From the headline in USA Today this morning:

President Bush has surged to a 13-point lead over Sen. John Kerry among likely voters, a new Gallup Poll shows. The 55%-42% match-up is the first statistically significant edge either candidate has held this year.

Personally, I'm not quite convinced. Other national polls (Pew, Ras, etc.) have recently shown Bush with only a small lead, often within the margin of error. But Gallup's always been The Big One, and unless their polling is way, way off this time, I'd say the Democrats have to be a little worried.

Of course, as the USA Today piece points out, Bush himself was 10 points behind Gore in some polls around this time, and barely squeaked out a win (though, admittedly, on somewhat of a technicality.) And, as we all remember, Kerry was an "also-ran", in single digits in the polls, in the Democratic primaries, and surged out of nowhere at the end to clinch the nomination once the Dean candidacy fell apart.

Still, this has to make Kerry rethink his tactics a bit. The bottom line: voters just don't care about what you or Bush did 30-35 years ago. Some have claimed the Swift Vets ads have been partially responsible for Kerry's slide, but I don't buy it -- I haven't met a single person who changed their vote or preference based on those ads, and I think everyone recognizes that they need to be taken with a grain of political salt. But that's why the National Guard controversies on Bush's end are even less significant -- this is old news about old news. All these allegations were debated ad nauseum four years ago and hardly anything new has surfaced (even if the CBS docs had been genuine). Most people acknowledge that, by his own admission, Bush was a bit of a f$&k-up before he turned his life around at 40. So whether he, like so many other wealthy well-connected people at the time, got a bit of help to get into the National Guard, well, people seem to understand that. And if Kerry exaggerated injuries to go home from Vietnam a bit early, people seem to understand that too. The general sentiment from nearly everyone I talk politics with is "we don't care about all that. We're in a war now. We have issues now."

Kerry's stuck; he was a senator for twenty years -- his only real career. Anyone else in his position would run on that record. But he can't, because he holds too many positions now which were in conflict with his senate voting history then (which, to be fair, was also often in conflict with itself, too.) And he can't go into the war too much because he voted for it, and recently said even if he knew everything he knows today, he still would have supported it -- and above that would like to increase the number of troops in Iraq and the years spent there.

It's all quite sad, really, because I think there are some real issues a strong candidate against Bush could shed light on, most importantly (1) Bush's shockingly un-conservative fiscal policies and (2) Bush's Iraqi Foreign Minister-esque "everything's peachy" rose-colored glasses view of Iraq. Alas, Kerry is so weak and spineless and without integrity, he has nothing to say on these issues that wouldn't come back to hurt him. Which is why he'll lose.

"Yesterday, CBS issued a statement defending its reporting, but vowing to 'make every effort to resolve the contradictions and answer the unanswered questions about the documents.' Among those unanswered questions, why the f$&k didn't you check them before you broadcast it?" - Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, 9-16-04

The official CBS position, as I understand it, is now this: Yes, the documents may have been forgeries, but the story itself is true so it doesn't really matter. These people are so out of touch its frightening. If a major network knowingly published and defended fraudulent documents designed to sway a presidential election, that is the story.

Stop60Minutes.com now has the most updated 60 Minutes advertiser list available, including links to contact information for individual CBS station owners and major CBS/Viacom shareholders. Drudge is reporting that CBS executives are concerned about the lower ratings and worried they've essentially alienated half the country. Independent efforts such as email drives and advertiser boycotts are essential if we don't want to let this kind of thing happen again. People only do what they think they can get away with, after all.

I was proud to be one of the first blogs to detail this issue, and to my knowledge the only major blog to date to offer money to any individual who can reasonably recreate the Killian memos on a typewriter available in 1972.

As of 7:00pm Thursday, the amount pledged to the first person to do this stands at over $50,000.

More than 70,000 unique visitors have perused this site in recent days, and hundreds of individuals have tried to recreate the memos with 1970s technology. (You can bet CBS tried for days to do this, as well.) No one has been successful, and many of the most vehement deniers of CBS wrongdoing have emailed me to share that they've come around to the other side.

