The Power of Google II

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This is interesting.

When all of this crap began back in 1999, I was a political consultant for several Democratic candidates, as well as later being a senior consultant for Janet Reno in her run for Governor. I bought the document package from Marty Heldt and we subjected them to the most thorough investigation one could imagine. Why? Because if there was anything there, we damn sure wanted to use it. But guess what? Only two of those documents proved to be authentic and they were not even related to the charge being levelled. Many of them are so blatant in their alterations it is almost funny. Several purport to be signed by real live military personnel, yet they don’t even know the proper format for a military date.

This is a newsgroup posting from a writer who identifies himself as Brooks Gregory.
I won’t go as far as others in openly speculating the connection between this comment, posted Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:27:57 GMT, and what it may suggest as to the possible source of the forged CBS memos, or even if they might have been the same ones. Time will tell.
Hat tip – Dean Esmay who rightly cautions about open speculation and naming names. But, the internet is a big place – and a tool available to anyone with a few google search skills. It’s not a drawer in someone’s bedroom, so I don’t know how you keep speculation from occuring – or even argue that it’s unethical, when so much of it occurs in the editorial pages of America’s most respected newspapers.
Wizbang notices that Marty Heldt has been popping up a lot elsewhere.

Who do Salon and David Brock’s Media Matters trot out as their rebuttal witness against the forgery charges? None other than “independent researcher” Marty Heldt.

Plot, thickened.

Scott Taylor Freed

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Good news.

Bruised and battered, Canadian military writer Scott Taylor survived four terror-filled days as a captive in Iraq.

More.
Maybe I was out of the loop, but I heard nothing about him being captured. Taylor is editor of Esprit De Corp, and a fairly frequent guest on talk radio interviews. While his political leanings sometimes colour his analysis, I always had respect for the fact that he wasn’t an puffed suit pontificating from the Green Zone in Toronto.
And a huge roundup of more general good news, though unrelated.

Hurricane Blog

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As more established media voices add to the criticism of CBS, some are also acknowledging that the world of big journalism has been forever changed – by the blogosphere.
Some of those voices this morning – Peter Worthington at the Toronto Sun is expecting a rather rapid retirement, and has the following observation about the twisted political logic.

The Democrats accuse the Republicans of sponsoring the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (who now say they’ve raised $6.7 million from 53,000 donors) when the Swiftie TV ads make it clear the Republican party and president aren’t involved.
Yet when an anti-Bush forgery boomerangs on Democrats, they blame the Bushies. Kind of convoluted.

The New York Times William Safire:

Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax: the “documents” presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment in Lt. George W. Bush’s National Guard service have all the earmarks of forgeries.

John Fund, Wall Street Journal “gets it”.

If it turns out that the Killian memos are indeed forgeries, the Internet will have played an invaluable role in exposing the fraud much faster than the 18 months Mr. Camacho had to twist in the wind. Free Republic, a Web bulletin board, raised early warning signals about the memos within hours of last Wednesday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast. Powerlineblog.com, a site run by three lawyers, reposted those comments, which were amplified by indcjournal.com. Then design expert Charles Johnson, who blogs at littlegreenfootballs.com, retyped one of the memos using Microsoft Word and showed them to be a perfect typographic match.
A defensive Dan Rather went on the air Friday to complain of what he called a “counterattack” from “partisan political operatives.” In reality, traditional journalism now has a new set of watchdogs in the “blogosphere.” In the words of blogger Mickey Kaus, they can trade information and publicize it “fast enough to have real-world consequences.” Sure, blogs can be transmission belts for errors, vicious gossip and last- minute disinformation efforts. But they can also correct themselves almost instantaneously–in sharp contrast with CBS’s stonewalling.

Of course, there are plenty of the usual suspects who don’t. – the meme of the day from those still wanting to cling desperately to the notion that they “have something” on Bush – “What’s the fuss about the memos, anyway? Even if they are fake, we know they were true.”
update – INDC Journal has a reprint of a well-done NY Sun article by Roderick Boyd. Read the comments – Roddy shows up to expand on the choice of word “non-journalist”, and adds this;

and we are on the cusp of something viz. big change, but what it is, i have no idea.

