Archive for September, 2004
 The Brent Woodall Foundation For Exceptional Children
The latest STG charity is up.
I read recently, in the somber flurry of September 11 memorial writing, that September 11 was unique because it reversed the typical order of tragedy in war: rather than it being the parents who sent their children off to face an uncertain fate, on 9/11 it was the children who sent off their parents.One of those children, though not yet born at the time, was Pierce Woodall, daughter of Brent and Tracy Woodall. Tracy was five weeks pregnant on 9.11.01, when she and her unborn child sent Brent, a stock trader, off to work at Bruyette and Woods on the 89th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center.
Tracy was among the thousands of loved ones who had the bittersweet experience of receiving a phone call from WTC that September morning, as Brent called to let her know all was well in his tower. This was to change, however, when the second plane hit.
Tracy finally reached Brent on the 87th floor of the South Tower, where he had reached a locked door. Brent–6-foot-5, handsome, a college athlete at Berkeley and former minor league pitcher for the Cubs–assured his wife of 31 that everything would be all right.
And like so many people that bright clear day, that call was the last time Tracy heard her husband’s voice.
And
Not long before 9/11, Tracy and Brent had started talking about launching a foundation that would provide free care-giving education to families of children with autism. For the less familiar, autism is a neurological disorder that appears during the first three years of life. Estimates are that it occurs in approximately 2 to 6 in 1,000 individuals, and typical characteristics include problems with social relationships and emotional communication.
In the aftermath of 9/11, Mrs. Woodall went ahead and created the Brent Woodall Foundation for Exceptional Children. If you want to know more or are considering donating a buck or two, go read more.
U.S. servicemen react to Bush Guard memos
AP notes a Navy SEAL and Vietnam veteran who weighs in on the Bush memos:
A group sponsoring television ads challenging his wartime record contends Kerry’s own gunfire caused the wound that brought his first Purple Heart. Navy records and other veterans do not support the charge.Ahmad Majied of Albany says the latest allegations about Bush’s military record are more troubling to him than allegations about service honors leveled at Democratic challenger Kerry.
Majied, a Democrat from Albany who served 30 years in the Navy, including five years as a SEAL in Vietnam, said the memos support his belief that Bush was a “playboy” during his service years.
“He had enough money to get what he wanted,” Majied said. “I think his main concern was not to go to Southeast Asia. I bet he never dreamed it would come back to haunt him.”
Wow. That’s some serious analysis of the docuements and the issue.
One nit to pick, though.
Majied apparently was never a SEAL. Authentiseal.com, a website run by former SEALs which is dedicated to exposing SEAL fakers. They claim that Majied was never a SEAL.
So the AP is running a story where a guy who quite possibly wasn’t a SEAL claims that documents that quite possibly were forged support his beliefs.
What about our beliefs? Again, it took the internet only a couple of hours to raise questions about the identity of this guy. Like the latest Bush memos, this guy could really be the real deal. But it doesn’t look good. And, also like the Bush documents, I’ll bet no one from the reporting organization follows up.
(Found on Free Republic)
UPDATE: Seems that this isn’t as cut and dried as I made it sound. Check the FR post for more info.
In any event, it doesn’t change the fact that this guy’s opinion doesn’t lend anything of value to the forgery discussion. Developing…
I’m playing with the template for MO. I’ve added another sidebar on the right and done a little tweaking here and there. Things seem to be working fine, except that I’ve noticed that vewing this page at less than 800 pixels across (about 25% of MO readers) will cut part of the right sidebar off. Since only the widest elements will be affected, I’m going to leave it for now.
Let me know if you come across any other irregularities. Problems with superscripted fonts are exempt — Don’t tell me about them.
LA! LA! LA! I’M NOT LISTENING!
And I will Never Forget.
Last year I spent a lot of time sifting through photos for a seven-day countdown to the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. By the time I was finished, I was a wreck. I was surprised at how much just clicking through all those stills on Google Images affected me. I decided that this year I wouldn’t do it.
This picture is of United Airlines Flight 175, moments before it hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 09:03:11 EST.
