The Obama Transcripts

So I was looking at this thread from a few months ago, and realized that I hadn’t replied to a few comments. First, my apologies to Joe Triscari — I did indeed mistake his comment for Matula’s. But I’m amused by the people who thought that they’d uncovered a key clue to the fraud:

Just wondering why the paper looks wrinkled while the typed “content” doesn’t appear to follow any of the irregularities.

…the most damning evidence is something called “topical distortion”. All of those odd shadows in the background are from what appears to be crumpled and then smoothed paper. These small folds where the paper was crumpled should cause distortions in the smooth lines of the fonts but there are none … zero! Not on the big curves, not on the bold blocks and not on the thin lines. No distortions of any kind. This can only mean that the wrinkled paper is an image separate from the text. Probably added in separately on another graphic layer or else printed on the paper as an image along with the text.

Anyone can see this simply by simply zooming in on the image … in IE8+ or FireFox3+ just hold the Ctrl key and then press the equals key (=) a few times to zoom in. Press Ctrl and zero (0) to return to normal. They will also see a lot of “artifacts” (white “glows”) around the letters which also strongly suggest layers were used to create the image.

Full disclosure (and this is the first time I’ve ever commented on the genesis of this document). I generated it in Open Office Writer, printed it out, crumpled it, and scanned it.

So much for “digital forensic analysis.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

In fact, in looking at it more closely, I do in fact see a little distortion of the top of the “T” in “Transcript.” So it’s maybe more a fail of the analyst than such analysis in general.

3 thoughts on “The Obama Transcripts”

  1. No offense taken.

    Now that law enforcement resources have been freed up after protecting America from guitar wood usage by Republican donors, I’m wondering if Thomas Matula can get behind applying those resources to investigating the violators of The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act that leaked Perry’s transcripts.

  2. Aw, c’mon!!? Is that a REAL course load? It’s all ‘agree with the professor and pass’ type courses. With the exception of Job Creation and Golf.

    Am I gettin’ punked?

    Is this real?

    Was this an April 1st posting?

Comments are closed.