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will the CBS forgeries sink Kerry?



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 13th 04, 05:51 PM
Cub Driver
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Default will the CBS forgeries sink Kerry?


Writes John Fund in the email Political Diary:

**********************************************

CBS isn't saying whether the Kerry campaign or prominent Democrats
were the origin of the highly suspicious documents the network used to
challenge George W. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard record.
Asked about a Kerry campaign link to the challenged memos, a senior
CBS official told the New York Post: "I can't answer the question."

The American Spectator quoted CBS sources as saying the memos
originated with an opposition research staffer with the Democratic
National Committee. A CBS producer told the Spectator: "There is a
school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps,
figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had
doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information."

If Democrats did indeed provide the documents, they have much to worry
about. Pat Caddell, a Democratic strategist who served as President
Carter's pollster, told Fox News on Friday "the race is over" if the
documents are proven to be forgeries. "[Democratic officials] have
gotten themselves so involved in this issue [in] the last 24 hours
that somebody's going to, if they're not authentic, they're going to
be blamed for it. It's incredible to me that they've gotten in this."

He said that losing the presidential race would be the least of his
party's problems if Democrats are tied to any forgery scandal: "The
race is over -- and we've got bigger problems than that then."

CBS already has "bigger problems." My sources inside CBS say that Dan
Rather, who reported the "60 Minutes" story based on the memos, looked
"quiet and scared" most of last Friday as the storm over their
authenticity built. He complained that CBS News president Andrew
Heyward couldn't be reached and wasn't being supportive enough of the
story. Meanwhile, callers complaining to CBS were told by
receptionists "we are getting just as many calls of support as those
opposed," which is completely untrue. Almost no supportive calls have
come in. The focus at CBS is on defending the story at all costs, not
on evaluating its merits.

************************************************** ********

(And yes, this is on topic for r.a.m. Recall that it is Bush's Air
National Guard service that is being slimed by these forgeries. For
more, see my daily updates at www.vivabush.org )

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum
www.warbirdforum.com
Expedition sailboat charters www.expeditionsail.com
  #2  
Old September 13th 04, 06:09 PM
Steve R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Nice site Dan. )
Steve R.


"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

Writes John Fund in the email Political Diary:

**********************************************

CBS isn't saying whether the Kerry campaign or prominent Democrats
were the origin of the highly suspicious documents the network used to
challenge George W. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard record.
Asked about a Kerry campaign link to the challenged memos, a senior
CBS official told the New York Post: "I can't answer the question."

The American Spectator quoted CBS sources as saying the memos
originated with an opposition research staffer with the Democratic
National Committee. A CBS producer told the Spectator: "There is a
school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps,
figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had
doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information."

If Democrats did indeed provide the documents, they have much to worry
about. Pat Caddell, a Democratic strategist who served as President
Carter's pollster, told Fox News on Friday "the race is over" if the
documents are proven to be forgeries. "[Democratic officials] have
gotten themselves so involved in this issue [in] the last 24 hours
that somebody's going to, if they're not authentic, they're going to
be blamed for it. It's incredible to me that they've gotten in this."

He said that losing the presidential race would be the least of his
party's problems if Democrats are tied to any forgery scandal: "The
race is over -- and we've got bigger problems than that then."

CBS already has "bigger problems." My sources inside CBS say that Dan
Rather, who reported the "60 Minutes" story based on the memos, looked
"quiet and scared" most of last Friday as the storm over their
authenticity built. He complained that CBS News president Andrew
Heyward couldn't be reached and wasn't being supportive enough of the
story. Meanwhile, callers complaining to CBS were told by
receptionists "we are getting just as many calls of support as those
opposed," which is completely untrue. Almost no supportive calls have
come in. The focus at CBS is on defending the story at all costs, not
on evaluating its merits.

************************************************** ********

(And yes, this is on topic for r.a.m. Recall that it is Bush's Air
National Guard service that is being slimed by these forgeries. For
more, see my daily updates at www.vivabush.org )

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum
www.warbirdforum.com
Expedition sailboat charters www.expeditionsail.com



  #3  
Old September 13th 04, 07:10 PM
W. D. Allen Sr.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Too late! Kerry sunk himself two weeks ago! The CBS cover-up is just more
dirt on his coffin!

When will the DIMocRATs ever learn how to win an election? We can expect
them to once again be crybabies when they lose the upcoming election! But
will they then revert to doing what they were doing that caused them to lose
in the first place.

" A fool is anyone who persists in an action long ago proven wrong!"
- The Pundit's Guru



"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

Writes John Fund in the email Political Diary:

**********************************************

CBS isn't saying whether the Kerry campaign or prominent Democrats
were the origin of the highly suspicious documents the network used to
challenge George W. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard record.
Asked about a Kerry campaign link to the challenged memos, a senior
CBS official told the New York Post: "I can't answer the question."

The American Spectator quoted CBS sources as saying the memos
originated with an opposition research staffer with the Democratic
National Committee. A CBS producer told the Spectator: "There is a
school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps,
figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had
doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information."

