I think the simplest explanation regarding the 60 Minutes documents is that they're real—otherwise, they'd have to be fake but legitimate in a narrative sense so as not to set off alarms with the White House and passable in a technical sense so as to fool both CBS and the White House. It's definitely possible, and I feel sort of sheepish for making fun of Jonah for suggesting it, but I'm firmly skeptical. Extra dubious now that the site that has spearheaded the amateur vetting sees connections to the Kerry campaign. Can Michael Moore's fat fingers be far removed?
Scandal or no, what an opportunity to talk about typography! Kerning and tracking—the two components of the art and science of spacing font—are at root in the discussion over whether these documents were composed by typewriter in the 70s. You can master the same alleged document manipulation in your own home. Say you need to keep that one damned line from spilling to the next page, but your margins are already pinched and you're font size strains the eye: consider Format Font --> Character Spacing. Kern wisely; as with the practice of any wisdom, you run the risk of coming afoul of a school of thought with no patience for the amateur.
UPDATE: Apparently this littly guy
was churning out kern as early as 1941. Courtesy of Yglesias.
Posted by Kriston at September 10, 2004 9:43 AMMatt dosn't mention kerning, neither does the page he links to. I suspect you are confusing kerning with proportional spacing.
These documents and their godfather, Kerry, cannot be saved. A strong Nader showing is the honorable option ahead.
Posted by: Ripper at September 10, 2004 10:32 AMKerning and tracking are technical terms for proportional spacing.
Posted by: Kriston at September 10, 2004 10:41 AMKerning and tracking aside, the "th" was the dead giveaway. When typed with a space , "187 th", the "th" appeared normal. When typed without a space on the same document, "187th", the "th" appeared as superscript. So either he chose to change the balls randomly, or...he was using Word which only superscripts the "th" when it is used without a space before it. Slam dunk. Boo-yaa, etc...
If this was faxed across state lines, we could see some DOJ action in January against some Dems.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 10, 2004 12:15 PMwait, i'm confused. was the th thing on all the documents or on in particular?
Posted by: catherine at September 10, 2004 12:40 PMon one in particular, i meant
Posted by: catherine at September 10, 2004 12:41 PMMan, if I were some sort of typographical history expert I would be feeling so awesome right now. Finally, finally, history and politics have conspired to bring these folks, ever so briefly, into the limelight. It's a very strange thing. On the other hand, they might all be very annoyed at how everybody has suddenly become document analysis experts. "Oh, so now it's cool?" But that's blogs for you, huh? We're all overnight experts.
Posted by: susan at September 10, 2004 1:34 PMIt is getting a little science fiction to believe that this guy would go to all that trouble to create such an exotic document back in the early 70s.
Kriston, can you spell "d-e-n-i-a-l"?
Think about it... all the Dems have to do is find other documents with similar style and presentation from this time period which are 100% authentic.
Why, even said Yglesias said:
"The critical question is whether the Bush guard memos match the other documents in Killian's files, not whether Killian's used a common type of typewriter."
Well... why not produce just one?
(Oh, after an exhaustive search, they will probably produce one or two out of millions and millions and millions of documents... but not a single one from this particular guy.)
Come on... what are the chances that the one document that is so exotic for that time period happens to be this one document?
An since when do military officers get creative with kerning and tracking? Especially flyboys who would typically rather be out flying and away from the office.
What is really interesting is that you have to do intellectual backflips and cartwheels to believe this document is not a forgery... then, at the same time, you also have to not give Bush a single benefit of the doubt to in order to even attempt to find fault with his Guard duty.
It seem that the liberals' collective search for fact and truth is so colored by pre-conceived biases and opinions that they can't hardly discern correctly what is factual and truthful?
...but don't listen to me... by all means... keep digging yourselves in a hole deeper and deeper...
Posted by: Rob McEwen at September 10, 2004 2:35 PM"Kerning and tracking are technical terms for proportional spacing."
Typewriter proportional spacing is much more mechanical than kerning, no letter pairs. You can't use pairs if the machine doesn't know what is coming next. Word can go back and make kerning adjustments as you type, because the charcter hasn't been printed yet.
