Washington Post, Page 1:

Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.

The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on “60 Minutes II,” bear dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of “coming to drill.”

The dispute over the documents’ authenticity came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of Bush’s service with the National Guard between 1968 and 1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush’s credibility.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents “was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity” […]

[…] In a telephone interview from her Texas home, [the documents’ purported author, Lt. Col. Jerry B.] Killian’s widow, Marjorie Connell, described the records as “a farce,” saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not “keep files.” She said her husband considered Bush “an excellent pilot.”

“I don’t think there were any documents. He was not a paper person,” she said, adding that she was “livid” at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her briefly before Wednesday night’s broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her to authenticate the records.

Reached for comment, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) pointed out that “kerning” sounds a lot like “kernel, which, as you know, the great state of Iowa has always been a friend to corn and corn growers.” Then he shouted, “Look!  Ted Kennedy’s doing a beer bong,” and shot from the room like a mashed-potato canonball covered in loose skin and a really awful suit.