Letters to the Editor
-
Joseph Newcomer's analysis, Michmog et al
With all due (not much) respect, Newcomer's analysis is, well, pretty near worthless -- and Michmog's comments are of little value -- they prove nothing . . .
Every published argument that the CBS/Killian documents are forgeries is based on analysing the typeface, generally from TV screenshots!!! No one did the first thing any competent expert would do in trying to decide if a document is authentic, i.e., find another contemporaneous document signed by Col. Jerry Killian, typed in his office, and see if it is similar (like comparing a suspected forged $20 to an authentic one.) Since the document was submitted on a printed form, it seems that many such documents were generated and at least a few should be locatable. Why has no one done such a comparison?
Now I cannot say that the document is authentic or false, but Newcomer's analysis, done of screen-shots is, well, a joke. He never physically possessed the documents -- rather this is what he did:
"To create these images, I used Microsoft Paint to first store the captured screen image from the Bush memo images released by CBS (my Internet-access machine does not have Corel Photo-Paint installed on it), then used Corel Photo-Paint to do the extractions. I have a MicroTek ScanMaker 6800 scanner, and I have been using Adobe Acrobat 5.0 to display the CBS images. Obviously, I used Microsoft Word for the document examples. My printer is a Xerox N4025 laser printer, which prints at 1200 or 2400dpi; all the work I did I did at the lower resolution. All scans were at 600dpi. I used Microsoft PowerPoint for some of the images, those that are doing the vertical line comparison."
No court would admit this evidence, and if he had been called as an expert he would have been shredded. Not surprisingly according to Newcomer's resume he has never served as an expert witness -- which given his self-vaunted expertise one would otherwise expect.