WBAP Exclusive
AUDIO - Daughter of Ben Barnes Disputes Father's Claims as Political


The Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes' recollections over how he helped President Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War have evolved over the years from fuzzy to distinct.

Barnes, who once claimed he did not help Bush enter the National Guard, reversed his story and told CBS News 60 Minutes that he in fact did help Bush.

Mr. Barnes daughter called the Mark Davis Show and spoke with Monica Crowley on WBAP September 9th dismissing Barnes' claims as political and opportunistic.

Click here for audio (Windows Media).

Excerpt of Call:

BARNES: I love my father very much, but he's doing this for purely political reasons. He is a big Kerry fund-raiser and he is writing a book also. And [the Bush story] is what he's leading the book off with. ... He denied this to me in 2000 that he did get Bush out [of Vietnam service]. Now he's saying he did.

CROWLEY: Did he tell you, Amy – and I'm glad I have you on the line with me – did your father tell you that he was prepared to do this on behalf of John Kerry – go after President Bush like this?

BARNES: He told me he was going to do it. In fact, I talked to him a couple of months ago. He told me he was writing the book. He told me that he was going to be talking about this. And he knows that I – we have very diverse political opinions. He knows my opinions and we get into this debate every time I see him. But, you know, he said that he was going to be talking about it.

CROWLEY: Now you're saying, Amy, that he has had two separate stories on President Bush's Guard duty during the Vietnam era?

BARNES: Yes, yes. This came out in 2000 and I asked him then, at the time, if he [helped get Bush into the Guard]. He said: "No, absolutely not. I did not do that." -

CROWLEY: So, I hate to put you in this position, but I will ask you, do you think your father, Ben Barnes who was on "60 Minutes II" with Dan Rather last night – do you believe that he lied on the air to the American people last night about President Bush?

BARNES; Yes, I do. I absolutely do. And I think he's doing he's doing it for purely political, opportunistic reasons – trying to get John Kerry elected and trying to make Bush look like the bad person. ... Like I said, he's going to be trying to promote his book that he's got coming out.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay4.pdf

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardmay19.pdf

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust1.pdf

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust18.pdf

Somehow there's a program out there that can simultaneously apply inky residue to letters like 'e' and 'd' individually, raise and lower individual letters from the baseline and then can as well duplicate the obviously printed elements of the forms - and then get itself turned into a .pdf file.

Ya and the Easter Bunny is real. :rolleyes:


Did you see who the experts where?

Philip Bouffard is the expert who shows up on the Web only in a UFO case and as the writer of a program to compare font faces (not a very well known one, either).
For the main "expert" the Washington Post relied on, William Flynn?

The guy who claimed John Demjanjuk was a victim of Soviet forgery?

http://thewebsafe.tripod.com/williamflynn.htm
more on John Demjanjuk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

That's quite a roster of "experts." One works for UFO nuts, and one for Nazi war criminals. Why am I not surprised?

LT ,

You OK? Looks like two of your neighbors had a little falling out. :p :p

Sultan man shot in the head during neighbor dispute

By Jennifer Sullivan
Times Snohomish County bureau

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A 41-year-old Sultan man is in satisfactory condition this afternoon at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after he was shot in the head during a dispute with a neighbor.
Snohomish County sheriff's investigators say the victim's 44-year-old neighbor at a Sultan trailer park shot him during an argument. Both men had been drinking, said sheriff's spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen.

The 44-year-old Sultan man was booked at the Snohomish County Jail on investigation of first-degree assault.

Jorgensen said the victim was "alert and conscious" when deputies arrived at about 12:50 a.m. She said a neighbor called 911 after hearing "screaming" inside the older man's trailer.

It's unclear what the men were arguing over.

Yes King I'm OK

OK that was dang funny on your part

More challenges about whether Bush documents are authentic

By Pete Slover
The Dallas Morning News


AP
George W. Bush sits in an F-102 fighter jet while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard. The date of this file photo is unknown.

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AUSTIN, Texas — The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" George W. Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo supposedly was written, his service record shows.
An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of the future president's service was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special treatment as a pilot, failed to carry out a superior's order to undergo a physical exam and was suspended from flying for failing to meet Air National Guard standards.

Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among documents obtained by The Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.

A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless.

Authenticity of the memo and three others included in Wednesday's "60 Minutes" report came in for heavy criticism yesterday, prompting an unusual, on-air defense of the original work. Experts on typography said the memos appeared to have been computer-drafted on equipment not available at the time.

And the widow and son of the officer who supposedly wrote them, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984, have said it wasn't his nature to keep detailed personal notes.

In its news broadcast yesterday, CBS said the documents were supported by both unnamed witnesses and others, including document examiners.

CBS anchor Dan Rather earlier told The Dallas Morning News that he had heard nothing to make him question the legitimacy of the memos. He attributed the backlash to partisan politics and competitive journalism.

"This story is true. The questions we raised about then-Lieutenant Bush's National Guard service are serious and legitimate," he said. "Until and unless someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill."

The Washington Post quoted Rather as saying CBS had talked to two people who worked with Killian — his superior, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, and his administrative assistant Robert Strong — and both described the memos as consistent with what they knew of Killian. Hodges, who told CBS he was "familiar" with the documents, is an avid Bush supporter and "it took a lot for him to speak the truth," the Post quoted Rather as saying.





The Los Angeles Times, however, later quoted Hodges as saying that he believed the memos from Killian were not real. A CBS news executive confirmed that Hodges had changed his story.

Rather's interview with The Morning News concluded before the newspaper determined the date of Staudt's departure, but a CBS staffer with extensive knowledge of the story said later that the departure doesn't derail the story. "From what we've learned, Staudt remained very active after he retired," the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He was a very bullying type, and that could have continued."

In the "60 Minutes" report, Rather said of the memo's contents: "Killian says Col. Buck Staudt, the man in charge of the Texas Air National Guard, is putting on pressure to 'sugarcoat' an evaluation of Lt. Bush."

Staudt was the person Bush initially contacted about Guard service, and he was the group commander at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston when Bush arrived there to fly an F-102 jet. He transferred later to Austin, where he served as chief of staff for the Air National Guard.

In the disputed memo, Killian supposedly wrote "(another officer) gave me a message today from group regarding Bush's (evaluation) and Staudt is pushing to sugarcoat it."

It continues: "Austin is not happy either."

The CBS staffer said the memo appears to recognize that Staudt has retired, since it differentiates between his displeasure and that of Austin, where he served his final Guard stint.

But another Texas Air National Guard official who served in that period said the memo appears to wrongly associate Staudt with his group command in Houston, and — based on that mistake — the memo distinguishes his views from that of the Austin Guard.

Retired Col. Earl Lively, director of Air National Guard operations for the state headquarters during 1972 and 1973, said Staudt "wasn't on the scene" after retirement, and that CBS' remote-bullying thesis makes no sense.

"He couldn't bully them. He wasn't in the Guard," Lively said. "He couldn't affect their promotions. Once you're gone from the Guard, you don't have any authority."

Bush has not commented publicly about the CBS report, and aides say his honorable discharge proves he fulfilled his obligations.


Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

From ABCnews.com
------------------------------------------------------------

The 60 Minutes Documents:

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."


Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".
CBS responds: ""We believed Col. Hodges the first time we spoke with him. We believe the documents to be genuine. We stand by our story and will continue to report on it."

RB

They are lying again

During the 2000 election season, the Bush campaign claimed that Bush had released all of his
military records. That was false. Early this year, under pressure, the White House released another batch of records, claiming that it had now released all of Mr. Bush's military records. That, too, was false. On Sept 7, 2004 under lawsuit from the AP, the White House released another batch of
documents, claiming once again that all documents had now been released.
On Sept 8, 2004, for reasons not publicly explained, the White House centralized authority over all responses to requests for Mr. Bush's military records. This seemed strange if all the records had already been released.

After the 60 Minutes report, the White House released two of the documents 60 Minutes had
just presented. Were they just copying CBS, or did they have those documents already? And what other documents do they have, or know about, that they're trying to prevent other parts of the government from releasing by centralizing authority to respond to FOIA requests?

