I decided to practice what I preach and analyze some documentation myself. Here is one of the memos that CBS has released and say that their experts have verified it as authentic:
I noticed something peculiar on close examination, though. While this memo is mono-spaced like most typewriters from the era, look closely at the spacing. There is 1.03mm of space blank space between each letter but, in 1973, the common blank space between letters was 1.07mm. Typewriters with 1.03mm spacing between letters are those more common of the 80’s. Thus, I am 65% certain that this is in fact a forgery.
I’m still examining the PowerPoint slides CBS obtained which are reportedly also from 1973 and detail how Bush was AWOL, and, if I find any historical inaccuracies in them, I’ll report back.
WooHoo!! First…and am so pleased we have such a super-smart Frank working on OUR side.
Classic, Frank…LMAO!
Not first, but top ten.
I’d be interested to see the Excel spreadsheets that the TANG used to log Bush’s training exercises with.
Mr. Frank J…you are a comic genius.
True story: I worked as a teller in a bank and one time someone shows up with a stolen check, from Joe’s Bar.
The signature actually read “Joe’s Bar Manager”
Thanks for the flashback, Frank.
N. O’Brain
Imperial Minister for Useless Information
I think the document above could be real. And Al Gore is the real President. And Micheal Moore is not a lair. And the moon landing was faked. And Smurfet did not have sex with any of the other Smurfs. And W stands for wrong. And all 250 Swift Boat Vets are liars. Did I leave anything out? lol
Kerry said he used IBM Office ’71 to type rough drafts for his “Christmas in Cambodia” children’s book.
AlGore is the acting former president with Clinton in the Hospital.
shiver
Looks authentic to me. I say we turn it over to Dan.
Pong… i’m rolling.. another great turn by Frank.
Bwa ha ha ha! “Please take heed of this authentic memo from the seventies…which is now.” Classic, Frank!
Ooh, just noticed the “123 Fake Street”! Great Simpsons reference! Subtle and hi-larious!
“Great Simpsons reference! Subtle and hi-larious!”
Accusing gentle Frank of stealing jokes from the Simpsons? Why, perish the thought! Every joke on IMAO is 100% guaranteed non-stolen from the Simpsons (or Futurama).
And don’t forget me not stealing from Family Guy and South Park.
Hey
how did Michael Moore miss these “documents”????? his film would have had so much more substance and credibility.
What is absolutely the funniest thing about this is that this forgery is way, way, way, way, way better than the forgeries that CBS have produced. Not only are they bad, they’re really, really stupid.
No, Frank.
Bush’s Superior Officer was Shiny McShine.
More commonly known as ‘Horshack’s Mom’.
Jack.
They almost pulled off a great forgery, until somone noticed they printed it on official “Spongebob Squarepants” stationary…
The letter above looks like an authentic cirica 70s government document so I
m convinced Bush is Evil and a bad person. Thanks for the info, now I can vote for Kerry because hes a real war hero who singlehandedly defeated the communist North Vietnamese and would have conquored China had that evil Nixon not intervened and ended Americas campaign of global domination.AMJoe:
Thanks! I was hoping someone would do this so I wouldn’t have to. The following is my letter to CBS after watching Mr. Blather tonight:
It is plain that even under the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, Dan Rather refuses to admit to the furtherance of lies to accomplish his, and I suspect CBS’s goal of diminishing our President and promoting the left wing agenda. As a result of this awareness, I will no longer utilize CBS for news or entertainment programming, nor will I patronize any of the sponsors affiliated with your network.
A copy of this note will be forwarded to each sponsor of record.
HA! Now I even have each sponsor of record! This is a great effort by the blogfolken to make sh*t happen.
Best to all,
Wow, this whole forgery thing is like a really good farside comic.
This really good BTW, emailed it to my bro 😉
yeah, what Serenity said.
Frank J:
I think I spotted another giveaway. If you look really closely, you can see that Bush’s Superior Officer (BSO) actually signed in two places!!!
While the lower BSO is consistent with the rest of the memo, the other one is clearly a forgery and doesn’t match the neat, officerlike lettering of the bulk of the memo.
On a hunch, I crunched this memo with my double-blind exo-endo popcorn Fascist McFascist decoder ring, and the following secret message came out:
He… is…. Mario…. Pong… and… he… is doing… seventies… chimp.
Obviously this is some sort of evil sublinal message trying to convince weak-minded readers that Bush likes to pretend he is Italian and has a thing for chimps in ruffled shirts and tight fitting bell-bottoms.
I HAVE JUST FOUND A IBM SEL IN THE CLOSET AT WORK, WILL REPORT BACK LATER.
Yes yes I know I am lame for going to the office on a weekend to look for a stupid typewriter, but hey some one said 10k so I am all over that!
“And don’t forget me not stealing from Family Guy and South Park.”
I almost forgot about how you never did that. It was almost like it really happened in my mind.
Jack and Hammer…(huhuhu Jack/Hammer)
You guys I was born in November 1973 and I knew who you were talking about.
“Welcome Back Cotter” was one of my favorite shows as a kid.
It was bubble boy’s finest cinamatic moment.
Your absolutely correct, Chris D.
It should have been Epstein’s Mother.
Not Horshack’s.
The revelation of my mistake occurred about ten minutes after posting it.
Dang it, Frank! You’re an Engineer. We need an Edit function to correct mistakes.
Jack.
And where exactly is Alabama, Florida?
This is absolutely hilarious. I was Laughing Out Loud. Thank You
AMJoe,
Thanks for the list. Next week, when the Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Bayer, and Bristol-Meyers Squibb reps come calling on me at my office, we’ll have more to talk about than why their drug is allegedly better than the competition’s.
Mheh.