For those of you new to this site and/or this controversy, I'd humbly recommend you scroll back through our archives for useful links and information. However, though I have extensive education and expertise in typography and visual design, I'd take the word of the hundreds of document experts, IBM and Microsoft employees, TrueType designers, typesetters, typographers, and others who have come out against CBS on this issue. (Even the document experts CBS initially contacted believed the memos were forgeries, and urged CBS not to air the story.) To date, I know of no significant expert who believes the documents are genuine; the best CBS has is one or two people that believe it's "inconclusive." This is perhaps the most persuasive site I've seen: http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm, but there are hundreds of others, of which I will compile a list shortly. The three blogs who seem to have the most useful links to all sources are Little Green Footballs, Shape of Days, and Power Line, though many national news outlets (even very left-leaning ones) such as ABC News and The Washington Post have come to the same conclusions.

Of course, you don't have to have to take the word all the PhD's and professors and typesetters and experts. Simply open up Microsoft Word on your own computer and, with default margins and fonts and settings and not changing a thing, type out the content in this memo.

Quick Update: Sorry, have to share this -- I just found out that we actually sold our first defeatjohnjohn.com THONG. I kid you not. (For more defeatjohnjohn.com t-shirts, mugs, teddy bears, and yes even thongs, click here.)

Sorry to take a day off on you all, but my eyes were glazing over from all of this. :) I'm glad that Rather has finally acknowledged there are serious problems and doubts with the memos (took him long enough). We'll see what comes in the next few days, and I'll post my thoughts tomorrow.

Almost over, I think!

The number of people who believe the Killian memos are "real" diminishes every day. Even some of those who emailed me so passionately and fervently at the beginning have now changed their minds (or gone into hiding). All the people who went out and purchased Selectrics and Composers and Executive Model Ds have either written me saying "you were right, it couldn't be done" or stopped corresponding altogether. The vast majority of national document experts are now in consensus. Save for a few stubborn hold-outs, all on the Forgery Denial side will have to admit they were duped within the next couple of days. Even CBS' own staff, if we're to believe certain "insider reports", is screaming for the network to fess up.

You know things are bad when not one major network can find an expert willing to vouch for CBS on this one. Check out this ABC News story, which confirms that even the documentation experts CBS hired told the network they were likely forgeries and urged the network not to air the story. The networks and major newspapers are finally coming around to what the blogosphere (Kos excluded, of course) discovered nearly a week ago.

And yes, for one of the first times, blog writers (the "pajamanati", if you will) were not merely reporting on existing news, but driving a new story itself, discrediting one of the oldest televised news institutions in the process. To say this was a significant week for internet journalism is a bit of an understatement.

Power Line had a clear, simple synopsis of what must have happened:

CBS consulted a group of experts, and all but one said the documents were a fraud. CBS took the opinion they liked and ran with it, slandering President Bush in hopes that they could help John Kerry win the election. It's all sickeningly clear. Except it's even worse than that: the "expert" referred to in CBS's statement, who supposedly was the basis for the story, was Marcel Matley, who has gone to great lengths to disassociate himself from the 60 Minutes piece, and will tell anyone willing to listen that he did not authenticate the documents.

This, combined with the official statements today by Killian's secretary (that "these are not real," that Killian would never have typed them himself and she certainly didn't type them, pointing out that "the language and terminology" did not match what he or she would have used) really seals this for anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty.

I suppose I shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched -- CBS could drag this out for days longer, or even weeks or months, if it desires to become more of a national joke. But at least today's developments make all the long hours and sleepless nights and interviews and research seem worth it.

(Of course, if it does all end in the next couple of days, it'll be too bad, because I was really looking forward to finishing my stop60minutes.com website.)

