January 5th, 2005
Writing in response to both my and John Hinderaker’s criticisms of his own account of the CBS News-forged documents scandal, the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Corey Pein has sent an open letter to Romenesko.
Pein begins by saying “Many critics of my article on the CBS memos, the blogs, and the press have obviously not read it.” Well, now wait a minute–isn’t this just the sort of wild-eyed conclusion-jumping that Pein himself finds so objectionable in others? I mean, how could he prove whether or not someone has read his piece?
For my own part, I did read Pein in his entirety. Sadly, I can’t say that he returned the favor. Pein writes: “Last complains that I hold up David Hailey’s typographic study to show that the memos might be real. To prove that Hailey’s study was ‘debunked,’ Last cites the very bloggers who hounded Hailey–without compelling evidence of fraud.”
I’m afraid I neither use the word “debunked,” nor mention David Hailey in my piece–at all. Perhaps Pein is thinking of someone else.
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For me, the amazing part of Pein’s letter is the following:Powerline writes that the Killian memos do not resemble other 1973 Air Guard documents. Again, I am not saying the memos were produced in 1973. I’m saying we don’t know, and that the fact that the Killian documents don’t resemble some other documents from the period seems a week reed to prove anything. Ok, let’s grant that Pein can’t be bothered to understand Newcomer’s critique of Hailey. Fine. Even so, shouldn’t a journalism review consider the following questions: – Isn’t the fact that the Burkett documents don’t resemble *any* of the known authentic documents from that era a sign that they’re *probably* fake? – Given that the documents are probably fake, was it responsible for CBS (1) to run them even in the face of doubt from its own document examiners and then (2) to stonewall when the bloggers started pointing out red flags? – Was it responsible for CBS to assure its viewers that it had obtained the document from “unimpeachable sources” or “solid sources” when in fact the documents were obtained from Bill Burkett, who was a known anti-Bush partisan, and who claimed to have gotten the documents from a friend, particularly when CBS couldn’t get the friend to confirm the story?
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Derek, I don’t even agree that Pein’s right that the individual criticisms, taken individually, “don’t prove anything.” The question for a journalism review shouldn’t be whether the typeface proves to a metaphysical certainty that the documents were forged, it should be, given that “the Killian documents don’t resemble some other documents from the period,” was it responsible for CBS to (1) run the documents and (2) stonewall the criticism by misrepresenting their source? Finally, I’d note that Pein makes a key error in that sentence. When he says: [T]he fact that the Killian documents don’t resemble some other documents from the period, he’s vastly understating the case. In fact, the “Killian documents” don’t resemble ANY KNOWN DOCUMENTS from the period at all. Notwithstanding months of press, no one has located any 1972 documents that even resemble the “Killian documents.”
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Notwithstanding months of press, no one has located any 1972 documents that even resemble the “Killian documents.” two points. the first is that, insofar as the memos were not official documents, but “CYA” memos, there is no reason to think that they would resemble the official documents that are part of Bush’s official records.the second is that the White House withheld a document that, in fact, proves that typewriters used by the Texas Air National Guard was perfectly capable of producing the memos…go to page six of http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records/24sep04release.pdf(it should be noted, however, that there is no reason to insist that the memos were produced on Air National Guard equipment in 1972 and 1973—they could just have easily have been transcribed from Killian’s notes by a civilian friend of his. Given their subject matter—the dereliction of duty the son of a prominent and powerful Texas politician—Killian would have been smart to keep these documents away from the base…)
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P., I looked at those documents – and don’t notice any superscript “th”s, joined “fi”s, or curly-quotes. The typeface looks very different. All that’s similar about them, it seems to me, is the proportional typeface – and we’ve known from the start that there were a couple of typewriters capable of producing proportional type in the early ’70s.Jon, Pein was trying to construct a counter-narrative, and essential to his argument is the idea that we can’t really tell for certain whether the documents are fakes. And granted, we’ll never be able to know to a “metaphysical certainty.” But I think the bloggers & Newcomer’s analysis has proven it “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Perhaps we’ll learn more later today, no? In fairness to Pein, I don’t think he claimed 60 Minutes II acted responsibly.
