Is Bush responsible for not pursuing this?

Well it would take an act (law) of congress to ban it, do you think Congress would pass a law banning it, and just think how long it would take for them to get the law through congress and onto the President's desk so it can be enacted into a law that takes affect the next fiscal year. Oh well. They should be banned, problem is secretly both parties would support a ban on them unless they got enough pressure on them so that would be good to see.

The president does always have the oh so powerfull executive power that he has invoked in the past.

True, but he has been castrated so many times for using it without approval that who won't do it without approval, unless there was a dire emergency and the 527s threatened our National Security.

Well he did go to war without congress approval, and there was certainly no dire emergency there.

ibm selectric machines were capable of superscripting like that according to my sister who typed 100s of dissertations using one during the years 1969-1972. proportional font elements were not terribly exotic.

Not quite....a few select models came out in early 70's...bout 72' onward...second...to make the superscripts...one needed to add a seperate type ball to the typewriter (dont really think a military clerk or commanding officer would do that just to put in the superscript...especially since to replace the type ball is not a 10 second operation)

Now...a few other matters...Most importantly and a deffinate sign of bad research on the forgers side....in the memo dated as Aug. 18, 1973...not incriminating in and of itself but when one reads the memo...Brigadier General "Buck" Staudt's name is mentioned as applying pressure regarding Bush...problem is Brigadier General Staudt retired in 1972...opps serious mistake....

as for cbs..well they fumbled the ball big time either out of neglect or outright plan of action....to air the episode as it was without any of Bush's commanding officers family, Bush's flight training officer, bunk mate, bout 6 other pilots who remember Bush being there and were willing to be interviewed because they were reportedly republicans or supported Bush in the upcoming election is somewhat at this point a hollow shell game.....do i think it was some great conspiracy between cbs and the kerry campaign...too little to say....i think it has more to do bout landing the knockout punch as it were report wise...in the process cbs, dan rather and the majority of news networks have shown the public that professionalism and journalistic ethics disappeared long ago....most americans knew this already...

I must add when these documents are proven forgeries....cbs as a whole, dan rather and 60 mins II will have hell to pay...as well as the certain individuals who authenticated them...not to mention those behind this....

whats next...documents leaking out to cbs,abc, nbc that shows Bush is using a ouiji board to keep in contact with hitler?

Forgery? Or evidence that the military has time traveling capabilities?

Why yes we do...using star trek as a ref....slingshot around the sun..picking up enough speed to achieve time travel....who knows worked well in the TV series twice and the movies once

Well he did go to war without congress approval, and there was certainly no dire emergency there.

That was what I talked about he got castrated because of it by half of the american public so now he won't do anything without first getting approval.
Reason why we are not in Sudan at the moment stopping the slaughter of innocent people.

BTW, some on the left are arguing that an IBM Selectric could have made the document. Nope. Not only could the Selectric not done it but it's $5,000 big brother, the Selectric Composer, which almost certainly was not used by a Colonel in the military to type up memos couldn't do it either.

A detailed analysis of the issue was investigated here:

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/

Hate to get too bogged down in what type of superscript was available on what kind of machine & when, but do you have a link to more info about the additional documents CBS cited today, kingbee? Might be a tad moot if the Staudt in question was indeed the one who retired a year before, but I'm interested anyway.

Thanks,
Daiwa

That was what I talked about he got castrated because of it by half of the american public so now he won't do anything without first getting approval. Reason why we are not in Sudan at the moment stopping the slaughter of innocent people

Hold on now. Are you now saying that the half of america was wrong? He could have waited for approval. The point is that I don't think to many people would be furious if he outlawed 527's... except dems who are using them, but thats not for a good reason so screw that. But then you also have to do other stuff to curb donations.

problem is Brigadier General Staudt retired in 1972

while im still waiting for some definitive proof either way, i did see another bush service record (released earlier this year by the whitehouse) tonite on cbs evening news that appeared to have the same superscripted 'th'.   (changing those ball elements was a lot easier than switching daisywheels as i recall).  if the one from the whitehouse is genuine, its more likely that the others are too.   a retired general is still a general (they just fade away right?) and still able to pull in favors.  

Bush's commanding officers family

what could they contribute?  the best they could offer is hearsay evidence and an non-expert opinion as to the signature.  which was all the guy who worked with killean (storm?) could provide as well.

why hasnt the whitehouse called the cbs documents into question?

but do you have a link to more info about the additional documents CBS cited today

i didnt check the video clips at the cbs site.  i didnt see a link to the document they showed on the news there (but i didnt check em all)   the transcript of that segment can be read there and youll see the reference to it.

Hold on now. Are you now saying that the half of america was wrong? He could have waited for approval. The point is that I don't think to many people would be furious if he outlawed 527's... except dems who are using them, but thats not for a good reason so screw that. But then you also have to do other stuff to curb donations.

I didn't say wrong, and I didn't say right.

Daiwa:

The only detail that doesn't quite fit is the "th" in 187th. The letters don't extend above the topline of the numerals in the Word document, whereas they do in the CBS-released document. Best I can tell, you can't modify the size or positioning of ordinals separately in Word - just turn the autoformat feature on or off - so maybe the document was done in a different slightly different font or is a WordPerfect or StarOffice document.

