This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Killian documents controversy/Archive 8 page. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
|
I've WP:ARCHIVEd this page (because it was getting way too long), but copied the sections that seem to have on-going discussion here. If you wish to reopen one of the discussions I didn't copy, you can in decreasing order of preference
Remember: this page is for discussing improvements to the Killian documents article, not for general discussion. Cheers, CWC 11:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Missing from the Aftermath section is the "reassignment" of Sr Producer Esther Kartiganer, [1] who sued CBS as a result. [2] No time to add this myself...but the story element is readily Googled. Andyvphil 14:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The section "Initial Skepticism" doesn't explicitly cover the initial lack of skepticism in MSM. See the AP Story [3] with it's repetition of the misidentificaltion of Stoudt as heading TANG. And see [4] (search for "Washington Post"). The significance of this story is that that was overcome, so the initial gullibility/resistance maybe needs to be covered better? Andyvphil 13:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to make a general warning on this page about avoiding personal attacks (such as [5] and [6]). Everyone in this discussion should also realize that Wikipedia's WP:BLP policy does indeed apply to article talk pages, as some people on this page have already stated. Anyone repeatedly violating these policies could be blocked. Best,-- Alabamaboy 17:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
It appears now that some of the people who have been attacking me in one way or the other perhaps have been doing so for reasons beyond what was represented: they are apparently supporters, or perhaps even members, of the Little Green Footballs blog site. Since LGF via Charles Johnson was one of the main instigators of the forgery charges, and since some of my cites undercut both Johnson's CYA memo experiment and his credibility, that would create a clear conflict of interest for this Wiki topic and a violation of WP:COI:
A Wikipedia conflict of interest is an incompatibility between the purpose of Wikipedia, to produce a neutral encyclopedia, and the aims of individual editors. These include editing for the sake of promoting oneself, other individuals, causes, organizations, companies, or products, as well as suppressing negative information, and criticizing competitors.
You know who you are -- please recuse yourself from any further editing here unless you intend to follow the official Wikipedia policy for this situation:
If you feel the need to edit Wikipedia articles despite a real or perceived conflict of interest, we strongly encourage you to submit content for review on the article's talk page or file a request for Comment, and let trusted community members judge whether the material belongs in Wikipedia.
FYI. Callmebc 22:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I have blocked Callmebc from editing for 72 hours for various policy violations. To other editors, my general recommendation about how to handle WP:COI is to declare affiliations in your own user space and exercise personal restraint at relevant articles. The safest route where COI is obvious (such as an article about one's place of employment) is to post material and citations to the talk page and let uninvolved Wikipedians evaluate it for inclusion in the article. Regards, Durova Charge! 07:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Lost in all the recent acrimony on this discussion page is the whole issue of what to do about the main page for the "Killian documents" -- if nothing else, I've demonstrated that there is a vast amount of information highly pertinent to both the memos and the forgery charges that are not referenced in any way. According to the Wikipedia's own "Encylopedia" article:
Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on the target audience.
And by any defintion of "important accumulated knowledge," the main page is severely lacking. In particular:
1) The forgery charges originated with and centered on [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/replies?c=47 unsupported claims] regarding the capabilities of 70's and even 80's office technology, but the main page has no references whatsoever indicating what 70's era office technology was really like, despite such information being readily available.
2) The contents issue, aka the "Fake but accurate" charge is also never addressed, despite the DoD maintaining a database of all of Bush's released military records. Actually, it appears that the DoD site is not even mentioned -- a very serious omission.
3) Many of the forgery charges center on format issues, often comparing the memos format to that of official records. However, Official USAF writing guides are available that clearly define the purpose of those memos and their recommended format, but again the Wikipedia main page has no reference to these either.
4) The main page is often wrong, lacking or extremely misleading in important details. Examples: both CBS and USA Today got 6 memos from Burkett -- CBS chose only to use 4 of them; Peter Tytell is a typewriter expert whose family up until 2001 owned a typewriter shop and not a "document expert" per se; there is an invalid passage that goes It was reported that the new Killian memos were inconsistent with his endorsement of Lt Bush's May 1971 performance review, a year prior to the date on the disputed documents. Killian endorsed the rating officer's evaluation of Bush, which in part described him as "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot" -- this is highly misleading since the relevant performance review (aka a "Rating Report") that covers the time period of the memos is the 1972-1973 "Not Observed" rating report; Charles Johnson's animated overlay "experiment" of the "CYA" is noticeably featured but there is no reference to his inability to duplicate that with any of the other memos or to a similar graphic illustrating what happens when you do attempt that with one of the longer memos; and there is no link to a much more comprehensive interview of Marian by the Drudge Report where she essentially confirms that Staudt was indeed pressuring Killian, as well as no clarity on Knox's actual status -- was she indeed just a "pool clerk/typist" as has been alleged by Killian's son Gary? -- that would be very important in relation to what sort of memos and documents she would be privvy to.
Given all these inadaquacies of the main page in being able to "convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain," it would seem very wise and prudent at this time to place a "WP:CU" "Cleanup" banner at the top of the main page until many if not most of these issues are addressed. Agree or disagree? And please state specifically your justification for either. Callmebc
I see that Andyvphil is the first one back at editing. I'm still not quite ready to re-contribute yet, but I thought to stick in this new subsection for people to note or suggest updates. -BC aka Callmebc 15:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm back for real. That was a strange, goofy interlude, but things worked out for the best, I think.... Whatever. My original intention had been only to update my posts from the fall, get into a few debates/arguments and then leave. I wasn't even going to touch the main page. But now, hmmm...I don't know. The forgery thing is a joke now as some of you well know, which kind of makes the Wiki entry for the Killian documents a wee bit awkward: it's one thing to discuss what the best current evidence shows, it's another to put that into the main article if it completely countermines what is generally believed to be the truth, as well as possibly impinge on the verboten "original research" especially where I'm concerned. On the other hand, if someone curious about the Killian memos comes here for info, what should he/she expect and deserve -- what is an encyclopedia for after all? Any thoughts? -BC aka Callmebc 01:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
This 1967 IBM paper, The IBM Selectric Composer - Philosophy of Composer Design, [15], has a genuine print sample from an IBM Selectric Composer (page 5). As an exercise in curiousity, I recreated the print sample with WordPerfect 10 (WordPerfect handles that sort of right-justified typesetting a wee bit more gracefully than Word), first with CG Times Bold, and then used JASC's "Animation Shop 3" program to animate a transition from the original in blue to a recreation in red. I then did likewise with Times New Roman and that's the current animation on the right. Full justification warps true font comparison, but the end result is kind of amusing and served as an excuse to practice creating animated GIF's and posting them here. I'm thinking now of doing the same for the memos -- as shown a little further up in my response to Phinney, recreations with Times New Roman (and Times Roman) don't overlay that accurately, especially with the the longer memos. If you do a best bit overlay, including resizing, words and individual characters drift in and out of alignment in exactly the same way as with that Selectric Composer overlay animation. The pro-forgers have maintained from the beginning that multiple recopying/refaxing was done to make the memos look old, which people like Joseph Newcomer and especially Charles Johnson then used as as excuse for why overlay experiments like Johnson's (in)famous animated "CYA" GIF, [16], don't work for other memos -- that supposed deliberate aging process, in some not-too-well defined way, introduced too much distortion.
