'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS
News program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's
service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a
current word processing program, according to typography experts.

Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were suspicious
of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed using a
proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a superscript
font feature found in today's Microsoft Word program.

The "60 Minutes" segment included an interview with former Texas lieutenant
governor Ben Barnes, who criticized Bush's service. The news program also
produced a series of memos that claim Bush refused to follow an order to
undertake a medical examination.

The documents came from the "personal office file" of Bush's former
squadron commander Jerry B. Killian, according to Kelli Edwards, a
spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," who was quoted in Thursday's Washington Post.
Edwards declined to tell the Post how the news program obtained the
documents.

But the experts interviewed by CNSNews.com homed in on several aspects of a
May 4, 1972, memo, which was part of the "60 Minutes" segment and was
posted on the CBS News website Thursday.

"It was highly out of the ordinary for an organization, even the Air Force,
to have proportional-spaced fonts for someone to work with," said Allan
Haley, director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype in Wilmington,
Mass. "I'm suspect in that I did work for the U.S. Army as late as the late
1980s and early 1990s and the Army was still using [fixed-pitch typeface]
Courier."

The typography experts couldn't pinpoint the exact font used in the
documents. They also couldn't definitively conclude that the documents were
either forged using a current computer program or were the work of a high-
end typewriter or word processor in the early 1970s.

But the use of the superscript "th" in one document - "111th F.I.S" - gave
each expert pause. They said that is an automatic feature found in current
versions of Microsoft Word, and it's not something that was even possible
more than 30 years ago.

"That would not be possible on a typewriter or even a word processor at
that time," said John Collins, vice president and chief technology officer
at Bitstream Inc., the parent of MyFonts.com.

"It is a very surprising thing to see a letter with that date [May 4, 1972]
on it," and featuring such typography, Collins added. "There's no question
that that is surprising. Does that force you to conclude that it's a fake?
No. But it certainly raises the eyebrows."

Fred Showker, who teaches typography and introduction to digital graphics
at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., questioned the documents'
letterhead.

"Let's assume for a minute that it's authentic," Showker said. "But would
they not have used some form of letterhead? Or has this letterhead been
intentionally cut off? Notice how close to the top of the page it is."

He also pointed to the signature of Killian, the purported author of the
May 4, 1972, memo ordering Bush, who was at the time a first lieutenant in
the Texas Air National Guard, to obtain a physical exam.

"Do you think he would have stopped that 'K' nice and cleanly, right there
before it ran into the typewriter 'Jerry," Showker asked. "You can't stop a
ballpoint pen with a nice square ending like that ... The end of that 'K'
should be round ... it looks like you took a pair of snips and cut it off
so you could see the 'Jerry.'"

The experts also raised questions about the military's typewriter
technology three decades ago. Collins said word processors that could
produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.

"I'm not real sure that you would have that kind of sophistication in the
office of a flight inspector in the United States government," Showker said.

"The only thing it could be, possibly, is an IBM golf ball typewriter,
which came out around the early to middle 1970s," Haley said. "Those did
have proportional fonts on them. But they weren't widely used."

But Haley added that the use of the superscript "th" cast doubt on the use
of any typewriter.

"There weren't any typewriters that did that," Haley said. "That looks like
it might be a function of something like Microsoft Word, which does that
automatically."

According to an article on the CBS News website, the news
program "consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes
the material is authentic."


http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics...archive\200409
\POL20040909d.html

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

Are the CBS National Guard Documents Fake?
INDC Exclusive

Based on Powerline's suspicions of forgery over the documents put forth
regarding George W. Bush's National Guard service, I decided to do some
legwork and track down the opinions of forensic document examiners that may
have an expertise in old typefaces.

After contacting several experts, a rather notable Forensic Document
Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard took the time to examine a pdf of the
documents and perform an initial visual analysis of their authenticity. Dr.
Bouffard has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, but got
involved in forensic examination of typefaces after working in "graphics"
with NCR until 1973 and taking a two-year Certification Program in Document
Examination at Georgetown University. After completing the program, he
became specifically interested in typewriter classification and went to
work for a prosecutor's crime lab in Lake County, Ohio.