LT,

It's been reported in dozens of stories
(print/tv) that the documents that the WH released were the ones FAXED TO THEM BY CBS--if you're going to chime in on the story--try to keep up with all the developements would ya.

Ya ya...I just find it humorous how they keep having to release more information and every time they claim they have released everything. :p

Those Discredited Memos

The "documents" put forward by CBS News about George W. Bush's service have all the earmarks of forgeries. By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Washington - Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax: the "documents" presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment in Lt. George W. Bush's National Guard service have all the earmarks of forgeries.

The copies of copies of copies that formed the basis for the latest charges were supposedly typed by Guard officer Jerry Killian three decades ago and placed in his "personal" file. But it is the default typeface of Microsoft Word, highly unlikely to have been used by that Texas colonel, who died in 1984. His widow says he could hardly type and his son warned CBS that the memos were not real.


Cooperative agreement between SPIEGEL ONLINE and the "New York Times"

SPIEGEL ONLINE and the online version of the "New York Times" offer their readers a new service. Approximately twice a week, you can read selected analyses and commentary from the "New York Times" on SPIEGEL ONLINE. In return, our colleagues in New York will publish selected and translated articles from DER SPIEGEL on their website each week.
When the mainstream press checked the sources mentioned or ignored by "60 Minutes II," the story came apart.

The Los Angeles Times checked with Killian's former commander, the retired Guard general whom a CBS executive had said would be the "trump card" in corroborating its charges. But it turns out CBS had only read Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges the purported memos on the phone, and did not trouble to show them to him. Hodges now says he was "misled" - he thought the memos were handwritten - and believes the machine-produced "documents" to be forgeries. (CBS accuses the officer of changing his story.)

The L.A. Times also checked out a handwriting analyst, Marcel Matley (of Vincent Foster suicide-note fame), who CBS had claimed vouched for the authenticity of four memos. It turns out he vouches for only one signature, and no scribbled initials, and has no opinion about the typography of any of the supposed memos.

The Dallas Morning News looked into the charge in one of the possible forgeries dated Aug. 18, 1973, that a commander of a Texas Air Guard squadron was trying to "sugar coat" Bush's service record. It found that the commander had retired from the Guard 18 months before that.

The Associated Press focused on the suspicion first voiced by a blogger on the Web site Freerepublic.com about modern "superscripts" that include a raised th after a number. CBS, on the defense, claimed that "some models" of typewriters of the 70's could do that trick, and some Texas Air National Guard documents released by the White House included it.

"That superscript, however," countered The A.P., "is in a different typeface than the one used for the CBS memos." It consulted the document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines of Paradise Valley, Ariz., and reported "she could testify in court that, beyond a reasonable doubt, her opinion was that the memos were written on a computer."

The Washington Post reported Dan Rather's response to questions about the documents' authenticity: "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill" and questioned the critics' "motivation."

After leading with that response, Post media reporter Howard Kurtz noted that the handwriting expert Matley said that CBS had asked him not to give interviews, and that an unidentified CBS staff member who had examined the documents saw potential problems with them: "There's a lot of sentiment that we should do an internal investigation."

Newsweek (which likes the word "discredited") has apparently begun an external investigation: it names "a disgruntled former Guard officer" as a principal source for CBS, noting "he suffered two nervous breakdowns" and "unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses."

It may be that CBS is the victim of a whopping journalistic hoax, besmearing a president to bring him down. What should a responsible news organization do?

To shut up sources and impugn the motives of serious critics - from opinionated bloggers to straight journalists - demeans the Murrow tradition. Nor is any angry demand that others prove them wrong acceptable, especially when no original documents are available to prove anything.

Years ago, Kurdish friends slipped me amateur film taken of Saddam's poison-gas attack that killed thousands in Halabja. I gave it to Dan Rather, who trusted my word on sources. Despite objections from queasy colleagues, he put it on the air.

