Robert Waldman — who deserves more readers! — has a nice post on The CBS Memos.
Robert's random thoughts: The debate about whether the alleged Killian memos are forgeries has its delights. Every geek dreams of the day in which fonts, superscripts, proportional spacing and kerning make the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Well not quite every geek. I consider myself a geek and I just learned what kerning is. Also the thought of total humiliation of George W Bush, Dan Rather or (most likely) both, must delight all right thinking people.
…
the alleged memos are not the first documents which suggest that Bush disobeyed a direct order. Back on St Valentime's day, Mark Kleiman noted that The Democratic Veteran linked to the order grounding Bush and James R Bath (you know Bush's link to the Bin Laden family) as posted by Martin at coldfeet@cis.net who I believe is a hero farmer in Iowa.
This order from the General Francis Greenlief (chief natinal guard bureau) grounds Bush and orders “Off will comply with para 2-10 AFM, 35-13.” This is an order from a major general. It is written in militareese. What exactly does para 2-10 AFM, 35-13 require ? The most reasonable guess is that it is an order to take a flight physical. This would mean that there is uncontested proof that Bush disobeyed a direct order. However, no one has replied to Kleiman's request for a 1972 Air Force Manual, so we don't know. The manual must be an archived document, so it seems to me that it would make more sense to look it up than to argue about kerns and superscripts.
My understanding is that the paragraph required Bush’s commanding officer to “direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination. Never seen the results of that investigation myself, tho, so maybe I’m crazy.
roberts rantdom thoughs
Though geeks may dream (or not) of gaining power and prestige by analysis of a faulty font, the fact is that this is a long and well established forensic (there’s another word for you to learn) science. Degrees used to be given in universities in it, and it has long been essential to distinguish between real and forged documents.
One way to tell a leftist is if they are contemptuous of any serious idea that shatters their personally concocted world view. Mockery is a stock tool of their deceitful trade. Though the science is real, it can’t be acknowledged as leftitimate (uh, legitimate), because that would mean they were wrong about something, and, as anyone with any common sense knows, that just isn’t possible.