Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Hank Chinaski]

spartan asked me to post this, well not really, but I bet he'd want it posted.....

[Hank Chinaski]

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/new...printstory.jsp

Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written

BY PETE SLOVER
The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Bush's service, was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

And to save Ty a post, i'll note for him that probably some of the other forged memos were more carefully written to not include retired officers

Originally posted by taxwonk
But I do know that when I lived in Texas, the vast majority of child fatalities were a result of kids playing with guns.

Guns don't kill people, children kill people.

Originally posted by Not Me
I just want to see the cite for Wonks claim that the majority of child fatalities in TX were due to gun deaths.

I don't know about the stats, but there are a huge number - several per month that make the news and undoubtedly more that don't. Judging from a nonscientific study of the crappy evening news I would suggest that death at the hands of the parents or caregiver is way up there and sadly, that often does not make the news at all.

[bilmore]

Looks like some of the pissed-off clerks for the SC have decided that confidentiality is no longer required when your Justices don't do what you think is right.

(from http://volokh.com/ )
-----------------------------------------

Vanity Fair Publishes Inside Scoop on Bush v. Gore:

The October 2004 Vanity Fair has hit the newsstands, and it offers an insider's view of what happened in Bush v. Gore. (It's not online, unfortunately; yes, I actually had to plunk down $4.50 for a very glossy paper copy.) To be more precise, the article offers the view of a group of the law clerks who worked on the case — a group described in the article as "most" of the clerks who worked for the four Justices in the dissent and the "occasional" clerk who worked for one of the Justices in the majority.

The article acknowledges that the clerks' story is rather skewed, but justifies publishing it on the ground that it's better than nothing: "[I]f this account may at times be lopsided, partisan, speculative, and incomplete," the article states, "it's by far the best and most informative we have." Like most law clerk narratives, the article both stresses the important role of law clerks and includes considerable speculation as to the improper motives of the Justices who voted the other way.

I haven't followed the debates over Bush v. Gore very closely — I think the case was wrongly decided, but it's far from my area of expertise — but my quick initial read of the article suggests that these are the most important new details:

(1) The initial vote to take the first election case, Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, was 5-4, with the 5 Justices who later made up the Bush v. Gore majority all voting to grant the petition for certiorari.

(2) The 9-0 per curiam opinion in the first election case was a compromise opinion authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist. The compromise was reached after neither side could form a majority for either letting the initial Florida Supreme Court opinion stand or overturning it outright.

(3) At the Justices' conference following the oral argument in Bush v. Gore, Justice Kennedy initially voted to allow the recount to continue, joining Justices Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens to form a majority to affirm.

(4) Justice Kennedy changed his vote soon after the Justices' conference, and was the eventual author of the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore.

Then there is the question of law clerk confidentiality. The clerks who spoke to Vanity Fair apparently viewed their duty of confidentiality to the Court as subject to waiver when in their judgment the Court has gone badly astray:

To the inevitable charges that they broke their vow of confidentiality, the clerks [who spoke to Vaniy Fair] have a ready response: by taking on Bush v. Gore and deciding the case as it did, the Court broke its promise to them. "We feel that something illegitimate was done with the Court's power, and such an extraordinary situation justifies breaking an obligation we'd otherwise honor," one clerk says.

Hmmm. Sounds pretty flimsy to me, for obvious reasons.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Disregard what appears below. Now they indicate that the explosion was on Thursday, and South Korea is already indicating that it wasn't nuclear or nuclear-related.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...orea_explosion

Earlier I wrote:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d=516&ncid=716

Earlier today the media was putting out articles speculating on No. Korea nuclear tests. The article linked-above is reporting a huge explosion in No. Korea, and a mushroom cloud 3.4 to 4 miles across.

Tomorrow's news tonight.

Hello

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I'd go in and go in heavy, but with orders to take every reasonable effort to minimize civilian casualties. We're there, so the only reasonable thing is to do the job right.

Go in heavy to what end? We don't have enough troops there to properly occupy the area, even if our political leadership was willing to take the heat for the casualties that would result. We cannot occupy Iraq with the troops we have there, and the Iraqi forces cannot take up the slack, so we're stuck letting part of the country be controlled by insurgents.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
What suspicions? That the insurgents are hiding out in houses and using women and children as human shields? So what should the US forces do then? Keep letting marines get killed because the insurgents are using human shields? In that situation, someone has to die. It is either the insurgents and unfortunately the human shields being used by the insurgents or US marines. If they let these insurgents hide out in these houses and continue to attack the marines, it is the marines that die.

War is ugly and when insurgents are using civilian human shields, it is very, very ugly.

You have just confirmed my suspicions that you don't have any relatives in Iraq. So it is easy for you to say that the US forces shouldn't defend themsevles just because those murdering them use human shields.

There were good military reasons for Clinton to use cruise missiles when he did -- my post didn't say that we shouldn't ever be dropping bombs, but was directed at the armchair warriors who bitched when Clinton used cruises missiles but don't think twice when we're bombing a country we're occupying. If we had enough troops on the ground to do the job, would we be bombing Iraqi cities? The fact that we're bombing reflects that the situation is not fully under control.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Go in heavy to what end? We don't have enough troops there to properly occupy the area, even if our political leadership was willing to take the heat for the casualties that would result. We cannot occupy Iraq with the troops we have there, and the Iraqi forces cannot take up the slack, so we're stuck letting part of the country be controlled by insurgents.

If we go in heavy and kill all the insurgents, then we don't need to occupy, see 'cuz they will all be dead.

[Not Me]

It must be killing the NYT writers to have to write this.

• An Ex-Officer Now Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine
  
  A former National Guard commander who CBS News said had helped convince it of the authenticity of documents raising new questions about President Bush's military service said on Saturday that he did not believe they were genuine.
  