Hey, Dan: On this, recognize the preponderance of doubt. Call for a panel of old CBS hands and independent editors to re-examine sources and papers. Courage.

ttttt

So far it is all speculation......time will tell

Key Challenges to National Guard Documents Answered: Type Style, Typewriter and Superscript Function All Existed in the Early 1970s, The CBS Evening News Reports Tonight (10)

NEW YORK, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The biggest challenges to the
authenticity of the documents featured in the 60 MINUTES segment on President
Bush's Texas National Guard service are answered in a report to be broadcast
on the CBS EVENING NEWS tonight (6:30-7:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television
Network. The report states that the type style, typewriter and the
superscript function critics claim did not exist at the time the memos from
President Bush's former Texas National Guard commander were typed were indeed
all available. In fact, similar raised "th" superscripts have been found on
other National Guard documents the White House has released from the
president's file.
Furthermore, Marcel Mately, the document and handwriting expert used to
authenticate the documents for CBS News and 60 MINUTES, asserts that copies of
the memos critics are examining have been degraded by reproduction though
photocopying, computer scanning and faxing and are not reliable
representations of the memos.

A transcript is attached:

BUSH DOCUMENTS
EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER
9-10-04

Rather Lead In: There were attacks today on the CBS News "60 Minutes"
report this week raising new questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era time
in the Texas Air National Guard. The questions raised by our report include:

-- Did a wealthy Texas oilman-friend of the Bush family use his influence
with the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives .. to get
George W. Bush a coveted slot in the National Guard .. keeping him out
of the draft and any probable service IN Vietnam?

-- Did Lieutenant Bush refuse a direct order from his commanding officer?

-- Was Lieutenant. Bush suspended for failure to perform up to standards?

-- Did Lieutenant Bush ever take a physical he was required and ordered
to take? If not, why not?

-- And did Lieutenant Bush, in fact, complete his commitment to the
Guard?

These questions grew out of new witnesses and new evidence -- including
documents written by Lieutenant Bush's squadron commander.
Today, on the internet and elsewhere, some people -- including many who
are partisan political operatives -- concentrated not on the key questions the
overall story raised but on the documents that were part of the support of the
story.
They alleged the documents are FAKE.

Rather: MANY OF THOSE RAISING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CBS DOCUMENTS HAVE
FOCUSED ON SOMETHING CALLED SUPERSCRIPT ... A KEY THAT AUTOMATICALLY TYPES A
RAISED "TH". CRITICS CLAIM TYPEWRITERS DIDN'T HAVE THAT ABILITY IN THE 70S.
BUT SOME MODELS DID ... IN FACT, OTHER BUSH MILITARY RECORDS ALREADY
OFFICIALLY RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE ITSELF SHOW THE SAME SUPERSCRIPT.
HERE'S ONE ... .. FROM 1968.
SOME ANALYSTS OUTSIDE CBS SAY THEY BELIEVE THE TYPEFACE ON THESE MEMOS IS
NEW TIMES ROMAN ... WHICH THEY CLAIM WAS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE 1970S.
BUT THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY THAT DISTRIBUTES THIS TYPING STYLE ... . SAYS
IT HAS BEEN AVAILABLE SINCE 1931. DOCUMENT AND HANDWRITING EXAMINER MARCEL
MATLEY ANALYZED THE DOCUMENTS FOR CBS NEWS.
HE SAYS HE BELIEVES THEY ARE REAL ... BUT IS CONCERNED ABOUT EXACTLY WHAT
IS BEING EXAMINED BY SOME OF THE PEOPLE QUESTIONING THE DOCUMENTS ... .BECAUSE
DETERIORATION OCCURS EACH TIME A DOCUMENT IS REPRODUCED ... ..AND THE
DOCUMENTS BEING ANALYZED OUTSIDE OF CBS HAVE BEEN PHOTOCOPIED, FAXED, SCANNED
AND DOWNLOADED ... . AND ARE FAR REMOVED FROM THE DOCUMENTS CBS STARTED WITH
WHICH WERE ALSO PHOTOCOPIES.
DOCUMENT AND HANDWRITING EXAMINER MARCEL MATLEY DID THIS INTERVIEW WITH US
PRIOR TO THE 60 MINUTES BROADCAST.
HE LOOKED AT THE DOCUMENTS AND THE SIGNATURES OF COLONEL JERRY KILLIAN ...
COMPARING KNOWN DOCUMENTS WITH THE COLONEL'S SIGNATURE ON THE NEWLY DISCOVERED
ONES.

