Okay, Now This Just Seems Stupid...
It just goes to show you that maybe the Republicans are one hell of a lot better at lying. I guess experience will do that.
I suppose I can’t be sure that it’s definitely a forgery, but to my eye — hardly a layman’s eye, having worked with typography for more than a decade now — this looks like a pretty definitive fake. The type of thing somebody who really doesn’t think all that clearly about it would make.
From what I can tell (admittedly, from sources of sometimes-questionable credibility), the document is exactly what comes out of the default settings for Microsoft Word. As in, not bothering to change any settings and just typing it in.
Hey, don’t get me wrong — once Duh-bya opened the floodgates with the whole “Swift Boat” fiasco, he gave carte blanche to whatever dirty tactics are necessary in this little battle for the Oval Office. And the fact that the White House isn’t denying any of the actual content of the note would appear to indicate that documents like these could very well exist somewhere. But at some point in the initial investigation of this story, you’d think somebody would have said, “You know, that thing sure doesn’t look like it came off of a typewriter...”
What’s even funnier is that this comes from CBS — which is notoriously more pro-Bush than even Fox News. So if their credibility ends up a little tarnished by this, I can’t say I’m gonna lose a whole lot of sleep over it.
But inasmuch as this reflects poorly on the Kerry campaign, it can’t be a good thing. Which makes me wonder if the whole thing wasn’t a plant in the first place...
I suppose I can’t be sure that it’s definitely a forgery, but to my eye — hardly a layman’s eye, having worked with typography for more than a decade now — this looks like a pretty definitive fake. The type of thing somebody who really doesn’t think all that clearly about it would make.
From what I can tell (admittedly, from sources of sometimes-questionable credibility), the document is exactly what comes out of the default settings for Microsoft Word. As in, not bothering to change any settings and just typing it in.
Hey, don’t get me wrong — once Duh-bya opened the floodgates with the whole “Swift Boat” fiasco, he gave carte blanche to whatever dirty tactics are necessary in this little battle for the Oval Office. And the fact that the White House isn’t denying any of the actual content of the note would appear to indicate that documents like these could very well exist somewhere. But at some point in the initial investigation of this story, you’d think somebody would have said, “You know, that thing sure doesn’t look like it came off of a typewriter...”
What’s even funnier is that this comes from CBS — which is notoriously more pro-Bush than even Fox News. So if their credibility ends up a little tarnished by this, I can’t say I’m gonna lose a whole lot of sleep over it.
But inasmuch as this reflects poorly on the Kerry campaign, it can’t be a good thing. Which makes me wonder if the whole thing wasn’t a plant in the first place...
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Andrew Roazen · Fri, Sep 10th 2004, at 2:29PM
Andrew Roazen · Fri, Sep 10th 2004, at 2:29PM
I got verbal beatdowns on Fark for making exactly the same point. There's a tome called the Haas Atlas which is, simply put, typescript samples of all known typewriters. It exists for law enforcement agencies and document forensics. There's no proportional Times Roman font in there. Metal type is necessarily cruder than lead type because A) it gets more use and isn't remelted the next day and B) printing through inked woven cloth ribbons has the unfortunate effect of filling in small enclosed spaces, like the kind delicate serifed fonts (e.g. Times) have plenty of.
I smell Segretti.
I smell Segretti.
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