Typewriters

Well, it seems that the Blogosphere is all atwitter over the possiblity that the documents that CBS News got from Georgie Bush's commanding officer might be forged. Now, CBS News claims that they checked the docs out thoroughly with forgery experts and that they're authentic. Lambert, over at Corrente, has a good rundown on the hoohah, with links. The most notable thing about these memos is how little they add. Now we know that Georgie got into trouble for not taking his physical. Before, it was just obvious.

Some observations. Why do I seem to be the only one around who remembers the late 1960s and early 1970s?

The font is not Times New Roman. It's Times Roman, developed in the early 1930s by the London Times. Gimmick is that fonts can't be copyrighted; font names can. Microsoft had to change the name. Times Roman and Times New Roman are almost identical.

The IBM Executive typewriter had all the features needed to produce a document like this. The Selectric series didn't (the ^th), without far more jiggering with type balls than anybody'd do for a short “memo to file”. Note to those claiming that the docs were done with Microsoft Word -- run your tests on this and see how they come out. Gary Farber has a good post with typewriter details.

The individual letters are uneven, both in weight and vertical spacing. Hard to do with a word processor; impossible to avoid with a non- Selectric typewriter.

It may be an artifact of the scanning process, but the copies sure look like carbons to me. Again, hard to do on a computer; impossible to avoid on a typewriter.

Given that the military is officially as uniform as possible, office equipment was a big status item. Having a fancy typewriter was something to feel good about.

Mrs. Killian says that her husband didn't write memos like that and that her husband would never say anything bad about a Guardsman. I call bullshit on this; these memos are exactly what you'd expect to see with a guy who is having problems. Look, airplanes, especially fighters, are horribly dangerous hunks of machinery. If something goes wrong, your nose had better be very, very clean.

As to her husband “not being a paper person”; again, bullshit. Work with the military and you're going to be buried in paper whether you want it or not. And everybody learns the value of a “CYA” “memo to file” in about a week.

Now some speculation:

If I were going to forge a document from the 1970s, I'd use a bog- standard Selectric typewriter.

If this really was done on a word processor, it has to be the clumsiest forged document possible, next to a signed letter by Julius Caesar dated “46 BC”. Now, why would anybody do this?

• CBS News is utterly, flamingly, incompetent.
• CBS News is the victim of a very elaborate hoax to discredit them in general and Dan Rather in particular.
• CBS News is under the control of Karl Rove, to the extent that he can force them to do this, in order to have a Great Debunking later.

I'm no fan of CBS or Rove, but, bluntly, CBS isn't that bad and Rove isn't that good.

Tentative conclusion: genuine, until I see some info from people who know what they're talking about. Blogosphere “experts” can bring up interesting points, but I want to see something from people who you'd want to call as expert witnesses.

LATER — Coupla more things might need explaining. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious.

CYA

Cover your arse. Also occasionally seen as CYAWP (cover your arse with paper) Utterly necessary for survival in any bureucracy. If your arse isn't covered, you'll get blamed for everything.

Memo to File

Just like it says; a memo whose only destination is your file cabinet. This has a number of uses:

• To document an idea that you can't act on right now.
• To CYA. “I told them this wouldn't work. Here's the stuff they wouldn't listen to.”
• To vent frustration. Since you're the only one that sees it, you can say things you wouldn't want to say officially or in person.

The Killian memos seem to be a combination of these.

Nothin' to See Here, Move Along

OK, I watched the “Sixty Minutes” segment where former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes talked about pulling strings to get George W. Bush his slot in the “champagne Unit” of the Texas Air National Guard. Whoop de do. Anybody who was anywhere near draft age in the late 1960s could have told you that. Nobody got into the Air National Guard without having some strings pulled somewhere. Look — there was a five year waiting list to get in. You could sign up before you got out of high school and still get bumped by some rich kid.

One new thing was a memo where Lieutenant Colonel Killian (head of the Texas Air National Guard at the time) noted that Bush had disobeyed a direct order to take his physical. Military types — what do they call disobeying a direct order? We already knew he skipped his physical; we still don't know why.

Now, I'm not claiming that Bush was wrong for wanting to stay out of Vietnam. Everybody did. I'll just say that his actions there raise some very serious doubts about his much- vaunted “character”. It looks like, after four years of perfectly honorable and boring service (In the military, boring is good, especially during a war.), he lit out for Alabama, and later Cambridge, and left the Powers that Be to clean up after him. His sworn obligation to the Guard got in the way of what he wanted to do, so he simply blew it off and let others cover his tail. Character. Right.

