Forged documents?

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Bruce, Sep 11, 2004.

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  1. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    CBS News has ran with a story based on documents that are critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

    However, some serious issues have surfaced, which questions the authenticity of the documents. Apparently, there are font & formatting issues. The font and formatting used in the documents were not available in 1973, when these documents were allegedley written.

    As much as I dislike the Democratic Party, I really hope that they haven't resorted to forging documents in an attempt to take the lead in the polls.
     
  2. adamsmith

    adamsmith member

    As a non-American I am somewhat bemused about this whole humbug about Bush's national service record.

    I was rather have someone who is not keen about this whole 'military thing' running my country than some gungho hero.
     
  3. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I think it might be a little premature to accuse the Democratic Party of being behind the forgery, if that's what it is (though I agree that the document looks a little suspicious and could bear further analysis). There are an awful lot of people who are angry at Bush, and the vast majority aren't on the DNC payroll.

    As for the "military thing": the irony is that the guy who comes closest to wearing a military uniform to work in the morning is Bush, who spent half of his convention speech talking about what "he" did to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Truth of the matter is that he didn't invade those countries; the U.S. armed forces did. Bush can't be a war hero by proxy, no matter how big the groin cup on his flightsuit is.

    As for real military background: The central argument over Kerry seems to be whether, when he was voluntarily serving in Vietnam, the three documented wounds that earned him his Purple Hearts were bloody enough. The central argument over Bush is whether he bothered to show up for training in Texas, since there's no documentation to say that he did. No comparison.

    The only other presidents we've had recently who haven't served in combat, as far as I know, were Reagan and Clinton. The fact that both served two terms isn't lost on me.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 11, 2004
  4. plcscott

    plcscott New Member

    Dan Rather had a woody when he was showing these documents. If they are fake it will be hard for him to admit it. I would love to see him have to report that they were fakes.
     
  5. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    Personally, I think the Republicans forged the documents, planted them, and are now claiming to have discovered the obvious forgery to totally discredit critics of Bush's record. They're smart operators. The Democrats don't have a chance.
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I personally wish that both sides would call the whole military service thing a wash, and move on. Unfortunately, Kerry can't stop talking about Vietnam.

    I was watching Hannity & Colmes the other night, and they were having a point/counterpoint. The right was represented by a guy from the National Review, I forget his name. He said basically what I said, let's forget the military service and talk about Senator Kerry's record in the Senate. The left guy went ballistic..."Why do you have get nasty like that"?

    Kerry can't hide behind Vietnam forever. Eventually, at least during the debates, he's going to have to talk about his voting record. That's when America will see the real John Kerry.
     
  7. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    The wheels may have fallen off Dan Rather's Bush-bashing bus yesterday. Reports began to circulate around the Internet that some of the documents used on '60 Minutes II' purporting to be from Colonel Jerry Killian were actually fakes. As more time passed between yesterday and today, it's really looking that way. Interesting....did CBS just make them up to fit their agenda? Where did they come from? Very curious indeed.

    Right away, questions started to be asked because the documents appear to have been typed out in a modern-day word processing program. They don't at all look like something that somebody banged out on a 30-year-old National Guard typewriter. Experts have been consulted, even ones that support Kerry, and they say the documents are not authentic.

    Here's a little experiment for you to do today. I know it works because a producer for Brit Hume tried it. Type out one of the memos on your computer using the Times Roman font on Microsoft Word. You will see that the formatting, the line breaks, the word wrap ... everything is exactly the same. Then print a copy of the memo on a transparent sheet of plastic and hold it up to one of the now-infamous memos CBS featured. See if they aren't a PERFECT match.

    So where does this leave CBS? Other than the fact that they have been caught red-handed publicizing forged documents designed to bring down the president, it looks like they have a good amount of explaining to do.

    CBS says they are standing by their reporting, releasing a statement saying "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 Minutes report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts," But the Drudge Report quotes somebody inside CBS as saying that an internal investigation has been launched. There's even talk of Dan Rather apologizing on the air and retracting the story if it turns out the documents are false. That's must-see TV right there, folks. Bush-basher extraordinaire Dan Rather having to apologize to George W. Bush, right on TV. Priceless.

    Anyway, the son of Colonel Killian says his father didn't write the documents, that they don't appear to have been created by him. He would know, right? His widow, Marjorie Connell, casts even more doubt over the whole thing: "Number one, he would not have typed because he did not type. Number two, the wording in these documents is very suspect to me. I just don't believe that, it looks like some things may have been picked up out of a document and then other things just made fictitiously to fill in things, to make them flow. I just can't believe that this is his words, my late husband's words." Hmm.