However, a close look at the misalignment shown in recreations by both Thomas Phinney, [17], and David Hailey , [18], pretty clearly indicates that the misalignments are a bit more likely the effect of overlaying a modern digital rendition of Times (New) Roman over a version or close knock-off created with older, very likely non-digital technology.
I won't post the memo overlays here since that would be a little bit more serious than just goofing around -- it would kinda constitute WP:OR in Wikipedia parlance. While replicatable by anyone with the appropriate software, it would nevertheless not be an easy process.
According to the March and May, 1972 issues of the Business Machines Executive Newsletter, in 1971 IBM revenues from their MT/ST-MC/ST word processors exceeded typewriter sales, with about 3600 units being shipped monthly, and these were $7000-$9500 machines. The latest IBM model at that time was the "MC/ET" ("Mag Card/Executive"), which utilized 9-unit proportional spacing much like that of the earlier Composer model (which was introduced in 1966), producing 6 different letter widths, as well as offering automatic centering and supposedly a bunch of other features. The MC/ET unit came out in April, 1972, and was in such demand that there was a 14 week waiting period on it, as well as hurting the sales of the older Mag models.
The point of all this, of course, being that the forgery charges were from the beginning based on widespread ignorance of common early office tech, an ignorance that the news media, mainstream-wise or otherwise, did not exactly make much of an effort, if any, to correct. Eff Why Eye. -BC aka Callmebc 15:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
This was a pain to do, but for anyone interested: [19]. -BC aka Callmebc
Wikipedia has a complicated sophisticated category system. To be useful (and Wikipedia's is very useful), such a system needs subcategories (ie., categories that are members of other categories). See
Wikipedia:Categorization.
We have a Category:Killian documents. It has 3 parent categories:
(1) Category:Journalistic hoaxes
(2) Category:Political forgery
(3) Category:United States presidential election, 2004
Thus this article and its category are both now in (2) and (3) but not (1). I think this is right. Does anyone disagree?
Cheers, CWC 17:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
A marker for a future archivist. Please put new discussion below (or in) this section. Thanks, htom 19:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
-- Restoring edits and comments that User:Callmebc deleted without notice.
The idea that there is any serious argument that the documents aren't forgeries is bunk. If they weren't forgeries, the original documents would have been presented. End of story. You can't fake that. We haven't seen the originals because the originals are printouts from a computer using Microsoft Word. Anyone doubting that has to swallow that Bill Burkett burned the originals because this "Lucy Ramirez" person didn't want them forensically examined and traced back to her. Right. Fax the documents and then burn them? Give me a break. Hopefully none of the editors of this page were born yesterday. 74.77.208.52 00:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
-- End restoring comments User:Callmebc deleted. Jmcnamera 01:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Restoring more edits that User:Callmebc deleted.
And in regards to journalistic ethics, it's a bit debatable who/what was the worst offender: the rushed and sloppy fact checking by Mary Mapes and her crew; the right wing mediasphere, including commentators for Fox News and the National Review, spewing whatever nonsensical "evidence" they could make up and quoting whatever crackpotty "expert" they can find to smear favorite whipping boy Dan Rather and indirectly Kerry; the rest of the mainstream corporate media who apparently couldn't be bothered to have even some interns to do the most elementary research into some of the claims being made in regards to early 70's technology, the reproducibility of the memos by a modern word processor, and consistency with the DoD records and document format standards -- not too mention letting Bush and his official spokespeople avoid commenting on the veracity of the memos despite Bush obviously knowing if they were true or not; or CBS News in particular for deciding to scapegoat and facesave rather (so to speak) than use their considerable resources to get to the bottom of it all. -BC aka Callmebc 13:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm getting a little tired of your slandering, utterly clueless, utterly factless, crackpotted nonsense. You have consistently demonstrated that you don't have one friggin clue about Burkett, his history, his motives, the circumstances surrounding the CBS story, what the DoD records say about Bush's service regardless of the memos, how the contents of the memos match up with official records, the stonewalling by the Pentagon, what are proper common military documents formats, what is proper military lingo, what was common early 70's office technology and its capabilities, how reproducable -- or not -- are the memos with a modern word processor, and so on and so forth. So far you've only been spouting every stupid, uninformed, and laughably wrong cliche regurgitated endlessly by right wing bloggers regarding the memos. Not to mention how all of your comments and smears regarding Mapes, Dan Rather and Burkett, all without a shred of real evidence, violate a pile of Wikipedia protocols. You've shown that you have about as much business contributing to this wiki as you would to the one on Quantum Mechanics. I have other distractions right now, so there will be another day or so of grace before I start removing the more unsubstantiated (and moronic) edits from the main article. Either finally get real, responsible and serious or else go 'way. Shoo. -BC aka Callmebc 14:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
End of restoring more edits that User:Callmebc deleted. This does appear to be vandalism, hopefully I've fixed all of it now. Callmebc's edits continue after this and I'm adding a section head to keep it separate from the rest since he choose to delete it the last time. Vandalism corrected by Jmcnamera 01:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read slowly and carefully:
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Killian documents article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
This means that even if you're 100% certain that Mapes is the daughter of Satan because some guy named WhatsTheFrequencyMapes said so in a post at Little Green Footballs and that, of course, it makes total sense and that you would have to believe in unicorns not to see the obvious logic & evidence in it, it still doesn't belong here. The purpose of the Talk page is to discuss improvements to the main article, and not as a sounding board for deranged conspiracy theories, especially so when done without even a teensy, weensy bit of effort to supply even marginally credible references.