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In the normal college crowd that I was in, there was a distinct hierarchy of respect on the subject of Vietnam:

1. At the very top were the resistors. These are the people who put their arses on the line for their beliefs, and ended up going to jail or to Canada. This took an amount of guts far, far higher than any other option.
2. Then there were the volunteers. Most of us thought the war was wrong, but those who didn't agree and who were willing to put their arses on the line were certainly worthy of respect.
3. Next are the people who “played the game”. There were all sorts of medical deferments; problem was that, as each new deferment came up, the draft boards would tighten restrictions on it until it was useless.
4. Next are the ones who “did their duty” and didn't try to stay out of the draft. Yeah, you do what other people expect of you, even if you know it's wrong. (If you really believe it's right, enlist.) This was a small group; everybody I knew was trying to stay out. Getting drafted was the penalty for losing.
5. At the very bottom, with no respect whatever, was what we called “4F Hawks”. (The phrase “chickenhawk” meant something entirely different at that time.) These are the guys who didn't have to fight, but were happy to see others “do their duty” by marching through minefields.

The 4Fs (guys who, for one reason or another, were not eligible for the draft) were outside the system. Everybody envied them, even if the reason for their deferment was, say, missing legs. Problem was, they tended to gloat.

Generally, the guys who got into the National Guard were rated about one small step above the 4F Hawks. It was automatically assumed that they had gotten in by political pull, whether they did or not. They tended not to care.

The attitudes toward veterans varied by their attitudes. Most of them were glad to be home; we accepted them as guys who'd been through a really bad time. Some were obnoxious; they tended to get shunned. Who wants a party pooper? They usually hung out with the 4F Hawks, who tended to worship them.

There was one guy who claimed to have spit on a returning veteran. We called him “Crazy Harv”. He was a violent, radical Maoist to the extent that the other radical Maoists wanted nothing whatever to do with him. Did he really do it? On one hand, he was crazy enough to try (getting beaten to a bloody pulp didn't seem to bother him). On the other hand, he was seriously delusional.

Anyway, I wrote up some other draft- era notes a while back. They're still good, if you need a refresher on what it was like to be in college under threat of the draft.

I Feel a Draft

Well, come on all of you, big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again. Yeah, he's got himself in a terrible jam Way down yonder in Vietnam So put down your books and pick up a gun, Gonna have a whole lotta fun.

— Joe McDonald

I've said before that if Bush is reelected, we'll have a military draft by May of 2005. Now, every time this gets brought up, the arguments come rolling in. It won't do any good because it will take two years to get actual troops. The Selective Service is just a relic. The American people won't stand for it.

Sorry, guys. The military is stretched uncomfortably tightly now, and the Grand Neocon Plan involves taking over at least five more countries (Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia and Sudan, according to Wesley Clark) each of which will be as big a quagmire as Iraq. We're gonna need a lot of manpower, along with a vast increase in the budget for material. (Neocons seem to think that Bradley treads and Humvee tires grow on trees. Not to mention bullets.)

Here's a description of how it will be done (via). Nice and simple; no fuss,no bother.

Protest? Resistance? Not bloody likely. A lot of noise, a few high-profile protesters thrown into Leavenworth to be beaten, maimed, and probably killed, and any protests will turn into just noise. Note that, for all the noise that the Vietnam-era draft protests made, nothing was actually done until the war was effectively over.

Legal challenges? Even less likely. Here is a sample of the Supreme Court opinion on the case that conclusively legalized the draft:

Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.

— U.S. Supreme Court, ARVER v. U.S. , 245 U.S. 366 (1918)

This is, bluntly, one of the most appalling Supreme Court decisions I've ever read. Basically, it says that the right of the United States to raise armies means that the US has the right to raise armies by any means whatever. Its language is absolutist and dogmatic. It does not argue that the Draft is legal on Constitutional grounds; aside from the right to raise armies, there are none. Instead, it makes its arguments with phrases like "in the light of the fundamental principles with which the subject is concerned", "the inevitable consequence of the provisions of the Constitution", "its unsoundness is too apparent to require us to do more", and, of course, "refuted by its mere statement".

This isn't law. This is bluster. It's what you say when you don't have a real argument.

Georgie will love it.

LATER — Looks like the Army is looking at a little problem next year ...

Good Speech, But ...

I just watched Kerry's "response" to the Republican convention. Not bad; I think he got a kick out of chewing out Cheney.

One problem. No mention of terrorism. Could be a really big problem. Terrorism is the big Republican talking point — keep 'em as scared as possible. How many times did speakers at the RNC praise Bush's "heroism" in going to Ground Zero only three days after the attacks? Idea seems to be that since Georgie Bush allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place, he's somehow uniquely qualified to keep it from happening again. The attitude seems to be "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice — can't get fooled again."