I wrote a haphazard summary of the first chapter of the 9/11 Commission Report last month entitled “Planes. As in Plural.”. Included in my post is this exchange between the FAA Control Center and the New York terminal approach control, beginning at 9:01. American Airlines Flight 11 had hit the North Tower fifteen minutes earlier, at 08:46:40:
Terminal: I got somebody who keeps coasting but it looks like he’s going into one of the small airports down there.Center: Hold on a second. I’m trying to bring him up here and get you—There he is right there. Hold on.
Terminal: Got him just out of 9,500—9,000 now.
Center: Do you know who he is?
Terminal: We’re just, we just we don’t know who he is. We’re just picking
him up now.Center (at 9:02): Alright. Heads up man, it looks like another one coming in.
Maybe worth a look if you’re interested in the events of that day three years ago.
I didn’t lose anyone that day. I don’t personally know anyone who lost anyone that day.
I don’t intend to ever lose anyone to a terrorist attack.
I wish I could do more to make sure I never do. We are fighting a World War and I feel like I’ve done nothing to help us win.
I don’t think I’ll be posting any more today.
UPDATE: A lot of folks have pictures of various soldiers, civil servants, and prominent individuals saluting the flag on this day. I’ve got a picture of my nine-year-old son:
The Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts of the Gerald R. Ford Council in the Grand Rapids, MI, area are spending the entire day saluting the flag. The entire day. As in sunrise to sunset, somone is on station saluting the flag.
My son did it last year also and got a special council patch for his uniform. He was so proud. But not as proud as his dad was.
As mentioned in the last post, which I’m mercifully going to stop updating, Dan Rather is going to address the forged documents issue. I”m expecting a list of model numbers and other tidbits that demonstrate the formatting irregularities found in the documents were possible to create in 1973. There’s more to it than that, though.
I want to see documents that match these. There must be thousands if not millions of them. They can’t all be lost. Let’s see them.
I don’t care about model numbers. I don’t care what document experts think. I don’t care what former IBM service technicians or former military typists say. I want to see the documents compared to others from the same time and place.
It’s really that simple.
At this point, it appears to me that the onus is on CBS to prove that the documents are not forgeries. This probably isn’t fair, but that’s what it looks like to me. Charges have been brought, and now the defense needs to rebut them.
For the first time in over a decade, I will watch the CBS Evening News live.
UPDATE: Well, that was even less impressive than I was expecting. After dismissing those who question the authenticity of the documents as political partisans, two of the three people Dan Rather interviewed were admitted political partisans.
Only three elements of the document format were discussed. The superscripted ‘th’, the typeface, and the signature. I’m willing to dismiss what seems to be significant differences in the signatures mostly because that is, in fact, one of the lesser issues being discussed.
Rather correctly points out that the typeface in question existed prior to 1973. He doesn’t go into whether it was in use in any typewriters.
As for the superscripted ‘th’ Rather rather triumphantly revealed that there WERE, in fact, typewriters capable of the trick in 1973. As icing on the cake, he told us that some documents released by the White House include the superscripted ‘th’. Here’s a screenshot:
(Click for a bigger image) I apologize for the poor quality. Don’t try to compare signatures using my screenshots, I guess.
As you will notice, the “superscripted” ‘th’ in the documents released by the White House (marked “Official Record”) do not rise above the top of the regular-sized numerals. Those in the new documents do.
Dan Rather called this “the same superscript”. That’s a quote, folks. Don’t believe your eyes, just listen to what Dan the Man is telling you.
The balance of the program was devoted to gathering opinions from people about whether or not the documents were authentic. Amazingly, everyone Dan talked to thought they were. What are the odds that every single person on the show agreed with him? That clinches it, doesn’t it?
Anyway, as I’ve said, I don’t care what anyone’s opinions are. I don’t care when a particular typeface was invented. I don’t even care when it was first used widely in typewriters like those the Texas Air National Guard use.
I WANT TO SEE MORE DOCUMENTS FROM THAT BASE OFFICE FROM 1973.
I’ve got to think someone from CBS has looked into it. Call me cynical, but the fact that Dan didn’t have piles of them ready for us means to me that we wouldn’t be impressed.
I think they’ve reached the bottom of the hole and started digging.
