R.I.P. Rathergate

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:25:15 GMT, in a place far, far away, KK
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:18:18 +0000, Cory Bhreckan wrote:

How is this proof? Please explain. I have seen no authoritative
investigation that established the documents as forgeries. If you have
access to any please share them with the rest of us.

The way to prove that they're not forgeries is to authenticate them as
genuine.

Since they've been disavowed by CBS, and the people who allegedly
provided them to CBS have serious political motivations, there's no reason
to think that they're genuine.

A legitimate trail of posession or an original (non-faxed, non-copied)
would go a long way towards making your point.

No kidding. I always find it hilarious that the people who (like the
idiot Mary Mapes)

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/005786.html

claim they're real think that the burden of proof is on the people who
claim they're fake.

On Mar 18, 5:25 pm, KK wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:18:18 +0000, Cory Bhreckan wrote:
How is this proof? Please explain. I have seen no authoritative
investigation that established the documents as forgeries. If you have
access to any please share them with the rest of us.

The way to prove that they're not forgeries is to authenticate them as
genuine.

Since they've been disavowed by CBS, and the people who allegedly
provided them to CBS have serious political motivations, there's no reason
to think that they're genuine.

A legitimate trail of posession or an original (non-faxed, non-copied)
would go a long way towards making your point.

You're not getting it -- nobody could have forge the memos
with the information that was available at the time CBS
took possession of them. We're not talking about paintings
of landscapes -- the memos contained dated information
that had to have come from somewhere. The DoD collected
everything official it could find and placed it them he
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records/index.html

There are two things in the February 2nd, 1972 memo:
http://aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/USACBSMemo5.jpg
that were not in the DoD database at the time: a reference
to "Bath" (James Bath) and a reference to flight
certifications.

Bath's name is redacted from the current DoD document
database, specifically in regards to this file:
http://aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/BushSuspension.html

But a researcher. Martin Heldt, had found an unredacted
version about 4 years prior under FOIA:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat...ath/index.html

While reasonably obscure, this info is easily available
on the web and hence conceivably usable by a forger
to recreate that section of the Feb 2nd memo.

However, the info regarding the flight certification was
only even hinted at in the flight records and nowhere
else, and the flight records were apparently never
available anywhere in recent decades at least until the
Pentagon released them on Sept. 7th, which again
was days after CBS had received the memos.

So there was absolutely no source for the certification
comment contained in that Feb 2nd, memo. None.
Even the rating report on Bush that came out a few
months had no suggestion of the certification issue.

So unless you want to grant time traveling capabilities
to the already utterly amazing capabilities of the
mythical forger, the memos could not have been
forged, period. Since the only other option is that they
are real, then they are real. There is no need for chain
of custody proof because there were only two
possibilities to start with, and one has been eliminated.

-BC

::: Cory Bhreckan
::: I've seen a lot of blogs that claimed that the documents were forged
::: but no real proof, just repetition. Have you seen actual proof? If
::: so could you provide a link?

: Cory Bhreckan
: I have seen no authoritative investigation that established the
: documents as forgeries. If you have access to any please share them
: with the rest of us.

What "authoritative investigation" is necessary, beyond the fact that no
such documents of that era would reasonably have been proportionally
spaced with that font? That in fact, the only way to have done it back
then is with rather expensive and rare equipment. Having seen the
images of the documents online, I'd say you'd really REALLY need a
very VERY good explanation of how they could possibly be authentic,
rather than an "authoritative investigation" to prove they aren't.

Don't need "blogs". The documents pretty much
indicted themselves, when I looked at them.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

On Mar 18, 5:22 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:00:52 -0400, in a place far, far away, CC56
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Cory Bhreckan wrote:
KK wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:58:07 -0700, BC wrote:

Some of you folks might rememberl my periodic, seemingly
quixotic claim that the Killian memos were not forged.

Not "seemingly".

I've seen a lot of blogs that claimed that the documents were forged but
no real proof, just repetition. Have you seen actual proof? If so could
you provide a link?

Yes, Rather's resignation.

He didn't resign. He was fired, while attempting to let him keep
whatever dignity he had left.

An utterly irrelevant point even if true (he technically
resigned, although it was likey "encouraged".) The
question is -- or I should say was -- whether the
memos were forged.

