is?

It's not governments job to tell corporations how to run their business. If the consumers don't like that a company has outsourced their jobs, they have a choice not to use that comapny's resources.

bush's plan for Iraq is to create a stabile government and law enforcement body and then leave. staying no longer than what is neccessary. He has said as much many, many times.

It's not governments job to tell corporations how to run their business. <--- McG

Oh yes it is! Regulation exists for a reason, there are all sorts of areas in which the gov't has a right and responsibility to protect the interests of it's citizens by limiting the rights of businesses.

bush's plan for Iraq is to create a stabile government and law enforcement body and then leave. staying no longer than what is neccessary. He has said as much many, many times. <--- also McG

Great. Can he elaborate on how he plans to accomplish this, when we cannot even keep control of several cities?

How can we be said to be leaving the country when there are 14 permanent US military bases there? Oh, you meant besides those troops, who will never leave. Somehow I doubt that is going to go over well with the Iraqi people.

Cycloptichorn

14 permanent bases? Where? They used to have a "permanent" base near where I live now, but there are no troops there now.

You should leave the prognostication to the experts. :wink:

Hmm. Semi-permanent would be a better word, I guess; bases that are intended to house US troops past the duration of the occupation.

Cycloptichorn

Leaving further prognostications to "experts" is precisely what must be stopped.

1) in order to choose any company to purchase from requires m-o-n-e-y. something that requires a j-o-b.

2) mcg. c'mon... that riff is absolutely meaningless and you know it. and it has not one thing to do with the war on islamist terrorism.

McGentrix whines:



These documents are most likely authentic, as IBM selectric typewriters DID exist back then and WERE being used by the NG back in 1971. They also DID have the proper character balls that were designed with hyperscript text, AND with better spacing.

It was up to the few rightwing screeds like Matt Drudge to once again throw in the right mixture of neoconservative lying and just enough doubt to create this mess were witnessing today.

When all is said and done, what will most likely be the facts will be simple:

Bush avoided Vietnam, thanx to strings pulled by his own daddy, whereas he commenced a military career flying training jets, drinking, doing drugs, and basically embarrasing those in command who pulled the strings to get Dumbya enrolled in the first place.

Then there's Kerry, who DID serve in Vietnam, and who's offical records have been vetted in the general putlic as a man who served his country, fought for his country, saved a man's life for his country, and then came back to tell the truth to this country about a war we were never destined to win. At least Kerry helped in eventually ending a war where roughly 58,000 of our soldiers died.

This is why the Republicans needed to smear Kerry, and at the same time attempt to dissavow Bush's NG documents as complete forgeries, only to find out that the technology DID exist back then for a cleaner, more precise document to be produced.

Wereas there are official records stating Bush being AWOL and getting preferential treatment, the GOP need something like the Swiftboat Vets of Smear to use only heresay in accusing Kerry of doing just about anything OTHER than fighting for his country.

Utterly and truly appalling. But that's how the Republicans play dirty. They do it without even a thought of a conscious and/or integrity.

And Bush insisted on bringing honor and integrity to the White House.

I took a job in 1977 where they were still using IBM Selectrics that continued to type perfect pages.

I left that job in 1987 and the same two typewriters were still going strong. My suspicion is that if it is a forgery it could have been done on the same IBM machine last week, Xeroxed and you'd have William Safire and other Nixon Apologists lining up to insist that it was printed with a Microsoft© program.

I'd put odds that if it isn't authentic, that the content on it is - and that it would be identical to the original wherever that is!

GW Bush remembers. He doesn't seem to remember it so well that he's throwing a party for his outfit of "flymen airmen."

Put your odds wherever you like. I'll lay odds the docs are fraudulent, and further, I'll lay odds the resolution of the flap will prove sorely inconveniemt to The Democrats.

The only substantive "Verification" so far provided has consisted of maintaining the documents "could have been" produced within the constraints of early '70's technology - albeit given an exceedingly improbable availability of equipment and requisite skills in a National Guard Squadron Office. Notable, however, is that no one has shown that it could be done ... the documents have not been duplicated with any '70s technology, despite a large reward available to anyone who can do so. The living people referrenced by CBS as corroborative subsequentl have disclaimed endorsement of the CBS position. Killian's widow, son, former CO, and a number of his compatriots all have stated, for the record, they do not believe the documents are authentic. Accreditted forensic experts, while acknowledging the imprecision of analysis based on copies, let alone copies several generations removed from the originals, preponderantly, at length and explicitly, with considerable detail, opine there is little likelihood the documents are authentic.