UPDATE: Wizbang, linked to for only the seven-gazillionth time today, has a more detailed summary of the report. Among the good points:
Basically, CBS is making the case that since the content of the documents is true, the documents are legit. And we know the content is true because we have these documents to prove it. (an odd form of recursion)The other humorous bit of defense is when Rather made the case that the blogosphere is way off base because the copies we got have been copied, faxed and recopied and some of them have been (gasp) downloaded. Completely ignoring that we all got the doc right from their web site. We are looking at a scan of what they have. 1 scan does not lose that much quality. All in all, that line was just laughable.
Wizbang has been all over this. Go. Now.
UPDATE 2: Upon further reflection, it just dawned upon me that the main reason the “document expert” thinks we’re all off-base about the signatures is that we’re all using copies of faxes of copies of faxes instead of the clearer versions that CBS News has.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t looked at a single fax or photocopy of any of these documents. I’ve looked at digitized versions. From the CBS News site.
Are these guys just totally out of touch with the technology revolution in media, or what?
UPDATE 3: I had to join the fun and superscript my post title. Now I’m walking on the wild side.
This has been a lot of fun. But it’s nearly midnight here in Michigan and that means it’s nearly Saturday. That will be the 11th. Of September.
Unless there is a truly earth-shaking development in the forged documents story, I will not be posting on it again until Sunday. We’re all talking about the Kerry campaign being “dead” or Dan Rather’s carrer being “destroyed”.
Let’s remember those that really are dead and the world that’s really been destroyed.
I noticed this referral in my logs: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=faked+bush+guard+documents. I couldn’t beleive that my previous post had already registered on Google and was ranked high enough to bring someone in on this hot subject, so I checked the link myself. In fact, it points to a post on the “Bush was AWOL” story from February.
Anyway, a commenter on that post had this to say:
Does anyone believe that documents cannot be faked? I suppose we don’t have much choice but to trust the original source documents, but when they appear a few years after all relevant documents are requested, and then they seem to provide key exculpatory evidence, it does not inspire confidence.
And in a follow up comment the same writer said:
Certainly any “document” is suspect these days. I have no reason to believe Moore over Bush or vice-versa. I did not state or suggest that I would (or wouldn’t or whatever). I have often expressed that “they all do it”. Many people think that just the other side does it. It is unfortunate that we can’t trust the “press” to present what is as close to the unvarnished facts anymore to let people make up their own minds. It seems that many people are unwilling to see the difference between “It matches my thoughts so it must be true” and “It seems plausible, comes from a reputable source, is corroborated so I will take it as a reasonable possibility.” Dialogue seems to be near-dead and fairness isn’t seen too often either.
Interestingly, these words seem to have a lot of meaning in today’s debate, that over the authenticity of the documents rolled out by CBS News.
The charges of “forgery” MIGHT be no more than right-wing conspiracy theory. It appears that the story originated on the Free Republic forum, which is home to many card-carrying members of the VRWC, and it seemed to grow on predominantly-Conservative blogs and news sites.
Two things differentiate this plot from your garden-variety conspiracy theory about Bush’s Air National Guard service, though:
A) The Mainstream Media (whatever that really means) carried the story of the documents in a Big Way. They broke it. They put it front and center on a major news program. Other Mainstream Media organizations gave the story major coverage the next day, far above and beyond the coverage that the Swift Boat Vets story EVER received. It was Big News, not some crackpot “story” on www.bushcankissmyass.com, Democratic Underground, a Michael Moore film, or some other questionable source that played it up. This isn’t crackpot theory vs. crackpot theory. This is fact-checking a major news organization.
B) The ability to prove or disprove the authenticity of the documents as questioned now (formatting) should be easily obtained. If the line justification, the font used, the character kerning, the superscripted ‘th’, the proportional spacing, etc., were in fact common in this sort of document in 1973, all that forgery-deniers need to do is produce some of them for our viewing pleasure. The entire forgery charge rests upon these simple formatting issues. If those issues don’t hold water, the charge falls apart.
We don’t necessarily have to “trust the original source documents” as noted in the first comment from February because these charges of forgery are plain and simple. They are easy to understand. They can be discussed in a meaningful way by laymen.