Sept.13, 2004 – Thus begins the week that the MSM has accepted – some with anger, some with relief – that their all-powerful hold on the “last word” in news and information has officially come to an end.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Roddy.

Their Day

Terrorism 2 Comments

No one needs to be reminded of the day. No one needs to say “never forget”. Not yet, and not for a very long time. With the battle against Islamic extremism in full swing around the globe, no one needs a jab in the ribs to remember just what it was that happened on a pleasant morning in New York City, in Washington, in the skies over Pennsylvania.
But while we are in no danger of forgetting, discussion has shifted to 9/11’s impact on the present, and the implications for the future. Today, the focus is directed to the political and geopolitical fallout. We’re obsessed with dissecting, analyzing and second guessing. We argue about how best to guard, prevent, secure.
“Never forget” is evolving into “never again”.
As the years pass and the events (if not the consequences) become further removed, the shared anguish for those who lost family, friends, co-workers will begin to dim. It’s the natural way of things.
And so, this is why we have memorials. Not to mark historic events, but to honour the personal – the heros, victims, the sacrifice, and those who struggle on without them.
Today is their day.

“We’re Sorry”

Terrorism 4 Comments

I saw this piece a couple of days ago, but in light of a private email suggesting I draw attention to it, I think today is an appropriate day.
We Are So Sorry for 9-11
A welcome sign that moderate Muslims are finally starting to understand, and more importantly – speak out against the qualified outrage and weak disclaimers of the Islamic apologensia.

After numerous admissions of guilt by Bin Laden and numerous corroborating admissions by captured top level Al-Qaida operatives, we wonder, does the Muslim leadership have the dignity and courage to apologize for 9-11?
If not 9-11, will we apologize for the murder of school children in Russia?
If not Russia, will we apologize for the train bombings in Madrid, Spain?
If not Spain, will we apologize for suicide bombings in buses, restaurants and other public places?
If not suicide bombings, will we apologize for the barbaric beheadings of human beings?
If not beheadings, will we apologize for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people in Darfour?
If not Darfour, will we apologize for the blowing up of two Russian planes by Muslim women?
What will we apologize for?
What will it take for Muslims to realize that those who commit mass murder in the name of Islam are not just a few fringe elements?
What will it take for Muslims to realize that we are facing a crisis that is more deadly than the Aids epidemic?
What will it take for Muslims to realize that there is a large evil movement that is turning what was a peaceful religion into a cult?

More of this, please.

The Power of Google

Media 2 Comments

Mere minutes after Dan Rather’s sketchy rebuttal to the growing evidence that the 60 Minutes II memos were forgeries, Wizbang has been tracking down the background of the ” handwriting expert” who CBS states authenticated the signatures on the documents (as though this is the primary issue under dispute).
His name is Marcel Matley – and it appears that he was the same handwriting expert who authenticated the Vince Foster suicide note.
Small world.

Working For The Man

Blogging 4 Comments
Marc Emery, ” one of Canada’s most media-savvy and provocative potactivists”, decided to do the civil disobedience schtick and pass a joint in Saskatoon.

Well, it’s all fun and games, until someone gets their ass thrown in jail.

It gets better.

Alright everyone, I’m back from, oh goodness… six hours of sanding, sanding, sanding big wooden sheds with a 2-inch by 5-inch wire brush, and believe me, I am tired. Boy, I really earned my 50 cents an hour today, I’ll tell you.
[…]
This is what my fellow Canadians have done to a man who has never done anything (that’s me) but be kind to virtually every person I have ever met. Putting me here in this crazy place. It’s called a correctional centre. How filthy a lie, from my fellow Canadians who condone these gulags with their implicit consent. There is no Correcting going on here. How am I being corrected? How is
Mus-qua being corrected? We are in a detention facility.
There is no Correcting. A detention centre is where we put the illiterate, the alcohol and drug addicted, society’s cast-offs, the abandoned, the mentally ill, the stupid, dissidents like myself, and a lot of inevitable product of poor or no parenting in their childhood. You think anyone here is
being Corrected? If they were rational, they would hate and despise the people who have put them here and animalized them. The Canadian people have animalized me. Did you know that if all eighteen spoons, eighteen knives, or eighteen forks are not all returned to a count by the guard sharp at 10:30pm, we are all under 24 hour lockdown? Three times I have gone through
all the day’s garbage, looking for a missing spoon. Twice I did find it, at the bottom of the massive, slimy, smoozy food, shit, coffee grinds, all manner of refuse. They have to be found at 10:30pm sharp or we all suffer a lockdown for 24 hours. I always sense the urgency and go to the guard and say ‘Can I have the latex gloves, as I have to go through all the garbage to find the missing spoon.’ It’s always the spoon that’s missing because people let it spill off with their food, toss it into the garbage, or they use it as a stirring spoon and take it to their room and forget about it and then that person has headphones on or is asleep etc. at 10:30pm, but it’s usually at the bottom of the slimy garbage, and that’s where I have to go.