Posted by: Ripper at September 10, 2004 2:48 PM
These documents and their godfather, Kerry, cannot be saved. A strong Nader showing is the honorable option ahead.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Try again.
Posted by: John at September 10, 2004 3:11 PMJust to clarify, the first line of my quote is meant to be in italics, as a quote from Ripper. I am laughing uproariously at his ridiculous comment.
Posted by: John at September 10, 2004 3:15 PMIt seem that the liberals' collective search for fact and truth is so colored by pre-conceived biases and opinions that they can't hardly discern correctly what is factual and truthful?
I dunno. I was reading Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall and they're pretty skeptical and willing to hear out all these claims against the docs. They both said there were some big questions that CBS isn't answering. (And it's CBS' job to defend their documents, not the democrats!) Even crazy wingnut Kriston said it was possible, he's just skeptical. This doesn't sound like insane denial to me.
Seems like everybody's pretty well admitting that these may well be forgeries, so no need to get too upset at our intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by: susan at September 10, 2004 3:48 PMKriston said:
but legitimate in a narrative sense so as not to set off alarms with the White House... to fool both CBS and the White House.
Could it be that the White House has wisely learned (a) to not comment of stuff it has not had a decent amount of time to investigate AND (b) why stick your neck out defending yourself from false allegations when OTHERS are already doing a great job defending your record.
...think about it, if the White House immediately defends itself, it sound reactionary and people say "they are just trying to cover their ass"....
But if others, including typography, forgery, and Air Force experts defend Bush and prove this document a forgery, then the White House looks more "presidential" by staying out of the fray.
Also, there are many less-policically connected people who might not have hear much or anything about this story, one way or the other. If the Bush White House even talks about the doc being illegitimate, it just brings the whole issue to a lot of people's minds. Even if the smoke if fabricated, there is a tendancy among the masses to believe that "where there is smoke, there is fire".
This is kind of like having to give air-time to a "why did you beat your wife?" charge. Even if you are innocent, why would you want to give airtime to the charge, especially if the issue in general is not on a lot of people's minds.
Somehow... all this is lost on Kriston and, instead, he seems to imply that the relative silence on this from the White House implies guilt. As I've shown, this assumption is false.
Posted by: Rob McEwen at September 10, 2004 3:55 PMGood points, Susan.
I think that Kriston's ridiculous post and the fact that Dan Rather is adamant about their authenticity really inspired that comment from me.
But your point is a good rebuttal.
Posted by: Rob McEwen at September 10, 2004 3:58 PM"And it's CBS' job to defend their documents, not the democrats"
These documents belong to their author, not CBS. We need to track down the Texas Democrat who commited this felony and make him/her regret the day s/he betrayed Democracy.
Posted by: Ripper at September 10, 2004 4:00 PMoooooookay, down with the pitchforks, cowboy.
Though, I have to admit:
"Ahm gonna make you regret the day you betrayed Democracy" would be the most awesome B-movie line I've ever heard. I'd cast Clint Eastwood to say it with a squinty-eyed snarl.
Bronson's dead, so the "Cartville" character can't meet exactly the fate I'm hoping for in the movie. Maybe we can reserve Dahlmer's cell for him in real life.
Posted by: Ripper at September 10, 2004 4:41 PMWell, instead of argueing over the fonts and spacing, let's take a look at its content. Powerlineblog reports that the " August 18, 1973 memo 'discovered' by 60 Minutes, Jerry Killian purportedly writes:
Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.
But wait! Reader Amar Sarwal, citing Peter Nuss, points out that General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972. "
That, to me, raise questions of their authenticity.
Sorry to act like a party-pooper, but I have an important question:
Who the hell cares?
This issue is not going to help John Kerry. And it certainly is not going to help George Bush. So why is everyone arguing about ball bearings on 1970s typewriters?
Posted by: Erik at September 10, 2004 7:10 PMHi, welcome to the 2004 election, Erik.
Posted by: matty at September 10, 2004 10:53 PMI long for the good ol' days of 1988.
Posted by: Erik at September 11, 2004 1:26 AMHere's aboslute proof the forgery is kerned based on a t letter pairs.
http://illuminaria.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=2
Posted by: Ripper at September 12, 2004 5:57 PM