Now with that said, let's see if there is anything worth preserving here -- because it's almost playoff time, I'll give you a turn at the bat with your supposed points:
1) The idea that there is any serious argument that the documents aren't forgeries is bunk. If they weren't forgeries, the original documents would have been presented. End of story.
Hmmm....The AP sued the DoD under FOIA to force them to release Bush's military records. The DoD did so very grudgingly [24]. Now how many of those documents were originals, you suppose? Apparently none -- they were all copies made from microfilm or whatever: [25], [26], and of highly variable quality if you bother to click through the DoD Pdf's. Are the DoD records forgeries because the are also not originals? Why would the memos, which had to have been likewise stored somewhere for 30+ years, be any different?
Strike one
2) Charles Johnson recreated that memo perfectly with Microsoft Word, something that no period typewriter has been able to do. He did it in mere minutes with the default settings. The idea that that is a coincidence is ludicrous on a positively galactic scale. That means it was forged.
Hmmm...well, there were 4 memos that CBS had used for their story. If it was so easy to recreate one memo "perfectly with Microsoft Word" "in mere minutes with the default settings," why not do all of them? If you were Charles Johnson and got such a good result recreating the first memo, wouldn't you be all excited to try it with another? Or would you stop at that point to go online and excitedly claim that ALL of the memos were forged? Well, Yeoman 74.77.208.52, what would you do? Or maybe Johnson did try at least one of the other memos and didn't like the result, but he still stuck with the one good result, just...because. One out of four -- a .250 average -- that wouldn't be too bad for a baseball player, but for a self-proclaimed expert: "I've been involved with desktop publishing software and scalable software fonts (as opposed to hot lead type) almost since their inception." [27]? I don't think so. And what happens when you try it with all the memos? Well there is my action packed animation page [28], but if you don't like that, you can also see the results typographer Thomas Phinney [29] and document archivist David Hailey got [30].
I have a draft press release dated August, 1973 created on some unknown system [31] that looks very much like a recreation I did with Arial Bold [32], even though Arial didn't even exist as a font in 1973 [33]. The coincidence for this must be at least on a multiverse/space time continuum scale by your standards, eh?
Strike two
3) "Killian's own secretary said they were obvious fakes full of army terminology and incorrect acronyms" The abbreviations aren't even right - "grp" vs "gp" and "OETR" vs "OER".
First familiarize yourself with what a "Memorandum For Record" is in the Air Force (which holds sway over the Air National Guard): [34]
Memorandums for record, or MFRs, are a simple, personal way to document information to be used at a later date. No header is required with MFRs, and they are constructed simply by typing MEMO FOR RECORD on the first line of a page using 1" top, left, and right margins, with the date in either extended (1 September 1999) or abbreviated (1 Sep 99) format justified against the right margin on the same line. The subject line is two lines below the MFR line, and the text body begins two lines below the subject. Paragraphs are not required. MFRs may have signature blocks, but they are not required. The writer may either sign his/her full name or initial the paper at the end of the text.
If you were truly a Yeoman (although I have a hard time believing anything you say), you should be familiar with the difference between a note to yourself and an official letter or form sent to a higher up or department. Killian used the term both "Gp" and "Grp" for "group" in his memos, and memos are NOT official records -- they are basically papers journals so the formatting for them is looser. So how strange would it be for an Air Guard/Air Force guy to refer to group as "Grp"? Well a little Googling and I found this [35], which was created by a "Sgt in USAF": TUSLOG Det 16 (USAF) AFCS Communications Group (with sub-dets throughout Turkey)---Det 16 was known as 2006 Comm Grp when at Elmadag in 83-84, they are listed at Incirlik/Adana in 1982.
As far as "OETR" vs "OER" goes, well there is this official form I had dug up one time, an inquiry by the USAF into Bush's missing....well, I don't want to spoil the surprise [36] (check the top). The full name for a USAF Form 77 is "Officer Effectivess/Training Report".
Now I'm quite aware that there any number of supposed military people who posted on the right wing blog sites that OETR was never, ever used, that it was always OER (the slash "joins" training to effectiveness), but judging from similar comments about things I know about, one could safely regard the memory of trivial things from 30+ years ago to be a bit suspect, especially considering the much bigger issues. After all, Bush doesn't seem to remember any details about his service, including what Killian said or didn't say despite all these records and docs to function as a memory jogger [37], and even Bush's former base commander, Bobby Hodges, and Rufus Martin, the personnel officer, claim to not being able to even remember who it was that verbally suspended Bush from flying [38] despite official records showing that it was Killian. Also I have noted that Gerald Lechliter used OETR in his personal version of the analysis of Bush's Guard records, but not in the nicer one he wrote for the Times.
Steeeeerike Threeeeee, you're out!
Now be the good ex-Yeoman, take a shower and go find some nice pots to crack.
-BC aka Callmebc 00:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
One has evidence supporting the allegation and one does not. Mary Mapes had contact with the John Kerry campaign about the progress of the story and put them in touch with Bill Burkett. That's a fact. That's clear evidence of Mary Mapes aiding a political campaign. The assertion that Karl Rove orchestrated the forged documents ruse in order to undercut attacks on Bush's military service has no evidence whatsoever. There is no sound reason to put forward these two theories in the lead as if they are equally credible. Until I see that sound reason, I'll keep making the change to reflect the crucial difference in the two theories. 74.77.208.52 00:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the last para from the lede. Please see my edit summary for reasoning. I would support the same textr elsewhere in the article, but not in the lede. 64.191.50.138 04:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Alrighty then, enough with dealing with "74.77.208.52's" little fantasies, as amusing as that might be, and not just because that sort of insult-exchanging argument is against the Wikipedia policy of etiquette. I hate to be the one to point out rules of any sort, but I was reminded of how Wikipedia does have a few rules that make sense:
1) WP:NPOV Neutral point of view -- meaning that just because you personally think CBS was involved in a conspiracy and that Bill Burkett was a deranged liar doesn't exactly make it so, however firmly convinced you are, especially without any sort of supporting evidence from reliable sources.