On a more serious note, I doubt Rather consciously perpetrated the fraud. It is my supposition he and the 60 Minutes crew were dupes ... eager, willing, uncritical dupes, but guilty really of no mopre than incredibly poor judgement and truly shoddy journalism.

BBB
Doesn't anyone find it interesting that Bush et al only dispute the authenticity of the documents, not the information in them. They still use their tired old sound bite response "Bush severed his country honorably and was given an honorable discharge." The very facts at issue in the documents.

Of course, If I knew the document facts were true, that's all I would be willing to say, too.
BBB

BBB,

If the documents are not authentic - that is if they are forgeries - it is rather easy to conclude the information in them is as false as the documents themselves.

um well george, i was just on another thread where the issue of fake/false images came up re the rather famous image of the flag raising at Iwo Jima came up. Now it is pretty well documented that the "famous" picture is fake as there was no photag present at the real event so it was staged a few hours later, but really does it take away from the "spirit/truthfulness" of the image? I think not. the photo is inded a "fake" document but I and most others except without question the essence of what it portrays.

C'mon Dys you are stretching things a bit. No doubt the Iwo Jima photo was a reenactment of a similar event that had taken place in the same spot just an hour or so earlier. However it was what it appeared to be.

A forged letter that purports to express the views and actions of a Commanding Officer and which was neither rsigned nor written by him is presumably false in every respect. It certainly does not express the views and actions of that Commanding Officer !!

A stack of salt pancakes !!!!!

Alright, it's time to debunk the fools who insist that these were forgeries:

EXHIBIT A: Superscript was available

Many news outlets and conservative publications have falsely reported that the documents' "use of the superscripted letters 'th' in phrases such as 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" raise suspicion because 1970s-era typewriters were incapable of producing such letters. In fact, journalist and weblogger Joshua Micah Marshall has pointed out that superscripted letters appear on other documents in Bush's military file that are known to be authentic. Moreover, IBM released a typewriter in the 1960s, the Selectric II, which was capable of producing superscript type.

EXHIBIT B: Proportional spacing was available

Another widely reported claim against the authenticity of the 60 Minutes documents is that their use of so-called proportional spacing -- a typesetting method in which varying letters occupy varying widths on the line, such as an "i" occupying less space than a "w." Press accounts have cited many so-called "experts" claiming that typewriters with this feature was rare and would not have been in wide use in the Guard in the 1970s. But in fact, typewriters with proportional spacing had been available since 1941, when IBM introduced the first model. Typewriter advertisements from 1953 and 1954 suggest the feature was widely available. President Richard Nixon's official letter of resignation from 1974 used proportional spacing, as do many White House documents from the 1960s available on an online archive

Press reports have also emphasized that the documents appear to be written in either Times Roman or Times New Roman font, suggesting that they were produced on a modern computer word processor, not a typewriter. In fact, Times Roman font dates back at least to 1945, as this short history explains. According to another account, Times New Roman dates to 1931, and IBM specifically hired its designer, Stanley Morison, to adapt the font to the Selectric typewriter. In fact, the Selectric Composer typewriter, introduced in 1966, not only could insert superscript but also featured proportional type and a font called Aldine Roman, a font similar to Times New Roman that appears to match the font in the memos (hat tip: Daily Kos).

The Democrats' suggestion that the Republicans may be behind the documents is not outlandish when considering that Karl Rove, chief political aide to Bush, was suspected of bugging his own office during the 1986 Texas gubernatorial race in an effort to smear Democratic Governor Mark White (the opponent of the candidate for whom he was working, Bill Clements).

Like I said, this has Karl Rove written all over it. These slimeballs will stop at nothing. It will be interesting to see how the rightwingers try and refute these facts.

Very interesting...

well George, I have to say that I disagree with your evalution here but as Timberland would say I don't have a dog in this fight.

Walter, would that be a "french" poodle?

I like your thinking Dookie. You really like covering the bases on this issue. You try to prove the docs are not fake because according to your examples they could have been typed when purported. Yet, just in case they are fake, you blame the republicans for pulling this off by putting the docs out there.

If they are not fake, Rove would have had no hand in making them public. But yet you make an argument that they are not fake because I guess you believe the content to be true. I don't think you can have it both ways. But then again, Kerry thinks he can have things both ways, so I at least know where you get your thinking from.