Bush AWOL documents fake?

I don't think they have been "proven" to be fake yet either. I do think there are some legit questions that need to be answered. But if they are legit as Dookie is arguing, then that pretty much blows the apparent belief that Rove is behind this. Unless I have misunderstood what Dookie is saying Rove has done here. My take is that Dookie believes Rove leaked the documents knowing they were fake. I admit that maybe what Dookie is saying Rove is behind is the move to prove the docs are forgeries, in which case I will retract my statements from my earlier post.

I do think, however, that since someone is making accusations that they are fake, they should be the ones required to prove it. Accusers the prover, so to speak. With the allegations about the type face and the raised th pretty much refuted, what's left?

A detailed examination of the CBS documents beside authenticated Killian memos and other documents generated by Bush's 147th Fighter Interceptor Group suggests at least three areas of difference that are difficult to reconcile:

• Word-processing techniques. Of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents. Nor did they use a superscripted "th" in expressions such as "147th Group" and or "111th Fighter Intercept Squadron."

In a CBS News broadcast Friday night rebutting allegations that the documents had been forged, Rather displayed an authenticated Bush document from 1968 that included a small "th" next to the numbers "111" as proof that Guard typewriters were capable of producing superscripts. In fact, say Newcomer and other experts, the document aired by CBS News does not contain a superscript, because the top of the "th" character is at the same level as the rest of the type. Superscripts rise above the level of the type.

• Factual problems. A CBS document purportedly from Killian ordering Bush to report for his annual physical, dated May 4, 1972, gives Bush's address as "5000 Longmont #8, Houston." This address was used for many years by Bush's father, George H.W. Bush. National Guard documents suggest that the younger Bush stopped using that address in 1970 when he moved into an apartment, and did not use it again until late 1973 or 1974, when he moved to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard Business School.

One CBS memo cites pressure allegedly being put on Killian by "Staudt," a reference to Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, one of Bush's early commanders. But the memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, nearly a year and a half after Staudt retired from the Guard. Questioned about the discrepancy over the weekend, CBS officials said that Staudt was a "mythic figure" in the Guard who exercised influence from behind the scenes even after his retirement.

• Stylistic differences. To outsiders, how an officer wrote his name and rank or referred to his military unit may seem arcane and unimportant. Within the military, however, such details are regulated by rules and tradition, and can be of great significance. The CBS memos contain several stylistic examples at odds with standard Guard procedures, as reflected in authenticated documents.

That's a great way of going through life. If the documents are real, they damn Bush and that is good. If they are fake, Rove did it, they damn Bush and that is good.

I wish my glasses where so rosy.

They should have just kept quiet and allowed CBS, Dan Rather and whoever passed these fakes to CBS to report whatever, since the object is not truth but getting rid of Bush any way possible.

A great deal has been made of the fact that some documents that are claimed to have been typed in the early 1970s look very much like documents prepared in Microsoft Word in 2004. This fact proves nothing, because (1) a document may well have been typed on a typewriter in the 1970s and (2) virtually the same document can be prepared on a computer in 2004. (Some other comments on this issue, from a notably better-informed perspective, may be found here.)

So there should be an investigation right? If the docs are forged I'm sure they can be traced to their forger. I'm reserving judgment for now until I get more info.