Using something called the Haas Atlas, the definitive collection of various
typefaces, Mr. Bouffard (and other forensic document examiners) examined
the veracity of various documents for over 30 years. Beginning in 1988, Mr.
Bouffard hired a programmer to write a computer database program that
catalogues the nearly 4,000 typefaces that appear in the Haas Atlas. This
computer program is now a forensic standard that is sold as a companion to
the Haas Atlas by American Society of Questioned Document Examiners
(ASQDE). Though semi-retired, Dr. Bouffard is one of the top two experts in
forensic document examination (regarding typefaces) in the country.

UPDATE: The name of the program that Dr. Bouffard developed is called "The
Typewriter Typestyle Classification Program" (C:\TYPE).

What did Dr. Bouffard think of the documents?

First, the necessary caveats:

- The pdf document is of poor quality. It seems to have been copied and
recopied several times, blurring letter characteristics.

- Also, certain types of analysis can only be done on the original
documents, which don't seem to be available, even to CBS.

So Dr. Bouffard is very clear that his analysis is not 100% positive. That
being said …

"It's just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means that
it would have been created on a computer. It's very possible that someone
decided to create this document on a computer... I've run across this
situation before … my gut is this could just well be a fabrication."

The reasons why?

- Right off the bat, Dr. Bouffard noted what others in the blogosphere have
been talking about - something called "proportional spacing," which means
that each letter does not take up the same amount of width on the page. On
old typewriters that do not have proportional spacing, the letter "i" would
be as wide as the letter "m." Except for professional typesetting,
proportional spacing was only available on a very few models (an IBM
model, "Executive" and perhaps one or two other models Mini-Update: Dr.
Bouffard e-mails to correct me that it was seven or eight possible models,
not one or two - Ed) that were not widely available in 1972-73; the vast
majority of typewriters did not have proportional spacing. Because of this,
Dr. Bouffard's computer program immediately eliminated "over 90%" of the
possible fonts from typewriters that could create such a document,
narrowing it down to perhaps 15 fonts used by a very few models.

- Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to
match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional
spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one
character stood out, the number "4." In the document provided by CBS News,
the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a "closed top," which is
indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer
word processing programs. other characters matched the old proportional
spacing fonts (available on only a small few typewriters of the era), but
this number did not (please note that this is only an initial analysis with
numerical characters).

Dr. Bouffard ran this number and could not find a match in his entire
database of over 4,000 typewriter fonts that have been maintained and
collected into his computer database since 1988. Otherwise, the font is
very indicative of Times New Roman, the font that is only available on
computer word processing programs.


The final word?

Once again, let's not forget the qualifications: it's a bad copy of a copy
and we have no original document for review, but, based on the initial
analysis of the documents by an industry expert with over 30 years of
experience in typesetting and forensic document examination, the
documents "could just well be a fabrication."

In light of this information, I think that it would be highly appropriate
for CBS News and the Boston Globe to attempt to obtain a copy of the
original document for more thorough vetting, and run a correction/addendum
to the story.

I still have two other forensic document examiners that are examining the
pdf file, and I will update if/when they get back to me. I also plan to ask
Dr. Bouffard more detail about the nature of the "th" on the end of dates,
though in our first conversation he indicated that some typewriters had the
capability to do something in that format.

UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says
that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.

Here's why

* He looked through old papers he's written, and noted that he's come up
against the inconsistency of the "4" several previous times with forgeries
that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a computer
word processing program.

* Regarding the small "th" after the date, Dr. Bouffard told me that it was
possible to order specialty keys that would duplicate the automatic
miniaturization completed by word processors after a numerical date, but it
was certainly not standard, and wouldn't make a lot of sense in a military
setting. "That by itself, while suspicious, is not impossible, but in
conjunction with the (font irregularity of the) number four, it is really
significant," he said.

