Outside the Perimeter

The Dems Were For The Draft Before They Were Against It

When I was in New York for the big protest before this year's Republican National Convention, I was confused by some of the professionally printed signs that the protestors were carrying. The signs said "No Draft No Way". The organization that, I assume, had the signs printed have a web site here. Their "Draft Threat Advisory", by the way, is set at "Yellow, Significant Risk of Conscription." Here is a still from some of the video I took of the protest, so you can see one of the signs from this organization in evidence:

The old draft was abolished in 1973, and a new draft would require a new law. "Schoolhouse Rock" pounded into me at an early age the process where a bill becomes a law. The upshot is that a law for a new draft would have to be introduced and passed in both Houses of Congress. If the bill passed in both Houses, then the President could sign the bill into law.

Step number one of instituting a new draft has been accomplished. Not by President Bush or his minions - But by Democrats: Dem. Congressman Charley Wrangle introduced House Bill 163 and Dem. Senator "Fritz" Hollings introduced Senate Bill 89. (Note: You can look up both of the bills yourself, HB163 and SB89 here). Both of the bills seek to introduce a new draft.

So What Gives With the Kerry Stoking Fears of a Draft?

The irony of the protestors carrying the "No Draft, No Way" signs a few weeks ago was not lost on me. I had heard Rangel talk in the past about reestablishing a draft. I merely assumed that the people carrying the signs were your typical liberal lemmings - shove a sign and their hand, point them in the general direction of the protest, and watch them go.

However, what I did not know at the time is that this was the start of a trend. My next clue was an editorial by my favorite "progressive" columnist, Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He wrote just this week:

... the U.S. military will be able to take on new commitments only if it is significantly expanded. And that probably means a draft.

Note: I've been reading him for a couple of years, and Bookman is typically either slightly ahead of the curve or right there with the Democratic Party line.

Then later in the week, John Kerry's surrogates, including The Mad Doctor and Mini-Me, are saying that President Bush wants to reinstate the draft. Mini-Me said:

“America will reinstate the military draft” if Bush is re-elected and continues the Iraq War, (Max) Cleland predicted, according to an account of his speech by the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Later in the article, The Mad Doc speaks up:

Former Kerry rival Howard Dean, now traveling the country to drum up support for Kerry and raise money for Democratic candidates, said last week at Brown University in Providence, R.I., "I think that George Bush is certainly going to have a draft if he goes into a second term, and any young person that doesn't want to go to Iraq might think twice about voting for him."

One question: Just what the heck are these Democratic handmaidens talking about? It is their party mates in Congress who have been introducing bill to reinstate the draft. President Bush has never supported a draft. Donald Rumsfeld certainly does not think we should have a draft (quote from the same article as above):

“This country does not need a draft,” Rumsfeld told an Army sergeant who’d just returned from Iraq and asked about the draft at a town hall meeting in Fort Bliss, Texas on Aug. 23.

Noting the size of the U.S. population, more than 290 million people, Rumsfeld said, “If you add up everyone we are looking for in the active forces, 1.4 million and the Guard and Reserve and the selective reserve and individual ready reserve and if you add them all up, it’s about 2.5 million. And all you have to do is alter the incentives and we can attract and retain all the people we need. We do not need to go to compulsion.”

Obviously, this is the latest attempt by the Kerry campaign to make up some fake issue, with no basis in fact, to try to keep their loser of a candidate afloat.

This would be, as I count it, the third fake issue the Dems have raised in a week. Number One was "Operation Fortunate Son", with the rather unfortunate associated CBS scandal. scandal. Number Two was "The Other Guy has a secret plan". A plan that apparently only exists in John Kerry's imagination.

Now with the second revelation of a supposedly "secret plan of Bush" in one week, the Dems showing that they are all out of ideas. Of course, as the selection of John Kerry as their candidate demonstrates, this year has not been a good one for smart Democratic ideas.

Bias at the AJC? Can't Be.

As the Blind Pig, I love all kinds of pig sayings. One of my favorites is "A Guilty Pig Squeals the Loudest". The head squealer, Public Editor Mike King of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is squealing like he had his tail pulled in today's AJC in a column titled "Decisions not driven by any agenda" (registration required):

The CBS documents. Over the past week or so, as media bloggers on the Internet and mainstream news organizations have called into question the authenticity of the letter "60 Minutes II" used to question the special treatment President Bush allegedly received during his Air National Guard duty, callers and letter writers have asked why the AJC and other news organizations have not aggressively examined the veracity of CBS' reporting. Why hasn't it received the same scrutiny applied to the swift-boat veterans' campaign against Democratic candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service?