As I pointed out, unless you want to give time
traveling capablities to the forger, the memos
could not have been forged with the info that was
available then.

Even if you're still skeptical, answer me this: let's
say I'm right, and the memos could not have been
possibly forged -- what does this say about Bush's
character? He obviously knew if the memo's were
real or not. He was suspended from flying, there was
a USAF investigation into the "Not Observed" rating
report, and he has all these reminders of what he
doing back then, so he would have remembered full
well what Killian did or did not write or say. Yet
through all of the attacks on CBS, Dan Rather, and
Mary Mapes, Bush refused and avoided making any
comment in regards to whether the memos were
real or not.

Check out how Dan Bartlett, the White House
Communications Director at the time, evades an
obvious question by "from Stephen, from Colorado
Springs, CO":
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040921.html

****
Stephen, from Colorado Springs, CO writes:
Dan, Why is it that the president or you will not
declare that the documents (CYA Memos) are false
and untrue? Certainly if the documents are fakes,
then the information in them is false as well.

Let's hear you and Mr. Bush say they are false and
untrue accusations and we can settle all this mess.

Dan Bartlett
We don't have the technical expertise to determine
if they were fake or not. Remember, these supposedly
came from the personal files of man who died more
than 20 years ago. Thankfully, a lot of expert bloggers
and other news organizations did get to the bottom
this growing scandal.
****

Obviously, Bush's silence on the matter was tactical:
the forgery charges were taking his very spotty military
career -- which did not compare at with Kerry's "I
request duty in Vietnam" service -- completely off the
table, so why ruin a good thing, especially in a close
election?; and even if the memos are proven to be
true and unforged, he can claim that he never said
they were fakes, and that he was just too busy with
important presidential matters to try to remember
all the details of things that happend over 30 years
ago.

Regardless of his tactical reasoning, what does all
of this say about his character? Seriously. Is this
someone fit to lead this country, even if he wasn't
already a proven, complete screw-up for starters?

-BC

On Mar 18, 5:15 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:
On 18 Mar 2007 13:58:07 -0700, in a place far, far away, "BC"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I took a look at the "perfect" overlay and deconstructed the
animated GIF image that Johnson made that alternated between
the original and his MAC recreation and found that, surprise,
surprise, it wasn't nearly an exact match. The proportional
spacing used in Word Times Roman (in the MAC version) and
Word Times New Roman (in the Windows version) is very, very
close to what's been used by prior word processing systems
using any sort of Roman or Times-style font or typeface for at
least decades prior, so you would expect some match-up if you
resize and line-up to get the best fit. The individual characters,
though, did not match up that well and there was some drift in
the spacing in the middle of the document that indicated that
the memos used proportional spacing that was very similar but
not identical to that used by Word.

The Occam's Razor explanation for that is that the faked (not forged)
documents had been faxed (perhaps more than once). Make as good a
duplicate of them as out-of-the-box default Word does using a
typerwiter that would have been plausibly used at an Air National
Guard base by a secretary in the early seventies, and get back to us.

massive snip

Also, get a life.

Get a brain, dumbass, and learn to read. Your idiotic
comments were addressed.The memos could not have
been forged unless you believe in time travel, and I
don't think Captain and his crew would have bothered.

-BC

On Mar 18, 6:50 pm, "BC" wrote:
On Mar 18, 5:15 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:



On 18 Mar 2007 13:58:07 -0700, in a place far, far away, "BC"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I took a look at the "perfect" overlay and deconstructed the
animated GIF image that Johnson made that alternated between
the original and his MAC recreation and found that, surprise,
surprise, it wasn't nearly an exact match. The proportional
spacing used in Word Times Roman (in the MAC version) and
Word Times New Roman (in the Windows version) is very, very
close to what's been used by prior word processing systems
using any sort of Roman or Times-style font or typeface for at
least decades prior, so you would expect some match-up if you
resize and line-up to get the best fit. The individual characters,
though, did not match up that well and there was some drift in
the spacing in the middle of the document that indicated that
the memos used proportional spacing that was very similar but
not identical to that used by Word.

The Occam's Razor explanation for that is that the faked (not forged)
documents had been faxed (perhaps more than once). Make as good a
duplicate of them as out-of-the-box default Word does using a
typerwiter that would have been plausibly used at an Air National
Guard base by a secretary in the early seventies, and get back to us.

massive snip

Also, get a life.