* Dr. Bouffard said that signature analysis isn't that relevant because the
signature could have easily been copied and pasted onto one of the
photocopied forgeries from another document.

* He said that he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's
authenticity, but that there is really only one other man that may be more
qualified to determine authentic typefaces than himself. I think that the
burden of proof may be on CBS to reveal this information.

I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and he
said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again
he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that
high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."

I hesitate to render verdicts, but based on an initial visual analysis by
one of the country's foremost forensic document analysts that specializes
in old typefaces, it looks like CBS was duped.

UPDATE: Apologies for the hasty error on Dr. Bouffard's first name - it's
Philip.


http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000838.php

In article bHV0ZWZpc2s=.826f81b94141a5f1e6c0063cc30abd99@109 4768452.nulluser.com,
John Deere wrote:
'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS
News program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's
service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a
current word processing program, according to typography experts.

stupid, long for no reason post deleted

Interesting! I suppose you think this means that it was ok for Bush to
not show up for his physical. We're still waiting for him to tell us
why.

--
Jonathan Ganz (j gan z @ $ail no w.c=o=m)
http://www.sailnow.com
"If there's no wind, row."

Funny, the Bush camp isn't denying their authenticity.
"John Deere" wrote in message
news:bHV0ZWZpc2s=.826f81b94141a5f1e6c0063cc30abd99 @1094768452.nulluser.com...
'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS
News program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's
service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a
current word processing program, according to typography experts.

Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were suspicious
of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed using a
proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a superscript
font feature found in today's Microsoft Word program.

The "60 Minutes" segment included an interview with former Texas
lieutenant
governor Ben Barnes, who criticized Bush's service. The news program also
produced a series of memos that claim Bush refused to follow an order to
undertake a medical examination.

The documents came from the "personal office file" of Bush's former
squadron commander Jerry B. Killian, according to Kelli Edwards, a
spokeswoman for "60 Minutes," who was quoted in Thursday's Washington
Post.
Edwards declined to tell the Post how the news program obtained the
documents.

But the experts interviewed by CNSNews.com homed in on several aspects of
a
May 4, 1972, memo, which was part of the "60 Minutes" segment and was
posted on the CBS News website Thursday.

"It was highly out of the ordinary for an organization, even the Air
Force,
to have proportional-spaced fonts for someone to work with," said Allan
Haley, director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype in Wilmington,
Mass. "I'm suspect in that I did work for the U.S. Army as late as the
late
1980s and early 1990s and the Army was still using [fixed-pitch typeface]
Courier."

The typography experts couldn't pinpoint the exact font used in the
documents. They also couldn't definitively conclude that the documents
were
either forged using a current computer program or were the work of a high-
end typewriter or word processor in the early 1970s.

But the use of the superscript "th" in one document - "111th F.I.S" - gave
each expert pause. They said that is an automatic feature found in current
versions of Microsoft Word, and it's not something that was even possible
more than 30 years ago.

"That would not be possible on a typewriter or even a word processor at
that time," said John Collins, vice president and chief technology officer
at Bitstream Inc., the parent of MyFonts.com.

"It is a very surprising thing to see a letter with that date [May 4,
1972]
on it," and featuring such typography, Collins added. "There's no question
that that is surprising. Does that force you to conclude that it's a fake?
No. But it certainly raises the eyebrows."

Fred Showker, who teaches typography and introduction to digital graphics
at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., questioned the
documents'
letterhead.

"Let's assume for a minute that it's authentic," Showker said. "But would
they not have used some form of letterhead? Or has this letterhead been
intentionally cut off? Notice how close to the top of the page it is."

He also pointed to the signature of Killian, the purported author of the
May 4, 1972, memo ordering Bush, who was at the time a first lieutenant in
the Texas Air National Guard, to obtain a physical exam.

