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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Faking even Integrity

Obama's signature: Is it real or is it autopenned? - Yahoo! News: "For decades, presidents of both parties have let an autopen do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to scrawling their signatures. The machine was recently put to use signing a bill into law, apparently a first.
Overseas and out of reach when lawmakers passed an extension of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama employed the autopen to sign it, a step the White House has been mum about ever since.
'I always heard the autopen was the second most guarded thing in the White House after the president,' says Jack Shock, who had permission to wield former President Bill Clinton's autopen as his director of presidential letters and messages.
Jim Cicconi, who oversaw the use of autopens for President George H.W. Bush, recalls that the plastic signature templates for the machines — yes, there was more than one autopen — would wear out from repeated use.
Ronald Reagan had 22 different signature templates, including 'Ron,' ''Dutch' and other iterations, to boost the aura of authenticity surrounding his fake signatures, says Stephen Koschal, an autograph authenticator who two years ago published a guide to presidential autopen signatures."

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