Thanks, Joshua:
‘Welcome Back, Kotter’ had its moments. Though I was more of a ‘Barney Miller’ fan. Both had good writers, but Hal Linden, Jack Soo, Max Gail and company had better range and delivery.
Especially Steve Landesburg as Det. Dietrich.
Jack.
Jack Deth,
“Alabama, Florida” is everything to the left (or west) of Tallahassee. That part of the panhandle is usually known as “Lower Alabama”…for good reason.
Jack,
It was me that rudely corrected not Chris D. (don’t know how I messed up my address, never done that before)
Joshua,
FrankJ is around 6 years younger than you. “Welcome Back Kotter” went off the air the month he was born…. Actually it’s probably MORE than 6 years, ‘cus I’m still not buying that “25 year-old engineer” line.
That’s the best looking document yet!
If only someone (hint) could “leak’ it to CBS so that the peoples know what “really happened”
Bwahahahaha! I sent this one to my favorite LLL. She’s stopped talking to me, for some reason…
I’m not sure Charles Johnson will agree with Frank’s analysis, but I am certain it is false. I just can’t put my finger on why….
Excellent, Frank. Bravo.
But where are the original documents, dammit???
is that an Orange Crush stain on the paper?
Greetings.
CBS must be pressuring the other nets big time, They gotta be making big time legal threats! I haven’t heard a peep from any of them re: forgeries today. Has anyone else?
Mr. Frank,
The above memo has a zip code of 45678. This is Scottown Oh. A place I am familiar with. It’s a rural area of Ohio tucked along the border with WV and Kentucky. The area has long been known for two thing: Providing Abortions to the girlfriends of well heeled Eastern Faux Texan plutocrats and discount cocaine sales.
It is obvious that Karl Rove ordered Bush to compose this memo in the early 70s as a hidden land mine for CBS. Unfortunately, Bush wrote it while on a trip to Scottown while escorting his brother Neal’s nanny for an abortion…and to score some coke for himself….and to kill a drifter for fun.
“Embassy Electronic Intercept
Intercept-Transcription
1st. ” Well it’s either forgery and attempted frad involving a Federal document or theft of a paper from the estate of the late Col. When do you want us to arrest them director?”
2nd. ” No hurry let’em twist in the wind and then pick’em up in late October, make sure there are plenty of photographers.”
1st. ” You still want to do them both?”
2nd. ” Yes it will show the nation what a controlling legal authority is!””
“Question.
Comrade should we warn JFK.
Reply.
NO! Do I have to show you photographs of the school massacre to show you why since you are not listening?”
Transcription.
Intercept of transmission of intercept
Forward to His Holiness Frank J.
CC: Sarah K, Director of Extreme Predjudice.
It has been discovered that CBS has faked its hurricane coverage, using a street mime to walk against the wind in front of a projection screen with old movie clips of hurricanes.
Shame CBS!
You guys make me sick. CBS has the goods on Bush and they are now saying the reason they don’t have the originals is because they haven’t downloaded them from Killians hard drive. When they get that old 72′ PC up and running yer gonna have egg on yer face!
First off, before I start getting a lot of the wrong kind of mail: I am not a fan of George Bush. But I am even less a fan of attempts to commit fraud, and particularly by a complete and utter failure of those we entrust to ensure that if the news is at least accurate. I know it is asking far too much to expect the news to be unbiased. But the people involved should not actually lie to us, or promulgate lies created by hoaxers, through their own incompetence
In 1972 the millitary didn’t use spell A-WALL that way. The millitary was still used the old english spelling A-WAUGHL.
A-WALL wasn’t used until at least 1981 when the millitary wuz finally able to replace their copies of the 1908 Oxford English Dictionary with the 1942 edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary.
Cheers
With all the pain Dan has caused CBS in the past with his chicanery, don’t you think they’d come to the obvious conclusion that it’s time to send his smug, self-rightous a*s out sailing with his uncle Walter, for good!
I had been in the printing and engraving business in the 60’s & 70’s. We were constantly looking for equipment that could be “justified” meaning set flush right and left in a column and look proportionally spaced. There was no equipment available without going to “Photo Type” systems that were very expensive. The IBM Selectronic and Varityper were the only “Cold Type” setting machines and they did not justify well and had very limited proportional spacing. I am confident no typewriter was capable of proportional spacing and kerning without great expense and difficulty to achieve. Certainly no one would type a letter or memo with the extensive amount of expense and effort necessary, there is no justification to the expense vs results achieved. If there was a production machine available for “quality” typesetting simular to the current ability of computers and word processing we would have had several salesmen trying to sell the machine to us before 1973! In 1973 (estimate) IBM developed and began selling a production selectronic system with punch cards for repeated boilerplate that could approch the letters offered by CBS, again the systems were very expensive and highly skilled typists were trained to handle the equipment, far beyond that available in any military situation. I had been a clerk typist in the National Guard in the early to mid 60’s. We did not even have electric typewriters, there was no cost justification for such equipment.
Bill Appel
Pong machines didn not have proportional spacing either.
Ok….I love the memo, and I saw the list of the sponsors who supported Rather’s scurrilous attack. I am willing to give up Cheerios and even take a chance at stopping my Plavix. I can suffer arthritis pain and get by without my Vioxx. No Levitra OR Viagra…..? Gimme a break.
The ebay auction is a joke and I don’t have the typewriter either, I’ll take the auction down if you’d like, but hey you can’t buy that kind of exposure. I added a quick attribution but the auction loses some of its humor edge if its a known link to another site.
I admit to not being original but I know funny when I see it.
ft88
CBS should have used Andy Rooney’s old manual typewriter!
Frank I updated so the pic is current, with the IMAO.us tag
ft88,
Eh, I don’t care now.
Yes, boycott the makers of Levitra and Viagra. They give millions to the Republicans. That’ll show them.