Matley: "WE LOOK BASICALLY AT WHAT'S CALLED SIGNIFICANT OR INSIGNIFICANT
FEATURES TO DETERMINE WHETHER IT'S THE SAME PERSON OR NOT. I HAVE NO PROBLEM
IDENTIFYING THEM.
I WOULD SAY BASED ON OUR AVAILABLE HANDWRITING EVIDENCE, YES. THIS IS THE
SAME PERSON."

Rather: MATLEY FINDS THE SIGNAT'URES TO BE SOME OF THE MOST COMPELLING
EVIDENCE ... WE TALKED TO HIM AGAIN TODAY BY SATELLITE.

Matley "SINCE IT IS REPRESENTED THAT SOME OF THEM ARE DEFINITELY HIS ...
THEN WE CAN CONCLUDE THEY ARE HIS SIGNATURES."

Rather: "ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT QUESTIONS COME ABOUT THESE. WE'RE NOT, BUT
I WAS WONDERING IF YOU'RE SURPRISED."

Matley: "I KNEW GOING IN THAT THIS WAS DYNAMITE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER AND I
KNEW THAT POTENTIALLY IT WAS FAR MORE POTENTIAL DAMAGE TO ME PROFESSIONALLY
THAN BENEFIT ME. AND I KNEW THAT. BUT WE SEEK THE TRUTH. THAT'S WHAT WE DO.
YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PUT YOURSELF OUT. TO SEEK THE TRUTH AND TAKE WHAT COMES
FROM IT."

Rather: ROBERT STRONG WAS AN ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER FOR THE TEXAS AIR
NATIONAL GUARD DURING THE VIETNAM YEARS. HE KNEW COL. JERRY KILLIAN, THE MAN
CREDITED WITH WRITING THE DOCUMENTS .... AND PAPER WORK ... LIKE THESE
DOCUMENTS ... WAS HIS SPECIALTY. HE IS STANDING BY HIS JUDGEMENT THAT THE
DOCUMENTS ARE REAL.

Rather: "WHEN YOU READ THROUGH THESE DOCUMENTS, IS THERE ANY DOUBT IN YOUR
MIND THAT THESE ARE GENUINE?"

Strong: "WELL, THEY ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THE WAY BUSINESS WAS DONE AT THAT
TIME. THEY ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THE MAN THAT I REMEMBER JERRY KILLIAN BEING. I
DON'T SEE ANYTHING IN THE DOCUMENTS THAT'S DISCORDANT WITH WHAT WERE THE
TIMES, WHAT WERE THE SITUATION OR WHAT WERE THE PEOPLE INVOLVED."

Rather: STRONG SAYS THE HIGHLY CHARGED POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE OF THE GUARD
AT THE TIME ... WAS PERFECTLY REPRESENTED IN THE NEW DOCUMENTS

Strong: "IT VERGED ON OUTRIGHT CORRUPTION IN TERMS OF THE FAVORS THAT WERE
DONE, THE POWER THAT WAS TRADED. AND IT WAS UNCONSCIONABLE. FROM A MORAL AND
ETHICAL STANDPOINT. IT WAS UNCONSCIONABLE."

Rather: IT IS THE INFORMATION IN THE NEW DOCUMENTS THAT IS MOST COMPELLING
FOR PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH PRESIDENT BUSH'S RECORD IN THE NATIONAL GUARD.
AUTHOR JIM MORE HAS WRITTEN TWO BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT.

Rather: "YOU'VE STUDIED PRESIDENT BUSH'S RECORDS FOR 10 YEARS ... ARE
THESE DOCUMENTS CONSISTENT WITH THE RECORD AS YOU KNOW IT?"

Moore: "THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY CONSISTENT WITH THE RECORDS AS I KNOW IT."