That’s right – he’s blogging from jail. Poor baby.
There’s a rally for Marc in Saskatoon at the Vimy Memorial tomorrow, if you’re so inclined.

Dead Men Type New Tales, Day 2

Media 3 Comments

Behold: The Power Of The Blogosphere
Drudge

CBS NEWS executives have launched an internal investigation into whether its premiere news program 60 MINUTES aired fabricated documents relating to Bush’s National Guard service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
“The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we are in error, it will be corrected,” a top CBS source explained late Thursday.
The source, who asked not to be named, described CBSNEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES correspondent Dan Rather as being privately “shell-shocked” by the increasingly likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent.

ABC News reports the family is disputing the memos legitimacy, as uncharacteristic of the alleged author.
A Drudge link to the Prowler shut down their server, so a cached version is here alleging they were passed to CBS by the Kerry campaign;

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.
The oppo researcher claimed the source was “a retired military officer.” According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.
“More than a couple people heard about the papers,” says the DNC staffer. “I’ve heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity.”
The concerns arose from the sourcing. “It wasn’t clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn’t confirm from what file, from what original source they came from.”
The documents that CBS News used were not documents from any of Bush’s personnel files from his time in the National Guard. Rather, CBS News stated that they were documents uncovered in the personnel files of Killian. That would explain why the White House or the Pentagon had never before released or even seen them.

The Chicago Sun-Times is giving credit where credit is due – to Powerline, Bill, at INDC, (though Little Green Footballs was overlooked. )
The New York Post credits everyone, including the Free Republic commentor who first mentioned the discrepencies.
Instapundit is probably the best central source for continuing updates on this. Glenn is reporting that the Washington Post is going page A1 with this story tomorrow.
Donald Sensing notices that the Air Force Manual cited in one memo seems not to have ever existed. Ouch.
I repeat – is anyone from the Canadian Conservative Party paying attention yet?

Dead Men Type New Tales?

Media 12 Comments

CBS “news” magazine 60 MInutes heeded Terry McAuliffe’s call for help last night.
This morning, Powerline is taking a close look at the memos cited in the show (and by others) that purportedly prove that Bush was AWOL from national guard service. (PDF’s of the memos are available on the CBS site). A Powerline reader:

I was a clerk/typist for the US Navy at the Naval Underwater Systems Center (NUSC) in Newport RI for my summer job in 1971 when I was in college. I note the following with regard to the Killian memos:
1) Tom Mortensen is absolutely correct. Variable type was used only for special printing jobs, like official pamphlets. These documents are forgeries, and not even good ones. Someone could have at least found an old pre-Selectric IBM (introduced around 1962). Actually, I believe we were using IBM Model C’s at the time, which was the precursor to the Selectric.
2) I also used a Variype machine in 1971. I fooled around with it in my spare time. It was incredibly difficult to set up and use. It was also extremely hard to correct mistakes on the machine. Most small letters used two spaces. Capital letters generally used three spaces. I think letters like “i” may have used one space. Anyway, you can see that this type of machine was piloted by an expert, and it would NEVER be used for a routine memo. A Lt. Colonel would not be able to identify a Varitype machine, let alone use it.
3) US Navy paper at the time was not 8 1/2 x 11. It was 8 x 10 1/2. I believe this was the same throughout the military, but someone will have to check on that. This should show up in the Xeroxing, which should have lines running along the sides of the Xerox copy.
4) I am amused by the way “147 th Ftr.Intrcp Gp.” appears in the August 1, 1972 document. It may have been written that way in non-forged documents, but as somone who worked for ComCruDesLant, I know the military liked to bunch things together. I find “147 th” suspicious looking. 147th looks better to me, but the problem with Microsoft Word is that it keeps turning the “th” tiny if it is connected to a number like 147. And finally……
5) MORE DEFINITIVE PROOF OF FORGERY: I had neglected even to look at the August 18, 1973 memo to file. This forger was a fool. This fake document actually does have the tiny “th” in “187th” and there is simply no way this could have occurred in 1973. There are no keys on any typewriter in common use in 1973 which could produce a tiny “th.” The forger got careless after creating the August 1, 1972 document and slipped up big-time.

