Well, here is an excellent example of damage control on the part of Republicans. As stated in yesterday’s post, CBS uncovered some highly damaging documents from Bush’s superior officer in the TANG concerning his using family ties & influence to get out of fulfilling his duties. The documents are from the early 70’s.

It did not take long for stories to be released claiming the documents are forgeries. The proof? Col. Jerry Killian’s wife says he never kept papers! His son say he wouldn’t write like that!

Beg pardon? Did his wife and son hang out at his base and observe his writing and paper-pushing proclivities? Besides, men who served with Killian, including Lt. Col. Bobby Hodges (who is mentioned in the memos) report that Killian both wrote memos of that nature and openly spoke about the same kind of things written in the memos.

But there’s a superscript “th” in the document! That was impossible on typewriters in the 60’s! An expert in forensics said so!

It didn’t take long for observers to point out that typewriters with superscript abilities had been available for almost a decade by the time the memos were written.

But the memo was written with proportional spacing, not monospace where “i” and “m” are the same width! 70’s typewriters couldn’t do that!

Except that they could, it turns out.

But wait! The memos were types in Times New Roman, and font used on PCs that were not available in the early 70’s! And if you overlay an MS Word printout over the memo, they match!

Except that Times New Roman was invented in 1931, and the current computer fonts are based on it, so of course they’re very close. But they are not identical. A screen overlay shows substantial differences in detail–ironically, the greatest difference is with the famed superscript “th.”

Every few hours, it seems like some right-wing organization comes out with new claims as to how the documents are faked, and almost immediately research shows that the claims of forgery are unfounded and false. But I’m sure that won’t stop any and all Freepers and Dittoheads from believing the forgery theory, and unfortunately, due to strong media coverage, enough doubt will be introduced so that most in the public will simply disregard what is now an iron-clad presentation of evidence that Bush used favoritism, got out of serving, went AWOL, and then lied repeatedly about it.

While the original report of the documents was carried by some but not all major news organizations (some buried it, some didn’t carry it on their main page), the story of the forgery claims are being carried by every news organization I can find, at the top of the news.

For an exhaustive analysis of the whole typewriter issue, read this post from DailyKos, it is comprehensive and blows just about every right-wing conspiracy theory out of the water.

But the right-wingers won’t stop there. A new offensive has started, in which the claim is being made that Kerry also tried to avoid going to Vietnam. The story carries little documentation, none of it damning, and cites only one source: the Swift Boat Vets tome of lies about Kerry. Already the majors are beginning to pick it up–though at least the Boston Globe story focuses on how wrong the accusations are. Don’t expect most of the media to go that way.

A side note: both my father and I have observed as of late that reporters don’t seem to question people much any more. For many years I’ve noted that if a politician being interviewed completely avoids answering a question (instead saying, ‘let me first mention that…’ and never coming back), the reporter will simply let it go, and not come back with, “excuse me, but you didn’t answer the question.” A few reporters will do that, but only a precious few.

But now, it seems like reporters simply whore themselves to the politicians going on air, allowing them to say anything, get away with anything. The politician can lie like a rug, and the ‘journalist’ will never contradict them with little things, like blatantly obvious evidence to the contrary. It happens only so rarely, and when it does, it’s great–but all too often it simply just slides by.

I miss professional journalism. I hope it comes back some day.

Updates: Sandra Ramsey Lines, the forensic “expert” who was reported as first stating that the Killian memos were fake, just by sheer coincidence happens to be a contributor to a Republican organization for Republican women in congress. Who’da thunk?

And now one of Bush’s old college professors has come out saying that Bush told him he was for the war but had arranged to get out of serving.

Tsurumi, who crossed paths with Bush in the early 1970s when the future President was studying for his MBA, previously has criticized Bush’s economic policies and described him as a mediocre student who “believed people were poor because they were lazy.” … “He was very casual about [getting into the TANG],” the professor said. “I said, ‘Lucky you, how did you manage it?’ He said, ‘My dad had a good friend who put me at the head of the waiting list.'”

Believe Tsurumi or not, but his statements are backed up by others; a college classmate of Bush also came out some time ago saying that Bush was for the war in Vietnam, and the evidence that Bush used family influence is rather overwhelming.