I would contend it has.

This reminds me of a joke: How do you make a blind pig laugh? Read him a Mike King column.

Here is the letter I wrote to Mr. King. Getting a response from him is 50/50 at best, but if I get a reply I'll let you know (Note: I xxx'ed out Mr. Shiver's phone number from this post):

Mr. King:

I’ll let you decide if the AJC practices bias or if it is simply incompetent.

For example, when the Swift Boat stuff was raging, the AJC published a column by William Rood (http://www.ajc.com/sunday/content/epaper/editions/sunday/issue_1482a191f3ba10330034.html) where basically agreed with Kerry’s version of one of the events brought up by the SBVTs.

On the other hand, the AJC published an article including accusations by Ben Barnes ( http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_140450b463c06219007e.html) accusing President Bush of getting special treatment to get into the National Guard.

Two high-ranking former Texas Air National Guardsman have spoken up in the last week answering questions about if Bush received special treatment. The first is Col. Earl Lively (Ret), the former Director of Operations of the Texas Air National Guard. Col. Lively, in an interview from this week, was asked if Bush jumped in front of several applicants to get a pilot’s slot with the Guard.

Col. Lively answered: “…I was the head of Operations. I was Director of Operations and I oversaw and inspected all of the units in Texas. Flew with them. And the, there was no waiting list for this. See, this is often confused with another thing. Which was a waiting list to simply enlist in the Guard and do your service their rather than in the regular military. And there were lots of people on those waiting lists. But those people weren't qualified to go to pilot training school.”

The second was one of the people quoted in the fake 60 minutes memo, Col. Walter Staudt, interviewed yesterday by ABC News. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/staudt_bush_040917-1.html)

In the interview, “Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. "No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard," he said. "It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody."

One naturally wonders why the AJC does publish rebuttal stories when they favor John Kerry, but does not publish rebuttal stories when they favor President Bush.

More Memo Questions

The first “media blogger on the Internet” who questioned the authenticity of the documents was someone called “Buckhead” who posted on the Internet site www.freerepublic.com. The real name of the person is Harry MacDougald, and he is an Atlanta attorney. One would assume, based on his user name, that “Buckhead” either lives or works in –wait for it- Buckhead. Does the AJC ever plan on trying the interview the person who started the firestorm over the memos? Since he is an Atlanta, one would think the AJC might have some interest in the story.

Next, an one of the experts quoted on other places on the Internet is Farrell C. Shiver, with Shiver & Nelson Document Investigation Laboratory based in Woodstock, GA. Mr. Shiver is certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners and is a member of American Society of Questioned Document Examiners; American Academy of Forensic Sciences Questioned Document Section; and the Southeastern Association of Forensic Document Examiners.

I realize that having a reporter drive all the way up to Woodstock to check out the accuracy of one of your stories is quite the chore. However, Mr. Shiver also has a phone. The number is 770-xxx-xxxx.

Finally, the smoking gun to many is the fact that one can type up the same words into Microsoft Word using the default settings, print the document, and then compare the new document to the CBS memos. For real bit of ol’ timey investigative journalism, go to Office Depot and buy some transparencies, and then print the new document on the transparency. Put the transparency over the matching memo and presto – an exact match. I know the AJC has at least one PC and a copy of MS Word lying around somewhere, so this would be a very easy, and cheap, bit of investigative journalism. I am sure some of the IT folks at the AJC would have been more than happy to have helped if you guy could not have figured out the what the joke of a CBS “computer expert” called the “th setting”.

But the AJC did not do any of these things. So I ask you – incompetence or bias?

Update: Looking back over the letter, I had some typos. That's what I get for writing when I have not yet had my second cup of coffee.

Look For the Union Label!

The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades has a great program, called The Patch Foundation:

The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades established the PATCH (Painters and Allied Trades for Children's Hope) Foundation to improve the lives of children in need and to ensure that their futures are bright and productive.

IUPAT, as an international coalition of working men and women, understands that our children are not only our most precious resource, but also the key to a prosperous future. We recognize the important role we can play in bringing the best into our children's lives.

And just how is IUPAT getting out their message of the importance of children? By making them cry:

Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va.

On the left of the picture, with what appears to part of the child's plastic sign, is a jeering IUPAT member.

Remember, for your sign of quality political thuggery, be sure to look for the union label.

Update: There is an interview with the father in the Washington Times:

"We stood there quietly while Senator Edwards went through the receiving line," he said. Then, as the North Carolina Democrat prepared to leave, Mr. Parlock said, "I took out a few Bush-Cheney signs, gave one to Alex, and Sophia and I held up one jointly."