Now, there’s a story for an enterprising young reporter to pick up – exposing dupes at 60 Minutes. It’s not like Dan Rather is likely to beat you to it.
update – Documents reconstructed at LGF:

I opened Microsoft Word, set the font to Microsoft’s Times New Roman, tabbed over to the default tab stop to enter the date “18 August 1973”, then typed the rest of the document purportedly from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian.
And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as “authentic.”

A screenshot of the “original” document as found at CBS:

aug-18-1973-memo.gif

The memo produced on Microsoft Word;

aug181973memo-word.gif

The two images, superimposed.

aug181973memo-word2.gif

Drudge is now reporting the story, citing “internet sources”.

Over Her Head

Military 3 Comments

While Canadian MP’s serve up insults to feed their Amerihate voter base, serious adults are examining the emerging nuclear threat from Iran.

AFP: Sep 05, 2004 — A key component of national missile defense, whose development is receiving priority this year, is likely to strategically tie the United States to Iraq, Afghanistan and some of the authoritarian former Soviet republics, requiring permanent US military bases there, according to officials and scientists involved in the project. “It raises issues of basing it in places like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Caspian Sea,” the Rhode Island senator (Jack Reed) told AFP. “And that introduces geopolitical considerations.”
While key variables remain unknown, experts agree that if Iran, as expected, produces an intercontinental ballistic missile sometime within the next decade, the United States will not be able to counter it just from ships patrolling the Gulf. “Discussions are underway with international partners on ways in which they may be able to cooperate,” replied a defense official when asked whether the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan had already been approached.

Wretchard:

Through much of the Cold War the expected missile trajectory would have followed the Polar Route, arcing over Canada into Continental United States. This is no different. What has changed is that Iranian missiles start out a little further south than their Cold War Soviet counterparts. A published analysis of BPI [boost phase interceptors] systems by the Congressional Budget Office concludes that an effective intercept would have to take place about 1,500 km (1,000 miles) from the launch point, in the first 320 seconds from firing. The physics requires that BPI engagements occur over Central Asia.

Dentyne Frost Bites

Not Quite News 14 Comments

Is it just me, or is the Dentyne Frost Bites commercial about the most revolting ad ever created?
A man and woman in the back seat of a cab – he fills his mouth with the chewing gum, turns to ice, she and the driver start screaming and his head falls off in her lap.
Ugh.

The Sea Fox

More Money Than Brains No Comments

CTV news;

“I left in the middle of the hurricane season and this year is a terrible year for hurricanes. There were eight scheduled.”
Rommel’s boat capsized five times in all and when he saw that it was letting in water, he decided to use the distress beacons and ask for help.
Crewmen from the Federal Elbe, which was relatively close, plucked Rommel from stormy seas about 600 kilometres east of St. John’s, Nfld, last Thursday.

Oh, I should mention that he was in a rowboat, attempting a solo crossing of the North Atlantic.

He said abandoning his boat was out of the question.
“Rule No. 1 when you’re in trouble is “Never leave your boat’ even if it’s half sunk.”
Rommel said travelling alone is a “special thing” and “pretty intense.”
“You change psychologically. I think you become a bit nutty as well. You start talking to yourself.”

Our plucky oarsman calls himself the “black sheep” of the family, though, apparently, he’s not the first.

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