This isn’t like claims that Nick Berg wasn’t held by Islamic terrorists because he was wearing orange coveralls or that it wasn’t really a 767 that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 because of the size of the hole. The evidence to debunk the forgery theory advocates, if it exists, should be accessible very easily, and the answer should not only be plain to document experts and forensic investigators, but to almost anyone who looks at it. If two dozen NTSB investigators tell us that it was indeed a 767 that crashed into the Pentagon, we’re still left taking it on faith. If you and I look at two documents and can plainly see the differences (or the similarities) in the format we will be more certain about it in our own minds and hearts.
In fact, that’s why I’m skeptical that this is indeed some nefarious plot by one campaign or the other. If these are forgeries, which I’m figuring they are since proving they aren’t would be quite simple, the forger was an idiot. (And not because he doesn’t like Mrs. Kerry’s health plan.) Unless stacks of similarly-formatted documents turn up, this will be so easily proven to be a hoax that no serious political campaigner would have tried it.
They DO “all do it” as stated above. But no one is this sloppy about it, are they?
And if the forgery charges hold up, “we can’t trust the “press” to present what is as close to the unvarnished facts”. At least not certain segments of the press. I agree that this is unfortunate.
UPDATE: I wrote this before my daily lunch-time routine of checking the ol’ blogosphere. Check out Donald Sensing, who has long covered the “Bush was AWOL” story:
These documents are so transparently faked, and hence so transparently a measure of the Dems’ desperation, that from now on nothing they say about Bush’s service will be believed. Nor should it.
Strong words, but that will likely be the result if these are indeed fakes. He’s also got a long list of stories about the authenticity of the memos in “reputable” news outlets. This is not, repeat: not, a conspiracy theory. It might not be accurate, but the forgery story is getting big time attention. Because the little guys pointed it out and had the goods to back it up.
I find all of this simply stunning.
UPDATE 2: CBS busted again. I thought the reason “real” media was superior to the internet little guys was due to the editorial oversight the big boys have. Sheesh.
UPDATE 3: It’s getting hard to keep up. Now Dan Rather tells CNN:
I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn’t have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn’t going to be… there’s no… what you’re saying apology?
He seems to think that the authenticity of the documents isn’t even relevant to the question “do these documents prove that George Bush didn’t fulfill his commitments?” Is he melting down?
As a commenter on Wizbang writes: What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
(I wish I had thought of that.)
UPDATE 4: Terry McAuliffe says Karl Rove may have leaked the documents. That happened a lot faster than I thought it would.
UPDATE 5: From Registered Media:
(Via FR)
UPDATE 6: Yahoo News has a statement from CBS News:
NEW YORK, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Later today, CBS News will address on the air and in detail the issues surrounding the documents broadcast in the 60 MINUTES report on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. At this time, however, CBS News states with absolute certainty that the ability to produce the “th” superscript mentioned in reports about the documents did exist on typewriters as early as 1968, and in fact is in President Bush’s official military records released by the White House. This and other issues surrounding the authenticity of the documents and more on this developing story will be reported on tonight on THE CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER.
Actually, the superscripted “th” is only one of many problems with these memos. Never mind that most forgery-claimers aren’t saying it was impossible to do these things in 1973, just that is seems incredibly unlikely that a Texas Air National Guard base office would have access to the advanced equipment needed or make use of it for what are routine memos.
However, if they can produce a lot of documents exhibiting these characteristics whose origins aren’t in dispute, that will basically shoot down the forgery theory. We’ll see.
UPDATE 7: Donald Sensing points out one of the machines that was available in 1973 that could do SOME of the fancy formatting that word processors today take for granted. Yes, the same fancy formatting that has everyone’s panties in a bunch since it’s present in the Bush TANG memos.
The machine he points out is the IBM Selectric Composer. But it can only do the fancy formatting IF YOU TYPE EVERY LINE TWICE. Remember, despite their apparent importance today, these memos are bottom-level routine documents. It doesn’t seem likely that the TANG would use these machines, even if it had them, for this sort of work. Granted, this isn’t the only machine that was avalable back then capable of fancy tricks. But if Dan Rather says “IBM Selectric Composer” tonight, it’s going to be shaky at best.
