Once & for all, there is NO QUESTION! The documents are 100% real!

[stickdog]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/11/authenticity_backed_on_bush_documents/

After CBS News on Wednesday trumpeted newly discovered documents that referred to a 1973 effort to ''sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the documents were forgeries, with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time. But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe yesterday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

Analysts who have examined the documents focus on several facets of their typography, among them the use of a curved apostrophe, a raised, or superscript, ''th," and the proportional spacing between the characters -- spacing which varies with the width of the letters. In older typewriters, each letter was alloted the same space.

Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised ''th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record that the White House made public earlier this year.

[alittlelark]

1. I never doubted, but then

I was not glued to DU for 24+ hrs.

They will make you believe what they wish you to believe.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Never mind. Look the other way. They're now going about

destroying the credibility and on full-scale character assasination of Staudt now.

They still haven't disputed what is stated in the memos.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stickdog]

5. Can you read, buddy?

From the linked article:

Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised ''th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record that the White House made public earlier this year.

Care to explain your "misstatement"?

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stickdog]

9. Why are your posting disinfo? The Seletric II was an OFFICE typewriter.

It came out in 1971 and had superscript and proportional capability:

http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm

More:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltypewriter.htm

In 1944, IBM designs the first typewriter with proportional spacing.

The end.

[TahitiNut]

10. R.I.P.

[gatorboy]

11. Too bad.

That webpage he posted almost had me convinced! :eyes:

[gardenista]

12. Interesting. Selectric.org "whois"

Note the date registered.

I wonder if Rove had the forgery accusation lined up ahead of time, knowing that authentic, damning evidence was likely to emerge.

Any TANG docs that got past their clutches and into the hands of the last remaining true journalists could be discredited.

ON EDIT: My tinfoil hat may be on too tight here. It appears that this guy may be genuinely fascinated with office machines. I am deleting the "who is" info., which contains personal information. Anyone who is truly interested can look it up on their own.

[gatorboy]

15. Could be.

But it seems to me like they would've made the web page more presentable. Instead of a museum, it looks like they just took a bunch of pictures of junk machines and slapped them together on a page quickly. There's more information on that page about Hot Rods then there is about Selectric Typewriters.

[Gluttony]

28. I don't understand.

Why was that person tombstoned?

[Vickers]

29. "that person" Har!

Welcome to DU! Enjoy your stay!

:toast:

[gatorboy]

8. What strikes me as weak,

is that you remember what type of typewriters were in some offices in 1996. I've been at my job for 5 years and I can't tell you what brand they use. Suddenly every Repub has come out of the woodwork and can remember brands of typewriters from 20 years ago. :eyes:

Having fun going from thread to thread talking about these memos?

Oh, by the way...Welcome! :D

[Bolo Boffin]

4. No question at all.

Nice to be on the same side of a debate.

[TahitiNut]

6. Absolutely!

As I posted in this thread, I have two original typewritten letters of commendation written in 1969 in Vietnam with the same kind of proportional spacing.

It's unbelievably detestible bullshit how these reichbots are lying!

[stavka]

13. Kick and a site

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

[Must_B_Free]

14. Good god listen to yourself man

to be a critic - you have used such definitive language and the proof is "specialists"? Everyone's got specialists corroberating.

And I'm not doubting the position that they are real, I just don't know that that consitiutes "proof" of the magnitude you are shouting about.

[stickdog]

17. OK, it's not proof that the docs are real -- just that Repuke claims are

bullshit.

I just don't want to talk about this shit anymore. The documents are either real or they ain't. But one thing they sure ain't is MS Word laser forgeries. Furthermore, there were proportional Seletric balls long before 1972.

[Swamp Rat]

19. Dammit! Just when I was going to post an answer to the dead

freeper, I have trouble logging on!

Those IBM Selectronics didn't cost 5-6k back in '72 as the dead freeper said, and they were very common.

My dad, who was an officer in the Air Force (SAC), had one at home in the early 70's. They were very affordable in '72. He used to let me make machine gun sounds with it, typing hyphens across the page. There's NO WAY he would have let me do that on something costing over a few hundred bucks. His was less than $400.00. These typewriters were VERY common, even in podunk little offices in rural America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter
http://www.ibmcomposer.org/SelComposer/description.htm

This seller on eBay is selling one and says that the Selectric Composer II retailed for $400.00: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3838133586

We should hammer the shit out of Bush on ALL fronts.

[stickdog]

20. Plus the IBM Mag Card Executive came out in 1972. (nt)

[greekspeak]

24. More info to suggest the typewriters didn't cost that much

The highschool where I went, the same one where my grandmother was a teacher, used Selectrics in the typing classroom since opening. They were still there in 1990 when I took typing. There were a good 25-30 of them in there from day one. In Springfield, MO, if the school system spent 150,000 1972 dollars on TYPEWRITERS, the citizenry would have boiled tar and plucked feathers in front of the School Board building.

[nostamj]

26. We should hammer the shit out of Bush on ALL FONTS too!

;-) couldn't resist...

[Swamp Rat]

31. Actually, that was so corny I really laughed my ass off.

:D

[stickdog]

16. The documents themselves are here.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/BushRecord.pdf

And these were supposed to be created by MS Word on a laser printer?

How the fuck do Repukes get away with such OBVIOUS lies?

[gatorboy]

18. They are absolutely crazy!

I now feel very silly thinking it might be a possibility, but I guess that's what they were going for....

[Jokinomx]

21. Thanks.... I will be using this link with those in my Family who

are * supporters....

:kick:

[allemand]

22. Evidence that the memos were typed on a Selectric Composer

The memos can be reproduced with absolute accuracy on a Selectric Composer, something that is not possible with MS-Word and Times New Roman, because the font doesn't match exactly.

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shape_of_days/2004/0...

Look at the similarities ! Even the "4" is exactly as it should be. So the typeface can be identified as "Press Roman" (maybe 11-point).

The author of the blog still tries to dismiss the evidence, but the one who provided the example states that he could have reproduced the memos with absolute accuracy:
"Yes, if I had really tried, I could have matched the spacing (leading). The leading on the composer can be finely adjusted. Don't know if it is down to the single point level, but it probably is since you can set the leading according to the font, and the leading dial goes from something like 6pt up to 14pt."

Also the centering should not be that difficult. And the addresses and the memos were not necessarily typed on the same day, maybe they had some forms prepared in advance (prepared on the same day, but used for memos 3 months apart).

Bouffard now also says that it was done on a Selectric Composer:
"Bouffard, the Ohio document specialist, said that he had dismissed the Bush documents in an interview with The New York Times because the letters and formatting of the Bush memos did not match any of the 4,000 samples in his database. But Bouffard yesterday said that he had not considered one of the machines whose type is not logged in his database: the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/11/a...
 

[Citizen Daryl]

23. Has someone been able to duplicate the document ...

... using an actual typewriter from that era?

[coloradodem2005]

25. tit for tat.

People tell lies about Kerry's military service so we tell the truth about Bush's military service.

[Must_B_Free]

27. could have = no question?

no question for me woud be if someone said "this typewriter" and typed out an identical memo.

[soundfury]

30. Sadly, I donÕt think it matters É

to them if it is true.

911 was a lie.