If Democrats did indeed provide the documents, they have much to worry
about. Pat Caddell, a Democratic strategist who served as President
Carter's pollster, told Fox News on Friday "the race is over" if the
documents are proven to be forgeries. "[Democratic officials] have
gotten themselves so involved in this issue [in] the last 24 hours
that somebody's going to, if they're not authentic, they're going to
be blamed for it. It's incredible to me that they've gotten in this."

He said that losing the presidential race would be the least of his
party's problems if Democrats are tied to any forgery scandal: "The
race is over -- and we've got bigger problems than that then."

CBS already has "bigger problems." My sources inside CBS say that Dan
Rather, who reported the "60 Minutes" story based on the memos, looked
"quiet and scared" most of last Friday as the storm over their
authenticity built. He complained that CBS News president Andrew
Heyward couldn't be reached and wasn't being supportive enough of the
story. Meanwhile, callers complaining to CBS were told by
receptionists "we are getting just as many calls of support as those
opposed," which is completely untrue. Almost no supportive calls have
come in. The focus at CBS is on defending the story at all costs, not
on evaluating its merits.

************************************************** ********

(And yes, this is on topic for r.a.m. Recall that it is Bush's Air
National Guard service that is being slimed by these forgeries. For
more, see my daily updates at www.vivabush.org )

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum
www.warbirdforum.com
Expedition sailboat charters www.expeditionsail.com



  #4  
Old September 14th 04, 12:12 AM
S. O. Damocles
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Cub Driver wrote:
Writes John Fund in the email Political Diary:

TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
by Hunter
Fri Sep 10th, 2004 at 15:37:04 GMT

(From the diaries -- kos)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

1. First Claim (LittleGreenFootballs): "The documents can
be recreated in Microsoft Word".
What the LGFer did to "prove" this was to type a Microsoft
Word document in Times New Roman font, and overlay it with the
original document. As he says:

"Notice that the date lines up perfectly, all the line
breaks are in the same places, all letters line up with the same letters
above and below, and the kerning is exactly the same. And I did not
change a single thing from Word's defaults; margins, type size, tab
stops, etc. are all using the default settings."

We're going to make this simple.
First, of course, in order to do this, he first had to
reduce the document so that the margins were the same, since the original PDF
distributed by CBS is quite a bit larger. Then he superimposed the two
documents, such that the margins on all sides lined up.

What he then discovered is that Times New Roman typeface
is, when viewed on a computer monitor, really, really similar to
Times New Roman typeface. Or rather, really really similar to a
typeface that is similar to Times New Roman typeface.

Um, OK then.

You see, a "typeface" doesn't just consist of the shape of
the letters. It also is a set of rules about the size of the letters in
different point sizes, the width of those letters, and the spacing between
them.
These are all designed in as part of the font, by the
designer. Since Microsoft Word was designed to include popular and
very-long-used typefaces, it is hardly a surprise that those typefaces, in
Microsoft Word, would look similar to, er, themselves, on a
typewriter or other publishing device. That's the point of typefaces; to have
a uniform look across all publishing devices. To look the same. You
could use the same typeface in, for example, OpenOffice, and if it's
the same font, surprise-surprise, it will look the same.

So kudos on discovering fonts, freeper guy.

Next, however: do they really match up? Well, no. They
don't.

If you shrink each document to be approximately 400-500
pixels across, they do indeed look strikingly similar. But that is
because you are compressing the information they contain to 400-500 pixels
across. At that size, subtle differences in typeface or letter
placement simply cannot be detected; the "pixels" are too big. If you
compare the two documents at a larger size, the differences between them
are much more striking.

For instance: In the original CBS document, some letters
"float" above or below the baseline. For example, in the original document,
lowercase 'e' is very frequently -- but not always -- above
the baseline. Look at the word "interference", or even "me".
Typewriters do this; computers don't.
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. That doesn't prove the
differences aren't there; it just proves you're an idiot, for making them each
12 pixels high and then saying "see, they almost match!"

2. "This typeface -- Times New Roman -- didn't exist in the
early 1970s."

There are several problems with this theory. First, Times
New Roman, as a typeface, was invented in 1931. Second, typewriters
were indeed available with Times New Roman typefaces.

And third, this isn't Times New Roman, at least not the
Microsoft version.
It's close. But it's not a match.

For example, the '8' characters are decidedly different.
The '4's, as viewable on other memos, are completely different; one has
an open top, the other is closed.

So yes, we have proven that two typefaces that look similar
to each other are indeed, um, similar. At least when each document is
shrunk to 400-500 pixels wide... and you ignore some of the
characters.

3. "Documents back then didn't have superscripted 'th'
characters"

That one was easy. Yes, many typewriter models had
shift-combinations to create 'th', 'nd', and 'rd'. This is most easily proven
by looking at known-good documents in the Bush records, which indeed have
superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout.

4. "This document uses proportional spacing, which didn't
exist in the early 1970s."