In closing, I think my favorite quote so far in all of this came from Frank Abagnale Jr., the real life forgery expert depicted in the Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can: "If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been Catch Me In Two Days." And to think, the bloggers only needed two hours.

Now, the new topic: are the allegations and whispers true that anti-Bush fanatics at moveon.org were responsible, did Kerry know, did CBS know, etc. (I guess we'll still have something to debate on this issue after all!)

"Bush is a rich man in the White House who is sending black men and women to be slaughtered in Iraq while Cheney and Halliburton boys get rich on oil," allege the latest anti-Bush advertisements. "Don't keep getting played. Bush has a plan for America -- but you're not part of it."

(Ah, because surely an even richer, whiter, more elitist Massachusetts career politician is more in touch with the African-American community. But I digress.)

In addition to being racist (can you imagine if the Republicans put out ads that tried to talk 'street'?), the ads are a best a gross exaggeration, much like Michael Moore used in Fahrenheit 9/11, repeatedly claiming that the military was overwhelmingly minorities while somehow being unable to find anybody but white guys to talk to on camera. Now, is it true that there is a higher black representation in the armed forces? A bit, because there's a higher proportion of African-Americans in the working classes and a higher proportion of military recruits come from that economic profile. But the problem isn't as bad as you might think: young military-age blacks make up 13% of all military-age adults, and although they account for a somewhat disporoprtionately high 21% of the entire enlisted force, they make up "only 15% of combat arms (e.g., infrantry, armor, artillery)" according to the Department of Defense. So I guess if Bush is really sending black men and women "to be slaughtered", at least he's doing it within the racial proportions of the country.

Creating a culture of fear and hate among the black community (so the Democrats can continue taking their votes for granted) is not now, and never has been, a sign of respect for that community. It is a sign of contempt, and racist belittlement. Listen to or watch these ads, and think about who's "getting played", really.

Kerry refused to back a ban on all so-called "527's", wanting the White House to only condemn anti-Kerry groups -- leaving all the hate-filled anti-Bush bile intact. I'm sorry, but the Democrats don't get to complain about Swift Vet ads or Cheney's "scare tactics" if they run trash like this, literally terrifying blacks that Bush is slaughtering their sons and daughters so he can have a whites-only America. Both sides should be sickened.

Last night, Jon Stewart (The Daily Show, Comedy Central) praised us humble "Helveticologists" (his term for those scrambling to uncover the truth about the disputed CBS Killian memos) for finally talking about "this year's most pivotal election issue: typography." This is why The Daily Show remains the funniest show on television. That, and because Rob Corddry offered this in defense of President Bush: "In these difficult times, do you really want a President who wasn't smart enough to get out of going to Vietnam?"

It's nice to sit back and laugh a bit at how ridiculous this all is. We're trying to pick the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet, and we're not only still bickering about things that happened thirty years ago, but at least one party seems determined to base the entire election on it. Yes, there are new reports that the Democrats are going to use Bush's debatable National Guard service as the pivotal issue to drive all of their upcoming ads and campaign speeches and talking points.

Oh. My. God.

What the hell is wrong with us? (And by "us" I include those on both sides who are trying to fight this election as if CS&N still had their Y.) Has anyone looked out the window lately? Has anyone been keeping up on Iraq or North Korea or the Middle East? Or even our own economy, health care, education, the environment, or the assault weapons ban which at least Bush promised to sign if renewed but that the Republicans felt wasn't worth renewing, on -- and I kid you not -- the very same day that government statistics confirm that violent crime, particularly gun crime, is at it its lowest rate in recorded history? (Hey, I may not like Bush's opponent, but I'm a little sensitive/pissed on that particular issue, "matter of principle" or not.)

Yes, you can rightfully blame John Kerry for opening the door on this. He decided to run as a Vietnam hero rather than a senator of twenty years, ignoring his long and distinguished career entirely, in favor of bragging about war medals he may or may not have thrown away. And he's responsible for this embarassing, ridiculous rehash over whether the President fulfilled the true 100% of his Guard service (instead of only the documented 95%), as if we haven't heard it all before.