    The bottom line is that if you compare other documents from the time to the ones CBS used, they're not even close. They're forged. The question is, who did the forging? Did somebody at CBS make them up? The DNC? The Kerry campaign? What was the source?
     
  8. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    An excellent question, but I'm not sure that we'll ever know for sure.

    I haven't seen all the documents, but I'd like to see the FBI get involved if any official military documents were forged.
     
  9. plcscott

    plcscott New Member

    That will never happen.

    I listened to a couple of Kerry speeches where he is using his new W stands for wrong lines. Bush is wrong on this and wrong on that, but he never offers up what the heck he would do. If you are going to Monday morning quaterback shouldn't you be able to say what specifically you would do? That is exactly what turns me off about democractic party now, instead of offering up ideas and plans all they do is complain about republicans plans.

    The only thing I see from the democrats is tactics to try to make republicans out to be racist, war loving, homophobes that want to take SS away from the elderly and give all the money to the rich. I never see good plans that make sense, just opposition to anything the other side is doing. I have not really cared all that much for Bush until the last couple of weeks, but more and more I am starting to think he is doing a pretty good job.
     
  10. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    Good point. If they are forged, there's no way to know who planted them: the Dems to discredit Bush, or the Repubs to discredit Kerry.

    Anyway the scandal seems to have subsided. It turns out the "font" is entirely consistent with a particular IBM Selectric typewriter that was common in 1972.

    As for the whole military service issue, I'll say it for at least the 4th time: the right can't criticize Kerry for making it the focal point of his campaign, when well-funded endeavors like SBVFT are making it the focal point of the right's attack strategy. The right's attack was seen coming from far away (about 1971 to be exact).

    What seems obvious is that the right's strategy to attack Kerry is an effort to keep the heat off of Bush's record. As Tom Head points out, the issue for Kerry is whether his wounds were severe enough. The issue for Bush is whether he deserved his Guard appointment, and whether he actually showed up for work.

    As far as I can tell, all of Bush's "jobs" have been essentially outright gifts. Based on his own merits he wouldn't have qualified for any of them. As John Edwards pointed out, there are two Americas - the one Bush lives in and the one most of the rest of us live in. What amazes me is how rank-and-file conservatives seem to think they live in the same world as Bush. Not by a long shot.

    An excerpt from an editorial in the SF Chron: "Cheney's attempt to put an orange-alert label on Kerry could backfire. It may remind Americans that the Bush administration has not been infallible in anticipating or extinguishing the particular threat from al Qaeda. This was the White House that received a briefing paper on Aug. 6, 2001 entitiled 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside United States.' At last check, Osama bin Laden remains at large."

    Cheney would like us to belive that he and Bush have made us so much safer, yet they can't find bin Laden. Hello, anyone home? Instead, based on bad intelligence, we bombed Iraq, a country that was not related, at all, to Sept. 11. I guess that's good enough. As long as we're dropping bombs, we must be making the world safer.

    If, as Cheney asserts, we will be so endangered if Kerry is elected, then how safe are we really? Kerry will continue to be tough on terrorism (anything else is political suicide at this point) and everyone knows it. So Cheney would like us to balance two conflicting ideas: One,we are a ton safer due to the work Bush has done; Two, that safety is so tenuous that the election of Kerry would subject us to much greater risk.

    My guess is that, between now and the election, a terrorist attack is more likely than finding Bin Laden.

    As a letter writer to the Chron said "...Let's put him (Bush) in that nicely fitting flight suit he wore on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln while declaring "mission accomplished," and send him to Iraq to acomplish the mission he signed on to do. After all, we now have more than 1,000 Americans who, sadly, have fulfilled theirs."
     
  11. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    An attack on the US would guarantee a Bush43 re-election. I think an attack would more likely occurr after the election (on inauguration day? -- remember the Iran hostages were release during the 81 inauguration).
     
  12. BLD

    BLD New Member

    Can't you picture Kerry, late at night, pecking away on his laptop? I wouldn't be surprised if the goober did it himself!

    His new "W" stands for wrong stuff is just plain childish and certainly won't get him anywhere. This guy is probably the biggest loser since...since...since...ooops, I can't think of anyone that would compare.

    BLD
     
  13. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member


    Senator John Kerry says that he would create 10 million jobs if he were President. But Presidents don't create jobs.

    The most a President can do is have policies that allow private employers to create jobs. Foolish policies can destroy jobs and prolong a recession or depression but Presidents cannot "grow the economy," no matter what political rhetoric says.

    Of course the government can hire more people or favor a particular industry in one way or another, and thereby cause employment to be greater in that particular industry. But the government has no money of its own, and the money that it takes from the private economy to increase its own hiring or to promote hiring in some favored industry reduces the money available to hire people elsewhere in the economy.
     