"Do you think he would have stopped that 'K' nice and cleanly, right there
before it ran into the typewriter 'Jerry," Showker asked. "You can't stop
a
ballpoint pen with a nice square ending like that ... The end of that 'K'
should be round ... it looks like you took a pair of snips and cut it off
so you could see the 'Jerry.'"

The experts also raised questions about the military's typewriter
technology three decades ago. Collins said word processors that could
produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.

"I'm not real sure that you would have that kind of sophistication in the
office of a flight inspector in the United States government," Showker
said.

"The only thing it could be, possibly, is an IBM golf ball typewriter,
which came out around the early to middle 1970s," Haley said. "Those did
have proportional fonts on them. But they weren't widely used."

But Haley added that the use of the superscript "th" cast doubt on the use
of any typewriter.

"There weren't any typewriters that did that," Haley said. "That looks
like
it might be a function of something like Microsoft Word, which does that
automatically."

According to an article on the CBS News website, the news
program "consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes
the material is authentic."


http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewPolitics...archive\200409
\POL20040909d.html

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

Are the CBS National Guard Documents Fake?
INDC Exclusive

Based on Powerline's suspicions of forgery over the documents put forth
regarding George W. Bush's National Guard service, I decided to do some
legwork and track down the opinions of forensic document examiners that
may
have an expertise in old typefaces.

After contacting several experts, a rather notable Forensic Document
Examiner named Dr. Philip Bouffard took the time to examine a pdf of the
documents and perform an initial visual analysis of their authenticity.
Dr.
Bouffard has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, but got
involved in forensic examination of typefaces after working in "graphics"
with NCR until 1973 and taking a two-year Certification Program in
Document
Examination at Georgetown University. After completing the program, he
became specifically interested in typewriter classification and went to
work for a prosecutor's crime lab in Lake County, Ohio.

Using something called the Haas Atlas, the definitive collection of
various
typefaces, Mr. Bouffard (and other forensic document examiners) examined
the veracity of various documents for over 30 years. Beginning in 1988,
Mr.
Bouffard hired a programmer to write a computer database program that
catalogues the nearly 4,000 typefaces that appear in the Haas Atlas. This
computer program is now a forensic standard that is sold as a companion to
the Haas Atlas by American Society of Questioned Document Examiners
(ASQDE). Though semi-retired, Dr. Bouffard is one of the top two experts
in
forensic document examination (regarding typefaces) in the country.

UPDATE: The name of the program that Dr. Bouffard developed is called "The
Typewriter Typestyle Classification Program" (C:\TYPE).

What did Dr. Bouffard think of the documents?

First, the necessary caveats:

- The pdf document is of poor quality. It seems to have been copied and
recopied several times, blurring letter characteristics.

- Also, certain types of analysis can only be done on the original
documents, which don't seem to be available, even to CBS.

So Dr. Bouffard is very clear that his analysis is not 100% positive. That
being said .

"It's just possible that this might be a Times Roman font, which means
that
it would have been created on a computer. It's very possible that someone
decided to create this document on a computer... I've run across this
situation before . my gut is this could just well be a fabrication."

The reasons why?

- Right off the bat, Dr. Bouffard noted what others in the blogosphere
have
been talking about - something called "proportional spacing," which means
that each letter does not take up the same amount of width on the page. On
old typewriters that do not have proportional spacing, the letter "i"
would
be as wide as the letter "m." Except for professional typesetting,
proportional spacing was only available on a very few models (an IBM
model, "Executive" and perhaps one or two other models Mini-Update: Dr.
Bouffard e-mails to correct me that it was seven or eight possible models,
not one or two - Ed) that were not widely available in 1972-73; the vast
majority of typewriters did not have proportional spacing. Because of
this,
Dr. Bouffard's computer program immediately eliminated "over 90%" of the
possible fonts from typewriters that could create such a document,
narrowing it down to perhaps 15 fonts used by a very few models.

- Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to
match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional
spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one
character stood out, the number "4." In the document provided by CBS News,
the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a "closed top," which is
indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer
word processing programs. other characters matched the old proportional
spacing fonts (available on only a small few typewriters of the era), but
this number did not (please note that this is only an initial analysis
with
numerical characters).

