Not a fan of Bush, he says, but even less a fan of media-perpetrated fraud:

The probability that any technology in existence in 1972 would be capable of producing a document that is nearly pixel-compatible with MicrosoftÂ’s Times New Roman font and the formatting of Microsoft Word, and that such technology was in casual use at the Texas Air National Guard, is so vanishingly small as to be indistinguishable from zero.

Hmmm... didn't some pesky pajama'd political partisan just say almost the exact same thing?

Thanks to LGF.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (8)
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It's been amusing to me to watch Democratic spinners attempt to claim that "it just doesn't matter if these documents are forgeries" (often simultaneously while demanding that Bush respond to the allegations suggested by the same forgeries).

Oliver Willis offers what is as close to an admission that the documents are forgeries as we're likely to see when he tells us it doesn't matter anyway because no one is paying any damn attention:

So when we all get into these micro-disputes about document kerning (who knew how many typography geeks were blogging!) or exactly what the frigging requirements are for a silver star and why or why not the qualifications were met -- it isn't like this in the real world.

Seems to me that the It-Just-Doesn't-Matter cry is best reserved for the situation for which it was invented, i.e., you're going up against the really good and organized summer camp and you're going to have your ass handed to you.

He also pretty much concedes defeat in the election (too early, I think, but who am I to judge?) by suggesting that maybe 51% of the country just isn't smart enough to elect Kerry president, so maybe the Democrats should take their legislative ball and go home:

To date, its clear that the reality of the Iraq situation and the wounded economy aren't breaking through to the majority of Americans (us 49%ers are sadly, ahead of the curve). The Bush admin is playing all this like a football game, setting things up to expire just beyond the election.

Heaven forbid the Bush admin win a second term, I think the Dems would best serve democracy by simply not cooperating with them in any way, shape or form.

I always enjoy that they're-just-not-smart-enough-to-elect-us whine. It's as welcome, and as predictable, as the coming of autumn and the turning of the leaves.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (20)
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*** EXCLUSIVE ***

Via commenter BR, more evidence.

This post discusses Burkett's claims, back in February, and speculates that Burkett's claims about George Bush pulling strings to deny him medical care might be, well, less than well-founded.

Which elicits a reaction from someone calling himself Bill Burkett, with an AOL mail address of BBurkett[number omitted]@aol.com.

Here's the reaction:

Neither am I mistaken, nor lying about any of this. The paperwork is complete and was presented with the court case against three individuals (Goodwin, Meador and Taliaferro) along with documentation including a recorded telephone call with Dan Bartlett of the governor's staff and eight letters and three phone calls to the governor's office by my wife.

[specific claims about his medical problems and difficulty getting treatment ommitted...]

Did I lie about Geroge W. Bush's records. No.

Of the files that I saw within the 15 gallon waste can were numerous documents which detailed why 1LT George Bush was grounded from flying including a two-page counseling statement signed by LTC Jerry Killian.

Note: The number following the name on the email address has been omitted so as not to encourage mass-mailings to that addresss. I don't believe in that sort of e-nnoyance, and I don't want to be a part of anything like that.

Reporters' work email addresses are a different matter, since they're supposed to answer to the public on occasion; but not their personal email addresses in any case.

Posted by: Ace at 06:50 AM | Comments (30)
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Bill Burkett, Who Blames Bush for Denying Him Medical Treatment For History of "Nervous Breakdowns," Has Previously Claimed to Have Seen Republican Operatives "Scrubbing" Bush's TANG Files and Throwing Them in a Trashcan; Further Claimed He "Ruffled Through" Bush "Performance Documents" Which Were Sitting in the Trash

Coincidentally Just Happens to Also Be a Source for Jim Moore, Author of Bush's Brain and Bush's War For Reelection, and Dan Rather's Final Interview-Subject During Forged-Documents Defense

None of this is anywhere near conclusive, but it seems to raise interesting questions. All emphases (boldings) which follow are my own unless specifically indicated.