I noticed this as well in the animated .gif Draginol posted. One of the more recent posts on http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog under the heading "Yet Another CBS Document Experiment" clarifies the discrepency between the two superscripts. Apparently the first experiment was conducted using a screen capture of an MS Word document. This more recent experiment involves superimposing a printout of that Word document, which produces an even better match than the previous test. I seem to recall encountering discrepencies between what a word processor shows you on the screen versus what actually prints out. I've run into such discrepencies with respect to superscripts and word placement in the past (ie, a word shown at the end of a line will print on the next line instead).

BTW, some on the left are arguing that an IBM Selectric could have made the document

i can assure you my sister is anything but 'some on the left'.  .

whats next...documents leaking out to cbs,abc, nbc that shows Bush is using a ouiji board to keep in contact with hitler?

Not the Oujiji board. But some main stream reporter, I can't remember who right now, is releasing a book on Bush in a few days saying Bush snorted coke at Camp David when his father was President. The source for that info she states in his sister. But his sister says that she never said that in any interview. When his sister asked to have the tapes of the interview the reporter said they had been accidentally destroyed. So much for good reporting.

He could have waited for approval.

Sorry for breaking in here ShoZan, but Sandy the President can only use an executive order in the defense of the nation. If he were to do one for the 527's then he would have to show that they are a danger to the Nation. Could you see how people would call him a third world dictator for a move like that.

If anybody wanted to have stopped Bush from going into Iraq the only thing they had to do is file a lawsuit to the Supreme Court saying it was not in the defense of the country. It is quite clear in the constitution that the President has the Authority to defend the nation any way he wants. That's why the Military laws (UCMJ) can sometimes out rule federal law.

The check to this power is that the congress may not fund such actions, if they feel it's right. This is the real reason Clinton never when to Congress to get funding for Bosnia. (Which effectively grounded 40% of our Air Force).

As for the "War Powers Act" it is clearly unconstitutional, but know one wants to be the first person to test it. But if Bush gets reelected, and wants to go after Iran next, then he may travel down that road.

I will now step down from my soapbox and let the honorable ShoZan and Sandy take the stage.

a link to more info about the additional documents CBS cited today

use the link that draginol provided in #57.  the newest post there (10 something pm) has signature comparisons.  the ones at the top are identified as being from the cbs documents; the lower ones are from previously released documents.   the third one from the bottom (im not looking at it at the moment so it could 2nd from the bottom as well) is a document from may 1971 with a superscripted 'th'.

I will now step down from my soapbox and let the honorable ShoZan and Sandy take the stage

Well damn I think I just got 'torpedoed' out the water.

You sank my Battleship!!!

To All:

CBS has responded. Drudge has links. They are saying there are other "White House Releases" with the same font face. Well, it would have been a nice election with you Daiwa. But you certainly wouldn't go against your own word, would you?

Well damn I think I just got 'torpedoed' out the water. You sank my Battleship!!!

Sorry ShoZan.

Next time I'll only aim for the Capitan's dingy.

When C-BS ratings plummet like a lead balloon, they will be forced to act. I imagine they will finger the source, I doubt they are going to take the weight for that idiot.

This is interesting, and I'm curious to see how it all washes out. It won't affect my vote either way, of course, but it should be interesting to see how it is perceived.

There is NO proof that he skipped guard duty!

From an article entitled Bush by Numbers:

$3,500 - Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.

600-700 - Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.

0 - Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.


Is it true... I don't know... but its damn interesting.

Fantastic reference, Drag. Very interesting. I'm no expert, but to my untrained eye it looks like even the signatures may have been forged.

Add in that Staudt (if that reference is to the same person in question) had retired the year before the memo mentioning his name was allegedly written, and that Bush may have been gone from the address to which one of the memos was supposedly sent long before 1972, and things don't look too good for CBS.

The CO's secretary at my little outfit (Naval Regional Medical Clinic, Port Hueneme, CA, 1978-80) had an IBM Selectric IIRC, but everyone else had a Remington or other IBM wanna-be, none of which would have had superscript capability. Even if one concedes that the documents in question could have been created on state-of-the-art equipment available at the time, I doubt seriously that an ANG unit, even a Texas ANG unit, would have had even one such state-of-the art typewriter. The cost of the only contemporary machine capable of producing a document with those characteristics has been quoted at $3,600 to $4,000 in 1970 dollars - what would that be, nearly 20 grand in today's dollars? Not too likely.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Bunch of replies showed up while I was typin' my last one. Whew... tough to keep up.

CBS has responded. Drudge has links. They are saying there are other "White House Releases" with the same font face. Well, it would have been a nice election with you Daiwa. But you certainly wouldn't go against your own word, would you?

CrispE -

I read through CBS's defense and Drudges links thinking surely there must be something in there, I mean CrispE's got his feathers all fluffed out like, HAH! - nailed Daiwa. Gotta be at least a smoking gun, maybe even the Holy Grail, right? Now I'm wondering if you read any of it.

Their sole defense is the opinion of one handwriting analyst (one, Marcel Matley, qualifications unstated - not even CBS would call him an expert). They cited not one shred of evidence confirming the authenticity of those documents. That's the saddest job of (not) backing up a claim I've seen in a loooong time.

So... this story ain't over, folks.

Cheers,
Daiwa

former generals still have weight right?