Get a brain, dumbass, and learn to read. Your idiotic
comments were addressed.The memos could not have
been forged unless you believe in time travel, and I
don't think Captain and his crew would have bothered.

-BC


Captain Kirk, that is...

CC56 wrote:
Cory Bhreckan wrote:
KK wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:58:07 -0700, BC wrote:

Some of you folks might rememberl my periodic, seemingly
quixotic claim that the Killian memos were not forged.

Not "seemingly".

I've seen a lot of blogs that claimed that the documents were forged
but no real proof, just repetition. Have you seen actual proof? If so
could you provide a link?

Yes, Rather's resignation.

Nope, try again...

Dan

On Mar 18, 6:17 pm, (Wayne Throop) wrote:
::: Cory Bhreckan
::: I've seen a lot of blogs that claimed that the documents were forged
::: but no real proof, just repetition. Have you seen actual proof? If
::: so could you provide a link?

: Cory Bhreckan
: I have seen no authoritative investigation that established the
: documents as forgeries. If you have access to any please share them
: with the rest of us.

What "authoritative investigation" is necessary, beyond the fact that no
such documents of that era would reasonably have been proportionally
spaced with that font? That in fact, the only way to have done it back
then is with rather expensive and rare equipment. Having seen the
images of the documents online, I'd say you'd really REALLY need a
very VERY good explanation of how they could possibly be authentic,
rather than an "authoritative investigation" to prove they aren't.


*Sigh*

Alright -- first mistake: don't assume people will read
a long document anticipating all their obvious questions
because....that never works.

There was no issue with "rather expensive and rare
equipment" -- by the time of the memos, word
processors were apparently as common as Xerox
copiers:
http://aheckofa.com/FoolMeOnce/CBSBu...ml#StateOfTech

And as with the case with Xerox machines, which
were even more costly, and IBM typewriters, few
people bought those early word processors outright --
they were almost always leased.

Puh-lease try reading a wee bit more before asking
another anticipated question.

-BC

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:16:42 -0700, BC wrote:


Since they've been disavowed by CBS, and the people who allegedly
provided them to CBS have serious political motivations, there's no reason
to think that they're genuine.

A legitimate trail of posession or an original (non-faxed, non-copied)
would go a long way towards making your point.

You're not getting it -- nobody could have forge the memos
with the information that was available at the time CBS
took possession of them

No, *you're* not getting it. Claiming that information on a form from the
early 1970s wasn't available thirty years later doesn't turn all that's
been said on its head.

On Mar 19, 8:02 am, KK wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:16:42 -0700, BC wrote:

Since they've been disavowed by CBS, and the people who allegedly
provided them to CBS have serious political motivations, there's no reason
to think that they're genuine.

A legitimate trail of posession or an original (non-faxed, non-copied)
would go a long way towards making your point.

You're not getting it -- nobody could have forge the memos
with the information that was available at the time CBS
took possession of them

No, *you're* not getting it. Claiming that information on a form from the
early 1970s wasn't available thirty years later doesn't turn all that's
been said on its head.

Sorry, but the logic seems pretty basic and irrefutable
in this case, even if it's not that obvious at first glance.

Look first at what we have on the table:

1) A short pile of photocopied memos of unknown
origin, but with specific, dated information from the
early 70's regarding random military matters, as
well as having unusual characteristics in their
formatting.

2) A large pile of charges and claims of evidence that
those documents are fakes and/or forgeries.

3) A huge pile of official records that were collected
piecemeal over several years.

And your task is to determine if the forgery charges
are valid or not. At this point, you're not interested in
"authenticating" the memos in question, but to simply
see if pile #2 has anything valid in it.

So you might start off by first doing some obvious
and quick fact checking: does the info and dates in
the memos line up with what's in the official records
where there are obvious overlaps. You find that they
do, although there are some bits of info in the memos
that are not so easy to prove valid or not, but you'll
return to them later. At this point you're just doing an
initial quick check.

You then turn your attention to the pile of forgery
charges, starting with the claims that there were no
devices available at the time the memos were created
that could account for the appearance and formatting
of the memos. And that furthermore, even if there
were such devices back then, they would surely be
very rare and far too expensive to have been used to
create things like memos.