2) Beware of playing fast and loose with the biographies of living persons -- meaning that just because your teddy bear told you that Dan Rather is evil again doesn't make it so. Generally speaking, smearing a person who is still around, especially without a shred of actual, verifiable evidence is a big no-no.
3) Verifiability -- research is your friend, and also it's in very poor form to add information in article edits, most especially major ones, without providing a backing reference via, again, reliable sources. Stuff you heard at a bar, overheard on a bus, discussed in a blog and/or such are not considered reliable sources.
4) Consensus -- meaning that before you decide to add/delete/change key aspects of an article, you should discuss the changes in the talk page first. However firmly you believe that, say, global warming is a vast left wing hoax or that Martian unicorns were behind the Killian memos conspiracy, there may be others who do not share those views, and they may actually even have supporting evidence for their side.
5) WP:DISRUPT Disruptive editing -- meaning that you shouldn't ignore evidence, logic, well-reasoned objections and such just because they don't fit in with your beliefs about what information should be put into the article. Tendentious editing just makes you a nuisance, if not an outright vandal, that will only likely get you blocked.
Please bear these basic elements in mind and not only will this help in making a useful, enlightening article, but it will help us all just get along. -BC aka aka Callmebc 05:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The text of this edit is not supported by the sources. The CJR piece does not deal in any depth with the authenticity of the documents, addressing only two of the many document experts and being written before the Thornburgh-Boccardi report was released. Linking to Bush's entire military history does not justify "the contents of the memos appear supported by an analysis of Bush's military service records"; in any case if the documents were forgeries you would expect them to tally with his service records. Unless you can produce better sources I will revert it. Dcxf 12:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}}
I've been dealing with all these anonymous sockpuppet IP's (they are obviously familiar with Wiki editing, yet have only a very short history of IP edits to one or two articles) blocking any changes to the main article, which has a teeny bit of a problem with refs, POV and context starting with the opening paragraph. I've requested semi-protection but a sysop put on a full lock for edit warring, which make no sense since I'm dealing with sockpuppet IP's who've demonstrated no real intention of discussing matters. Please consider putting back this last change: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Killian_documents&diff=160027375&oldid=160015582
Thanks in advance. -BC aka Callmebc 16:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Callmebc vandalized this talk page on at least three occasions (now six and counting), excising arguments that didn't go his/her way. They're now back under their headers of Proof? and Journalistic Ethics. Callmebc has a website here, where it's claimed that it's impossible for the Killian documents to be forgeries. Impossible. The mental gymnastics gone through to arrive at such a conclusion are mind-bendingly humorous, with nothing more hilarious than BC's final conclusion. BC claims that Killian must have been so upset over George W. Bush that he sought legal counsel and thus went to a law office to type out the infamous Bill Burkett memos. According to BC, that's the only place Killian could have likely found the technology that typed those memos. Of course, Killian's own wife has no knowledge of her husband being upset about Bush in the least, let alone being so upset that he went to a lawyer. In fact, she has the opposite recollection: that Killian was happy with Bush's performance under his command. But BC is undeterred.
Now, I just finished a long stint in the military, including in the Reserves. The idea that a Lt Col in the Air National Guard would go to a lawyer over such a scenario is absurd to the extreme. Only someone with zero understanding of the military environment and protocols would suggest such a ludicrous scenario. That's why it's BC's thesis. A thesis so absurd that I can destroy it with one link. Does that look like a memo requiring a trip to a law office? Do any of them? Do you think Killian made trips to a law office from February of 1972 and on into 1973 to type up six memos on their high-falutin' equipment? Trips that no one who actually worked with Killian has ever suggested took place? BC even ridiculously suggests that Killian may have transcribed all of the memos on the same day in 1973 for clarity. Yeah, for clarity. That's actually suggested on BC's website. I wonder if BC even realizes that that would mean there's two sets of originals out there that have never been found.
BC, of course, has zero evidence that Killian did something so absurd. The entire scenario is a BC fabrication. Pure speculation. BC just knows that that's the only way those memos could possibly have been typed by Killian. He invents a legal office, a lawyer, and a secret file, the existences of which have been found by no one, not even by the likes of CBS, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, who happen to have the most obvious reasons to want such an absurd scenario to be true. That's BC's thesis. That's the only way the memos can be genuine. So, the most passionate defense of the memos' veracity to date ends up merely reinforcing how outrageously and obviously phony they are. Good work, BC. Oh, and if you're curious as to the motivations of BC in creating that website, just look at the very bottom of it. It's the very picture of anti-impartiality. 74.77.222.188 06:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
You brought your website into this yourself by linking to it and referring to it on this Talk Page. You published your essay titled "Goofing Around" right here on this Talk Page even including an animation from your website. So don't talk to me about soapboxes. Spare me the hypocrisy. You were quite fine with tirades and essays when you were the one writing them. But when someone contests what you've written with tirades and essays of their own you suddenly become a proponent of Wikipedia guidelines. Give me a break. You have used your website as justification for your edits. So your website is fair game to be attacked for the heaping pile of ridiculousness that it is. You have repeatedly deleted arguments on this page, that you both participated in and initiated, precisely because they didn't go your way. Very bad form and rightly described as vandalism by third parties. My "tirades" against Rather, Mapes and Burkett are all in direct response to your absurd attempts at downplaying their roles in this political smear campaign. [BLP violations removed] That's not slander. That's not libel. That's simply true. You laughably call my tirades "factless" and "without a shred of evidence" when it's all supported by numerous mass media sources from the Washington Post to CNN to USA Today. If you can't stand the heat, BC... 74.77.222.188 20:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Dial it back and calm down everybody. This isn't a soapbox or a message board. Gamaliel ( Angry Mastodon! Run!) 20:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Killian documents controversy/Archive 8 page. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
|
I've WP:ARCHIVEd this page (because it was getting way too long), but copied the sections that seem to have on-going discussion here. If you wish to reopen one of the discussions I didn't copy, you can in decreasing order of preference
Remember: this page is for discussing improvements to the Killian documents article, not for general discussion. Cheers, CWC 11:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Missing from the Aftermath section is the "reassignment" of Sr Producer Esther Kartiganer, [1] who sued CBS as a result. [2] No time to add this myself...but the story element is readily Googled. Andyvphil 14:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The section "Initial Skepticism" doesn't explicitly cover the initial lack of skepticism in MSM. See the AP Story [3] with it's repetition of the misidentificaltion of Stoudt as heading TANG. And see [4] (search for "Washington Post"). The significance of this story is that that was overcome, so the initial gullibility/resistance maybe needs to be covered better? Andyvphil 13:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to make a general warning on this page about avoiding personal attacks (such as [5] and [6]). Everyone in this discussion should also realize that Wikipedia's WP:BLP policy does indeed apply to article talk pages, as some people on this page have already stated. Anyone repeatedly violating these policies could be blocked. Best,-- Alabamaboy 17:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