Dr. Bouffard ran this number and could not find a match in his entire
database of over 4,000 typewriter fonts that have been maintained and
collected into his computer database since 1988. Otherwise, the font is
very indicative of Times New Roman, the font that is only available on
computer word processing programs.


The final word?

Once again, let's not forget the qualifications: it's a bad copy of a copy
and we have no original document for review, but, based on the initial
analysis of the documents by an industry expert with over 30 years of
experience in typesetting and forensic document examination, the
documents "could just well be a fabrication."

In light of this information, I think that it would be highly appropriate
for CBS News and the Boston Globe to attempt to obtain a copy of the
original document for more thorough vetting, and run a correction/addendum
to the story.

I still have two other forensic document examiners that are examining the
pdf file, and I will update if/when they get back to me. I also plan to
ask
Dr. Bouffard more detail about the nature of the "th" on the end of dates,
though in our first conversation he indicated that some typewriters had
the
capability to do something in that format.

UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says
that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.

Here's why

* He looked through old papers he's written, and noted that he's come up
against the inconsistency of the "4" several previous times with forgeries
that attempt to duplicate old proportional spaced documents with a
computer
word processing program.

* Regarding the small "th" after the date, Dr. Bouffard told me that it
was
possible to order specialty keys that would duplicate the automatic
miniaturization completed by word processors after a numerical date, but
it
was certainly not standard, and wouldn't make a lot of sense in a military
setting. "That by itself, while suspicious, is not impossible, but in
conjunction with the (font irregularity of the) number four, it is really
significant," he said.

* Dr. Bouffard said that signature analysis isn't that relevant because
the
signature could have easily been copied and pasted onto one of the
photocopied forgeries from another document.

* He said that he didn't know who CBS contacted to verify the document's
authenticity, but that there is really only one other man that may be more
qualified to determine authentic typefaces than himself. I think that the
burden of proof may be on CBS to reveal this information.

I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and
he
said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again
he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that
high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."

I hesitate to render verdicts, but based on an initial visual analysis by
one of the country's foremost forensic document analysts that specializes
in old typefaces, it looks like CBS was duped.

UPDATE: Apologies for the hasty error on Dr. Bouffard's first name - it's
Philip.


http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000838.php

Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended up
in Vietnam.

Philip Carroll wrote:

Funny, the Bush camp isn't denying their authenticity.
"John Deere" wrote in message
news:bHV0ZWZpc2s=.826f81b94141a5f1e6c0063cc30abd99 @1094768452.nulluser.com..
..
'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:14:50 -0000 (GMT), "John Deere"
wrote:

Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended up
in Vietnam.

Philip Carroll wrote:

Well, Bush wouldn't have been an officer "like Kerry", as Bush
received a direct appointment, bypassing any required officer
training. The only case of that happening for a pilot, as far as I
have been able to determine. Kerry actually had to go to officer's
training. I suppose it was that 25 percentile that Bush scored that
qualified him to skip all that unnecessary officer training. Perhaps
that is why Bush was under the impression that the order to take his
annual physical was optional, as well.



Funny, the Bush camp isn't denying their authenticity.
"John Deere" wrote in message
news:bHV0ZWZpc2s=.826f81b94141a5f1e6c0063cc30abd9 ..
.
'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

John Deere wrote:
ridiculous paranoid freetard crap snipped

You'll believe *anything*, won't you?

Wanna buy a sailboat from Granada? Only a teesy-weensy bit of storm
danmage.

--
// Walt
//
// There is no Volkl Conspiracy

felton wrote:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:14:50 -0000 (GMT), "John Deere"
wrote:

Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from
CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult
multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs
beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends
put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's
sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely
not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended
up
in Vietnam.