Immediately, he said, the family was set upon by supporters of Mr. Edwards and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry — "mostly the painters union guys" — who "started stealing my signs." Soon, "old women and college students joined in the fracas," said Mr. Parlock, describing himself as "strictly a volunteer, grass-roots supporter" of the president. Mr. Parlock ran unsuccessfully for his local school board this year.

Mr. Parlok has a son and another daughter in the National Guard, with a third child to be sworn into the National Guard tommorrow. In other words, the three older siblings are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the freedom of speech of the thugs who attacked their three-year old sister.

Ironic does not begin to describe this. Morally repulsive is more like it.

Another Update:

This is a bit disturbing also. The logo for the PATCH foundation run by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades is a lion with children on his sholder:

Update: The President of the IUPAT issues an apology:

The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades believes in the fundamental right for civil discourse, freedom of speech and activism to support our candidates and issues.

What happened in Huntington, West Virginia yesterday is an affront to everything we, as a union, pride ourselves to represent. We extend our apologies to the Parlock family, especially Sophia, for the distress one of our overzealous members caused them.

I have personally taken steps to address this issue internally, and will take immediate disciplinary action to the fullest extent allowed under U.S. Department of Labor regulations and the constitution of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

It is my hope that this incident reminds all of our members that every last citizen in this country has the right to express his or herself freely. Not one single one of us has the right to tell them otherwise.

General President James A. Williams
The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades

Good for him!

Surprise! Conservatives Don't Like to Watch Partisan Hack Jobs

To sum up - Dan Rather broadcasts some fake memos to support a pet theory on a topic that no one really cares about. Should this come as a surprise to anyone?

NIELSEN numbers released this week show Rather fading and trailing his rivals in every Top 10 city, other than San Francisco, with audience margins in some cities running more than 6 to 1 against CBS!

Executives fear many voters inclined to vote for Bush are now switching off Rather.

To be clear - when your news broadcast becomes the TV equivalent to "Fahrenheit 9/11", the only ones who will want to watch are those seeking to slake their Bush-hating thirst with a refreshing dose of Kool-Aid.

The Ranks of Forensic Wordologists Swell

Outside the Perimeter commenter Stephen brings up a good point:

In Microsoft Word, the spacing between number 1s is fixed, at the same spacing as all other numbers, such that they line up when making columns of numbers. The letter l spacing is not fixed, since it is just another letter. Since the letter l is so thin, it has a very small spacing and tends to look like it is practically adjacent to other letters, especially next to other letter ls.

This directly refutes my theory that the forger used a lower case "L" instead of a "1" to trick Microsoft Word.

As any good Forensic Wordologist would, I tested my own theory by doing some animated GIF nerd stuff. This picture was made up of two screen shots. The text "111th" in black is a screen shot of the original Bush memo. The text "111th" in red is a screen shot of the number "111th", using all number "1"s, from Microsoft Word. Watch the GIF and you can see that Stephen is right: the character spacing from the Word doc is an almost exact match for the character spacing from the 60 Minutes memo:

This fact does blow part of my theory: That the forger used a lower case "L" in the place of a number "1" to trick Microsoft Word's Autoformat As You Type (AAYT). I now think that the forger was not quite as ignorant as I thought, as they figured out a way to get around AAYT that was not quite as crude. Perhaps he or she used Undo or Backspace after typing in the text and after it automatically superscripted. Either method would remove the automatic superscript and allow the person to forge ahead with the rest of the document.

The dictates of Forensic Wordology, which I am of course making up as I go along, leads me to believe that the forger was at the very least sloppy. Perhaps because he or she was in a hurry.

Finally, as Stephen points out:

So, there are two possibilities, as I see it.
1) These memos were typed on typewriters too ancient to have a separate number
one key, so number ones had to be typed as letter ls. However, the same
typewriter is so sophisticated that it knows what the typist is thinking and
gives proper spacing to the letter l depending on whether you meant to type a
letter l or a number 1.
2) These memos are poor forgeries typed in Microsoft Word.

Congratulations, Stephen, on pushing back the frontiers of Forensic Wordology. Your official certificate welcoming you to the ranks will be on its way today!

I hate to say I told you so

Actually, I don't. In one of my previous posts, I theorized that the forger of the now infamous Rathergate memos used a lower case "L" instead of the numeral "1" to trick Microsoft Word into not automatically superscripting number/letter combinations. I even included a screen shot in an yet earlier post of both so people could see for themselves.

