Home > Political Ranting > TANG Documents: Real or Forgeries?

TANG Documents: Real or Forgeries?

September 10th, 2004

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.

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  1. September 12th, 2004 at 11:37 | #1

    reporters don’t seem to question people much any more

    Ah, a subject very near my heart.

    What you are noticing is the insidious effect of media consolidation. Ben Bagdikian, formerly the dean of the journalism school at Berkeley, points out in The Media Monopoly that, although there were 50 companies that controlled the flow of information in 1983, now there are only six: AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, General Electric, News Corporation, and Bertelsmann.

    This excessive consolidation has two primary effects, the treatment of news as a product like software that must be profitable above all else and the reduction of reliance on independent fact-checking in favor of a pseudo-“objectivity,” a word that has been redefined to mean simply reporting what both sides say–but distinctly not objectively evaluating that information to attempt to ascertain which side is right. The motto at FOX News sums it up nicely: “We report. You decide.” (As if simply leaving it at that is all the more viewers should expect of news.)

    These things, when coupled with an administration like the one we have now, which aggressively asserts that questioning the president is tantamount to aiding terrorists (and has no qualms about cutting off access to journalists who are not totally compliant), lead to a situation where any journalist who wants to remain in that occupation will go to great lengths to avoid rocking the boat.

    Spinsanity does a pretty good job of doing what the media should be doing (that is, calling lies on both sides and explaining what the truth is). Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Bias?, is another good source of information in this area (and his book is required reading for anyone who wants to have an intelligent conversation about media bias, another pet peeve of mine). Of course, I’m sure you already know of these and many others. 😉

    The politician can lie like a rug, and the ‘journalist’ will never contradict them with little things, like blatantly obvious evidence to the contrary.

    You mean like the time Bush said–in front of Kofi Annan and a host of journalists–that we were invading Iraq becase, “…we gave [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in,” a statement that bore “no relation to reality,” and yet, no one even batted an eye? Yeah, we’ve hit a real low point in the history of journalism when even outright falsehoods go unchallenged.

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

    Want to start your own media mega-corporation? Because that’s the only way you’ll see professional journalism make a comeback. We now live in the age of passive journalism, and its mediocrity is just one part of the reason why cocerned citizens must do what they can to keep themselves abreast of the latest developments (and, in part, why political blogs are so popular).

  2. Brian Pearson
    September 13th, 2004 at 10:13 | #2

    The author of the ‘exhaustive analysis’ youve linked us to, keeps saying “the original document” this and the “original document”, that. Theres one problem with this — There doesnt seem to be an “original document”. CBS has finally buckled and said they dont have it. I dont believe this fellow does, either.

    Nice try, though. :)

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