  14. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    As a rule, senators can't campaign very effectively on voting records because Senate votes aren't usually "look at me!" endeavors. See also: Dole, Bob. What I'd rather see from Kerry than any emphasis on his past accomplishments is a clearer idea of what his policies as president would be, because in the final analysis that's what's going to win or lose the campaign for him. His recent emphasis on health care is going to help him, if he leans on it hard enough. I'd also like to see him emphasize crime--that's one area where he can thump his accomplishments (as Massachusetts attorney general), and it's an area Republicans have suddenly stopped talking about in recent elections despite the fact that it's generally the #1 issue for urban voters.

    I don't watch Hannitty and Colmes because Hannitty's voice is too dominant. Sometimes the right-wing guest is entertaining and/or compelling, but the left-wing guest almost never is. Fox News has a habit of picking really annoying people to represent the liberal viewpoint, with their sing-song accents and "my face froze this way" ironic smiles, screeching Democratic Party talking points without really challenging the more articulate pompous loudmouths who represent the right wing. I don't know if it's because none of the good liberals want to be seen on Fox News or what, but as a general rule, the network's left side sags. This is a major reason (maybe the major reason) why it comes across as so biased to non-conservative ears.

    As for the "'W' is for wrong" line: It's catchy, but if Bush's handlers let him have a riskier sense of humor, he'd shoot back with "I'm not gonna talk about what the 'F' is for..."


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 11, 2004
  15. gkillion

    gkillion New Member

    Don't forget Gore. Do you think Kerry will lose his home state too?
     
  16. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member


    Here is a link to a PDF file with the documents...


    Forged documents
     
  17. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Valley Widow Casts Doubts on Bush Memos

    The widow of a Texas Air National Guard officer casts doubts on the validity of new documents critical of President George W. Bush’s service during Vietnam. Rio Grande Valley resident Marjorie Connell Marjorie Connell said she is angry that her late husband, Col. Jerry Killian, is being used to attack the president.
    "I was angry,” Connell told ABC in a radio interview. "Number one, he would not have typed because he did not type,” Connell said. “Number two, the wording in these documents is very suspect to me. I just don't believe that, it looks like some things may have been picked up out of a document and then other things just made fictitiously to fill in things, to make them flow. I just can't believe that this is his words, my late husband's words."
     
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Kerry was never the Attorney General of Massachusetts.

    The only statewide office he held before the US Senate was that of Mike Dukakis' Lieutenant Governor. When Paul Tsongas left the Senate to battle cancer, Dukakis appointed Kerry to serve out Tsongas' term, and he's been there ever since.

    I'll take this opportunity to mention that the old system, where the Governor appoints someone to serve out a remaining Senate term, was just great when a Democrat was Governor.

    Now that a Republican holds the Governor's office, the Democrats immediately filed legislation that calls for a special election to fill a Senate vacancy. It passed, was vetoed by Romney, and the veto was overridden. In the unlikely event that Kerry is elected President, we now have to have a special election to fill his Senate seat. :rolleyes:

    Anyway......Kerry did have a stint as an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County. My "inside sources" tell me that he cut quite a swath through the female court employees, while still married to his first wife.

    My police sources tell me that he was a very poor ADA, who didn't seem to care much about getting convictions, unless the case had political capital.
     
  19. Tracy Gies

    Tracy Gies New Member

    Bush answered questions about his Guard appointment when he was running for Governor of Texas. He said that he was able to jump ahead of others on the waiting list because he was willing to undergo a year and a half of pilot training, while most of the others were not (1). Moreover, completing the training is something that he must have been able to do on his own merit. Sure, someone can pull strings to get you into Harvard, but there's only room for one in the pilot's seat of an F-104. As for the issue of "showing up", it is my understanding that Bush logged more than 200 hours in the cockpit.

    Sometimes it's important to point out to educated liberals that they can be wrong. What seems obvious to you may not be the case at all. It was George Bush who said that Kerry's service was more honorable than his own. That hardly seems like the starting point of a campaign to discredit Kerry's service while hiding his own.

    Furthermore, the whole issue of Bush's NG record seems moot, considering the fact that he has served as Commander-in-Chief for the past four years. In this Soldier's opinion he's done a good job.

    _________________
    1. Fallows, James. (July/August 2004). When George meets John. The Atlantic Monthly.. Retrieved Sep 11, 2004 from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200407/fallows
     
  20. Tracy Gies

    Tracy Gies New Member

    So, we feel the same way about Clinton's former Cabinet members. ;)
     

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