Rob Corddry nailed the key controversy tonight that everyone is so shocked -- shocked! -- over: that Bush may have been a child of *gasp* privilege, and may have even had *gasp* strings pulled to get an easier Vietnam assignement! WOW! Thank you Dan Rather, that is news. Really, the saddest part about all of this is that even if every word of the memos is true... well, let's be honest. There's not a person among us on either side who didn't know or suspect that anyway.

Oh golly, stop the presses. Bush got special treatment because he was wealthy and well-connected. I had no idea. Really.

And yet.

The reason this I still think this is all a Very Big Deal isn't because of the content of the now almost assuredly forged memos. No, it's due to the very scary chance that the highest rated broadcast network, on one of the highest rated news shows in the country, would fabricate evidence (or refuse to fact-check fabrications given them) to help a political buddy have a better shot at the White House. Had 60 Minutes run their story without the forged documents, it would have had maybe a day of watercooler time, and everyone would have shrugged and said "well, yeah, I knew that" and went back to work. And that's what gets me. 60 Minutes didn't need the memos to tell their partisan story. But they got greedy. And, thankfully, they got burned.

We put up with a lot in this country when it comes to our news. We put up with the New York Times never ever ever ever saying a single thing positive about a Republican (other than McCain.) We put up with Bill O'Reilly promising his guests "the last word" and then shouting over their closing statements. We put up with a lot of unprofessional, unhelpful, uber-partisan anti-intellectual crap. We as a society are all to blame. We refuse to, in essence, "draw the line."

To be perfectly honest, I don't think Bush completed 100% of his service. I do think he was AWOL for at least a month or two. I do think he was brought up in privilege, used it to his advantage, and got out of the whole Vietnam thing relatively easy. Yeah, it sucks. But, ya know, it's not exactly news, either.

CBS News, on the other hand, in my estimation, perpetrated a demonstrable fraud against the nation with regards to the "Killian memos". There is overwhelming evidence that this was done with malicious intent, a conscious move to sway an election toward a particular candidate. When exposed, the producers at 60 Minutes, in an incredible show of arrogance, decided that 99% of national document experts were wrong, refusing to even allow an internal investigation.

This is worse than anything Bush may or may not be guilty of.

For all my conversations with IBM specialists and Composer experts and Executive Model D enthusiasts and professional typographers and documentation theorists and Adobe TrueType programmers, I've become very, very confident that the CBS memos were created within the past two years (they don't even match up with Word 97 or Word 2000, after all -- they only match up with Word 2002 and up, after Microsoft implemented the newest Adobe codecs). Yes, technology in 1972 could have created the Killian memos in the sense that, well, duh, professional typesetters could make a document look like anything they wanted to since the early part of last century. But I don't think it could be reasonably argued that Lt. Col Killian sat down at a typesetting machine (remember, the Composer was one of those deals where the paper didn't move, the carriage did, and many things had to be typed twice -- once for measurement, and then once to engage the keys) and typed out the CBS memos. It is just not believeable. If the CBS documents came from a regular typewriter, hey, sure, I'd probably believe them. But they didn't. And I can't stand by and let a network get away with what I see as clear manipulative lying to the American public to try and sway us to vote for a candidate that CBS/Viacom has given a hell of a lot of money to. If we ever let CBS help rig an election for Kerry, or Fox News and the Swift Vets help rig an election for Bush, we're in a lot more trouble than any $10,000 prize is going to cover.

I'm not naive. We're probably lied to a lot by the mainstream press. On all sorts of issues. And most of the time, there isn't any evidence to prove otherwise. But this time, there is evidence. And we cannot back down from this. There isn't a court of law in this country that would have admitted the Killian documents as evidence. (Ask a lawyer or two; I have.) This is fraud. It cannot stand, regardless of how you feel about the candidate it helps or hurts.