Philip Carroll wrote:

Well, Bush wouldn't have been an officer "like Kerry", as Bush
received a direct appointment, bypassing any required officer
training. The only case of that happening for a pilot, as far as I
have been able to determine. Kerry actually had to go to officer's
training. I suppose it was that 25 percentile that Bush scored that
qualified him to skip all that unnecessary officer training.

Don't bet your boat on that 25th percentile figure. I know where it comes
from and it's not from a news source. It's originally from a Bush-hater's
online list of all the grievous sins of GW Bush, most of which are complete
fabrications or the deliberate misreading of a military document. But if
you do bet on it, bet with another raving liberal that cares nothing for
the truth. Then you may have a chance.

In article bHV0ZWZpc2s=.b006ca2047413a79e91d30c92f02c074@109 4778890.nulluser.com,
John Deere wrote:
Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended up
in Vietnam.

My understanding is that Kerry actually showed up for all his
physicals.




--
Jonathan Ganz (j gan z @ $ail no w.c=o=m)
http://www.sailnow.com
"If there's no wind, row."

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 04:43:22 -0000 (GMT), "John Deere"
wrote:

felton wrote:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:14:50 -0000 (GMT), "John Deere"
wrote:

Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from
CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult
multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs
beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends
put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's
sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely
not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended
up
in Vietnam.

Philip Carroll wrote:

Well, Bush wouldn't have been an officer "like Kerry", as Bush
received a direct appointment, bypassing any required officer
training. The only case of that happening for a pilot, as far as I
have been able to determine. Kerry actually had to go to officer's
training. I suppose it was that 25 percentile that Bush scored that
qualified him to skip all that unnecessary officer training.

Don't bet your boat on that 25th percentile figure. I know where it comes
from and it's not from a news source. It's originally from a Bush-hater's
online list of all the grievous sins of GW Bush, most of which are complete
fabrications or the deliberate misreading of a military document. But if
you do bet on it, bet with another raving liberal that cares nothing for
the truth. Then you may have a chance.

Not from a news source?

FACT: Bush Scored in 25th Percentile on Pilot Aptitude Test. When Bush
applied for the Guard, his score on the Air Force pilot aptitude
section, one of five on the test, was in the 25th percentile, the
lowest allowed for would-be fliers. [Dallas Morning News, 7/4/99]

There are dozens of sources for this, and unless you include MSNBC as
a "Bush-haters online list", you are full of crap.

Feel free to find ONE source that disputes the 25 Percentile score,
other than your own opinion, and we can go from there.

We know he wasn't a shining star, otherwise we would all have his GPA on the
tube every 10 miniutes.
"John Deere" wrote in message
news:bHV0ZWZpc2s=.81129a92e9ec1e636a4db3b550309663 @1094791402.nulluser.com...
felton wrote:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:14:50 -0000 (GMT), "John Deere"
wrote:

Since the White House only got copies of the documents this week, from
CBS,
for comment on the story, they maybe didn't have time to consult
multiple
experts on document authenticity and get the reports back. The blogs
beat
them to it. I suspect that if you asked GW if any of his dad's friends
put
in a good word for him to get him into the Air Guard, he would say, "I
assume they did, yes. Why not?" I don't think there were many doctor's
sons
who passed the draft physical, if they wanted to flunk it. Definitely
not
heroic, but not uncommon either. Bush would have been an officer (like
Kerry) in any case, and officers had more choices even when they ended
up
in Vietnam.

Philip Carroll wrote:

Well, Bush wouldn't have been an officer "like Kerry", as Bush
received a direct appointment, bypassing any required officer
training. The only case of that happening for a pilot, as far as I
have been able to determine. Kerry actually had to go to officer's
training. I suppose it was that 25 percentile that Bush scored that
qualified him to skip all that unnecessary officer training.

Don't bet your boat on that 25th percentile figure. I know where it comes
from and it's not from a news source. It's originally from a Bush-hater's
online list of all the grievous sins of GW Bush, most of which are
complete
fabrications or the deliberate misreading of a military document. But if
you do bet on it, bet with another raving liberal that cares nothing for
the truth. Then you may have a chance.