Now, from Captain's Quarter's Blog comes a quote (orginally fromRatherBiased) from Dan Rather:

Rather: Richard katz, a software designer found other indications in the documents. He noticed the lower case l is used in documents instead of the actual numeral one. That would be difficult to reproduce on the computer today. If you were doing this a week ago or a month ago on a normal laser jet printer, it wouldn't work. The font wouldn't be available to you.

I hate to gloat (no I don't), but what the heck was Dan Rather talking about? "That would be difficult to reproduce on a computer today."

Sure, Dan, all one would have to do is to open Microsoft Word, using the default font of Times New Roman, press "1" and the keyboard and then press "L". Prestidigito! - two different characters that look virtually the same. Of course, I suppose one could mess up with the Caps Lock or something. That might make it slightly harder.

Rather has descended into somewhat of a joke on this.

I, on the other hand, am feeling pretty good. I think I am going to start calling myself a "Forensic Wordologist". Any objections?

Update: I'll admit it. I am rather amused by the computer "expert" that was on CBS News tonight. You can read the transcript here. I did learn something. I never know that a computer generally, or MS Word specifically, had a "'th' setting". I'll look for it in Word help later.

But what was interesting was this (emphasis mine):

RATHER: There has also been criticism of the new documents obtained by CBS. But CBS used several techniques to make sure these papers should be taken seriously. Talking to handwriting and document analysts and other experts who strongly insist that the documents could have be created in the 70s.

Not, "were created in the 70s". Interesting.

Finally, somebody asks the right question

I'm watching Fox and Friends this morning, and finally I saw someone ask the right question about President Bush being able to get into the guard as a pilot. They were also asking the right person, Col. Earl Lively (Ret), Texas Air National Guard. Col. Lively was the Director of Operations for the TANG at the time. Here is a transcript of the question and the answer:

E.D. Hill: One of the other claims is that President Bush, because of his connections, was able to, in essence, jump in front of hundreds of applicants. Now, you were the head of the Texas National Guard at that time. Did a significant number of people meet the requirements for the physical, educational, and security needs to even apply for the specific position that Bush took?

Col. Lively: No. Actually, I wasn't the head of the Air National Guard. But I was the head of Operations. I was Director of Operations and I oversaw and inspected all of the units in Texas. Flew with them. And the, there was no waiting list for this. See, this is often confused with another thing. Which was a waiting list to simply enlist in the Guard and do your service their rather than in the regular military. And there were lots of people on those waiting lists. But those people weren't qualified to go to pilot training school.

Now, in the course of reading all this stuff, I discovered that Lt. Bush took the Air Force Pilot and Officer examinations while he was still at Yale finishing up. So obviously he was looking for a place to be a pilot.

And, the personnel. Some of the distortion on this came out four years ago when this story first surfaced, because some people had been in personnel in the Air National Guard, including lower ranking officers in my headquarters gave improper information to the Los Angeles Times, who had come out with the original story. And the Times reporter reported erroneous information - not his fault but theirs.

E.D. Hill: So there was no waiting list? Therefore there was no list - people he could have jumped in front of?

Col. Lively: Well, there was a long waiting list to just simply enlist in the Guard as a basic airman. But to go in as an officer and go off to flying training. You don't go to Air Force Pilot training unless you really want to fly. Number one, you have to risk your life to do it.

Contrast this with the coverage the New York Times gave Ben Barnes, who said he got Bush into the Guard:

"I'm not particularly proud of what I did," said Mr. Barnes, who in the 1960's was speaker of the Texas House at 26 and lieutenant governor at 30. "While I understand why parents wanted to shield their sons from danger, I abused my position of power by helping only those who knew me or had access to me."

Mr. Barnes, 66, an adviser to Senator John Kerry's campaign and an influential lobbyist with offices in Austin and Washington, said in a interview with The New York Times that he had intervened to get Mr. Bush, as well as other well-connected young men, into the Guard in 1968. He made similar comments on "60 Minutes" on Wednesday.

Mr. Barnes maintained, as he has since 1999, that he had contacted his friend who headed the Texas Air National Guard, Brig. Gen. James Rose, not at the behest of anyone in the Bush family, but rather a Houston businessman, Sidney A. Adger, a friend of the Bushes who has died.

"Yes, I called Rose to get George Bush into the Guard, I've said that," Mr. Barnes said in his office last week in Austin. "I called Rose for other sons of prominent families, and I'm not proud of it now."

Did the vaunted New York Times even bother to ask is their WAS a waiting list for Texas Air National Guard pilots? Or are they, along with plenty of other ignorants, just assuming that there was?

Maybe the Times should have bothered to ask someone who was in a position to actually know, rather than a top Kerry fundraiser.