Turns out, it did.
(http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm) The IBM
Executive electric typewriter was manufactured in four
models, A, B, C, and D, starting in 1947, and featured proportional
spacing. An example of its output is here
(http://www.microsparc.com/news.htm).
It was an extremely popular model, and was marketed to
government agencies.

5. "OK, fine, but no single machine had proportional
spacing, 'th' characters, and a font like that one."

No, again. The IBM Executive is probably the most likely
candidate for this particular memo. There is some confusion about this, so to
clear up:
the IBM Selectric, while very popular, did not have
proportional spacing.
The Selectric Composer, introduced in 1966, did, and in fact
could easily have produced these memos, but it was a very expensive machine,
and not likely to be used for light typing duties.
The proportional-spacing Executive, on the other hand, had been produced in

various
configurations since the 1940's, and was quite popular.

(Note: However, it is not immediately clear that the
Selectrics and Selectric IIs could not in fact emulate "proportional"
spacing. There is skepticism in some circles that these memos really show
"proportional" spacing. Looking at the blowups, it appears pretty obvious
to me that there is, but still researching.)

Did they have a font that looked like Times New Roman?
Unclear; they apparently were manufactured in a range of configurations,
and with different available typefaces. Note that these were not
"typeball" machines, like the Selectrics; they had a normal row of
keys. But it is worth noting that IBM had what we will call a "close"
relationship with Times New Roman:

"Courier was originally designed in 1956 by Howard Kettler
for the revolutionary "golfball" typing head technology IBM was then
developing for its electric typewriters. (The first
typewriter to use the technology was
the IBM Selectric Typewriter that debuted in 1961.) Adrian
Frutiger had nothing to do with the design, though IBM hired him in the
late 1960s to design a version of his Univers typeface for the Selectric.
In the 1960s and 1970s Courier became a mainstay in offices. Consequently,
when Apple introduced its first Macintosh computer in 1984 it
anachronistically included Courier among its core fonts. In the early 1990s
Microsoft, locked in a font format battle with Adobe, hired Monotype
Typography to design a series of core fonts for Windows 3.1, many of which

were
intended to mirror those in the Apple core font group. Thus, New
Courier--lighter and crisper than Courier--was born. (In alphabetized screen
menus font names are often rearranged for easier access so now we have
Courier New MT in which the MT stands for Monotype Typography.)

"Courier's vanquisher was Times New Roman, designed in 1931
by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation,
with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent. The Times of
London first used it the following year. Linotype and Intertype quickly
licensed the design, changing its name for their marketing purposes
to Times Roman. Times Roman became an original core font for Apple
in the 1980s and Times New Roman MT became one for Windows in the 1990s.
(Ironically, at the same time IBM invited Frutiger to adapt
Univers for the Selectric Typewriter, they asked Morison to do the
same with Times New Roman.)"

http://journal.aiga.org/content.cfm?...3.% 5EG%2F%0A

So, as you can see, both IBM and Microsoft specifically
obtained the typeface "Times New Roman" from the designers of that font;
neither was the creator of it. And, as we said before, typeface
includes not just the "shape" of the letters, but the size and spacing between
those letters.

One of the differences between the Times New Roman as
implemented on the IBM machines, as opposed to Microsoft Word? The IBM
machines apparently had the alternative '4' character that matched
these memos, while Microsoft Word's TNR does not.

Oops.

Now, would the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron have
extravagantly purchased typewriters that contained the th superscript
key? Would the military want or require typewriters with the 'th', 'nd',
and 'rd' characters? Hmm. Ponder, Ponder. What would the 111th
need with a th character... I'll leave that to the enterprising among you
to deduce.

This is not the final word on this, and it is certainly
possible that any documents are forgeries. But the principle argument of the
freepers -- that it would be impossible for a TANG office
in 1972 to produce documents that look like these -- is simply false. Within
a few days, however, we should know for sure either way; these
typewriters still have a following, and type samples should be forthcoming.

Update [2004-9-10 14:26:41 by Hunter]: This is from a
commenter at Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly site:

"Kevin, I worked in the IBM Office Products Division field
service area fixing typewriters in NYC for over 13 years in the 70s. I
can tell you that the Model D can produce those documents, not only did it do
proportional spacing, you could order any font that IBM produced AND
order keys that had the aftmentioned superscripted "th." Also you
could order the platen, thats the roller that grabs the paper, in a 54 tooth
configuration that produced space, space and a half and
double spacing on the line indexing, this BTW was popular in legal
offices. The Model D had to be ordered from a IBM salesmen and was not
something that was a off the shelf item, typical delivery time were 4-6 weeks.
Also, typewriter keys were changed in the field all the time, its
not that hard to do. I wish I had saved my service and parts
replacement manuals to backup this claim but I'm guessing a call to IBM
with a request for a copy of their font and parts replacement
manuals would put this to rest ASAP. Posted by: BillG NYC on September
10, 2004 at 12:24 PM | PERMALINK"
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/...?entry_id=4669



 




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