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“I looked at those documents – and don’t notice any superscript “th”s, joined “fi”s, or curly-quotes. The typeface looks very different. All that’s similar about them, it seems to me, is the proportional typeface – and we’ve known from the start that there were a couple of typewriters capable of producing proportional type in the early ’70s.”actually, the initial claim was that the “proportional font” was a dead giveaway that the documents were faked, and later than changed to “the Air National Guard would not have had the “advanced technology” necessary to do proportionate fonts.It is, of course, a different font than that used in the Killian memos (the “J” is a dead giveaway) but the existence of “curly quotes” (actually apostrophes) in the Killian memo simply means that the font ball used had “curly” apostrophe’s. The “joined” “fi” is clearly a remnant of the copying process, and not indicative of anything of any significance (the “fi”‘s are no more joined than the the lower serifs on “m”s and “n”s are actually straight lines. And we already know that a “th” character was available–and that to raise it all you needed to do was move the roller up a bit.What is key about this document is that it shows that the technology necessary to create the Killian memos was readily available in 1971—and Hailey’s work clearly demonstrates that the document bears all the characteristics of a typed document, and none of the key characteristics found in documents created by either laser or inkjet printers (or dot matrix printers, for that matter.) The only question at this point was which type ball was used. “Jon, Pein was trying to construct a counter-narrative, and essential to his argument is the idea that we can’t really tell for certain whether the documents are fakes. And granted, we’ll never be able to know to a “metaphysical certainty.” But I think the bloggers & Newcomer’s analysis has proven it “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Perhaps we’ll learn more later today, no? In fairness to Pein, I don’t think he claimed 60 Minutes II acted responsibly” I would agree that CBS acted irresponsibly for failing to contact Conn (Burkett’s originally claimed source) and using an excuse the fact that he was “billeted” 🙂 in Europe. On some level (probably unconscious) CBS may have expected Conn to deny his role—with CBS assuming that Conn’s denial would be motivated by his desire to distance himself from the documents—and thus did not put the necessary effort into getting in touch with Conn. CBS “knew” that the documents were genuine because they fit so perfectly with all of the other known facts—including Hodges acknowledgement that they reflected Killian’s feelings at the time.And that is a key point. Hodges could have denied that Killian felt that way, or said that he did not know if the contents of the memos were consistent with Killian’s views. He did not do so. Hodges could also have denied the accuracy of specific factual information found in the documents—and given that the documents implicate Hodges in the cover-up of Bush’s dereliction, if the information was false one would have to assume that Hodges would have said so. But he did not. (And, as far as I know, has still not denied that the memos are an accurate description of events at that time. Hodges “refutation” of the memos is pretty much limited to the question of whether they are forgeries or not, and Hodges is not a forensic document examiner.)Unfortunately, Newcomer’s “analysis” is really not very good. He claims that the Killian memos are “nearly pixel matches”, when anyone can tell that they are completely different on a “pixel” level simply by looking at the examples he cites. Newcomer sets up straw men merely to knock them down, “proving” that the superscripted “th” found on an AF Form 11 is substantially different from that found in the memos–but CBS never claimed they were the same, merely some of the typewriters from that era included special that could be used for superscripting (all that a typist would have had to do to “raise” the superscript would be to move the roller a little bit. I’m old enough to remember having to do this when typing math papers, and having to move the roller to raise the “2” to show that a number was squared.)
Derek January 6, 2005 at 4:56 pm
[T]he fact that the Killian documents don’t resemble some other documents from the period seems a week reed to prove anything.Pein dismisses several key arguments against the Killian documents by saying that they don’t “prove anything.” And considered individually, he’s right – there’s no one piece of evidence that proves the documents are frauds. But when you look at the evidence in total, there’s only one conclusion to draw.