It appears now that some of the people who have been attacking me in one way or the other perhaps have been doing so for reasons beyond what was represented: they are apparently supporters, or perhaps even members, of the Little Green Footballs blog site. Since LGF via Charles Johnson was one of the main instigators of the forgery charges, and since some of my cites undercut both Johnson's CYA memo experiment and his credibility, that would create a clear conflict of interest for this Wiki topic and a violation of WP:COI:
A Wikipedia conflict of interest is an incompatibility between the purpose of Wikipedia, to produce a neutral encyclopedia, and the aims of individual editors. These include editing for the sake of promoting oneself, other individuals, causes, organizations, companies, or products, as well as suppressing negative information, and criticizing competitors.
You know who you are -- please recuse yourself from any further editing here unless you intend to follow the official Wikipedia policy for this situation:
If you feel the need to edit Wikipedia articles despite a real or perceived conflict of interest, we strongly encourage you to submit content for review on the article's talk page or file a request for Comment, and let trusted community members judge whether the material belongs in Wikipedia.
FYI. Callmebc 22:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I have blocked Callmebc from editing for 72 hours for various policy violations. To other editors, my general recommendation about how to handle WP:COI is to declare affiliations in your own user space and exercise personal restraint at relevant articles. The safest route where COI is obvious (such as an article about one's place of employment) is to post material and citations to the talk page and let uninvolved Wikipedians evaluate it for inclusion in the article. Regards, Durova Charge! 07:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Lost in all the recent acrimony on this discussion page is the whole issue of what to do about the main page for the "Killian documents" -- if nothing else, I've demonstrated that there is a vast amount of information highly pertinent to both the memos and the forgery charges that are not referenced in any way. According to the Wikipedia's own "Encylopedia" article:
Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on the target audience.
And by any defintion of "important accumulated knowledge," the main page is severely lacking. In particular:
1) The forgery charges originated with and centered on [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210662/replies?c=47 unsupported claims] regarding the capabilities of 70's and even 80's office technology, but the main page has no references whatsoever indicating what 70's era office technology was really like, despite such information being readily available.
2) The contents issue, aka the "Fake but accurate" charge is also never addressed, despite the DoD maintaining a database of all of Bush's released military records. Actually, it appears that the DoD site is not even mentioned -- a very serious omission.
3) Many of the forgery charges center on format issues, often comparing the memos format to that of official records. However, Official USAF writing guides are available that clearly define the purpose of those memos and their recommended format, but again the Wikipedia main page has no reference to these either.
4) The main page is often wrong, lacking or extremely misleading in important details. Examples: both CBS and USA Today got 6 memos from Burkett -- CBS chose only to use 4 of them; Peter Tytell is a typewriter expert whose family up until 2001 owned a typewriter shop and not a "document expert" per se; there is an invalid passage that goes It was reported that the new Killian memos were inconsistent with his endorsement of Lt Bush's May 1971 performance review, a year prior to the date on the disputed documents. Killian endorsed the rating officer's evaluation of Bush, which in part described him as "an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot" -- this is highly misleading since the relevant performance review (aka a "Rating Report") that covers the time period of the memos is the 1972-1973 "Not Observed" rating report; Charles Johnson's animated overlay "experiment" of the "CYA" is noticeably featured but there is no reference to his inability to duplicate that with any of the other memos or to a similar graphic illustrating what happens when you do attempt that with one of the longer memos; and there is no link to a much more comprehensive interview of Marian by the Drudge Report where she essentially confirms that Staudt was indeed pressuring Killian, as well as no clarity on Knox's actual status -- was she indeed just a "pool clerk/typist" as has been alleged by Killian's son Gary? -- that would be very important in relation to what sort of memos and documents she would be privvy to.
Given all these inadaquacies of the main page in being able to "convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain," it would seem very wise and prudent at this time to place a "WP:CU" "Cleanup" banner at the top of the main page until many if not most of these issues are addressed. Agree or disagree? And please state specifically your justification for either. Callmebc
I see that Andyvphil is the first one back at editing. I'm still not quite ready to re-contribute yet, but I thought to stick in this new subsection for people to note or suggest updates. -BC aka Callmebc 15:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm back for real. That was a strange, goofy interlude, but things worked out for the best, I think.... Whatever. My original intention had been only to update my posts from the fall, get into a few debates/arguments and then leave. I wasn't even going to touch the main page. But now, hmmm...I don't know. The forgery thing is a joke now as some of you well know, which kind of makes the Wiki entry for the Killian documents a wee bit awkward: it's one thing to discuss what the best current evidence shows, it's another to put that into the main article if it completely countermines what is generally believed to be the truth, as well as possibly impinge on the verboten "original research" especially where I'm concerned. On the other hand, if someone curious about the Killian memos comes here for info, what should he/she expect and deserve -- what is an encyclopedia for after all? Any thoughts? -BC aka Callmebc 01:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
This 1967 IBM paper, The IBM Selectric Composer - Philosophy of Composer Design, [15], has a genuine print sample from an IBM Selectric Composer (page 5). As an exercise in curiousity, I recreated the print sample with WordPerfect 10 (WordPerfect handles that sort of right-justified typesetting a wee bit more gracefully than Word), first with CG Times Bold, and then used JASC's "Animation Shop 3" program to animate a transition from the original in blue to a recreation in red. I then did likewise with Times New Roman and that's the current animation on the right. Full justification warps true font comparison, but the end result is kind of amusing and served as an excuse to practice creating animated GIF's and posting them here. I'm thinking now of doing the same for the memos -- as shown a little further up in my response to Phinney, recreations with Times New Roman (and Times Roman) don't overlay that accurately, especially with the the longer memos. If you do a best bit overlay, including resizing, words and individual characters drift in and out of alignment in exactly the same way as with that Selectric Composer overlay animation. The pro-forgers have maintained from the beginning that multiple recopying/refaxing was done to make the memos look old, which people like Joseph Newcomer and especially Charles Johnson then used as as excuse for why overlay experiments like Johnson's (in)famous animated "CYA" GIF, [16], don't work for other memos -- that supposed deliberate aging process, in some not-too-well defined way, introduced too much distortion.