While you find that even Google has only sketchy
info on the office technology at that time, you do find
enough to indicate that the claims of what the tech
was like at that time to be confused at best. A trip to
a library quickly shows that all the tech claims were
laughably and utterly wrong -- devices that could in
theory have created the memos were actually in very
widespread use around the time of the memos. As
far as particular devices go, that would entail more
work, but you have already gathered enough info to
determine that the forgery claims based on there
not being any such devices at that time have no
credibility whatsoever.

You then look at the forgery claims based on the
format of the memos, and find a USAF writing guide
that indicates that the memos were indeed in the
correct format.

You then look at the claims that the terminology
used in the memos was not used at that time in
that military branch, and find that the terminology
was indeed commonly used, and you suspect that
people kept forgetting that the Air National Guard
is under the USAF and not like regular National
Guard units.

You then look at claims that the signatures were
forged and find that document experts had found
little or no issue with the signatures.

As you look through and fact-check the pile of
fogery claims, you find them to be consistently
wrong and laughably confused, for example as
with the contention that a physical was ordered
(it wasn't) on a Mother's Day weekend (no.)

Finally, you are left with only two charges that
might have a hint of merit: that there is no chain
of custody indicating that the memos are
authentic; and that the memos could be easily
and exactly created as shown with a modern
word processing system, and one example is
presented to show that.

The first charge is irrelevant and illogical -- not
being able to fully authenticate a document
does not all mean that the only alternative is that
it has to be a forgery, especially when nothing has
been found to show any real issues with either the
contents or formatting, and that it is actually
indeed supported by official records.

The second charge seems to have some
credibility at first glance, but a close inspection
show up discrepencies in the purported perfect
match-up, and a similar recreation of one of the
longer, more complicated memos shows a
severe mismatch. Also you note that the
superscripting pattern in the memos does not
match up with that shown by any modern word
processor.

Ergo, the forgery charges collectively and at the
end have no credibility.

But does this rule out that the memos could have
been forged or faked?

At this point, no -- there is still no clear and
comprehensive information precisely indicating
which word processing systems could have
created the memos as is since this level of info
turns out to be very difficult to dig up even with
extensive researching. And perhaps someone
simply had maintained a fully functioning word
processor from those days in his or her garage
or basement, and it was this that was used to
forge the memos. Very, very, unlikely (to say
the least -- they were high maintenance even
when they were new), but possible in theory.

Also, while the memos have dated info that is
supported by military records maintained by the
DoD, in theory these same records could have
been used by a clever and careful forger to have
created the memos.

Or could they, really?

One of the memos mentions how one of the
official record was backdated -- how would you
determine if this was true? Perhaps by checking
other similar records and finding that they all
have a matching date based on when the person
in question enlisted, but that the record the
memo said was backdate has a completely
different date -- ergo that was indeed a backdate
and that the memo was very likely on the money.

But could a forger have been this clever to have
notice a small discrepency like something and
have surmised confidently enough what it likely
meant to have put this info into a fake memo?

Very, very unlikely to the point of ludicrous, but
still possible in theory.

How about an even more subtle mention in
another memo regarding a seemingly rountine
issue of flight certification, which requires a very
tedious manual entry of individual flight records
into something like a spreadsheet, which then
had to be sorted, summed by month, and then
graphed out by normal, simulator, and training
flights in order to find support for the flight
certification comment -- would any forger go
through all the trouble and elaborate analyzing
of flight records, again surmising what they
mean confidently enough to add just a very
minor note about flight certification in a very
minor memo?

That's beyond ludicrous, but still possible in
theory if you have the flight records there to
analyze.

But if it turns out that the flight records weren't
there at all at the time, then.....

The memo could not have been forged. Since
that memo has the same characteristics as
the other memos, and since they were all part
of the same group, if you show that one could
not possibly have been forged, that becomes
a defacto authentication of not just that memo,
but of all of them.

Ironically, this is one situation where Bush did
not technically lie, but his silence on the matter
while Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were mocked,
villified, and eventually forced out/fired from their
jobs, speaks loud and clear about his character
and integrity.

-BC

(PS -- *&#^$# Google Groups is still messed up:
beware of creating a long post, going away and
coming back later to finish up and finally post --
it may not ever show despite a "Successful"
message. Lucky I copied and pasted a text
backup.)