Once again, it is the nocturnal newshawks at Free Republic who made the first catch.

They point to this Newsweek story:

Where did the documents come from? CBS won't say. But the trail pieced together by NEWSWEEK shows that in a sulfurous season like this one, the difference between obscurity and power is small, and anyone can get a hearing. A principal source for CBS's story was Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former Guard officer who lives in Baird, Texas, who says he was present at Guard headquarters in Austin in 1997, when a top aide to the then Governor Bush ordered records sanitized to protect the Boss. Other Guard officials disputed Burkett's account, and the Bush aide involved, Joe Allbaugh, called it "absolute garbage." Burkett may have a motive to make trouble for the powers that be. In 1998, he grew gravely ill on a Guard mission to Panama, causing him to be hospitalized, and he suffered two nervous breakdowns. He unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses.

Still, in theory, Burkett may have had access to any Guard records that, in a friend's words, "didn't make it to the shredder." Fellow officers say he wasn't a crank, but rather a stickler for proper procedure—a classic whistle-blower type. Burkett was impressive enough to cause CBS producer Mary Mapes to fly to Texas to interview him.

Bill Burkett has been telling his story to anyone who would listen for years. For example, Kevin Drum/Calpundit interviewed him here.

Here's Burkett explaining how he "overheard" officers discussing "scrubbing" Bush's TANG files:

BURKETT: ... I went into General [Daniel] James' outer office, Henrietta Valderes was not there, but the door was slightly ajar, I'd say roughly eight inches....

I heard voices, I figured somebody was on the blue couch or in the two wingback chairs that face his desk, and that's not seen unless you slightly stick your head inside the door. I stuck my head inside the door, saw that no one was there, and I was embarrassed. I stepped back and I waited for a second and I overheard this conversation.

And it was a short conversation that I overheard, I only heard a line or two of it, and I stepped out into the hallway because I was uncomfortable at this point.

[CalPundit asks:] And what was the conversation?

BURKETT: Well, that's where you really need to get Jim [Moore] because we have made sure that the words, I'm not going to get messed up on that deal. We've tried to make sure that the words were exact. I wish that you could get at least that part of the book faxed to you or something, I think that's very important that the words are exactly right.

[End quote.]

Does the name Jim Moore sound familiar? It should-- Jim Moore was Dan Rather's last "source" on his Friday defense of his use of the forged documents. He's the highly-partisan author of Bush's Brain and Bush's War for Reelection.

But getting back to Burkett's account. While Burkett never tells Calpundit "the exact quote" he heard regarding the scrubbing of the files, Calpundit gets the quote from a USAToday article:

[Burkett] says he was just outside James' open office door when his boss discussed the records on a speakerphone with Joe Allbaugh, who was then Gov. Bush's chief of staff. In Burkett's account, Allbaugh told James that Bush's press secretary, Karen Hughes, was preparing a biography and needed information on Bush's military service.

In an interview, Burkett said he recalled Allbaugh's words: "We certainly don't want anything that is embarrassing in there."

Says that. Right in earshot of Burkett. But the clumsiness of this scrubbing operation gets worse.

Burkett alleges he then saw Bush service documents discarded right in a simple trashcan, where these cagey Republican operatives had deposited them for the seeing, and for the "ruffling through."

The Watergate plumbers had nothing on Bush's Keystone Kriminals:

BURKETT: ...

I'm standing there on one foot and another, very uncomfortable with this situation, I knew I'd been guided here and I knew why at that point. I was standing right next to the trash can. I mention that only for one reason, and that is my own alibi to my own conscience. I believe if I'd been one step away from the trash can I would not have done what I did, I would have been forced to make an obvious decision.

Instead I looked down into the trashcan. Underneath most of the trash — the trash level was within two inches of the top — I saw that the trash on the bottom was basically packing cartons, I do remember that there were a couple of elastic type straps and that sort of thing, and on top there was a little bit of paper. And on top of that pile of paper, approximately five-eighths of an inch thick, and Jim wanted me to estimate the number of pages and I said probably between 20 and 40 pages of documents that were clearly originals and photocopies. And it wasn't any big deal, I looked at it, it was a glance situation, and it made no sense to me at all except at the top of that top page was Bush, George W., 1LT.

