Freepers do it again: Expose CBS Bush memos as fakes!

You just can't stop those Freepers.

In just a space of eight hours, while away at the job, it would appear that the collective efforts of the members of Free Republic, along with the Blogsphere, has totally exposed the memos (extreme, lengthy dissection here) shown on CBS about Bush's National Guard service to be a complete fraud.

Powerline, which has been at the forefront of not only the AP Boo thing, (which got it's kick off here after posters from Free Republic spotted the lie) but other media frauds as well, breaks it down:

Today's big Boston Globe story on President Bush's Air National Guard service is based on memos to file from the personal records of the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian: "Bid cited to boost Bush in Guard."
The Globe story is itself based on last night's 60 Minutes report: "New questions on Bush Guard duty." The online version of the 60 Minutes story has links to the memos. Killian died in 1984; CBS states that it "consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic." Readers Tom Mortensen and Liz MacDougald direct us to the Free Republic post and thread (see post no. 47) to this effect:

Every single one of the memos to file regarding Bush's failure to attend a physical and meet other requirements is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing (especially in the military), and typewriters used mono-spaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction high-end word processing systems from Xerox and Wang, and later of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's.
Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang and other systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used mono-spaced fonts. I doubt the TANG had typesetting or high-end 1st generation word processing systems.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.

UPDATE: There's more details from an expert here.

UPDATE#2: WorldNetDaily is reporting that CBS is backing off the "expert" claim.

UPDATE#3: Fox News just ran something on Special Report with Brit Hume...spreading like wildfire...

UPDATE#4: This just getting better and better...ABC News is questioning the memos, the son of the late officer who supposed wrote them is questioning it and now the Weekly Standard is asking questions:

"These sure look like forgeries," says William Flynn, a forensic document expert widely considered the nation's top analyst of computer-generated documents. Flynn looked at copies of the documents posted on the CBS News website (here, here, here,and here). Flynn says, "I would say it looks very likely that these documents could not have existed" in the early 1970s, when they were allegedly written.
Several other experts agree. "They look mighty suspicious," says a veteran forensic document expert who asked not to be quoted by name. Richard Polt, a Xavier University philosophy professor who operates a website dedicated to typewriters, says that while he is not an expert on typesetting, the documents "look like typical word-processed documents."

UPDATE#5: The post over at Power Line is getting longer and longer with more updates. The latest one is a loo loo:

UPDATE 12: In the August 18, 1973 memo "discovered" by 60 Minutes, Jerry Killian purportedly writes:
Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.
But wait! Reader Amar Sarwal points out that General Staudt, who thought very highly of Lt. Bush, retired in 1972.

How long does CBS think they can stand by their story?