It's 12:35 AM on 9/10/04 and I'm watching CNN Headline news. They just did a ~60 second report on these exact documents and not one word of this "controversy" (if it can still be called that at this point). They reported on these documents as if they were facts and even quoted Sen. Tom Harkin as saying these documents prove Bush got special treatment and that Bush lied about his service. (All that may be well and true, but these specific documents would no longer prove that). Of course Harkin was under the impression the documents were authentic at the time, so this isn't a criticism of him just CNN continually reporting about these documents as if they were facts a full 6-8 hours after their authenticity has been in serious question. To me this is amazingly terrible reporting.<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

who is calling them into serious question? just ABC or are they just saying it's inconclusive? i honestly don't know, but i feel like most of what i've seen is blogs and stuff. i didn't read the ABC stuff, but i take it they are questioning things. any other big players?<br><br>"Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a—you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." dubya 8.6.04

I have to agree there is something fishy about them, but I wonder why the administration hasn't at least denied the content of them? I haven't read nearly as much about it as most of the people in this thread have (nor do I want to), but in the one report I did read earlier it said the white house did not question its accuracy. But surely Bush himself knows if these accusations are true or false. Perhaps the memos really are forged, but the accusations are true? Who knows.<br><br>

ABC - Front of web page. Specifically Nightline interview with widow of "author" who says the "author" loved Bush and would have never written those memos. The authors son echos those sentiments.<br><br>Fox News (I know they don't count - But anyways...) Front page of Fox News<br><br>NBC (a la MSNBC.com) - Front page of web site.<br><br>NY Times.<br><br>Plenty of others.<br><br>It's now 1:07 AM EDT and CNN HLN just ran a more extensive story (over 2 mins.) and again the documents were used as factual source material.<br><br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

i wonder if this is like the 2000 election where nobody is sure so they all jump on the bandwagon and call it for Gore on election night . . . except that they are all jumping on the forgery bandwagon, sans CNN -- they've learned their lesson. <br><br><br>--<br>one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -Plato

Here comes the spin! "Maybe the documents are fake but the accusations are true". Well then fire up Word and create some documents that say Bush likes to torture puppies, then it will be true! After all, even if the documents are made up the accusation may be true. Give me a break.<br>In any event the reality more than likely is that the White House simply didn't have the time to vet the documents. They got them faxed to them by CBS then were almost immediately asked to comment on them. Remember CBS claims these memos came from the personal files of the alleged author not official military sources. Most of the comments were non-specific to the contents. Trust me, tomorrow you'll see some denials.<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

I've read all sides of the argument, I think they are forged. But I'll take a few liberties in my discussion of it because I'm a designer and typography is something I deal with every day. <br><br>The whole thing is really so outrageous.<br><br>Looking at these through-the-washer documents and someone posts on a blog and at FreeRepublic that "they use Microsoft New Times Roman" and are "proportional fonts" and Drudge makes it a story. Then everyone spends the day googling Selectric Typewriters.<br><br>I've read from type experts that it is not New Times Roman. Besides, New Times was in existence for almost 50 years before MS digitized it. Are the differences between Times and New Times so obvious to everyone from these overly Xerox-abused documents? Honestly, can you tell or are you just asuming cause the previous blogger said so? Suddenly every rightwinger has become a typographic brainiac.<br><br>Same with the proportional font issue... like anyone here can look at these fuzzy POS and and say ...pfffhht...sure, proportional fonts! Subscripts, kerning, etc., .... the whole thing is a wild ride on belief of what some previous blogger quoted from another irate blogger. Truth is, the letterforms on these documents would fit well in any late-90's Taco Bell-grunge advertising layout.<br><br>No wonder the news networks might want to research this with experts for authenticity before making it a story. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

So instead of doing the responsible thing and suspending the airing of the stories until the documents authenticity is verified they just keep running a story based on very questionable documents. That's what I call responsible reporting. Guess I just need to type up some "memos" saying how Kerry personally plotted to shoot Senators during his anti-war days and I can rely on CNN to report it as fact until the time my forgeries are 100% conclusively proven as fakes? Cool.<br><br>Come on Sean, get real. Even a small child can tell the chance these documents are fake is far greater than the chance they are not.<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

Whoa! Easy there. I only wondered why there wasn't a flat denial by Bush today, nothing more. I couldn't care less if they're real or not (other than the cheap entertainment of finding out who the forger was, that could be interesting), nor do I really care if Bush did disobey the orders. Seeing as how it is making it to other media outlets now, "tomorrow you'll see some denials" is probably an understatement.<br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Same with the proportional font issue... like anyone here can look at these fuzzy POS and and say ...pfffhht...sure, proportional fonts!<p><hr></blockquote><p>Are you seriously trying to tell me that only a typography expert is able to definitively tell the difference between a mono and proportionally spaced font in this case? Seriously, that is your claim? Are you actually trying to say that these memos as we see them in the PDF could have been typed in a mono spaced font?<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003