Kerry needs to add something to his speech like:

To the terrorists — to Al Qaeda and to Osama bin Laden — you'd better hope and pray that George Bush wins this election. George Bush tried to come into Afghanistan "on the cheap" and let you walk away. George Bush does not understand intelligence operations. George Bush distracted himself with Iraq. I tell you now, we will not let you get away. We will unite the world to deny your funds and support. Above all, we will not be distracted until you are totally destroyed. This I promise you.

Anybody who thinks that Kerry wouldn't follow through on that should read his Silver Star citation. This is not a guy that you want mad at you.

Last One Down

Well, the last reason for voting for Bush (unless you're a corporate CEO or a hardcore Peronist) just evaporated. Economy in the toilet, unemployment up, deficit way up, army in Iraq, National Guard on the ropes, Afghanistan back to the warlords and the Taliban, scandals everywhere. "But we need Bush" went the line, "to keep this country secure. Bush will protect us from terrorism."

Oops. They can't even keep protesters out of their own convention, and they're supposed to keep terrorists from doing anything?

Now, convention security is fairly straightforward. You need a pass to get in. You have to have a pass to get anywhere. You put the pass on a cord around your neck. The convention has guards at doors. You don't have a pass? You don't get in, and I don't care if you are Dick Cheney. Not rocket science. Now, I don't know how the protestors got in and I don't really care; the fact that they got in at all was a failure of security. We're all lucky that they didn't have anything more dangerous than whistles and T shirts. Assuming that they didn't. Consider the effect of a tear gas grenade with a timer ...

Oh, and another thing re terrorism: where's Osama? Funny thing, I haven't heard his name mentioned at all.

LATER — Twistedchick has found a report that 1000 Thursday credentials are missing. Tonight may get more exciting than anybody wants ....

LATER STILL — From the NY Daily News (via) Sheesh! They're giving them away!

Omens

So NYC's ex- mayor and demigod Rudy Giuliani says, on Monday

The only two things I'm thinking of in the future right now are the Yankees getting themselves into the World Series and President Bush being re-elected.

Tempting the gods is a bad idea. Poking them with a sharp stick is an even worse idea.

Would these guys recognize an omen if it bit them on the arse?

"Girly Men"

California's honorable governor's favorite phrase for people he doesn't like is "girly men". Odd phrase. Austrian? Nope. Bodybuilder. Check out the side effects for massive steriod use.

Now, who do we know who has used massive doses of steriods? Who's the real "girly man" here?

Keep the Republicans Out of the Tunnels!

Security is tight at Madison Square Garden. (At least, for anybody important) Access to the train stations under the Garden (both subway and Amtrak) is quite limited.

How carefully are they checking the tunnels around the Garden? After all, isn't the whole point of having the convention in NYC to let the Republicans lay their eggs under the Garden?

This is especially worrisome in that Al Qaeda has expressed interest in the same scenario ...

Why Now?

One thing puzzles me about the Swift Boat ads. Why now? By questioning Kerry's military service, the ads invite discussion of Bush's military service. And Bush's service is far less, um, impressive than Kerry's. Bush, near as anybody can tell, served honorably for four years as a fighter jock in the Texas Air National Guard. Unfortunately, he had enlisted for six years.

Now, there are many questions about Bush's TANG service:

• He "jumped the line" to get into the TANG at all.
• Appointed Second Lieutenant without required ROTC or OCS training.
• He "jumped the line" again to get into pilot training
• He transferred from Texas to Alabama. This transfer is highly questionable; the Alabama guard didn't have the airplanes that Georgie was trained on. The military trains you to do something, you do it.
• There is no record of his ever showing up at the Guard in Alabama.
• In 1972, he didn't show up for his flight physical and was grounded as a result.
• He was discharged early to attend Harvard Business School

From looking at the dates coded into the information that we do have, it looks like the Guard was covering up for him. He would do something and the Guard would try to fix things to make it look right.

Now, in the 2000 election campaign, the Bush people painted Georgie's service (or lack thereof) as a total non- issue. Thirty years ago, and besides, Georgie Found Jaysus, which is the Republican moral reset switch. This worked; Georgie's misspent youth (I've heard that he was the model for Bluto, the John Belushi character in Animal House) never became an issue.

Why didn't they do the same thing this time? Simply smile indulgently and say, "Well, Kerry's trying to hide the fact that he hasn't really done anything interesting in the last thirty years." By bring this out now, it opens Georgie's sad National Guard service to scrutiny. In a month, the whole Swift Boat nonsense will be gone (a structure built totally on lies can only last so long), but Georgie's record will still be on the table.

So what's going on here? Well, the obvious answer is that the Swift Boat Liars are an independent group not connected with the RNC. They have a rather common bug up their arse:

1. All war heroes supported the Vietnam war enthusiastically
2. No war protesters supported the Vietnam war.
3. Therefore, no war protester was also a war hero
4. Since Kerry was a war protester, he cannot have been a war hero.
5. Since this is a Higher Truth, it's OK to lie about it.