And I look back at it now and I know I was troubled that those documents were in the trashcan. I did ruffle through the top six to eight pages.

[End quote.]

Burkett's story at least puts him in the position of being able to retrieve the documents he saw. Which doesn't necessarily mean that Burkett is the source of the documents, of course -- but if anyone else has told a story that puts them in the position of 1) seeing and 2) "ruffling through" the allegedly "scrubbed" documents, I haven't heard of him.

And what sort of documents did Burkett say he saw?

BURKETT:...

Those documents were performance, what I term performance documents, which would include retirement points, [unintelligible] type documents, which would be a record of drill performance or nonperformance, and there was at least one pay document copy within the top six to eight pages of that stack that was in the trashÂ….

Incidentally, Bill Burkett's claims about Bush's records being "scrubbed" have themselves "evolved" over time. Calpundit notes his inconsistent claims here and his skepticism about Burkett.

Of course, that skepticism melted away when Burkett began telling him a story that was "too hot not to push."

....

Whoever might have actually given the documents to Dan Rather, Bill Burkett was/is a "principle source" for the story generally. At the very least, Burkett would have been a source for confirming the genuineness of Rather's forgeries.

Is Bill Burkett -- whose stories have changed and evolved, who has a grudge against Bush due to his medical problems, who spins improbable tales of poltical operatives committing obvious crimes right in front of persons not part of the conspiracy -- is he what Dan Rather terms an "unimpeachable source" for the genuineness of the CBSNews forgeries?

If Bill Burkett is an "unimpeachable source," who, precisely, would be "impeachable"?

If Dan Rather truly believed him "unimpeachable," why was the taped interview with Mary Mapes never shown to the public? Rather's own actions prove that Rather himself did not consider Burkett a strong witness, or at least not strong enough to risk subjecting to public scrutiny, and that his recent claims of such unimpeachability are so far from the truth as to constitute deliberate lies.

I would suggest Dan Rather made the dishonest decision to air an interview not Bill Burkett -- an actual first-hand source of some sort -- but rather with Jim Moore, a simple reporter, who is at best a highly-partisan hearsay witness and not an actual witness to any of the claims made by Rather.

He chose to present nonwitness Jim Moore over actual (alleged) witness Bill Burkett so that he could get his "confirmation" without exposing the credibility -- or lack thereof -- of his actual witness to public vetting.

Update-- Jim Moore Defends Bill Burkett: BuzzFlash reported:

BuzzFlash Preface: Author and Texan James Moore has been interviewed and written commentaries for BuzzFlash in the past. ... A forthcoming book by Moore, “Bush’s War for Reelection,” has been the basis of several recent high profile stories about former career Texas National Guardsman Bill Burkett, who has accused the Bush minions of expunging Bush's Guard files. Burkett, indeed, wrote an exclusive commentary to BuzzFlash in 2002 at the time Bush appointed the alleged liasion in the cleansing of his records to oversee the nation's Air National Guard.

Jim Moore offers a Dan Rather-like "preponderance of the evidence" defense of Burkett's credibility:

A writerÂ’s job includes connecting the pieces. I told Rezendes that a combination of facts made BurkettÂ’s story believable. Reporters had all discovered there were documents missing from the Bush file in Austin. When they filed FOIAs, certain records did not appear. Combine that fact with Karl RoveÂ’s history of deceptive political tactics, BurkettÂ’s impeccable reputation as an officer and a man, and his story is worth telling, even after Conn withdraws his affirmations of events. The information speaks for itself, and rather loudly, though BurkettÂ’s story will not be completely told until my book is released.

I think the story's pretty much told now, Jim.

Again, is it just a mere coincidence that Dan Rather's defense -- relying upon the claim that these documents reinforce what we "already know" -- sounds so much like Jim Moore's defense of using Burkett as a witness?