  The commander, Bobby Hodges, said in a telephone interview that network producers had never showed him the documents but had only read them to him over the phone days before they were featured Wednesday in a "60 Minutes" broadcast. After seeing the documents on Friday, Mr. Hodges said, he concluded that they were falsified.
  
  Mr. Hodges, a former general who spoke to several news organizations this weekend, was just the latest person to challenge the authenticity of the documents, which CBS reported came from the personal files of Mr. Bush's former squadron commander at the Texas Air National Guard, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/po...n/12guard.html

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Disregard what appears below. Now they indicate that the explosion was on Thursday, and South Korea is already indicating that it wasn't nuclear or nuclear-related.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...orea_explosion

Earlier I wrote:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d=516&ncid=716

Earlier today the media was putting out articles speculating on No. Korea nuclear tests. The article linked-above is reporting a huge explosion in No. Korea, and a mushroom cloud 3.4 to 4 miles across.

Tomorrow's news tonight.

Hello

It wouldn't surprise me if NK blows itself up accidentally while doing testing. Sure would suck for the SKs, but not so sure it wouldn't be a net positive for the rest of the world.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
It must be killing the NYT writers to have to write this.

• An Ex-Officer Now Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine
  
  A former National Guard commander who CBS News said had helped convince it of the authenticity of documents raising new questions about President Bush's military service said on Saturday that he did not believe they were genuine.
  
  The commander, Bobby Hodges, said in a telephone interview that network producers had never showed him the documents but had only read them to him over the phone days before they were featured Wednesday in a "60 Minutes" broadcast. After seeing the documents on Friday, Mr. Hodges said, he concluded that they were falsified.
  
  Mr. Hodges, a former general who spoke to several news organizations this weekend, was just the latest person to challenge the authenticity of the documents, which CBS reported came from the personal files of Mr. Bush's former squadron commander at the Texas Air National Guard, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/po...n/12guard.html

What a surprise -- Hodges, a Bush supporter, is backtracking now that CBS revealed that he's one of their sources.

Meanwhile, sounds like the jury is still out on the forgery question:

• After CBS News trumpeted newly discovered documents Wednesday that referred to a 1973 effort to "sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the memos were forgeries with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time.
  
  But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.
  
  Philip Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believed the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

SF Gate, running a Boston Globe story

Credit Right Blogistan for changing the subject from all the bad dirt about Bush, these documents included, to the sexy subject of forgery.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What a surprise -- Hodges, a Bush supporter, is backtracking now that CBS revealed that he's one of their sources.

Meanwhile, sounds like the jury is still out on the forgery question:

• After CBS News trumpeted newly discovered documents Wednesday that referred to a 1973 effort to "sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the memos were forgeries with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time.
  
  But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.
  
  Philip Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believed the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

SF Gate, running a Boston Globe story

Credit Right Blogistan for changing the subject from all the bad dirt about Bush, these documents included, to the sexy subject of forgery.

Game over, Ty. The bounce is sticking.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Meanwhile, sounds like the jury is still out on the forgery question:
. . .
But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe Friday that after further study, he now believed the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

Um, well, no . . . .

"I just interviewed Dr. Bouffard again, and he's angry that the Globe has misrepresented him. He's been getting hate mail and nasty phone calls since last night's story was posted, and he wants me to correct the record. He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries.

Instead of providing my analysis of our conversation, I'm largely going to transcribe his unaltered quotes (please note that he's a rather colorful, engaging older gentleman):

(I'm dynamically updating as I transcribe quotes, so keep refreshing)

"What the Boston Globe did now sort of pisses me off, because now I have people calling me and e-mailing me, and calling me names, saying that I changed my mind. I did not change my mind at all!"

"I would appreciate it if you could do whatever it takes to clear this up, through your internet site, or whatever."

"All I'd done is say, 'Hey I want to look into it.' Please correct that damn impression!"

"What I said to them was, I got new information about possible Selectric fonts and (Air Force) documents that indicated a Selectric machine could have been available, and I needed to do more analysis and consider it."

"But the more information we get and the more my colleagues look at this, we're more convinced that there are significant differences between the type of the (IBM) Composer that was available and the questionable document."

"The (new Selectric) typefaces sent to me invalidated the theory about the foot on the four (originally reported to INDC), but after looking at this more, there are still many more things that say this is bogus."

"... there are so many things that are not right; 's crossings,' 'downstrokes' ..."

"More things were looked into; more things about IBM options. Even if you bought special (superscripting) keys, it's not right. There are all kinds of things that say that this is not a typewriter."

"Any form of kerning may be critical (he hasn't rendered a definitive verdict if there is a form of kerning yet). If there is any type of kerning, it obviously isn't a typewriter or it's definitely a typeset document."

On the Globe and others:

"You talk to someone on the phone and it comes out different than you said!"

On the source of the 1969 Air Force Supply Memo:

Dr. Bouffard received an e-mail from the address of Roy Huber, a noted retired forensic analyst in Ottawa, but a response indicated that it was Lynn Huber.

"I presumed that it was a relative of Roy. The document said that there are fonts from the IBM that don't have the foot on the '4.'"

The e-mail also contained an attachment to possible Selectric fonts that indicated that the "4" had a foot, and the Air Force memo that indicated that the military purchase of such a machine was a possibility.

But since having had more time to analyze the fonts of the Selectric:

"We've looked into more and more IBM options and ... there are all kinds of things that say this isn't a typewriter."

--------------

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000859.php

[Shape Shifter]

If it is true that the recently released NG documents are forgeries, I am astonished at the speed with which the right wing bloggers were able to spot font discrepancies. Now it only remains to find the Scaife-funded sleazebag who planted them.