I still want to know how they did the signature?

[trumad]

Photoshop? Paste? what?

[RevCheesehead]

1. Agree. Let's wait for Dan's report tonight.

I thought the CBS release said they were "misled" by the documents. Maybe there's more to where the originals are, and who has posession of them.

I believe the secretary.

[Kimber Scott]

2. Copy signature on copy machine. Cut (with scissors) Paste (with glue)

onto new document. Copy whole document. White out any shadows created by paste job. Copy again and again, as needed.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

4. Is killian's signature that readily available?

[mistertrickster]

5. That assumes that CBS only looked at copies or faxes, not the

originals. If they were that dumb, they deserve to eat crow on this.

But surely the "experts" wouldn't have verified a signature that was a copy.

Lastly, the memos are no better than the source that gave CBS the memos--"provinance" it's called in the antiques field.

If their source willfully misled them, then they should out that SOB and put the responsibility on him / her.

[Kimber Scott]

7. The experts only verified it was probably Killian's signature, they never

verified the authenticity of the documents. That information was in the CBS report itself. They said in the report they did not have the original documents.

[Blue_Roses]

10. they did not have the original documents??????????

well then it's no wonder that Killian's signature could have been forged and guess who has access to the originals?

[Kimber Scott]

8. His name is Burkett. They already "outed" him and he already

confessed to faxing the documents.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Burkett's not a criminal...your post seems to imply that he is.

[Kimber Scott]

14. My post "implies" nothing. I have nothing against Burkett. I believed

him when he came out and said he saw some of Bush's Guard records in the trash can at the Guard unit. I think, and this is just me thinking, he saw those documents in the trash, has been frustrated all these years for not having taken them, or done more at the time to raise some flags, and now in desparation "re-created" them - possibly. I realize CBS says they can't prove the documents are real and has not said they are false. But, working on the assumption they may not be authentic, Burkett may have reproduced them from memory and this in itself explains why Knox said she typed similar memos, but not the memos shown on CBS' 60 Minutes.

If he did "reproduce" the memos, or even if he produced them, he hasn't helped Kerry, but I don't think he's caused him any great harm, either. Whether, or not, he's a criminal, is none of my concern. I can honestly say, if the scenario played out the way I imagined here, I would have been seriously tempted to do the same thing myself. It's hard watching Bush skate through stuff most any other man would be sent to jail for and he ends up the POTUS.

[mistertrickster]

13. You are correct, sir or madam-- This story has had a few developments

I wasn't aware of.

1. As a poster pointed out, CBS never had the originals. That is very, very bad--stupid, in fact. With so much riding on this, they should have gone down to Texas and checked it out. Or simply not used the memos which weren't all that essential given personal testimony.

2. Didn't know that Bill Burkett has already admitted providing the documents--here's what Yahoo News had recently:

"CBS said Burkett acknowledged he provided the documents and said he deliberately misled a CBS producer, giving her a false account of their origin to protect a promise of confidentiality to a source."

Yeah, this doesn't smell good. Burkett deserves a good, hot grilling.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. They were all different weren't they?

but confirmed as authentic. SO is anybody still entertaining the prospect that Killian did them himself?

[GreenArrow]

6. I'd entertain that possibility

The facts are in flux.

[Kimber Scott]

9. Burkett was in the same unit. He probably has his own documents

signed by Killian which could have been his source for signatures. Too bad the guy wasn't smart enough to buy a typewriter. I mean if you're going to be a forger, you should, at least, be a good one.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

12. They were done on a typewriter

That is certain.

[starroute]

15. That's what's so perplexing about them

The more the memoes are scrutinized, the less possible it seems for them to have been done on a computer. The font doesn't match any known computer fonts, the irregular baseline could not have been produced on a computer without letter-by-letter photoshopping, and there are subtle differences between letters that would have been identical on a computer.

It also does not seem likely that they could have been done on an IBM Composer. Composers were high-end machines that turned out typeset-quality work. Even a composer that needed maintenance would not have produced the very irregular typing of the memoes.

At this point, I am 98% convinced the memoes were typed on an IBM Executive. I've found examples that are extremely close (though not quite identical) not only in the font, but also in the overall somewhat ragged appearance.

But where would you find an old Executive today? They were pretty well made obsolete by the IBM Selectric, which was much easier to use and produced much cleaner copy. And they weren't like the manual typewriters, which last forever and which lots of people still have in their attics. Electric typewriters get old, they die, the parts to repair them are no longer available, and even the repairmen who know how to fix them are retired.

If I wanted to forge something like those National Guard documents, I would haul out my 1957 Olympia (the same brand Marian Knox said she used) and find a new ribbon for it. I wouldn't think for one moment about using an IBM Executive -- or know where to find one even if I wanted.