Consider this. Right now, the media is pretty unquestioningly anti-Bush (except for Fox, who for all their high ratings really only reach a tiny perecentage of the country who already agree with them, anyway.) Bush is a spin genius. He's able to twist and manipulate words and meanings and phrases better than anyone. It's amazing what he's able to get away with, especially with a hostile media force. Now imagine if Kerry becomes President. The "check and balance" is gone. At least the media being mostly liberal serves a somewhat useful purpose when all three branches of government are under conservative control. But what if we had a President which the media is willing to sacrifice anything -- even their own integrity -- to elect and support? Where's the counter? Where's the balance? Bush can't get away with too much because he's in a state of constant check. Kerry wouldn't be. And Kerry is a man who has proven he'll say anything, do anything, for increased political power and persuasion. He doesn't want a "check", unless its a blank one. If you think things are bad now, just wait until the increasingly sad and shallow mainstream media has their own elected puppet (or, perhaps more accurately, puppeteer.)

I am risking a hell of a lot with my $10,000 challenge, because as anyone who knows me can attest, I am absolutely committed to paying it if proven wrong. I am 27 years old. I have been successful in my career (graphic design with instruction in typography and typographical analysis, by the way, lest you think I'm always talking out of my ass here). I own a house I adore. I even like my car. Yes, I am dramatically in credit card debt, like most people in my generation, to say nothing of continued college debt from studying Computer Science and Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon University and Michigan State University, respectively. But I managed to save about $8,000, and, when I was deciding whether I really wanted to sacrifice it all for a cause I believed in, moved most of my checking account into there as well, to total $10,000, lawyerized and everything, ready to give it all, if necessary. I have spent the last 96 hours on the phone and email with every expert I could find, wanting to learn and understand all I could about this issue before deciding to act. And if I am proven wrong, I'll suck it up and empty my accounts, you can count on it. It's all nice and legal on my end right now, just in case.

But I don't think I'm wrong. I think I'm right. I think the evidence is on my side. I think the fact that everyone has failed so far, despite hundreds if not thousands of people trying 24/7 to recreate these memos, is a damned good sign. I am not cocky (would you be, if your savings were on the line?) But I believe in what I've learned, through years of education, through years of my career, and through the last few days of talking with the most brilliant people I can find.

I believe with all my heart and logical mind that the Killian memos are forgeries. It may be a little "stand" in the grand scheme of things, but it's mine. And I will continue to work my ass off finding more and more evidence until CBS admits what they've done. You have my word.

Yes, yes, I know it's cheating, but I realized I couldn't really have a "Kerry Khronicle" without Kerry in it, so I gave my most recent comic a more Kerry-filled (and better) ending. Enjoy!

In the past few days, more than 50,000 unique visitors have stumbled upon this website, due to the national attention surrounding the infamous Killian memos. Most of these visitors came after my initial offering of a $10,000 cashiers check to the first person who could exactly (and reasonably) reproduce the memos on technology available in 1972. While there has been some good debate as to the nature of what constitutes "reasonable", the general consensus seems to be this: the only "typewriter" which could create documents that look like the Killian memos is the IBM Selectric Composer typesetting machine, and that machine has been deemed inadequate to have created the memos by the nation's leading authorities on the Selectric line. At this time, after careful analysis of all available evidence, the belief that the CBS memos were created in 1972 cannot be rationally supported with any degree of intellectual honesty.

Amazingly, my email was flooded with not only people trying to claim the prize, but individuals who so strongly shared my belief that the documents were forgeries that they too, pledged significant amounts of money to the challenge. As of now, including my initial $10,000, the amount pledged stands at $37,900.

These were not just idle "me too"s. Some people sent financial information, their home address and phone number for verification, the address and phone number of their employer, their checking account routing numbers, and even at least one social security number!