However, a close look at the misalignment shown in recreations by both Thomas Phinney, [17], and David Hailey , [18], pretty clearly indicates that the misalignments are a bit more likely the effect of overlaying a modern digital rendition of Times (New) Roman over a version or close knock-off created with older, very likely non-digital technology.
I won't post the memo overlays here since that would be a little bit more serious than just goofing around -- it would kinda constitute WP:OR in Wikipedia parlance. While replicatable by anyone with the appropriate software, it would nevertheless not be an easy process.
According to the March and May, 1972 issues of the Business Machines Executive Newsletter, in 1971 IBM revenues from their MT/ST-MC/ST word processors exceeded typewriter sales, with about 3600 units being shipped monthly, and these were $7000-$9500 machines. The latest IBM model at that time was the "MC/ET" ("Mag Card/Executive"), which utilized 9-unit proportional spacing much like that of the earlier Composer model (which was introduced in 1966), producing 6 different letter widths, as well as offering automatic centering and supposedly a bunch of other features. The MC/ET unit came out in April, 1972, and was in such demand that there was a 14 week waiting period on it, as well as hurting the sales of the older Mag models.
The point of all this, of course, being that the forgery charges were from the beginning based on widespread ignorance of common early office tech, an ignorance that the news media, mainstream-wise or otherwise, did not exactly make much of an effort, if any, to correct. Eff Why Eye. -BC aka Callmebc 15:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
This was a pain to do, but for anyone interested: [19]. -BC aka Callmebc
Wikipedia has a complicated sophisticated category system. To be useful (and Wikipedia's is very useful), such a system needs subcategories (ie., categories that are members of other categories). See
Wikipedia:Categorization.
We have a Category:Killian documents. It has 3 parent categories:
(1) Category:Journalistic hoaxes
(2) Category:Political forgery
(3) Category:United States presidential election, 2004
Thus this article and its category are both now in (2) and (3) but not (1). I think this is right. Does anyone disagree?
Cheers, CWC 17:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
A marker for a future archivist. Please put new discussion below (or in) this section. Thanks, htom 19:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
-- Restoring edits and comments that User:Callmebc deleted without notice.
The idea that there is any serious argument that the documents aren't forgeries is bunk. If they weren't forgeries, the original documents would have been presented. End of story. You can't fake that. We haven't seen the originals because the originals are printouts from a computer using Microsoft Word. Anyone doubting that has to swallow that Bill Burkett burned the originals because this "Lucy Ramirez" person didn't want them forensically examined and traced back to her. Right. Fax the documents and then burn them? Give me a break. Hopefully none of the editors of this page were born yesterday. 74.77.208.52 00:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
-- End restoring comments User:Callmebc deleted. Jmcnamera 01:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Restoring more edits that User:Callmebc deleted.
And in regards to journalistic ethics, it's a bit debatable who/what was the worst offender: the rushed and sloppy fact checking by Mary Mapes and her crew; the right wing mediasphere, including commentators for Fox News and the National Review, spewing whatever nonsensical "evidence" they could make up and quoting whatever crackpotty "expert" they can find to smear favorite whipping boy Dan Rather and indirectly Kerry; the rest of the mainstream corporate media who apparently couldn't be bothered to have even some interns to do the most elementary research into some of the claims being made in regards to early 70's technology, the reproducibility of the memos by a modern word processor, and consistency with the DoD records and document format standards -- not too mention letting Bush and his official spokespeople avoid commenting on the veracity of the memos despite Bush obviously knowing if they were true or not; or CBS News in particular for deciding to scapegoat and facesave rather (so to speak) than use their considerable resources to get to the bottom of it all. -BC aka Callmebc 13:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm getting a little tired of your slandering, utterly clueless, utterly factless, crackpotted nonsense. You have consistently demonstrated that you don't have one friggin clue about Burkett, his history, his motives, the circumstances surrounding the CBS story, what the DoD records say about Bush's service regardless of the memos, how the contents of the memos match up with official records, the stonewalling by the Pentagon, what are proper common military documents formats, what is proper military lingo, what was common early 70's office technology and its capabilities, how reproducable -- or not -- are the memos with a modern word processor, and so on and so forth. So far you've only been spouting every stupid, uninformed, and laughably wrong cliche regurgitated endlessly by right wing bloggers regarding the memos. Not to mention how all of your comments and smears regarding Mapes, Dan Rather and Burkett, all without a shred of real evidence, violate a pile of Wikipedia protocols. You've shown that you have about as much business contributing to this wiki as you would to the one on Quantum Mechanics. I have other distractions right now, so there will be another day or so of grace before I start removing the more unsubstantiated (and moronic) edits from the main article. Either finally get real, responsible and serious or else go 'way. Shoo. -BC aka Callmebc 14:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
End of restoring more edits that User:Callmebc deleted. This does appear to be vandalism, hopefully I've fixed all of it now. Callmebc's edits continue after this and I'm adding a section head to keep it separate from the rest since he choose to delete it the last time. Vandalism corrected by Jmcnamera 01:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read slowly and carefully:
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Killian documents article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
This means that even if you're 100% certain that Mapes is the daughter of Satan because some guy named WhatsTheFrequencyMapes said so in a post at Little Green Footballs and that, of course, it makes total sense and that you would have to believe in unicorns not to see the obvious logic & evidence in it, it still doesn't belong here. The purpose of the Talk page is to discuss improvements to the main article, and not as a sounding board for deranged conspiracy theories, especially so when done without even a teensy, weensy bit of effort to supply even marginally credible references.
