Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
it was theoretically "possible" for those 18 minutes to have been erasedElfdart wrote:Was she ever charged with obstruction of justice? I doubt it. Besides, Nixon was run out of town even without it.
Wrong. I see that you are still unfamiliar with the concept of a burden of proof. You are making the claim that the documents are false, so you must provide the evidence. That evidence must show that there is no possible way those documents could have come from a 1970's typewriter. They do not present any blatantly false information, and they were found in Killian's personal files. You must show that the best explanation for them being there was that they were planted.Beowulf wrote:Asking us to prove a negative? Wow... I thought you knew better than that.
They couldn't have received a model from a corporate donation? It is completely impossible for this typewriter to be used to type a memo? Forgery is a big charge, and it requires solid evidence. See Broomstick's posts.So Col Killian has this expensive typesetting machine in his office, that looks extremely complicated, with a bunch of extra dials and knobs, and which is mostly used to produce photo ready text for printing. And which happens to cost more than a new car. Yes, the Composer has proportional spacing, and special type balls could be ordered, but it's not very plausible that a Col's office would have such a device. The Selectric Composer was not used for ordinary typewriting.
As far as I'm aware, his son verified the signature on the memos and then only changed his mind when the bloggers started spewing shit about how it "must have" been created with Microsoft Word. Both signatures are consistent with the starting J's, and then they deviate. This is hardly irregular. Maybe he was in a hurry one day.This neglects mentioning the fact that type spacing is extremely variable, even between two copies of what is ostensibly the same font. There's also the fact that the signatures do not match what we know to be Col Killian's signature looks like.
Already done.Find a type writer, on which you can type up the contents of the memos, and have it match exactly, and Bravo, you've merely proved they might be authentic.
And if these are fakes it wouldn't be the first time that CBS got taken.Elfdart wrote:If these are fakes, it wouldn't be a first for the Republicans.
I personally believe these are fakes. I started to come to that opinion as I was typing the May 4 memeorandum for the comparison Durandal put up on page 2 of this thread and came upon PO Box 34567.WSJ Editorial wrote:"60 Minutes" may have a sterling reputation in journalism, but it has been burned before by forged documents. In 1997 it broadcast a report alleging that U.S. Customs Service inspectors looked the other way as drugs crossed the Mexican border at San Diego. The story's prize exhibit was a memo from Rudy Comacho, head of the San Diego customs office, ordering that vehicles belonging to one trucking company should be given special leniency in crossing the border. The memo was given to "60 Minutes" by Mike Horner, a former customs inspector who had left the service five years earlier. When asked by CBS for additional proof, he sent another copy with an official stamp on it.
CBS did not interview Mr. Camacho for its story. "It was horrible for him," says Bill Anthony, at the time head of public affairs for the Customs Service. "For 18 months, internal affairs and the Secret Service had him under a cloud while they established that Horner had forged the document out of bitterness over how he'd been treated." In 2000, Mr. Horner admitted he forged the memo "for media exposure" and was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison. "Mr. Camacho's reputation was tarnished significantly," Judge Judith Keep noted.
Mr. Camacho sued CBS and eventually settled for an undisclosed sum. In 1999 Leslie Stahl read an apology on the air: "We have concluded we were deceived, and ultimately, so were you, the viewers."
The memos put the slam in the dunk of the 60 Minutes piece last Wednesday. It connected all the dots and verified what people have beenMarcel Matley wrote:''Do not passively accept a copy as the sole basis of a case. Every copy, intentionally or unintentionally, is in some way false to the original. In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries.''
Nixon's obstruction of justice was his direct defiance of a Supreme Court subpoena for the Watergate records and files. That was what set the House in motion to draft the Bill of Impeachment.Elfdart wrote:Was she ever charged with obstruction of justice? I doubt it. Besides, Nixon was run out of town even without it.MKSheppard wrote:So you admit that the 18 minutes on the Nixon tape was a genuine mistake by his secretary?Durandal wrote:IN ORDER TO SHOW THAT THESE ARE FORGERIES, YOU MUST SHOW THAT THESE DOCUMENTS COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN PRODUCED ON A TYPEWRITER FROM THE 1970's.
They read the notes to Major General Bobby Hodges over the phone. Hodges replied that the content sounded to him just like Killian's opinions at the time.Phil Skayhan wrote:And if these are fakes it wouldn't be the first time that CBS got taken.Elfdart wrote:If these are fakes, it wouldn't be a first for the Republicans.
[Large chunk removed by Elfdart]
As for burden of proof, how can anyone attempting to verify/discredit the memos do so when the originals are not, and apparently will not be, made available, even to CBS. Has CBS met the burden of proof?
USA Today wrote:Retired major general Bobby Hodges, a Texas Air National Guard officer who is mentioned in the memos, said Saturday that he believes the documents are fake.
On Saturday, Hodges told The Washington Post he had been "misled" by CBS and now believes the documents are forgeries. Hodges made similar comments to The New York Times. He did not return calls from USA TODAY.
CBS would not comment on the record.
Hey! The say that Bush wasn't at 5000 Longmont #8 at the time those memos were supposedly written. He'd already moved into an apartment, out of his Dad's house, which has that address...Joe wrote:Oops, I guess that "expert" that CBS cited didn't verify the papers at all!
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5993683/
Of course not. That would settle this once and for all...CelesKnight wrote:Has anyone heard where the originals are?
They supposedly came from a non-existant personal file of Col Killian. The appeared out of nowhere and none of the public knows where from.CelesKnight wrote:Perhaps I should rephrase that. Does anyone know where the originals ever were. Is there a legitiment paper trail tying this back to the Col., or did these just suddenly appear a few weeks ago?
On a related note, by now whoever has the originals know how important they are. Moreover, they must be willing to make the information public, or we would have never seen the copies in the first place. Assuming that the memos are real, that person would likely come forward or anonimously give them to CBS or other authority. In my eyes, every day that goes by without the originals being found makes it that much less likely that they are real.
CBS is refusing to release any originals (if they even have them) and they won't divulge where they came from.CelesKnight wrote:Perhaps I should rephrase that. Does anyone know where the originals ever were. Is there a legitiment paper trail tying this back to the Col., or did these just suddenly appear a few weeks ago?
On a related note, by now whoever has the originals know how important they are. Moreover, they must be willing to make the information public, or we would have never seen the copies in the first place. Assuming that the memos are real, that person would likely come forward or anonimously give them to CBS or other authority. In my eyes, every day that goes by without the originals being found makes it that much less likely that they are real.
CBS has said they don't have them. All they got were copies. This is why USA Today also has copies on their website, somewhere...CaptainChewbacca wrote:CBS is refusing to release any originals (if they even have them) and they won't divulge where they came from.
And the Democrats don't??Elfdart wrote:The Republicans have a forty-four year track record of dirty tricks in presidential campaigns. Bush's supporters have already produced two proven forgeries: the Kerry/ Fonda photo and Bob Anderson's name on the Shit Boaters' letter. IF, and this is a huge "if", these are forged, it fits the m.o. of Karl Rove, who bugged his own office and claimed his opponents did it in 1986.Various numbskulls wrote: If you think Republicans are capable of dirty tricks, you believe in UFOs and other looney things!