Of course, I cannot assure that all or even any of the dozens and dozens of "contributions" would ever be honored (other than my own). But I am very humbled and flattered at the offering, and in the unlikely event someone does satisfy the requirements of the challenge, they will receive a list of the names and addresses of all others who publicly offered funds as well. (At this time, if anyone would like to be removed from the pledge list, contact me as soon as possible at defeatjohnjohn@hotmail.com.)

As the firestorm has wound down a touch, this site will eventually be getting back to the more pressing issue of keeping John Kerry out of the White House. :) I have therefore started http://stop60minutes.com/ to chronicle and catalog all the information we've collected here, including information about the monetary challenge.

A few of you have also emailed me asking how you could donate to this site directly, to keep us up and running. Whereas initially I waved away these very sweet offers, the increased bandwidth and hosting costs of this site, ludicrosity.com, and stop60minutes.com, are a valid issue. Therefore, if you feel that you've gotten a dollar or two's worth of enjoyment or information from us in the past few days, would like to see us continue, or think we're certain to fail on our $10,000 challenge and want to donate because you feel sorry for us :) , please consider leaving a bit in our site tip jar. Any donations will go right back into site operations and costs, and I'd be your friend forever. You can use Paypal (the first link) or Amazon, and the donation will go to Addis Enterprises (my DBA):

Again, I want to thank all of you for what has largely been an intelligent, spirited, and respectful discussion on all sides. I hope to see some of you stick around for the Presdential debates, and thanks for the entertaining and enlightening weekend.

I'll admit it, this PC Magazine article gave me a little heart attack at first. But part of why it seems so convincing is in what it leaves out. In a way, the author chose a very telling piece of text as his example -- did anyone so eager to share this development actually read what the text said? The whole manual is like that -- every possible thing we take for granted (centering text, superscripting, justification, etc.) was an extraordinarily complex procedure on the Selectric. (In fact, most of the people who are claiming the Selectric could have written the memos are actually referring to the IBM Electronic Selectric Composer, not the regular Selectric Composer; the Electronic Selectric came out in 1975.)

But for the sake of argument, lets use PC Magazine's actual examples on top of each other, and then another paragraph taken at random (Flash required).



By clicking on any of the three text blocks, you will see an animation between the IBM Selectric output and the best possible matching with Microsoft Word. For the bottom two examples, to be fair, I tried it two ways -- once with 12pt Times New Roman at default spacing, and once with 11pt Times New Roman at 1.1 spacing (otherwise it wouldn't have lined up at all.)

It's not really so much an issue of kerning, but one of tracking -- Microsoft Word tracks character spacing differently than IBM did. Look, for example, at the bottom right box. Don't pay attention so much to the fact that the Microsoft 12pt is a touch wider, but look at how it lays in an uneven ratio to other text. For example, the letter "a" on the last word in the third line is above the "p" in "permit" in the Word example, but above the "l" in "will" in the Selectric example. On the sixth and seventh lines, the word "guide" is behind the word "paper" in the Word example, but ahead in the Selectric example. This is the same in the 11pt box, too. (Even in the justified example, where the tracking differences are less distinct, watch how the "D" in "Dial" on the last line jumps before and after the "a" in the line above.)

These are subtle differences, yes -- but remember, there are no such differences between the Killian memos and Microsoft Word. The fact that the Selectric could create text that looks pretty close to the Killian memos doesn't cut it -- Microsoft Word still looks closer. And, as you recall, the contest required that someone: "create a document that looks as much (or more) like the alleged forgeries than does a Microsoft Word document with default fonts and margins." Those who think proving a Selectric could do most or even all of the things required for the Killian memos are missing the point -- if it doesn't look as much or more like Microsoft Word, it's moot.

My guess is that the author of the PC Mag piece specifically chose the justified example because it hid some of the tracking concerns. But since none of the Killian memos are justified, it strikes me as a pretty disingenuous argument.

Editor's note: The last frame of this comic has changed since it was placed online originally; I realized I shouldn't have a "Kerry Khronicle" without Kerry! The new ending's funnier anyway, I think, though if you want to see the original you can go here.