Now with that said, let's see if there is anything worth preserving here -- because it's almost playoff time, I'll give you a turn at the bat with your supposed points:
1) The idea that there is any serious argument that the documents aren't forgeries is bunk. If they weren't forgeries, the original documents would have been presented. End of story.
Hmmm....The AP sued the DoD under FOIA to force them to release Bush's military records. The DoD did so very grudgingly [24]. Now how many of those documents were originals, you suppose? Apparently none -- they were all copies made from microfilm or whatever: [25], [26], and of highly variable quality if you bother to click through the DoD Pdf's. Are the DoD records forgeries because the are also not originals? Why would the memos, which had to have been likewise stored somewhere for 30+ years, be any different?
Strike one
2) Charles Johnson recreated that memo perfectly with Microsoft Word, something that no period typewriter has been able to do. He did it in mere minutes with the default settings. The idea that that is a coincidence is ludicrous on a positively galactic scale. That means it was forged.
Hmmm...well, there were 4 memos that CBS had used for their story. If it was so easy to recreate one memo "perfectly with Microsoft Word" "in mere minutes with the default settings," why not do all of them? If you were Charles Johnson and got such a good result recreating the first memo, wouldn't you be all excited to try it with another? Or would you stop at that point to go online and excitedly claim that ALL of the memos were forged? Well, Yeoman 74.77.208.52, what would you do? Or maybe Johnson did try at least one of the other memos and didn't like the result, but he still stuck with the one good result, just...because. One out of four -- a .250 average -- that wouldn't be too bad for a baseball player, but for a self-proclaimed expert: "I've been involved with desktop publishing software and scalable software fonts (as opposed to hot lead type) almost since their inception." [27]? I don't think so. And what happens when you try it with all the memos? Well there is my action packed animation page [28], but if you don't like that, you can also see the results typographer Thomas Phinney [29] and document archivist David Hailey got [30].
I have a draft press release dated August, 1973 created on some unknown system [31] that looks very much like a recreation I did with Arial Bold [32], even though Arial didn't even exist as a font in 1973 [33]. The coincidence for this must be at least on a multiverse/space time continuum scale by your standards, eh?
Strike two
3) "Killian's own secretary said they were obvious fakes full of army terminology and incorrect acronyms" The abbreviations aren't even right - "grp" vs "gp" and "OETR" vs "OER".
First familiarize yourself with what a "Memorandum For Record" is in the Air Force (which holds sway over the Air National Guard): [34]
Memorandums for record, or MFRs, are a simple, personal way to document information to be used at a later date. No header is required with MFRs, and they are constructed simply by typing MEMO FOR RECORD on the first line of a page using 1" top, left, and right margins, with the date in either extended (1 September 1999) or abbreviated (1 Sep 99) format justified against the right margin on the same line. The subject line is two lines below the MFR line, and the text body begins two lines below the subject. Paragraphs are not required. MFRs may have signature blocks, but they are not required. The writer may either sign his/her full name or initial the paper at the end of the text.
If you were truly a Yeoman (although I have a hard time believing anything you say), you should be familiar with the difference between a note to yourself and an official letter or form sent to a higher up or department. Killian used the term both "Gp" and "Grp" for "group" in his memos, and memos are NOT official records -- they are basically papers journals so the formatting for them is looser. So how strange would it be for an Air Guard/Air Force guy to refer to group as "Grp"? Well a little Googling and I found this [35], which was created by a "Sgt in USAF": TUSLOG Det 16 (USAF) AFCS Communications Group (with sub-dets throughout Turkey)---Det 16 was known as 2006 Comm Grp when at Elmadag in 83-84, they are listed at Incirlik/Adana in 1982.
As far as "OETR" vs "OER" goes, well there is this official form I had dug up one time, an inquiry by the USAF into Bush's missing....well, I don't want to spoil the surprise [36] (check the top). The full name for a USAF Form 77 is "Officer Effectivess/Training Report".
Now I'm quite aware that there any number of supposed military people who posted on the right wing blog sites that OETR was never, ever used, that it was always OER (the slash "joins" training to effectiveness), but judging from similar comments about things I know about, one could safely regard the memory of trivial things from 30+ years ago to be a bit suspect, especially considering the much bigger issues. After all, Bush doesn't seem to remember any details about his service, including what Killian said or didn't say despite all these records and docs to function as a memory jogger [37], and even Bush's former base commander, Bobby Hodges, and Rufus Martin, the personnel officer, claim to not being able to even remember who it was that verbally suspended Bush from flying [38] despite official records showing that it was Killian. Also I have noted that Gerald Lechliter used OETR in his personal version of the analysis of Bush's Guard records, but not in the nicer one he wrote for the Times.
Steeeeerike Threeeeee, you're out!
Now be the good ex-Yeoman, take a shower and go find some nice pots to crack.
-BC aka Callmebc 00:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
One has evidence supporting the allegation and one does not. Mary Mapes had contact with the John Kerry campaign about the progress of the story and put them in touch with Bill Burkett. That's a fact. That's clear evidence of Mary Mapes aiding a political campaign. The assertion that Karl Rove orchestrated the forged documents ruse in order to undercut attacks on Bush's military service has no evidence whatsoever. There is no sound reason to put forward these two theories in the lead as if they are equally credible. Until I see that sound reason, I'll keep making the change to reflect the crucial difference in the two theories. 74.77.208.52 00:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the last para from the lede. Please see my edit summary for reasoning. I would support the same textr elsewhere in the article, but not in the lede. 64.191.50.138 04:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Alrighty then, enough with dealing with "74.77.208.52's" little fantasies, as amusing as that might be, and not just because that sort of insult-exchanging argument is against the Wikipedia policy of etiquette. I hate to be the one to point out rules of any sort, but I was reminded of how Wikipedia does have a few rules that make sense:
1) WP:NPOV Neutral point of view -- meaning that just because you personally think CBS was involved in a conspiracy and that Bill Burkett was a deranged liar doesn't exactly make it so, however firmly convinced you are, especially without any sort of supporting evidence from reliable sources.