All of this supposing and speculation isn’t going to answer any questions. Let’s see more memos from there from then with the same formatting. If there are a ton of them, it will of course still leave other questions to be answered. But I will move back to the skeptical side of this debate.
Until then, I’m pretty sure these are fakes.
What does everyone think about the possibility that the Bush TANG documents questioning his fullfillment of obligations are forgeries?
I mean, can this possibly be real? I’ve been hearing the talk all day, and to be honest I dismissed it as improbable. I mean, NO ONE, not even the Kerry campaign, would be so damn stupid as to try and pull this off with forgeries as flimsy as Free Republic says these are. But a discussion with my dad led me to quick glance at a couple of sites and now it’s quarter to midnight and here I still sit.
This is truly amazing. If the forgery theories turn out to be true, it will be the biggest direct influence that the internet has had on something. So far.
And never mind that CBS in particular and Big Media in general fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Egg. On. Face.
I’m still more than a little skeptical about the whole thing. But if the arguments about fonts, justification, kerning, and proportional spacing are bogus, it should be very easy to turn out thousands of documents from 1972 and 1973 TANG with the exact same qualities. Millions, in fact. No hyperbole. Millions of them.
That sound you hear is the chirping of crickets.
The fact that this story might go from headline to trash bin in less than 48 hours is simply astounding. Chris Matthews will barely even have time to melt down on national television before the rug is pulled out from under him.
The fact that someone would forge these documents shouldn’t really be shocking. The fact that they did such a terrible job is simply shameful.
If this is true,
Okay, I don’t even know what it means if this is true. I’m flabbergasted. Or tired. Probably both.
I don’t know if the forgery theory is going to hold up, but after reading a bit about it I’m getting the feeling that the argument on the Sunday talk shows is not going to be about Bush being AWOL but about whether or not the GOP planted forged documents for someone to ‘leak’.
I give the Dems less than twelve hours after widespread acceptance that the documents were forged (if, indeed, such a thing comes to pass) before they charge the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with falsifying these documents in order to discredit the Kerry campaign and Big Media when they’re proven to be a hoax.
Even MSNBC is now giving the forgery theory some credence. (Does that prove that the theory is wrong?)
Anyway, I haven’t heard one single suggestion from anyone that any of the military records Kerry has released are forged.
UPDATE: The forgery story seems to be gaining traction in the mainstream media. No top billing that I’ve seen, but it’s there. Maybe the plan was to get the buzz about “proof” that Bush was AWOL going, and then have the forgery story break over the weekend when few people were paying attention? Except that the internet accelerated the debunking process?
As you can see, I’m really starting to buy in to the forgery theory.
There’s a very simple way to prove that these aren’t forgeries. Produce all the other millions of documents from the same place and time as these purport to be from and compare the formatting and signatures. Also, since these documents appear to be copies of copies of copies, turning up another earlier-generation copy of the memo would be helpful. I don’t see it happening, and unless it happens quickly not only will these memos be dismissed but I think the whole “Bush was AWOL” angle is going to die off.
As I mentioned, this will leave two stories: A) Who forged these? and B) How on earth did CBS and Big Media blow it so badly?
The short answer to B) seems to be that that’s how most of the mainstream media operates and unless they change their methods they are going to make themselves irrelevant.
A), however, really seems a little trickier to me. A reader commented below that it might be the Clinton people who recently joined the Kerry campaign and that the mission was to sink Kerry in order to open up 2008 for Hillary.
I responded:
I wouldn’t put it past the Clinton people if the idea that they’re torpedoing Kerry to clear the way for Hillary is true, which I might be willing to accept.But the same reason for the GOP to not release forged papers (backlash when the source is eventually traced down) applies to them as well, doesn’t it? Plus, if the plan was to release this to discredit the Kerry campaign, they have to know that CBS News is all but part of the Kerry campaign. If these are indeed forgeries, Big Media in general and CBS in particular will take a hit. And the Dems have no better friend than Big Media. Especially when a Republican is in the Oval Office. I don’t see why they’d undercut their biggest supporters in an attempt to harm a candidate that already looks like he’s probably going to lose.
Now, just because I’m skeptical about the Dem upper classmen releasing this doesn’t mean that I think I know who DID. No one seems to benefit in both the long term and the short term from this except the GOP, and I really don’t think they’d do this in this way.