Rather: "PUT IT IN CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVE FOR US ... THE STORY AND WHAT
WE CALL THE COUNTERATTACK ON THE STORY. WHERE ARE WE RIGHT NOW?

Moore "I THINK WHAT HAS HAPPENED IS SOME INCRIMINATING DOCUMENTS HAVE COME
OUT. THE WHITE HOUSE, YOU SHOULD REMEMBER, HAS NOT DISCREDITED THE DOCUMENTS.
THEY'RE RELYING ON THE BLOGOSPHERE AND OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THAT. BECAUSE THE
WHITE HOUSE PROBABLY KNOWS THESE DOCUMENTS ARE IN FACT REAL."

Rather Tag: The "60 Minutes" report was based NOT solely on the recovered
documents ... but on a preponderance of evidence ... including documents that
were provided by un-impeachable sources ... and interviews with former
officials of the Texas National Guard. If any definitive evidence to the
contrary of our story is found, we will report it.
So far, there is none.
----------------------------------------------------
For the record I am getting very bored with this issue.

LT,

Reality check

------------------------------------------------------------


Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers

By Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 14, 2004; Page A08

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

"There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them," Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed" from the originals.

_____Documents' Differences_____

• Compare: Memo obtained from Pentagon differs from disputed memo obtained by CBS.

____Matley's comments came amid growing evidence challenging the authenticity of the documents aired Wednesday on CBS's "60 Minutes." The program was part of an investigation asserting that Bush benefited from political favoritism in getting out of commitments to the Texas Air National Guard. On last night's "CBS Evening News," anchor Dan Rather said again that the network "believes the documents are authentic."

A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military terminology to different word-processing techniques.

The analysis shows that half a dozen Killian memos released earlier by the military were written with a standard typewriter using different formatting techniques from those characteristic of computer-generated documents. CBS's Killian memos bear numerous signs that are more consistent with modern-day word-processing programs, particularly Microsoft Word.

"I am personally 100 percent sure that they are fake," said Joseph M. Newcomer, author of several books on Windows programming, who worked on electronic typesetting techniques in the early 1970s. Newcomer said he had produced virtually exact replicas of the CBS documents using Microsoft Word formatting and the Times New Roman font.

Newcomer drew an analogy with an art expert trying to determine whether a painting of unknown provenance was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. "If I was looking for a Da Vinci, I would look for characteristic brush strokes," he said. "If I found something that was painted with a modern synthetic brush, I would know that I have a forgery."

Meanwhile, Laura Bush became the first person from the White House to say the documents are likely forgeries. "You know they are probably altered," she told Radio Iowa in Des Moines yesterday. "And they probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really."

Citing confidentiality issues, CBS News has declined to reveal the source of the disputed documents -- which have been in the network's possession for more than a month -- or to explain how they came to light after more than three decades. Yesterday, USA Today said that it had independently obtained copies of the documents "from a person with knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations" who declined to be named "for fear of retaliation."

It was unclear whether the same person supplied the documents to both media outlets. USA Today said it had obtained its copies of the CBS documents Wednesday night "soon after" the "60 Minutes" broadcast, as well as another two purported Killian memos that had not been made public.

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.

In memos previously released by the Pentagon or the White House, Killian signed his rank "Lt Col" or "Lt Colonel, TexANG," in a single line after his name without periods. In the CBS memos, the "Lt Colonel" is on the next line, sometimes with a period but without the customary reference to TexANG, for Texas Air National Guard.

An ex-Guard commander, retired Col. Bobby W. Hodges, whom CBS originally cited as a key source in authenticating its documents, pointed to discrepancies in military abbreviations as evidence that the CBS memos are forgeries. The Guard, he said, never used the abbreviation "grp" for "group" or "OETR" for an officer evaluation review, as in the CBS documents. The correct terminology, he said, is "gp" and "OER."

In its broadcast last night, CBS News produced a new expert, Bill Glennon, an information technology consultant. He said that IBM electric typewriters in use in 1972 could produce superscripts and proportional spacing similar to those used in the disputed documents.