Seems to me that both sound similar because both might be defending the same man's credibility.

Delicious Irony Update: Dan Rather -- previously seen scolding "internet partisan political operatives" -- in fact actually used a "internet partisan political operative" as a "principle source" for his story.

Bill Burkett, after all, is like a viral rash on all the left-wing internet "political partisan" blogs.

And Jim Moore is writing for BuzzFlash!

Apparently for Dan the Document Man, "internet partisan political operatives" are "unimpeachable sources" when offering up dodgy attacks on Bush, but are not worth even considering when exposing transparent forgeries for the crude lies they are.

Update: At the suggestion of Nick Kronos, I've re-edited this post for clarity and conciseness, as well as to omit the screaming-ninny multiple-Drudge-siren nature of the first draft. Bear in mind, I woke up in the middle of the night at 4am and wrote this thing in an hour or so. It was a rush job, and I'm both sorry for and embarassed about its original crudeness.

Humor Break: If you're new to the site -- and judging by my traffic meter, almost all of you are -- check out these Top Ten Other Signs the Documents Are Forgeries.

Ignore the last entry. That's an inside-joke only longtime readers will get.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 AM | Comments (106)
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This is something that's forever being argued about-- I know that when I see a poll that has a suspiciously-high sample of Democrats in its sample, I discount it.

Of course, right now there are a suspiciously-high number of Republicans in the Time and Newsweek polls, and, while I do partly discount those polls for that reason, I also partly believe them.

Which is, of course, inconsistent. I don't believe one poll because I don't want to believe it; I believe another because I want to believe it.

Dan Rather can tell you all about the power of wanting something to be true. Just ask him in a month, when he's retired.

At any rate, a real live pollster writes to MyDD to explain why his firm doesn't weight by party ID. It's a good introduction to the issue.

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 AM | Add Comment
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Heartbreaking slideshow on 9-11. You've probably seen it before, but it needs watching periodically.

I didn't link this yesterday as it seemed to be very slow when I tried to access it (maybe because of the Instalanche), but it's working quickly now.

And Allah links this three-part film about the building of the World Trade Center.

Part of me still doesn't really believe they're gone.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 AM | Comments (1)
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This article is triply infuriating.

One, it states that the documents now known to be forgeries are in fact real, without even a caveat that their authenticity is questioned, which seems the very least one could do.

Two, the article isn't even about Bush's Guard service; it's about current polling, nationwide and in specific states.

Three, the reporterette just happens, I'm sure, begin her piece with an entirely inadvertant cutesy reference to the forged documents (which she later reports on as genuine):

There's no way to sugarcoat it: This presidential election may be just as close, just as nerve-shredding, as the 2000 contest.

Kim Cobb works at the Houston Chronical. Her email is at the bottom of the news article, in case you'd like to ask her how she just came up with "sugarcoat" off the top of her head, and yet apparently hasn't heard the document mentioning that word was printed off of Word 97.

I swear. These people really should just get jobs at the DNC. That's plainly the sort of work they really want.

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 AM | Comments (8)
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We've seen this before from one of Dan Rather's idols: Everyone on the face of the earth is lying except him.

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 AM | Comments (3)
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I know I thought this debonair thug would flip before the war.

But a Sunday Times article (linked at Free Republic, as it requires registration) says he's now cooperating with authorities and will testify against Saddam.

Posted by: Ace at 04:50 PM | Comments (19)
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The "documents" aren't actually "kerned," LGF says. Kerning is a typesetter's process.

The "documents" in question are psuedo-kerned according to how Microsoft Word 97 built-in algorithm decides to space letters depending on how it thinks they read best.

In other words, not only is the spacing on the "documents" proportional, it's also proportional in precisely the same way that Microsoft Word 97's specific algorithm achieves proportionality.

But this document wasn't written in MS Word 97.

Oh, dear, no. The handwriting expert says so!

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (22)
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