Maybe this is the information age version of Lee Harvey Oswald. A lone nutcase gunman out to bring down the Bush Presidency with a magic bullet. Except that people aren’t naive enough to buy that magic bullet nonsense any more.
The GOP seems to be the only likely winner here, but would they do this knowing full well that they’re going to be outed? I’ll contradict myself by saying that they wouldn’t actually be winners in the long-term if they are found out to be responsible for this. That leaves the nutjobs.
This is all more than a little surreal. And the forgeries appear to be so blatantly bad that it’s hard to imagine anyone knowledgeable in much of anything putting them together. And if this truly is a lone gunman, why did CBS swallow it without looking into it with any degree of anything?
Unless I see more documents with the same formatting “irregularities” as these from the same time and place, I’ve moved solidly into the “forged” camp.
This discussion doesn’t even take place without the internet. CBS News was apparently incapable (unwilling is more like it but that’s their fault) of checking this story out. The internet did so in 12 hours.
UPDATE 2: Something gives me the feeling that there are a going to be a lot of posts with a lot of updates as this story develops. Francis at The Shadow of the Olive Tree sums up the claims of “well, it wasn’t IMPOSSIBLE to proportionally space characters in 1973″ rebuttals with this:
Now I’m sure it was possible to produce very similar documents in 1973 but I refuse to believe that the average typewriter on an airforce base in 1973 would produce text with curly apostrophes, superscript and with its lines breaking IDENTICALLY to Microsoft Word in 2004.
Go check out his examples. It’s not that these things COULDN’T have been done in 1973. It’s that they WOULDN’T have been done on that base in that office, or in bases or offices like that one, in 1973.
Again, if these formatting issues aren’t an issue, it should be easy to produce (I mean FIND, not PREPARE) millions of other documents with the same formatting.
UPDATE 3: Wizbang is all over this story.
Well, okay, 90% of the blogosphere is all over the story. Which is a story in itself.
Wizbang has stuff ranging from serious discussion to stinging sarcasm to funny graphics. Here, here, here, here, here, and here. Hell, just go to Wizbang and scroll.
The Case Against the 6.8mm Bullet (Sep 9, 2004 entry)
Despite the title, this Strategy Page post’s message seems to be “it’s where you shoot them, not what you shoot them with.” That’s a good point, but I don’t really see how it impacts the 5.56 vs. 6.8 discussion. At least not in a major way.
One thing the post mentions is:
Often troops use ammo just to make the enemy keep their heads down, or prevent them from moving. In these situations, volume is more important that accuracy. No studies have been done of this aspect of combat, although there is much anecdotal evidence showing how important this kind of fire is.
This is something I’ve discussed in the past, though apparently not on my site, is that maybe the SAW gunner would be better off with 5.56. The primary job of the SAW gunner and machine gunner is usually to fix enemy combatants in position with a base of fire so that riflemen can get into position to eliminate them. For this purpose, the additional ammunition load that 5.56 brings is a serious bonus and the lessened capability of the smaller round is not a major detriment because they’re mostly used for covering fire anyway.
Go read the article. I think the issue of round size is far more important to our military than the question of XM8 vs. M16/M4.
UPDATE: James from Hell in a Handbasket posted on the 5.56 round for the squad automatic weapon back in March. I recall the post but it ended up as one of those that I meant to note but never did.
I’m trying to rectify that now.
Go read James’ post, including the comments left by readers. Good stuff.
The current MSNBC.com front page:
and 
I don’t have screenshots, but we did get about three (maybe even four) minutes of coverage for the Switftboat Vets’ charges.
Well, it mostly consisted of charges that the SwiftBoat Vets weren’t reliable and that personal attacks on a candidate were bad form, but I expect that soon we will see some serious investigative journalists digging into this latest Bush was AWOL story and questioning the motives of those making the claims.
Bush should have seen this coming when he made his Air National Guard service the cornerstone of his campaign. When Rove has to admit that Bush wasn’t in Texas on May Day, 1972, but only “near” the border, it is going to be DELICIOUS!
And I can’t wait to see Chris Matthews rip into some author over this after inviting her onto his show to discuss her new book.
They report. We decide.