Any argument to the contrary is "an out-and-out lie," Glennon said in a telephone interview. But Glennon said he is not a document expert, could not vouch for the memos' authenticity and only examined them online because CBS did not give him copies when asked to visit the network's offices.

Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts for the Adobe company in Seattle, which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font, disputed Glennon's statement to CBS. He said "fairly extensive testing" had convinced him that the fonts and formatting used in the CBS documents could not have been produced by the most sophisticated IBM typewriters in use in 1972, including the Selectric and the Executive. He said the two systems used fonts of different widths.

On last night's "CBS Evening News," Rather said "60 Minutes" had done a "content analysis" of the memos and found, for example, that the date that Bush was suspended from flying -- Aug. 1, 1972 -- matched information in the documents. He also noted that USA Today had separately obtained another memo from 1972 in which Killian asked to be updated on Bush's flight certification status.

CBS executives have pointed to Matley as their lead expert on whether the memos are genuine, and included him in a "CBS Evening News" defense of the story Friday. Matley said he spent five to eight hours examining the memos. "I knew I could not prove them authentic just from my expertise," he said. "I can't say either way from my expertise, the narrow, narrow little field of my expertise."

In looking at the photocopies, he said, "I really felt we could not definitively say which font this is." But, he said, "I didn't see anything that would definitively tell me these are not authentic."

Asked about Matley's comments, CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said: "In the end, the gist is that it's inconclusive. People are coming down on both sides, which is to be expected when you're dealing with copies of documents."

Questions about the CBS documents have grown to the point that they overshadow the allegations of favorable treatment toward Bush.

Prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh are insisting the documents are forged. New York Times columnist William Safire said yesterday that CBS should agree to an independent investigation. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, called on the network to apologize, saying: "The CBS story is a hoax and a fraud, and a cheap and sloppy one at that. It boggles the mind that Dan Rather and CBS continue to defend it."

So both sides spin the story to benefit themselves

This would be nice

Casting Further Doubt
Document Analysts: CBS News Ignored Concerns About Disputed Bush Military Records
By Brian Ross and Howard Rosenberg
ABCNEWS.com
Sept. 14, 2004— Two of the document experts hired by CBS News say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of a report citing documents that questioned George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.


The authenticity of the documents in the report by CBS News' 60 Minutes II has been widely questioned. The documents were allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.
Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.

But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush's National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.

"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News.

"I Did Not Authenticate Anything'

A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. She said she expressed her concerns to CBS before the 60 Minutes II broadcast.

"I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."

A third examiner hired by CBS for its story, Marcel Matley, appeared on CBS Evening News last Friday and was described as saying the document was real.

According to The Washington Post, Matley said he examined only the signature attributed to Killian and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

At the heart of the dispute is whether any typewriter existed in 1972 that could have produced the documents, with their distinct type style, even spacing, and the tiny raised "th" known as superscript.

Two experts told ABC News today there was no such machine, not even the IBM Selectric Composer, the most advanced typewriter available in 1972.

"This machine is not the culprit for these documents," said software engineer Gerry Kaplan.

Other new questions were raised today by National Guard officials who told ABC News that some of the language and abbreviations in the documents were not in use at the time.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The growing controversy over President Bush's National Guard records, and whether some of the memos aired on CBS were fake, took another turn Wednesday night.

CBS News reported that the documents it first broadcast last week on "60 Minutes II" appear to be forgeries to the woman who would have typed the original memos in 1972 and 1973.


Could this be another nail in the sKerry presidential campaign coffin?

Guess that solves it. They're correct. Thanks AM. The issue is solved...
Facts? We don't need facts, we got money..

Killian's wife "just can't believe these are his words" and says he'd "be turning over in his grave to know that a document such as this would be used against a fellow guardsman." In fact, she says that her husband thought Bush "was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the guard and was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th". She also says her husband didn't type.

Killian's daughter says that her father "admired George Bush and was proud of the fact that he pinned his [flying] wings on him."

So whom do we believe, Killian's secretary or his family? Why is CBS afraid to disclose where they came from? Until CBS coughs up the source of the documents, I think I would have to side with his wife over his secretary.

Thanks for the laugh!