In this model, the RNC higher- ups are tearing their hair out over this. Nothing they can do at this point; the cat's thoroughly out of the bag. Georgie's service is on the table for discussion and they just have to get ready to do damage control.

Problem is that nobody believes that the SBLs are really independent. The Repubs play things really tightly. So, again, why would they allow Georgie's record out of the closet?

Well, how about this? The Repubs are seriously concerned about an October Surprise about Georgie's National Guard service. This could be any of a number of things:

• Records of bad behavior in the Guard
• Copies of the missing part of Georgie's records, like the record of the Flight Inquiry Board that is required whenever a pilot is taken off of flight status.
• Proof that the Guard records were fudged to keep Georgie out of trouble.
• Proof that Georgie took pay from the National Guard under false pretenses.
• Proof that Georgie'e records were illegally discarded.

In this model, the SBL stuff makes sense. By getting it out onto the table now, the Bush campaign has two months, rather than a week or two, to do damage control.

Which is it? One of these, or something else? Only the Kerry campaign knows ....

LATER -- Ken Layne channels Hunter Thompson on the same subject (via).

The Persistance of Vision

According to Josh Marshall, the "Swift Boat" ads actually seem to be getting some traction with independent voters (assuming that there are any left.) The Kerry campaign doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of countering them. This is a bit surprising, seeing that this same group has trotted out the same charges against Kerry every time he's been up for re election.

Now, it's important to remember that a lot of people still think that we "lost" in Vietnam because we were "stabbed in the back" by the antiwar movement. Near as I can tell, they won't blame themselves, they won't blame their chain of command, they won't blame their political leadership, and they won't blame the North Vietnamese, so they blame the only ones left. Indeed, I've heard right- wingers flat- out blame Jane Fonda for the loss of Vietnam. Her. By herself. Ignore JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Westmoreland, Kissinger, and Giap. It's all Hanoi Jane's fault.

And of course, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. VVAW was a particularly sore point, as the hawks couldn't claim that they were just a bunch of strung- out hippie dope addict draft dodging cowards (the charge of choice against most antiwar types). John Kerry was by no means the most highly decorated soldier in VVAW; he was simply one of he most eloquent.

Memory is a funny thing. If somebody asks you to remember an event that fits your worldview, you're likely to remember it, whether it happened or not. The standard example is asking somebody who went to Disney World or Disneyland many years ago to remember meeting Bugs Bunny. A surprising number of people do, and will give a surprising level of detail. Problem is that Bugs is a Warner Brothers property; no way would he ever be at a Disney park.

Which brings us to the Swift Boat Vets. Looking at the records, none of them served with Kerry and it's hard to tell how many of them knew him at all. None of them seem to be VVAW members, or indeed any kind of "dove". It's a reasonable hypothesis that they believe the "stab in the back" theory. I'll bet that they honestly believe that they saw Kerry doing all sorts of horrible things.

But, pardon me for not believing them without contemporary documentary evidence. It fits too closely with the "hawk" worldview, where anyone associated with "peace" could never have done anything worthwhile. Remember Winston Smith in 1984? His job was in altering official records to show that the current Ins had always been wonderful people and the current Outs had always been horrible slimeballs. Same principal here.

Personally, I'll stick with the existing contemporary documentary evidence.

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Now, there are a couple of barbs in this. First, I find it very odd that the Republicans would want to bring up Kerry's record at all. If the Repubs can talk about Kerry, the Dems can talk about Bush -- and Bush comes off very poorly by comparison.

The other is much nastier. By claiming that Kerry got his medals under false pretenses, they are implying that everybody else who got medals in Vietnam may have gotten them under false pretenses. Digby coverd this a while back, but it bears repeating -- If Kerry got his medals under false pretenses, so did many other people. After all in 1968 - 1969, Kerry was a nobody. He had no powerful political or military allies who might want to single him out for special favors; I've heard no accusations that he did any favors for anyone who might have pulled strings for him.

People with no military experience don't understand the importance of medals to people in the military. In the military, the pay sucks, the working conditions are horrible, and somebody is always ordering you around. Oft times, the only thing you have to show for a big chunk of your life is a little bit of ribbon. Claiming that someone got a medal under false pretenses, or wore a medal that they weren't entitled to, is a very serious matter. Before the "Swift Boat Veterans" got going, remember that the big question about Kerry was "Did he really throw his medals away, or just the service ribbons?" The fuss quieted down when everybody agreed that it was just the service ribbons. This makes sense only in the context of the military attitude toward medals -- something that civilians Just Don't Get.

Again, by casting doubt on the legitimacy of Kerry's medals, the Swift Boat Vets are pissing on all of the legitimate medals that they, and anyone else, earned in Vietnam.