2) Beware of playing fast and loose with the biographies of living persons -- meaning that just because your teddy bear told you that Dan Rather is evil again doesn't make it so. Generally speaking, smearing a person who is still around, especially without a shred of actual, verifiable evidence is a big no-no.
3) Verifiability -- research is your friend, and also it's in very poor form to add information in article edits, most especially major ones, without providing a backing reference via, again, reliable sources. Stuff you heard at a bar, overheard on a bus, discussed in a blog and/or such are not considered reliable sources.
4) Consensus -- meaning that before you decide to add/delete/change key aspects of an article, you should discuss the changes in the talk page first. However firmly you believe that, say, global warming is a vast left wing hoax or that Martian unicorns were behind the Killian memos conspiracy, there may be others who do not share those views, and they may actually even have supporting evidence for their side.
5) WP:DISRUPT Disruptive editing -- meaning that you shouldn't ignore evidence, logic, well-reasoned objections and such just because they don't fit in with your beliefs about what information should be put into the article. Tendentious editing just makes you a nuisance, if not an outright vandal, that will only likely get you blocked.
Please bear these basic elements in mind and not only will this help in making a useful, enlightening article, but it will help us all just get along. -BC aka aka Callmebc 05:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The text of this edit is not supported by the sources. The CJR piece does not deal in any depth with the authenticity of the documents, addressing only two of the many document experts and being written before the Thornburgh-Boccardi report was released. Linking to Bush's entire military history does not justify "the contents of the memos appear supported by an analysis of Bush's military service records"; in any case if the documents were forgeries you would expect them to tally with his service records. Unless you can produce better sources I will revert it. Dcxf 12:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}}
I've been dealing with all these anonymous sockpuppet IP's (they are obviously familiar with Wiki editing, yet have only a very short history of IP edits to one or two articles) blocking any changes to the main article, which has a teeny bit of a problem with refs, POV and context starting with the opening paragraph. I've requested semi-protection but a sysop put on a full lock for edit warring, which make no sense since I'm dealing with sockpuppet IP's who've demonstrated no real intention of discussing matters. Please consider putting back this last change: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Killian_documents&diff=160027375&oldid=160015582
Thanks in advance. -BC aka Callmebc 16:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Callmebc vandalized this talk page on at least three occasions (now six and counting), excising arguments that didn't go his/her way. They're now back under their headers of Proof? and Journalistic Ethics. Callmebc has a website here, where it's claimed that it's impossible for the Killian documents to be forgeries. Impossible. The mental gymnastics gone through to arrive at such a conclusion are mind-bendingly humorous, with nothing more hilarious than BC's final conclusion. BC claims that Killian must have been so upset over George W. Bush that he sought legal counsel and thus went to a law office to type out the infamous Bill Burkett memos. According to BC, that's the only place Killian could have likely found the technology that typed those memos. Of course, Killian's own wife has no knowledge of her husband being upset about Bush in the least, let alone being so upset that he went to a lawyer. In fact, she has the opposite recollection: that Killian was happy with Bush's performance under his command. But BC is undeterred.
Now, I just finished a long stint in the military, including in the Reserves. The idea that a Lt Col in the Air National Guard would go to a lawyer over such a scenario is absurd to the extreme. Only someone with zero understanding of the military environment and protocols would suggest such a ludicrous scenario. That's why it's BC's thesis. A thesis so absurd that I can destroy it with one link. Does that look like a memo requiring a trip to a law office? Do any of them? Do you think Killian made trips to a law office from February of 1972 and on into 1973 to type up six memos on their high-falutin' equipment? Trips that no one who actually worked with Killian has ever suggested took place? BC even ridiculously suggests that Killian may have transcribed all of the memos on the same day in 1973 for clarity. Yeah, for clarity. That's actually suggested on BC's website. I wonder if BC even realizes that that would mean there's two sets of originals out there that have never been found.
BC, of course, has zero evidence that Killian did something so absurd. The entire scenario is a BC fabrication. Pure speculation. BC just knows that that's the only way those memos could possibly have been typed by Killian. He invents a legal office, a lawyer, and a secret file, the existences of which have been found by no one, not even by the likes of CBS, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, who happen to have the most obvious reasons to want such an absurd scenario to be true. That's BC's thesis. That's the only way the memos can be genuine. So, the most passionate defense of the memos' veracity to date ends up merely reinforcing how outrageously and obviously phony they are. Good work, BC. Oh, and if you're curious as to the motivations of BC in creating that website, just look at the very bottom of it. It's the very picture of anti-impartiality. 74.77.222.188 06:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
You brought your website into this yourself by linking to it and referring to it on this Talk Page. You published your essay titled "Goofing Around" right here on this Talk Page even including an animation from your website. So don't talk to me about soapboxes. Spare me the hypocrisy. You were quite fine with tirades and essays when you were the one writing them. But when someone contests what you've written with tirades and essays of their own you suddenly become a proponent of Wikipedia guidelines. Give me a break. You have used your website as justification for your edits. So your website is fair game to be attacked for the heaping pile of ridiculousness that it is. You have repeatedly deleted arguments on this page, that you both participated in and initiated, precisely because they didn't go your way. Very bad form and rightly described as vandalism by third parties. My "tirades" against Rather, Mapes and Burkett are all in direct response to your absurd attempts at downplaying their roles in this political smear campaign. [BLP violations removed] That's not slander. That's not libel. That's simply true. You laughably call my tirades "factless" and "without a shred of evidence" when it's all supported by numerous mass media sources from the Washington Post to CNN to USA Today. If you can't stand the heat, BC... 74.77.222.188 20:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Dial it back and calm down everybody. This isn't a soapbox or a message board. Gamaliel ( Angry Mastodon! Run!) 20:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)